My Haven of Love & Pain

I feel empty as I am forced to say goodbyes to these little ones that I have given my full heart to.

They hug me not knowing why I hold them close for just a moment longer. They don’t understand why tears are running down my face but they just smile and keep chattering. To them this is just another day in which I hold and love them. But I can no longer deny that this is the end. I know as I hug them that this is the last time to hold them tight, last time to whisper I love you my little one. And so I linger, one more hug, one more moment.

Oh my Lord, I can’t do it. I play this scene over and over trying to find some peace in saying goodbye. Maybe I can trick my heart into believing I will see them the next day, “no heart, you don’t have to say goodbye just yet”. Maybe it can be fooled. Maybe I won’t have to feel this pain.

But if I do…Lord please give me the strength to heal.

Will they be remembered?

Will I remember…
Remember their names?
Remember their eager faces?
Remember the feel of their hand in mine?
Remember the weightlessness of their body in my arms?
Remember the sound of their voices calling my name?
Remember the unending love they offered me?
Remember the tears I cried over the loss of even one innocent child?
Remember the unmarked graves where they are laid to rest?

Or will I forget…
Forget to tell their stories?
Forget the sound of their laughter?
Forget the feel of their arms around my neck?
Forget the sickness and death I have seen?
Forget the piercing pain I have felt?
Forget the love I have experienced?
Forget the prayers I have promised?

Time has a way of dulling the ache and offering healing…but will time also wash away my memories of the love and pain so intertwined in the country of Uganda?

Last Day before Exams

Yes, this is just one of my classes - P3. Aiyay, it doesn't feel this big in class but looking at this photo it seems as if there are so many! Today was our last day of classes before we begin end of term exams.

Smiles All Around

Yes, even with the heart ache that I write about – a day does not pass without my heart racing in excitement. I write about the struggles and forget to shout about the triumphs, the laughter, the smiles!

I get my daily dose of medicine when I hear the children giggle, the babies chuckle, and see the simple smiles of joy from strangers.

Don’t forget to enjoy life today – smile!

Guardian Angels

Prishilla, my first adopted baby, is very sick please pray. She has HIV and also tuberculosis. She is the first baby I held when I arrived day one at the babies home. I love to tease her and call her princess because once she is in my lap she hates to share me with the other children. She is extra skinny and can’t walk but she is so beautiful when she smiles as I sing “you are my sunshine” or “the itsy bitsy spider”. They switched her medication last week and her body is struggling to adjust. She has lost weight she didn’t have, throws up if we try and feed her, and today could barely lift her arms to be held. I laid and rocked her tiny body praying to God to give me her pain. It was like holding a space heater close to my chest as the heat radiated from her body. Guardian angels stand strong around my baby’s bed tonight please.

Living in the Moment

Ever know that there is something wrong, you are upset but can’t quite pin-point why exactly?

Hints of goodbye linger in the air here. I can feel the pressure of that word – goodbye – closing in tightly. Moving around often should qualify me as an expert at saying goodbye, but as many of you know, great lengths will be made on my part to avoid the scene of farewell.

I am feeling the tiny strings from the real world hooking into my skin and slowly dragging me back. As I struggle to plan my few weeks off (in the states) before reporting to training, my breathe catches and I shake my dizzy head. Will I be ready to jump back in immediately or will I seek solitude to slowly re-adjust?! At this point, I have no clue.

I am slipping back into the fast paced river of life....whoa slow down! As I went for my run yesterday, I paused to just take a breath and look around me. To remember how amazing it is that God has brought me to this wonderful country of Uganda. To live my last weeks here with my thoughts, emotions, and heart focused on my work in Uganda.

My Heart is Screaming

My heart feels so weary, my emotions so raw, I want to walk away from this pain, this heart ache. Not just walk away – run, run as fast as I can. And yet, I draw closer and embrace it.

No no no no no God not this baby, not this one. I loved this one so much. WHY?! If I could have just had one more day to hold, hug, kiss, love him!

I take comfort in knowing that he is with you in a much better place but oh God why did you have to take him so soon? It hurts so much that tears fail to fall, as if they are trapped in the moment of a silent scream. Tremors shake my body as if an earthquake is mocking my pain and weakness.

Not this one, not this baby that I allowed myself to love so utterly. A cast away that won my heart the first time I laid eyes on him. The baby that I day dreamed of adopting and making my own. The baby named Innocent because he was found on the street abandoned. Innocent of all the hate in the world.

