and the beat goes on......

i love music. i would rather listen to my ipod during a 12 hour flight than watch half a dozen of hollywood's finest flicks. i listen to all genres...christian and gospel, classic rock, whatever, but mostly i love country. no surprise considering i live in and love all things about music city - nashville, tennessee, usa. when you ask ugandans if they enjoy country music, most say yes, but i am always shocked when they tell me their favorite artists are jim reeves, don williams and kenny rogers. no no no, i say, current, popular artists like keith urban, the band perry, lady a.....what about them? do you like them? always the answer is "who"? i don't know why, but this annoys me immensely...how can you like country muisc and not love to hear kenny chesney or carrie underwood? i think maybe there is a secret government plot to keep the population back in the 'olden' days....admittedly, that was and is great music....but come on, there's only so much i can do here.
hey, speaking of getting annoyed, guess where i went this week! yep, posta uganda! andrew went to pick up a box of first aid supplies that george sent (including gummy bears for me...my first aid) and we were pleasantly surprised that no one tried to charge taxes or fees. YAY! the box looked as if it had been kicked 10,000 miles by FIFA players, but the contents were in great shape. andrew ws given a letter addressed to cathy hook. it stated that since no one had attempted to retrieve a box which had been shipped in march, it was going to be destroyed. wait a minute, this was THE BOX of several blogs! ok andrew, let's go have some fun!!! the supervisor seemed mildly interested as i explained we had been there at least 5 times to get this parcel and each time had left without it.....that the twerp behind the counter had on one occasion, thrown the box against a wall, called me a liar, wanted to 'negotiate' a fee and had even raised an eyebrow at the armed guard. she even seemed somewhat sympathetic. now, a person who has regular access to pb cups and goo goos whould have walked away with her hrad held high, i could not! when she reduced the fees from 124,000 shillings to 50,000, i said yes, yes ,yes! $20 was a bargain for a box of 6 month old stale candy. i am weak when it comes to reese's and i am occasionally haunted by the taste of a gooey goo goo. what can i say?

you never know.....

it occured to me that you just never know when you meet someone if you will stay connected over the years or if you will just say 'nice to meet you' and never see that person again. i do know that God connects us with people for a reason, but we rearely know why immediately. i met marcelo lagos 2 years ago in ollantaytambo, peru. he was (and is still) a young dental student from southern chile....land of the penguins!! i didn't know he would become one of my best friends, would travel to uganda and would take on the monumental task of organizing a potentially HUGE dental project here in conjunction with a university in spain and odontogists sin fronteras in latin america! marcelo worked here for two weeks, meeting with the minister of health and recording tons of data to forward to the university.....he must have said yasama, bunila and wakaluma a thousand times or more....he worked in naguru, an orphanage, a school and even in kisenyi slum. i can't thank him enough for his perserverance, and dedication and love for the children of the world. i miss his way of saying 'HELLOOOO friend' every morning and ending each song line he sang with o-o-o! hasta año proximo mi amigo! te extraño mucho!

SUCCESS?

last week i had a facebook discussion with a young, bright, hard working man living in Qatar about success. his definition of success and my definition of success were 180 degrees apart. perhaps it was because he is young, african, and looking toward the future and i am, well, sorta old, american and content to live in the present. he believes that success is when you set goals, work hard and achieve those goals.....! well, you know that makes perfect sense. i have looked in the dictionary, and it appears he is spot on. hmm, well, i said, he is bright. i have little doubt that he will be successful in the near future..in the music industry...and who knows, maybe he will take the nashville music scene by storm!

i think, as for me, i measure success on a smaller scale. because, any more, i don't have any large scale goals...no big plans for the future. sounds so so corny, but the future, for me, is now. as some of you may have seen on facebook yesterday, we made a 14 year old kenyan boy, residing in naguru, very happy by telling him we would provide transport back to nairobi next week. that in itself, to me, made for a very successful day because an amazing child was infectiously cheerful because he will be going home! maybe at some point success is not that you achieve your goals in the future but that you are delighted when you achieve something that wasn't planned or expected in the present. don't know, just know that mohammed is going home to his brothers. because he is an orphan. once again, i say thank you Jesus for allowing us to be a part of so many children's lives. and as living proof that our Lord has plans for us each and every moment of each and every day, i was already planning a trip to nairobi next week. how did i know i would be called there? i didn't...but isn't God awesome?