Beauty in Creation

At the end of last year, I got to be part of making something plain and boring into something beautiful and colorful.  I have never considered myself an artist but through this project have realized the amazing process of creation.

The multipurpose room in our office at Children of Grace was bare and somewhat lifeless.  We wanted to bring color and creativity to the room and I was tasked with that project.  Enjoying decorating as I do, I was excited to help spearhead this effort.  It took time brainstorming with a few friends and then drafting our ideas on paper.  We listened to thoughts from the staff about what they'd like to see in their office.  We longed to involve the children we dedicate our days to serving.

It required finding local artists to assist us in making this something worth viewing.  It meant budgeting for and taking trips to town to pick up the necessary supplies.  We had to gather students for the project and plan appropriately before they arrived so we could utilize their help.

There was a lot of time, thought, and heart that went into to the preparation and by the time the day finally arrived to get started, I was both anxious to see it take place and horrified by the unknown of the final product.

And so we began.  I observed (and interjected my thoughts and opinions) as nothing turned into something, as a bare wall became a masterpiece.  And I was overwhelmed by the beauty of watching the process of creation.

At the end of day one we were thrilled with the start of the project.  And yet, we knew there was still much to be done.  We were looking at bare branches and were excited to see them bursting with color and life!  While there was beauty in what was already there, the full potential had not yet been reached.

And so, we brought in a number of our sponsored children to participate in the painting.  We invited them to be part of this work of creation.  Oh, what a joy to watch it come alive and to see our sweet students helping make it happen.

The kids had a blast hanging out at the office and making such a beautiful piece of art in a place they love so much!

Mike and I even got to leave our mark as well along with a few of the other staff (had to have a few "big" hands to fill in some of the gaps!)

What a masterpiece the team created!  And what beauty we had the privilege of watching form.  What began with blank walls and an idea to spruce up the office, became a creation that I was blessed to be a part of making.

I wasn't sure we would actually pull it off.  I wasn't confident it would actually come together with a decent end result.  Even as the "designer," I couldn't trust that the final product would be to my satisfaction.  And in this, I learned a lot about the Lord. 

It was amazing what this taught me about His work in creation: the creativity of His design, the power through which He makes things come to life, the potential He sees in all of us when we'd rather give up and stay the way we are.  I'm so thankful He is constantly refining me and making me into something more beautiful, something more like Him.  And I'm thankful that He knows the end result.  He can see the beauty that is to come and even the pain must be a part of the process.  And He's patient with me, knowing that it will all be worth it and longing for me to trust Him as my loving Creator!

Today, on Palm Sunday, I'm especially thankful that His ways are higher than our ways and that He made a way (a perfectly designed way) for us to be in relationship with Him!

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

New every morning

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  Lamentations 3:22-23


On the days when I feel weak, the moments I am faced with my sin, the times where the problems of this world are too much for me, I am thankful to know that the Lord's mercies are new every morning!  He offers me new hope each day. 

But how does this affect my life?  How does it change the way I choose to live?  Will I cling to His compassion and allow Him to renew me with the morning?  Will I seek Him and His truth in the midst of confusion or disappointment?  Will I cling to His mercies and welcome His love and faithfulness?  Will I praise Him when I recognize those mercies and sense His presence?  Will I spend time basking in His Word that I might be filled with His never ending joy and love?  Will I see each new day as an opportunity to know Him more, to bring Him glory, to delight in the gift of the morning?

May you be overwhelmed by the Lord's great love for you today and may the morning remind you of His faithfulness.  Can you think of a day when the sun refused to rise?  Each day is a gift and we can rest in His faithfulness and goodness today and every day!

(This photo is from our trip to Murchison Falls when my parents came to visit over Christmas.  We witnessed this glorious sunrise over the African plains!  More pictures from safari coming soon!)

Defend the cause of the fatherless...

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
Psalm 82:3-4

"Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow."
Isaiah 1:16-17

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  James 1:27

The command is clear.  And with it comes a sweet invitation to join our Heavenly Father in His beautiful work.  We have the opportunity to play a role in bringing restoration to this broken world. 

God calls us to reach out to those who are less fortunate than us.  This has been impressed on my heart a lot these past few weeks.  Who are the "oppressed" around me?  How can I "defend the cause of the fatherless"?   Am I seeking and welcoming opportunities to do these things the Lord has so specifically required?

Here in Jinja, the opportunities are easy to find.  The heartache and need is evident all around.  Each and every day we are given the chance to extend the love of Christ to orphans and widows.  And it's not just because it's our job at Children of Grace.  While we are blessed to work with orphaned children every day but our work does not stop when we go home.  At every corner there are chances to care for the oppressed.

