How Great Thou Art!

The beginning of the old hymn, How Great Thou Art, is very special to me. It reminds me how great the Lord is and of all the wonderful things he has made. Below are the lyrics.

O, Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God to Thee, How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art, Then sings my soul, My Savior God to Thee, How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art!

This trip to Uganda has brought upon me many “How Great Thou Art” moments. Living here, I have seen things practically every day that make me think, “WOW! How great thou art!” I have chosen three that are particularly… magnificent. These moments make my heart swell up with love for my Lord, and for Uganda.

My first “How Great Thou Art” moment actually happened the first day I had ever done mission work in a foreign country. At home, I help make lunches for the workers at the Malibu Labor Exchange every month. Mission work here is different than in America. The day of my “How Great Thou Art” moment included me riding a boda boda for my first time. I guess you could say that it was a pretty terrifying experience.

After going to the home of about six widows to bring them food and pray with them, we headed over to a primary school. At first they would just whisper to each other and point at me. By the end of the afternoon, I was surrounded by a group of children, all trying to hold my hands at once. My two hands were not enough for the twenty kids around me.

Joshua, Jayne, and I tried to teach the kids Duck Duck Goose and Tag, but they didn’t quite understand either of them. For tag, they all were “it” at the same time.  The children got tired of tagging each other, so they decided to chase the Mzungus. Picture this: Twenty Ugandan children chasing three white kids. Who do you think was faster: The whites or the Ugandans? If you answered the Ugandans, you were DEFINETLY right!

After a while, Jayne and Joshua got tired of being chased. They sat down in the shade. That left all of the Ugandans and me. I wasn’t quite sure how to entertain them, so I just started running. After about five seconds of me running, I had twenty kids chasing after me. I was laughing harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life. My heart told me to keep running but my legs said to stop. So I listened to my legs and collapsed in the grass. I was smiling and I couldn’t stop. No matter how hard I tried to stop, I was still smiling.

While I was running, the wind whipping back my hair, my sandals brushing the top of the green grass that covers this beautiful country, I had my first “How Great Thou Art” moment. Then and there, I felt so immensely blessed by all those children of God. All they wanted was to be loved. They wanted their adorable faces to be held in the hands of a white girl. Those kids loved me just as much as I loved them. One girl named Winnie was always by my side. Her head had splotches of white all over it, which meant she was infected with ringworm, but I didn’t care. Winnie loved on me until the moment I had to leave. And I wouldn’t trade that day for anything.

To be continued . . .

-God Bless, Jennifer