I don’t know how to survive this. TIME stop ticking – stop your endless ticking!! My spirit has not healed yet, I need more time before opening myself up to love again.

My heart is screaming and my throat aches to wail, but I just lean down and pick up one of the many other babies crying to be loved.

A Recipe for a Friend

A Recipe for a Friend

Two ears to listen
Two scoops quirks for fun
The biggest heart you can find for love
Three cups humor for laughs
One brain for smarts
One million megawatts for smile
Endless taste for shopping buds
Two arms for hugs
One teaspoon sass
Four cups compassion for understanding
One amazing soul

Blend well for many days, easy, tough and long until completely inseparable. Bake 1 year in Bancroft Hall at 400 degrees stress and fun. Garnish with cuteness. Live forever as best pals!

- Kat

Save me, I feel old!

Oh yes, as I blew my running nose in a desperate attempt to clear all fluids for the zillionth try, a group of young singers walked past. I mumbled to myself that they were probably too young and I was too old. For those of you who, like me, have forgotten how old I am – a ripe 21. I, for all of ten seconds, considered following them to watch the local concert and see the night crowd. (I hardly go to town at night because it can be dangerous traveling to/from my house in the village) And so, instead I went to the market, gathered my vegetables and got myself home before dark.

Strangely, until this day I had yet to miss the social life of a young twenty something year old. You would think that being surrounded by kids of all ages would keep a soul young carefree… but being responsible for these children changes everything. When one of my students fails a test, I feel like I have failed them. When one of my babies turns into a little bully, I feel like I have failed to hug him enough. When one of my students refuses to obey, I feel as if I have failed to be strict enough. When one of my babies dies, I feel like I have failed to love and pray enough for them. God has given me this awesome responsibility of taking care of some of His precious children. What an honor, that I strive to live up to. What a comfort to know that He only gives what He has enabled me to handle and He’ll take care of the rest.

So as to my lack of a social life, well there will be time in the future but the carefree young twenty something blanket will from now on be threaded with the knowledge of my responsibilities to those around me.

(day at a theme park – on my list of things to do when I get back…can’t wait to be twenty something again)

Arts & Crafts

Yesterday we did arts and crafts in P-3….your’s truly being the art teacher. First we made cards with construction paper then had a mini-writing lesson and learned how to write a letter. Once the cards were finished, we attacked the coloring books my mom sent. Each student received a little restaurant style box of four crayons (thank you federal railroad). They were so ecstatic when they realized they get to keep their box of crayons. They screamed their thankyous and had to be told by a neighboring classroom to shush.

Answered Prayer

Two minutes after I posted that last entry, I checked my email. God answers prayer - I got back in. So overwhelmed, I need to go call my mom. Will write more tomorrow....look out Naval Academy, I am coming back!

Terrified

The last received communication from the academy stated, "The Readmission Academic Board will not be held in Feb due to conflicts on the Supe's calendar. I was not given a new date for the Board." Recently I was asked why in the past few weeks I didn't seem frantic over my re-acceptance into the Naval Academy. I hesitated then proclaimed that of course God is in control of it.

Days later, the question continued to bounce around in my head. This year began ith anxious prayers, begging God to re-open the doors to the Academy. Every other thought was a plead to God...and then one day the urgency, the anxiety left. I told myself that God had given me a peace in knowing that no matter the outcome it would be His will for me.

This past week, I realized the truth. After being told enough times, 'of course you'll get back in' I bought into it. I stopped thinking that God was in control and I needed His help. Yesterday, I read that it is easier to talk about faith than it is to live it, how true for my life. It is so easy for me to say that I know God is in control, I trust Him, want to do His will whatever that may be. But let me be gut wrenching honest with you- I am terrified.

Frightened that God's will is not for me to return to the place I have worked my whole young life for. Scared to even consider plan B and where that might take me. Distressed to think of never returning to a place and way of life that I have grown to love. Afraid of letting down my family and friends. Fearful of the unknown.

It is so easy to say that I have faith in God's plan for my life but how often I forget that my plans are not always God's plans. So I ask you to pray for me, not that I get back into the Academy but that my heart will once again desire to do His will no matter where it takes me. That I will consider it all joy, when I encounter trails, knowing that it is the testing of my faith in God. Pray that my heart will be filled with a true sense of peace and not rued by fear and doubt.

