Me Royalty?

While we were in Uganda, we felt like royalty!

As we drove along the roads, kids would wave out to us and smile the biggest smiles in the world.

As we turned up to see a school, the kids would all hang out of the windows just to get a glimpse of us. At one school we went to, we were walking through the grounds and waving at the kids in the classrooms who were just so excited to see white people. One poor teacher was trying to get her 250 students (yip, they can have 250 students in a class) back into the classroom with a stick, and once she had them all inside, proceeded to lock the door!

Just as we were leaving the lunch bell rang, and we were literally mobbed as though they had never seen a white person before….. Actually, I don’t think most of them had! There must have been 1000 kids all around us just wanting to see us. When I started shaking hands with some of the kids, I was totally mobbed and all the kids were swarming just to touch my hand. My hand! These white hands that often sit idle, that use a knife and fork to eat dinner, that type on my computer. These white wrinkly hands with short stubby fingers, hands which could be used for so much more, were now the most joy these kids had seen in months. My hands!

It was a very unreal experience and I was brought to tears (yet again!) to think that I could bring so much joy to so many kids by just being white.

The poverty there is extreme and like nothing I have ever experienced before. It completely broke my heart into tiny pieces when you saw their smiling faces knowing that they probably hadn’t eaten that day and may not for the rest of the day. Yet they find joy in the simplest of things. To think they could find joy in shaking the hand of a white girl who was completely out of her comfort zone! If only they could have realized how much joy they were giving me.

I think one of the biggest lessons I learnt was to find joy in the simplest of things. Not to come home, sell all my worldly possessions, and live poor. What good am I to anyone then? But to really appreciate all I have, and believe you me, I have SO much! I am not just talking about money and the stuff it can buy. I am talking about so much more than that. For health, for kids with full tummies, for a husband who loves me and allows me the time to write from my heart, for extended family and friends who support me unconditionally. For a heart that continues to grow and for a life that is truly Blessed.