The Side Adventure

I recently was able to spend a week in South Africa with my best friend, where she stays and interns with Impact Africa. My heart was overjoyed to reconnect with her. I loved being able to spend that time with her because for the first time in six months, I was with someone who knows me well. Kelly is one of those people who gets me. We have spent countless nights just talking and talking. She is the copilot in all my crazy Boise stories. We simply connect. I felt so relieved to be understood on such a level once more... But Johannesburg. Johannesburg is something else!

I grew up in America. Shopping centers, malls, nicely cut and properly frozen and packaged meat, and basically everything nice are normal in my life. I gave up all those things when I came to Uganda. I knew God was calling me down this path, and I had no problem letting those things go. Sure the meat was the most difficult to give up (Please enjoy this picture of the meat isle in a grocery store I went to. I got way too excited), but I know this is the life I am suppose to live.

Uganda is completely different from America. Things are not made in the quality, and living is not to the standard of America. People live poorer lives. That is expected since this is a developing nation, and I knew this when I came. I knew things were going to be different. I knew I would not be able to buy packaged meat that I know has been cared for with great attention (if you haven't gathered, this is one of the things I miss in America). I came and got acquainted with the dirt. I became friends with people that have absolutely NOTHING! Poverty has become my life, and I accept this with love and excitement.

Johannesburg is a bizarre combination of these two places in my life. One day, we went into one of the squatter camps where people live very much like they do in Uganda. Right after, we went to a typical American super market where you can get basically anything you could want out of a grocery store at a good quality. I felt as though my two worlds collided and called themselves South Africa! 

I struggled greatly with such a contrast of living. I do not think I could live with such extremes right next door. I honestly do not know how people can do it without feeling a sense of guilt as they drive past complete poverty as they go somewhere so nice. I know God is using the Christians in this area to bring more of an equal ground to the two extremes. I pray that they are filled with the Spirit and make an impact in the area. 

I do not know if I will ever go back to South Africa, but if God calls me, then I would love the opportunity.