I was given the opportunity to help with the medical care at an orphanage in town while their nurse was away for Christmas.  Mike and I have been blessed to love on a little boy who was neglected and malnourished.  Our dear friend nursed him back to health and we have been able to continue following up on his progress.  We have taken him for hospital visits and check ups and he is now doing well.  We can walk up the street to the children's hospital and hold little ones or take them coloring books and crayons.  And we can stop by a local orphanage to play with the children on a day off.

I am grateful for a new understanding of LIFE as service.  We can hardly escape the daily needs of the people around us.  And we are welcomed to help and serve at any moment.  While I understand the purpose of rules and regulations back home in the states, it can feel impossible to help another.  To volunteer means applications, training, a scheduled weekly appointment, and more.  But here, service is a way of life.  I have learned to see the time spent talking with the guard on our compound as a way to bless him.  We can ask how his day is going, how his family is doing, show compassion when he is sick.  We can bless the local ladies in the market and the men who drive us around on motorcycle taxis.  And yet, at home I could go through days where I barely interacted with those in my community.  I could get in my car in the morning and drive back home in the evening and never reach out, never serve, never encourage a stranger. 

Don't get me wrong, there are days where I think I would rather go to work and ignore the problems of the world.  There are many times when I'd prefer to go out to dinner with my husband without having street kids beg for money.  And yet, I am mistaken.  I want to learn to praise the Lord for these opportunities.  It is a blessing to be invited to join Him and to have the chance to answer the call.

While we don't yet know what the next year holds, this has been heavy on my heart as I think about what it would be like to go "home."  I am a little afraid.  I would greatly miss these opportunities and I want to continue to answer this call.  I challenge each of you to think about what it means to hear and obey these commands.  You don't have to live in Africa to do it.  I have been convicted and I am thankful for this change of heart and perspective.

When I think of how the Lord has adopted me into his family, how He laid down His life to make me His daughter, I am overwhelmed by His great love for me.  How could I not respond by extending that love to others?  I pray He would remind me of this reality each day and that I would remember the blessing it brings to my life.  My life is so much more rich.  And how could it not be...

Thank you, Jesus that you've offered me hope.  May I be extend this same hope to others through you.

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

Christmas at CoG

The past few weekends have held lots of joy, laughter, and excitement at the Children of Grace compound.  We hosted Christmas parties for nearly 700 of our sponsored children on two different days.  There were separate parties for the primary and secondary students and both were a blast!  This extended time with our students is so precious and it's a gift to be with them during their holiday breaks!

The party for the secondary students was held first, with an amazing program put on by some of our staff and several of our students.  There was dancing, singing, a dance competition, comedy, a Christmas message, recognition of recent graduates, and more.

And of course, no Ugandan celebration is complete without cake!  Bonnie and I baked and decorated a cake to feed over two hundred people and it was certainly all eaten!  We also served some special "snacks" for lunch and enjoyed soda and food before the cake.  Father Christmas even made an appearance for the cake cutting.

The primary party was also a blast!  With over 400 students attending, we were certainly exhausted by the end of the day but it was totally worth it!  What cuties they are.  We had a more brief program for the younger kids but it still included dancing, singing, awards, and a reenactment of the Christmas story.

There was even dancing with Father Christmas!

 To add a little more action to this event, we also had a carnival with different stations the kids could choose from.  The stations included face painting, which was a huge hit, along with games like sack races, egg relay, three-legged race, crazy dance, and football bowling.  The kids had a blast and even got candy as a treat for playing the games!  And again, all of this was concluded with food and cake.  

Thanks to some wonderful supporters back in the states, we were also able to give out a little booklet with the Christmas story to each of the kids.  The older kids received books that were already colored while the young ones got coloring book style cards and a little pack of crayons.  These were a treat and a special reminder of what Christmas is all about.

What a blessing to celebrate Christmas with these precious children.  And what a gift to share with them the truth that Jesus came to earth as a little baby to redeem this broken world and save them for eternity!  Hallelujah! 

Thankful

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
                                  Psalm 103:1-5

Although it's a few days late, on Thanksgiving and today we are exceedingly thankful for the Lord's great love!  We are so unworthy of His grace and compassion in our lives and yet He pours it out abundantly!  And although He doesn't have to, He chooses to give us so many good gifts.  Here are some things the Donohues are thankful for today...

• Our marriage- What a blessing it is to share life with your best friend!  We are thankful for how this time in Uganda is drawing us closer to the Lord and to each other.
• Our family- You are so good to us.  Thanks for loving us and supporting us so well!  We miss you all dearly and wish we could have been there with you on Thanksgiving.
• Friendship- We have been blessed with amazing friendships back home and are thankful to be able to maintain those even thousands of miles away.  God has also given us great friends here in Uganda.  What a pleasant surprise and a true treasure!
• Our health- The Lord has kept us both safe and healthy thus far and for that we praise Him!
• Uganda- It has been such a gift to be here as we are constantly learning about ourselves, the people here, and the Lord.  We are so grateful for this opportunity and the ways God is using it in our lives and hopefully to bless the lives of others.

