September 25, 2010

Monday was a hectic day for me, most of it being my fault. :) I don’t enjoy packing, so I kept putting it off. For those of you who live in Kodiak, you know the fog goes up and down. So all day on Monday the fog kept going up and down, up and down. I kept praying all day that by the time my flight left at 11pm, the fog would lift. If I missed my flight Monday night, I would have missed all the rest of my connections. So I was very thankful when the plane landed and I was able to go to Anchorage. The Kodiak manager at Era was able to get all my extra bag fees waved. I had a total of 7 bags and so I would have paid for 5 bags equaling $1000.00. So already I have been blessed. My bags were sent all the way though to Entebbe, Uganda. When I arrived in Entebbe Thursday evening all my bags were there and I had no problems going through customs. They asked me what all was in the boxes, so I told them and they let me though.

Pastor Frank Gardner and I were able to meet up in the Amsterdam airport. We were on the same flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe. It was great to see him and spend some time with him. John and Rebecca Fulks were coming to pick up Pastor Frank, so I was able to catch a ride to the orphanage with them. I did spend the night with some friends who live in Entebbe and then I met up with the Fulks first thing in the morning.

I finally got to the orphanage around 4pm Thursday afternoon. I was greeted with a group of kids some I know and some I didn’t. There are always new kids at the orphanage as well as the village kids that come to the orphanage for school and I don’t really know them. It felt so good to see their smiling faces and to know that they were glad to see me back.

The evening was good, walking around and seeing the kids and the house moms, meeting the new missionaries and their families. For obvious reasons of being totally exhausted I called it an early night.

Unfortunately Friday brought some rough news. As I put in my first email, Norah passed away around 2am Friday morning. The culture here is very different and the way things happen when someone passes away are different. From my understanding Norah was the first GSF child that passes away that was still living at the orphanage. It is hard to understand what happened. Norah is now rejoicing in Heaven and in no pain, which we are all thankful for. But we are mourning here for her loss. All day Friday was spent figure everything out for the burial. It was decided that she would be buried in her father’s village which is a 4 hour drive away. They had to prepare for body yesterday and placed her in the coffin and then they brought her body last night to the place where she will be buried. Apparently people from the village slept by it last night, I don’t understand why, but it is the culture here and respectful. Before they took her body the kids were able to walk though and see her if they wanted to. The kids all had different reactions. Some came away laughing and smiling, which made me mad, but maybe that is how they either handle it or they don’t understand. Out of 100 kids or more I only saw one girl walk out of there with tears. As I walked though, she looked so peaceful and she looked like at any point she should open her eyes. It was very hard for me to see her like that. As I walked out I noticed one of her best friends had not gone though, I looked for Jenny and found her standing in the door wiping a tear away. I went to her and put an arm around her asking if she wanted me to walk with her so she could say goodbye. She didn’t want to, so we started walking away. As we were walking she just broke down in my arms. It is almost a shameful thing here if you show your tears. So she buried her eyes in my shirt and we cried together. The kids kept standing around watching us, so finally Amy (Marks wife) came and asked the kids to move on. Jenny is such a strong girl and really has such a tender heart. She was trying so hard not to shed any tears for the loss of her good friend. I was happy that I was here to just hold her, but my heart was breaking as well.

I spent a couple hours with Jenny before I went with Mark and Amy to tell the older GSF kids who go to Lords Meade school. These are the group of kids that I know and spent most of my time with the first time I came to GSF. I am really close with the kids and they didn’t all know I was coming. I wanted to see the kids and also be there as they were told the news. The kids were excited to see me, they all came and gave me hugs and had huge smiles on their faces as they saw me. Mark broke the news to the kids. There were so many different reactions. The jaws dropped, some had tears, some took deep breaths, and they were all so shocked at the news. Since they don’t live on the compound they didn’t know that she had been in the hospital for the last week. The news was hard, some left right away after we told them and a couple of the boys and Barbara hung around and needed the comfort of us being there.

This day was a very rough and exhausting day and I hope I don’t have to experiences this again anytime soon, or ever. This is a difficult time, but I am glad that I can be here for the kids and show them support and love.

Today is Saturday and we are making the drive with around 30+ people from GSF. We are headed to Norah’s burial. It is going to be a long day, but I think rewarding.

Please keep us all here at GSF and the others that knew Norah in your prayers. It will be a physically and emotionally exhausting weekend.