What part of loose stool don't you understand?

Perhaps writing daily is a bit extensive. However, it is completely necessary when you spend your afternoon going to the market, getting lost, finding yourself in a completely different town with no cell phone and two friends, one of whom had taken a laxative; suddenly phrases such as, “We’re lost? Are you crapping me?” become more than ironic.

I bought a banana and a tomato in town. My bagged lunch for tomorrow; finally, variety.

I don’t think we have to be conservative as we set out to be. The only pants I have here are jeans I wore on the plane. My sister asked me yesterday if I only brought skirts, and another sister wears jeans. As I said yesterday, my dress was shorter than usual yesterday: it reached just below my knee caps. “You have nice legs,” my mom told me. “Your skirts are normally so long, I can’t see them.” Hah.

I’ve learned that raised eyebrows essentially translate to a headnod. Accompanied by a grunt. It came across as rude to me at first, and I kept repeating my questions, waiting for a nod or an answer. But it’s all in the eyebrows.

Another difference: Ugandans are so friendly that their language doesn’t include a standard, bland greeting, as in “Hello” or “Hi.” So when you say hello, they say “I am fine, how are you?” It doesn’t fail. What a beautiful culture, needing to care and ask how someone is; such is the purpose of their greeting.

Francis’ son Martin kneeled to me yesterday. He circled the entire room that way, kneeling and giving you his hand. I suppose it is practice; weddings, proposals, etc. aren’t difficult to come by here.

Rebecca promised me a testimony about singing and praise. Sure enough, I got one. I asked her about it after dinner. After washing up, we sat in our room for a good hour; I was in awe of the conversation the entire time. I won’t put down the details, but she was describing me her college years and how incredibly close she had gotten to the Holy Spirit. She started her relationship with the Holy Spirit by simply making herself aware of His presence: greeting Him in the morning, setting Him a plate at lunch, etc. The rest of her stories were incredible—so challenging. She talked about the feeling you have when you know you’re not the only one in the room. She compared it to a blindman—sure, he can’t see when a person has left the room, but he can sense it. Rebecca gushed about how she felt Him always with her. I love the way she communicates too—she is so animated: putting her head in her hands and squealing, saying how much she misses Him, how she doesn’t know what she did wrong to make Him leave. It was breaking my heart. I started telling her about something C.S. Lewis had said in Screwtape Letters, of course giving the disclaimer that Lewis isn’t God, Screwtape isn’t Scripture. But Lewis writes from the perspective of one demon to another—the more experienced one giving lessons to the newby, giving him tips on how to trip a Christian up, get him distracted from God. I told her that at one point, the young/inexperienced demon is so glad, so proud of himself, because the Christian seems to be in a slump: he can’t sense God’s presence anymore. He isn’t as “on fire,” for God or as Rebecca put it, “hot”, as he once was. The demon thinks he is making progress, yet the older demon laughs at him; the paraphrase is something like “You fool! There is nothing more dangerous to us than when a Christian no longer feels God’s presence, yet follows Him anyway. God created His humans with seasons, just as He did the earth. You idiot, this is natural for him to go through a slump. The peak is just around the corner. So don’t you give up; you haven’t won yet. You are losing.” The look on Rebecca’s face was incredible; she sighed and shrieked. “So he’s coming back!” I can’t explain the overwhelming community, communion, that was going on in that room. God was stretching me, reminding me of the slump I too am in, and reminding me that it takes effort to know Him. He reminded me that I rarely give the Holy Spirit the attention He deserves; He is the part of the Trinity I most forget about. And at the same time He was showing Rebecca that just because we can’t feel God for a time, doesn’t mean we’re doing anything wrong. It is natural; and it is necessary for growth, to run after something by faith and not feeling. I was so happy with Him, so proud of Him, for mutually growing us both. Two different cultures, a bunkbed apart.

Needless to say, I told the Holy Spirit Good Morning today; I clenched my hand on the way to school, as if He were holding it; and I stared at the empty chair in front of me in History class, and smiled.

I’m not crazy. I’m just learning from a sister’s story.