God's Handiwork

I was promptly put in my place yesterday as I read an email from my wonderful aunt. I had written sharing about the beauty of this place that has so quickly captured my heart. She recalled earlier reading about my struggle to find spiritual fellowship and growth in a foreign world where I attempt to maintain a grasp on the language. How easy it is to feel spiritually comfortable around our church, songs we know, and friends who walk with us. And yet as my aunt wrote, “you don’t have to be, as it surrounds you in the beauty of where you are”. The handiwork of God is seen all around without having to look in the normal places –church, hymns, people we know. We can see it in the pure nature that surrounds us everyday and know that He is near.
This brought me to my knees with a heart full of wonderment. I have been inwardly battling with a situation here for the past two weeks. I have let it control my thoughts, my words, and my heart. I felt as if a leech was rapidly draining my focus and my passion for God and the work here. Instead of turning to God with a quiet heart, I wrapped the problem around me like a cocoon and just laid in it. How silly. And so I escaped for two days because it seemed the easiest thing to do. And this is what God showed me…His hands in control of every sunrise, every wave upon the sand, and certainly in control of every detail in my life.
While this realization does not make the situation disappear like some magic trick. It does give me strength to carry on every day with a smile on my face – KNOWING that the man upstairs is writing every word in my life’s book.

Different or Just Plain Wrong

I was once told that when approaching another culture to apply the saying, “it’s not wrong, just different”. It’s hard to adapt your mindset when engrained in your DNA is the voice of society saying, “don’t eat with your hands, call before visiting, bathe at least 3 times a week, don’t stare”. A guilty conscience signals that you have veered off the straight and narrow…so in what situations do we hit the snooze button on our conscience?

Upon arrival, I found that the local American families use hired house help. This of course set me on edge, are Americans so lazy that they can not do what ladies here have been doing daily all their lives. We are willing to dive into the culture and way of life as long as we don’t have to get sweaty or do the nitty gritty. When I approached these Americans, I was blasted with excuses such as, “we don’t have time, we don’t know how, we don’t want too, they need the work so why not”. I walked away feeling scorned as they mumbled about my naïveté to the culture. And so, I did what any good soldier does – marched to the back of the line and fell in with the rest of them.

Some of the suffocating guilt was relieved by the claim that it provides these women with an income. But the second twinge of shame struck as I found out the amount we pay for their labor-intensive eight hour day…$3. *gasp- robbery* I was about to jump outta the boat when I was assured by the Americans that this truly is a lot of money. It hit me that their thoughts were along these lines: it is ok for these women (husbandless) to provide for their families on $20 a week but Americans living in the same place could hardly be expected to survive on such.

So how do I quiet my screaming guilty conscience that feels assaulted on so many levels? My womanhood howls as I watch another woman scrub my dishes, wash my clothes, mop my floors. Each week my ears burn red as I hand this woman a meager $10. I ache to shower her with love and friendship; and yet, there is always an employer/employee barrier I feel radiating from her smile. How do I bite my tongue as I watch these women serve us Americans who seem to have forgotten that we came to serve these women in Christ and not the other way around? How do I cross this culture barrier that seems as wrong as it seems different?

Everyone is Bilingual

Everyone is bilingual.

Have you ever tried to listen to your head and your heart at the same time?

It’s like the international departure lounge, you know you are going somewhere but you can’t understand a thing.

You see, we can speak both languages, but not at the same time.

Sometimes you just gotta let go of one and get on the dang plane.

I’ve got a first class ticket to heartland, departing now, arriving forever.

Kat Rascoe.

My Students Waving to You

"Hallo! How are you?" screams 75 third graders. These are the little ones that seem to find my dancing so funny. As I was struggling to find my groove as a teacher, I decided we should start class with a song. Well, singing always gets me dancing and that is when the laughter began. Two seconds of dancing and belly-laughter began filling the school room. Guess my calling wasn't to be a dancer.
Made this poster with all the fabulous art supplies I received in my care packages!

Writing on the chalkboard is such a challenge. I walk away from class speckled with what looks like dandruff but I assure you is just chalk dust! On the left is the P3 classroom and on the right is the P4 classroom.

This is school assembly after lunch. The teacher in charge will stand and lecture them and then they all say a prayer together and head to class.