For Thanksgiving, we were blessed to celebrate with some sweet friends here in Jinja.  We even had a traditional Thanksgiving meal complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie!  Yes, we do live in Africa but we still have so many GOOD gifts here (including the blessing of good food)!

Here's a photo of some of my sweet girlfriends in Jinja at our Thanksgiving meal.  We are blessed!

And here's Mike playing with the Boone's son, Evan, one of our favorite little guys.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with family and friends!  God is so good!

Wisdom from Uganda

Over the past three months, we have had many opportunities to visit the schools where our sponsored children attend.  Some of these visits involve health education sessions, some are arrange for programs in the schools, and others just to check in on particular students or situations.  But all of them involve a plethora of good advice.  Scattered around the grounds and posted on the buildings at most of these schools are reminders of how the students should live.  These quotes and thoughts have been encouraging to me and I thought I'd share some of them with you...

And my personal fav...

Amen!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends in the states.  We miss you all dearly but are so thankful for you!

Sweet Friends!

We have the most amazing friends!!  Last week we got a big treat in the mail from our dear friends, the Alexanders!  Elizabeth was so thoughtful and sent things that only a true friend would know I was missing!  

I was truly amazed that the package even made it to us since it turns out that the only address I had given anyone was the physical address for the compound where we work.  Turns out that there is no postal delivery to homes or offices here.  Children of Grace does have a PO Box but that was not the address Elizabeth sent the package to since I didn't even know about the PO Box until after she mailed it.  Oops!  After I found out she had sent it and that it had been several weeks since it left the States, Mike and I went to the post office in town to see if we could track down the package.  

So, when we walked into the post office and told them we were looking for a package, they sent us around to the room where all the mail is received and where they store all the packages until they are picked up.  There was one guy working there and we explained what we were looking for (we were also picking up a package that was coming for CoG from Kampala, only two hours away and was supposed to arrive two days before we went).  So, he let us look through all the books where he records the packages that come in and neither one of the packages were listed there.  I could see several packages from the U.S. sitting in a back room but he swore that it wasn't any of those because they were all written in the book.  He then suggested we call the processing center in Kampala to see if they had our package from the States so I called them and had them start looking for it.  Just before we left, I took a chance and asked the guy, "would you mind if we just take a quick look through the packages that are sitting back there?"  He told me that was fine and Mike and I started looking for anything that might be for us.

First, we ran across the package from Kampala that also swore had not arrived yet and I was so excited to have found that.  It also gave me great hope that maybe the package from Graham and Elizabeth was hiding somewhere in there.  For one last chance, we started looking through these packages on a random shelf in the back of the room and sure enough, at the top of the shelf I spotted Elizabeth's handwriting and OUR NAMES!  We were thrilled that it made it to Jinja and even more excited that we were able to find it!  Mike even said, "I feel like we just won a thousand dollars!" and I felt the same way.  Such a little thing like that was such a huge blessing to us... and it was especially exciting that we were able to find it even though the guy was SURE it wasn't there.  Ha!  We showed him :)  And now we know the system, which is also awesome!!

We felt so blessed and grateful that our sweet friends took a chance on sending us something so far away not knowing if it would even get here.  I just had to brag on them a little bit while also sharing the funny story of how we even found the package!  Thank you, Graham and Elizabeth!  Y'all are awesome!  

Note: This is certainly not a ploy to get all of you to send us stuff... we were just excited and had to share it.  Not to say we don't love getting packages and wouldn't welcome them if you are dying to send something.  Just let us know and we can get you the details :)  We are so blessed by the many ways you have ALL supported us, encouraged us, and loved us during this time and we couldn't be more thankful for our sweet friends!

We also had a sweet visit just a few weeks ago from some friends back home!  Hannah was a YoungLife girl of mine this past year and Libbie was part of YoungLife a few years ago as well when Mike was already leading.  These cute girls had been here in Uganda for almost the exact amount of time as us but were about three hours away from where we live.  They ended up joining a short-term team from the U.S. on their journey to Jinja for the day and we got to have lunch with them!  It was such a treat to see friends from home and a blessing to share our experiences here in Uganda so far.  Hannah has just made it back to the States and I can't believe she's already home!  It seems like they have both loved their time here and it was such a treat to get to see them halfway around the world!  Thanks for meeting up with us, girls!  We love you!

some days I forget we're in Africa!