My African savior and finding a husband..

Joining the Survivor dance team was my African savior. I don’t mean to be sacrileges when I say that, so let me explain.

Living here in a host family is like a roller coaster—some days I love it, and other days I just want to call it quits. To describe to you the kinds of cross-cultural challenges I experience on a daily basis would be nearly impossible. But I can say this: sometimes it’s hard for me to simply get out of bed in the morning because I know there will be a new set of challenges to face (as if getting out of bed wasn’t hard enough for me already! Roommates, you know what I’m talking about.). I won’t go on about what those challenges are, maybe in person I can hash them out with you when I get home if you really want to know (trust me, I’ll want to tell), because I feel like when I talk about my challenges, which are a complete reality, I’m only focusing on the negative and not telling the positive. Wow. I’m really tired and I feel like that is being shown through my writing! Sorry, I’ll try and do better…

What I’m trying to say is that I love Survivor.
The first week of the semester here, I tried finding out more about joining one of the many dance teams on campus. I kept hitting walls and no one seemed to have any answers for me. When I went into the office to talk with USP staff about it, I found out that all of the teams practice at night, and since I have a 7 pm curfew, it wasn’t possible for me to join. Part of me felt like saying “well, that’s that!” and moving on since I was told no. But another part of me remembered something a professor said last semester. On the last day of my social justice class, Bailey said, “If you don’t remember anything else from this class, remember this: Never take no for an answer.” (Don’t worry, I remembered other things too!) Finally, after getting all the details figured out, I got the ok to join the Survivor dance team! This happened to fall on a really busy week, right before leaving for rural homestay however. I didn’t go that week, or the following week since I was gone, so my first night joining was near the end of February…which come to find out was only 3 weeks away from their performance!

Now, I have had a few dreams since I was a child, which you may have already heard a million times. First off, ever since I was about 8 years old I’ve wanted to go to/live in Africa. This has been my biggest dream EVER. Don’t know why God let me have that dream, but He did. Also growing up, I’ve loved dance. More so in my more recent years, I’ve wanted to put the two together and dance in Africa. It kind of seemed like too wild of a dream, like one of those dreams you make up in your head in an ideal world, but you know probably won’t happen. Well guys, words cannot express how happy my heart is!

When I joined this dance team, the styles of dances were not quite what I was expecting. I’ve learned a hip-hop, a lyrical (??), and an African dance. I don’t know why they weren’t what I was expecting now that I think about it. Anyways, nonetheless, I always forget how much I love dance until I’m dancing again. There were so many times at practice I would get frustrated, because the teaching style was different/most everyone else already knew the dances so I was just playing catch-up. But by the end of the practice, I was in love with life again. I had forgotten about all of my challenges and cross-cultural struggles, and convinced myself that I never wanted to leave Uganda. There have been times when I’ve felt so frustrated in how unhappy I was during challenging times…. Like I expected myself to be better at adapting cross-culturally or something, and I was disappointed in how I was not always enjoying my time here. But as I said, the dance team revitalized my love for Africa/Uganda! But it’s not just the dancing that did it, it has been the people as well. One of the challenges in living with a host family, is they are your prime Ugandan interaction. That being said, up until late February, I had made zero Ugandan friends outside my family. Ouch! I hadn’t been experiencing much of any college life, and I really wanted to. The team welcomed me with SUCH wide arms! When I was with them, I felt as if I had been a part of their team for forever. I felt as if I had known them much longer than just the one or two evenings I had spent with them. They welcomed me into the group, and when I felt there was no possible way for me to learn all the dances they wanted me to in such a short amount of time, they encouraged me along the way and told me I could. They believed in me when I did not believe in myself. Have I told you how much I love these guys?! One thing about joining Survivor that is hard is that on nights there is practice, I don’t get home till 10:30-11 ish. My sister has already gone to bed by that time for school the next day, as she gets up at 5 am to leave by 6, so it’s weird not seeing her sometimes for a few days! But on the flipside, my brother or cousin will come and walk me home, and I really enjoy that time with him/them. Sometimes, it the most conversation I’ve had with him/them in a whole week! I really treasure that time because I feel like we’re friends and siblings.

So, a week before the Survivor performance, I discovered that 3 of the members live off campus somewhat near me, so we walked home together. During that walk, I was given one of the greatest compliments of my life. Probably ever. FOR REALZ. I was telling them how I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pick up all of the dances by the performance the next week, and they were again encouraging me telling me they thought I could. They told me not only do I pick up the moves quickly, but they were really surprised in how well I could dance. Normally white people can’t keep the rhythm or pick up the African moves, but I had done so very well and they were impressed. I still want to cry with joy when I think about that. Fast forward to the night of our performance, after we had finished our last song and were all hugging each other, etc, one of the friends I had made told me that since I performed with them, I am now a part of the family. Warning: MY HEART IS BREAKING AGAIN! Please, can I never leave this place?

So how has Survivor been my savior? Well first of all, they have brought me incredible joy. They helped me realize that I can succeed here in Uganda, and it’s not all just about the challenges. I now have friends here, not just family, which is encouraging and awesome and lovely and wonderful. In the end, they have helped put a, for lack of better words, ‘good taste in my mouth’ to leave with. Actually, they make me never want to leave!!! (I’m not exaggerating when I say that, fyi.)

Which kind of leads to something I’ve been thinking about. Let me just process with you/myself a bit. For the last 13ish years of my life, I’ve had a dream of living in Africa. Yes, I’ve now accomplished that goal, but was that dream just looking towards this now? Or was there more to it? I’m not sure. I know I would definitely love to come back here… but let me finish. So, having been to China, I can say that I think about going back there so often. So many things remind me of my time in China in such weird ways, like things I wouldn’t think were fond memories make me miss it. (Smells, for example. The first floor bathroom in the library here smells like China, and it makes me miss it! Weird, I know. Also, a few of the supermarkets here remind me of China, and the supermarkets in China were one of my favorite places. Also weird, but whatever.) Nonetheless, I have an unexplainable heart for China. Next, is El Salvador. I definitely feel called to work with or partner with the new ministry called Broken that Wired/Envision is pioneering. Not necessarily sure how long that commitment might be for, but it’s there. And then there’s Africa. In all honesty, this feels like home to me. I could live here for forever. I freakin’ love living in community here! (Sorry to those of you who don’t like that word… I just LOVE it!) But what about Oregon? Southern Oregon will always feel like home to me, it’s like a part of me, and I love it there as well. Over the last half year, I’ve really been thinking about how I would love to live in ministry there (I think one day I would really love to have a YWAM base there, a little teaser of info for you). So, as my friend Andrina would say, “What the heck, man?!” I have no idea where this puts me. Do I marry a Ugandan, move to El Salvador for a bit, hang out in China for awhile, come back “home” to Uganda, and eventually end up back in GP for the long haul? I have no idea. But, I have been on the lookout for my Ugandan husband if that’s supposed to be the case…