Little Moments of Love, Little Moments of God

Webale dear friends!

So, I just thought I would enlighten you with some of the wonderful things that make me smile every day here... for instance, one of my neighbors, named Jonah, is in kindergarten here, and every day when I come walking home, he comes running down the street, if I'm lucky, or at least just running from his house to meet me before my house, yelling, "NANA!" and then jumps into my arms. Then this is the common conversation that happens:

Jonah: "NANA!"
Me: "Jonah!"
Jonah: some words in Lusoga that I don't understand but he seems to think I do, because I do a good job of nodding and smiling.
Me: "How is the day?"
Jonah: "The day is good."
Me: "How was school?"
Jonah: "School is Monday." (No matter what day of the week it is, school is always Monday)
Me: "Noooo..."
Jonah: "School is, um, Saturday."
Me: "Noo..."
Jonah: "School is ... Friday?"
Me: "No... "
Jonah: "School is SUNDAY!"
Me: "No..."
Jonah: "School is cloudy day?"

So no matter what, he always seems to forget the actual day of the week it is... so I whisper it in his ear after all this, then he yells it proudly. But I'm pretty sure from now on for the rest of my life, whenever I hear someone ask how school was, my response will be, "School is Monday!"

Other than that, the day was good... I showed up to teach, and walked in for my hour, when I found out the half hour before me, the class didn't have a teacher (typical). Today's lesson was, "Join these two sentences using "...and..." When I finished that, it was break, then I was supposed to teach again, but another teacher decided to go in for an hour. After that hour, I asked the teacher next to me whether he wanted to teach the first or the second half hour next, to which he told me to just teach both. This kind of situation is pretty common here... but for the most part I don't mind. Especially because it's really hard to get any topic across in just an hour, to teach them and have them do exercises, which they have to do every day, otherwise they are very upset with me. Today was about finding the area of irregular shapes, so it was good to have the extra time. But the kids were being really frustrating today, and so I was about at the end of my rope when I was sitting outside, marking their books.

And here enters God: One of the children from baby class came up, and I was just too tired to say much more than, "Hi!" and then look back at my marking, entirely wrapped up in my frustrations and I'm not proud to say, not making too much of an effort, when the girl asked me, in a question I haven't heard my entire time I've been here, "Are you ok?" (It's just not a common Ugandan question). I looked up and my heart melted as the girl just pulled me into a hug, gave me the greatest hug in the history of all time, and then skipped off on her merry way. This is just one example of how when I'm tired/frustrated/homesick, God just steps in and tells me I'm so loved.

Sending all that love your way, hope you're all well! Praying for you!

Love, from Uganda.