The better half...

Okay, so I know that this is WAY overdue, but here goes!

We have been in Uganda about 20 months and this is the first time that I am actually posting something on our blog (usually it is Jamesdon)! All I know is that God has been working, not always the way I want or in a way that I understand, but everything that we have gone through has drawn us closer to Him!

When we first arrived here in July 2009, we were ready to serve Him fully for a year, and I know that I still had every intention of returning home to the US after that year was finished. Had I known that God had an entirely different plan for us, I might have just stayed home. With that being said I am so glad that I didn’t know what He had planned because I would have missed out on God’s biggest blessings yet!

Many times since being here there have been times that I wanted to write and boast about things that God has been doing and the ways that He has used us. Other times I have wanted to write and complain about how difficult things are and how I feel like I am so far from God and what He wants for us! I finally feel like I can share what we are doing here without doing either of those.

When I first came I started journaling (that didn’t last long!) and early this week I went back and read through what I wrote, which mostly pertained to how much I cried and felt completely lost and asked why I was here and what I had gotten myself into! It is amazing the things that were shocking to me, which have now just become normal and would never think twice about. I wrote about my first boda boda (motorcycle) ride and was so proud of us for going into town by ourselves, a town that I have now taken hundreds of boda rides in and can navigate with out many issues, after all I am talking about Kampala! I wrote about how sad I was to leave Bombo and Wobulenzi and our family there, and now I feel sad that I have not been better about keeping in touch with those who gave me so much comfort when we first came! I wrote about our introduction to ARM and how I thought it was going to be impossible for me to ever know everyone’s name and understand what they were saying, the same people that I now call friends and can understand perfectly fine…I even find myself changing the way I speak when I am around them. I wrote about how sacred I was to teach classes of 60 plus students that all spoke a common language that I did not speak. Tthese are the same kids that I have developed great relationships with and miss teaching so much (it helped that I learned some Luganda too!). I also wrote about working at LHBH and how I first met Daniel…if only I would have known then that I had just met my son and possibly the whole reason why we came to serve here. How different that entry would have been had I known.

When I first found out that, not only would I not be coming home, but that I couldn’t come home, first during summer 2010 and then again for Christmas 2010, I felt trapped! I wanted so bad to go home and was so angry at God for not making it possible, but after I finished throwing my temper tantrum, and looked at God I realized that there was a perfectly good reason for it! Had I gone home at either of those times, it is very possible that I would have done everything in my power to stay there and would have resented having to come back here. I finally allowed myself to trust God and be at peace with the fact that this is our home for awhile and I am content with that, it only took me a year and a half! Don’t get me wrong, this past year and a half has been amazing, lots of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change anything about it!

Here we are in February 2011 and it is amazing to think about how much has happened in the past year and a half. In two weeks we will have been Daniel’s mommy and daddy for 1 year (CRAZY) and we have our next little guy (Nehemiah) on the way (due May 10th). We left the US just me and Jamesdon and will come back two years later a family of four, just for a visit though!! (Just pray that everything works out this time!).

God has some huge changes in store for us this year. Not only is our family getting bigger, but God is moving us to Gulu, in northern Uganda, where Jamesdon has been working with Remnant for the past 9 months. I have had the blessing to finally watch my husband do something that he absolutely loves with a group of women that God has given him a huge heart and passion for, but it has come at the cost of our family being apart way too much, hence the move. Remnant is growing and the need for Jamesdon to be in Gulu full time is becoming greater, so God has opened up doors for us to move as a family so that we can all be together. Jamesdon has already established a good base in Gulu and this week we had the chance to go there and move into the new Remnant compound, which will soon be home for our family!

God has also blessed us through our relationship with Align Ministries, and used them to bless us with a car (the more pregnant I become, the more necessary that is). Align has also now become the ministry that we can call our “sending organization” in which we can receive financial blessings from all of our supporters.

As for me, I’ll go on “maternity leave” in April and plan on staying home with my boys and helping out where I can until I find a school in Gulu where I can get back to doing what I love…teaching! Because the school year here starts in February, I will have a little while to figure out exactly where God wants me to be and will have the opportunity to be at home full time as a mom, which I never pictured myself doing!

There is so much more that I could and want to write, but I will start with baby steps…this is the first one!

If you’d like to unite with us in this undertaking you may send your financial blessings to: Align Ministries, 27562 Sweetbrier Lane, Mission Viejo, CA payable to Align Ministries and include "the Kisslings" in the memo line. You can also give online by going to www.alignministries.org/donate. Just select Missionary Support and write Kisslings in the memo section.