Day 5: “Whatever You Ask the Father in My Name he will give you….” Jn 16:23

Every day I ask Mary to ask God to grant me humility. Today he gave it to me. I flew to the other side of the planet to save the people of Uganda, body and soul. Today’s experiences were sad, overwhelming and humbling. How do you keep a child clean who sleeps with 6 siblings on a dirt floor in a mud hut with no running water? How do you change an education system that a young man who just graduated from high school said is a failed system with little hope of getting a job anyways? How do you proclaim the gospel where the first sound you hear in the morning is Muslim prayers on a loud speaker and the people you meet don’t speak your language? How do you transform a culture that sends a child home from school because they can’t pay the fees, guaranteeing that they will not escape this hard life that Americans would say is inhumane? How do you show love to a child who cries or runs away because of the color of your skin?

Today, I returned overwhelmed and defeated from a morning visit to rural Uganda, a 40 hour journey from my home. Traveling where you are rocked to sleep by the bumpy roads, where you feel like you will fall of the road as you shimmy past a broken down truck full of pine logs, and pray that you don’t hit the motorbike or young child walking on the 10 foot wide red clay road.

Our God is an amazing God who grants mercy to those who ask in the name of Jesus. As I sat in the chapel in silence then listened to eight seminarians practice singing songs in their native tongue for Sundays worship service, God spoke words of wisdom to me. After he put me in my humble place I heard him tell me to look at the leadership he had already put in place to make these changes. I was not sent by God to Uganda to lead the changing of a culture, not placed here to fix broken systems, rather just like Appolos, whose story was read today in mass, I was sent to proclaim that “the Christ is Jesus.“ Acts 18:28. This revelation from God lead to an insightful supper conversation that could only happen in the place that it needs to happen while eating food cooked using Eucalyptus tree firewood. Now as I lay my head down on my pillow tonight, I am a little more humble and a lot more hopeful that through the leadership that God has put in the Mityana Diocese of Uganda, such as Fr Jude, we are going to bring God‘s kingdom here to Uganda with the support of hundreds of Americans 40 hours away. ‘JESUS LOVES ME‘ and he proved it today!