Looking Back.

Hello to all...
I am not sure if anyone is reading this blog anymore but I thought I'd do one final update anyways.
So, it's December 28 and I arrived back to the Great White North about a week ago. Home has been wonderful, cold, but being with my whole family is such a blessing. I think of Uganda often, and of course I am constantly asked "How was Uganda?", so without a doubt the experience is still on my mind. So how do I answer such a question? I haven't really figured it out yet. At our debrief in Entebbe, Uganda, or leaders encouraged us to have a one hour spiel or a 2 minute spiel on our 3 and half month experience... but I still don't have either of these. I guess what's best to say is I learned a lot (vague I know..), but I learned a lot about myself, a lot about another culture, a lot of how I and others interact with another culture, and a lot about my calling... I wrote this poem in the middle of the semester in Uganda and it sums up my overall emotional thought process pretty well.

Existential Crisis

Here in lies my existential crisis
As I sleep and wake in bias
I gaze but don’t see
I am but fail to be
I was born into that
Absolute habitat.

I see steps skipped
As the west has them whipped.
They don’t see it but neither do we
Yet we are still trying to be a family.
So much of genuine globalization
Is twisted into weak westernization
What do we have that they desire?
“We are here to help” makes a liar.

Oh God what are we to do?
Are we to join in love because of You?
What is the purpose of this mismatched world?
When all hope of peace has been hurled.
So God here in lies my existential crisis
I just can’t connect the telos to the praxis
I interact, learn and really love them all
Yet I feel as if I have a hit a brick wall

So I ask are we here for an experience to savor?
Or do we long to see the fruits of our labor?
So where should I go and who should I be?
Simply keep to myself or live oversea?

So ya... self explanatory? Maybe not. Maybe this generates more questions, which is fine... I like questions that we don't know the answers to...
Anyways, after Uganda I spend 5 days in Holland with my mom's Oom Gerrit and my mom's cousin Dim and his family. It was so wonderful to see and meet some of my heritage, and to see this beautiful country of Holland glazed over with an early snow.
Here are some photos of that. And I just wanted to say thank-you to everyone who have been reading this and thank-you for your prayers! God bless you all in this upcoming New Year!