Exhaustion with a Purpose

This trip was so different than any other I've been on. I had to make the transition from just being part of a team that ministers to the people of Uganda, to being the one who is in charge of taking care of the team that is ministering to the people of Uganda.

I couldn't have picked a better team for my first time as "Short Term Team Coordinator."

I had been in Uganda for a week before they arrived (more about that time later). I was already over the jet lag, adjusted to the time difference and different food and environent, and ready to do my very best to make the trip a success for them.

On Saturday morning Michael (our driver), Dennis (a former AMG child) and I made the one hour drive to Entebbe to pick up the team.

This is how I found them at the airport:

After traveling for 3 days on 4 different planes, sleeping on the floor, and losing 5 bags they didn't look too bad.

The team of 8 ranged in age from 20 to 75. Six of them had been to Uganda before while 2 were coming for the first time, and they all had a heart for serving God.

And as much as I loved working with them and seeing them interact with the kids and AMG workers, they completely exhausted me. I'm not complaining. It was a good exhausted.

It was exhaustion with a purpose.

And while typically my purpose on a trip is to minister to the people of Uganda to the best of my ability, this time my main purpose was to make sure that the team could minister to the people of Uganda to the best of theirs.

So while I spent time ministering to the people alongside them, I was also planning, paying bills, answering questions, and meeting with the workers. It was a new role that put a lot more responsibility on me to make sure things ran smoothly.

Most of the time it did.

I'm still learning and hope to continue to have opportunities to serve in this role. It's a role unlike any other I've taken before or even imagined taking. But I'm finding that God often uses us in ways we don't expect.

How else do you explain Him taking a girl who is afraid of the dark and loves the comfort of home surrounded by family and sending her halfway across the world to live in a house where it gets dark by 7pm, has no electricity, and still feel perfectly at home?

I don't know why God chose me, of all people, for this. But I do know that apart from Him I can do nothing.

- Aly