October 22nd - Goodbye Heart

I don't know how to begin this.  I thought about it the entire way home.  So I'll try to explain how I left my heart in Uganda...

I mentioned in a previous entry that we were doing our mission work with 5 current Leadership Development Program (LDP) students within Compassion.  This program is very selective and doesn't occur within every Compassion country.  Uganda happens to have the second largest LDP program in the world.  They graduated 104 of the premier students from across Uganda on Friday and we were there to witness it.  These students not only receive a University education in their chosen field but are given intense training on how to become a servant leader.  How to speak up for Jesus.  How to change the world around them.  They are amazing.  The sponsors of these LDP students, in my mind, are among the most blessed because they get to watch an outstanding person of God as they become who they are meant to be in this world.  And we got to work hand in hand with 5 of them for 2 days.  One of them stole my heart.

Emmanuel, or Emma for short, is a young man who's smile radiates joy.  His absolute love for Jesus shines right through.  He worked so hard at painting the CSP room with us but at the same time began to form a friendship with us all.  He is now in his second year of LDP and hasn't had a sponsor the entire time.  He shared with me that the most difficult part of that is not having the correspondence and the emotional support that a sponsor gives.  He told me about the many many letters that his sponsors sent to him throughout the time they supported him in CDSP (Child Development through Sponsorship Program).  The joy that he had when they sent him a photo of the President of the US and the love that they sent in each letter he received from them every 1 to 2 months.  But now he has been missing that.  He taught us a song that I will never forget:

"I will no more suffer,
I will not beg for bread.
I will no more suffer,
I will not beg for bread.
He's my Daddy Lord,
He's my Daddy Lord."

The way that these children (now young adults) lean on their Heavenly Father is so much more intense than how we in America lean on Him.  Here most of our needs are met and so we rely on self.  There they have to lean on their Daddy Lord for all of their needs.  And if they're lucky enough, a sponsor will take their hand and tell them: I believe in you. I am proud of you. Keep up the good work. I love you!

And so I'm choosing to tell Emma that.  I'm choosing to tell him that I support him.  I support his desire to get a University education in statistics and economics.  I support his goal that one day God may use him to open an orphanage.  I support that he and his friends go out into schools, even Muslim schools, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I support him unconditionally. Not for anything that he will ever be able to do for me but because I know he's going to make a dent in God's Kingdom.  He already has.  He changed the heart of this Compassion Advocate.  He taught me the importance of sponsorship when he looked in my eyes and asked me with such softness to PLEASE pray that he would have a sponsor soon.  I can't even hold back the tears now when I think of that moment. I was already calling out to God to PLEASE let me be the one.  Let me share in his journey. And we were waiting for an answer.  God had told me yes, pursue it, but we had to make sure that Emma didn't have a sponsor yet.  So I couldn't tell him to his face that I would be that person and that I would stand by his side in this adventure.  But that evening, when our trip leader came into my room and told me that I could be the one, I burst into tears alongside my good friend Sarah.  We rejoiced in a way that came from so deep inside our souls.  I feel such joy in knowing that God loves me so much that he will use me in this way.  You see, many people see sponsorship as a way to help someone in poverty.  It is that.  But what it really is, is a way to open your heart to the many ways that God will show you His unending love for us.  Thank you Jesus for putting Emma in my life.  Thank you for taking a piece of my heart and leaving it there in Uganda....