I'm Sure You've Heard

Basically I am starting this blog because I've seen only a million people on my Visiting Orphans team do it. I think it would be a great way for me to get all of my thoughts and emotions out. It has been about two weeks that I've been home from Uganda and I feel absolutely lost sometimes. My eyes have been opened in so many ways, and I can't wait to get back. I'm horrible at telling people stories about what I saw and felt, and it becomes an overwhelming frustration that no one "gets it." 

Here is my LAST journal entry from my trip to Uganda. I hope you find whatever you are looking for when you read this, and I hope I do to. 

Here we are again. Some of us anxious, excited, or sad. Here we are again on a plane but this time our direction is home. I don't know what home is anymore. Is home a place where you just feel like a number, or just another face on the street? Because that's exactly where we're heading. To a place full of lustful, selfish, and judgmental humans who could care less about your story or how you really feel. There will be some people who want to know how my trip was, but they really don't CARE. If they cared, they'd be saving $3,500 to hop on a plane and see for themselves. An experience like this isn't a story to be told. It's a journey to travel down, pain and healing to feel, poverty and hope to see, hands and heritage to touch, and faces to kiss. 

I've never known what to do with my life. I haven't found any specific goals to reach or careers to dive into. The only thing I know for certain is that Uganda isn't a place I can visit just once. It's a place I need to breathe, a place I need to digest, a place I need to just be. I'm broken. I still live with all that I have and I'm still patient as I an get, but my heart is ripped to shreds. Yes, I am overwhelmed with happiness that I was able to see what I saw and meet who I met. Yet I am drowning in the pain of being ripped from the one place I consider a safe haven. The real, raw Morgan was exposed in Uganda and my curiosity and adventure grew so much larger than I'd expected. I became authentic, I became new, I became silent. I slowed down and enjoyed sitting in a coffee shop alone in the city of Jinja watching people walk by. I became content in not knowing and relying on God to carry me through. I've never been as high in my life as I was sitting in that coffee shop. No drug, piece of technology, bad romance, food, or any amount of money could make me feel the way I did that day in Jinja. I was myself for the first time in a while, enjoying an iced mocha with no one but God. Here I am, nineteen years old, and for the first time I know who I am. My heart is broken but I am not lost. I've found myself and I'm okay with who that person is. I don't want to be anyone else. I don't care about my body image or perfect liquid eyeliner (though I've missed it just a little). Those things don't matter, in fact, papa Isaac told me I need to gain some weight!! What it comes down to is that I am happy with myself and it doesn't matter hat anyone else thinks about it. I've met so many people on this trip who will always have a special place in my heart ... Forever. I will never forge the laughs, tears, and conversations shared. I'm so thankful to be placed with the people I've grown close to. I watched them transform as I'm sure they did with me Swayla, Owen, John George, Jessica, mourn, Richard, and Jane will always have my heart. Those children are really going to be something someday. Every single one of their smiles melted my heart and if it were legal and I were to be financially able, I'd bring every one of them home. I hope they could feel how much I really do love them. I wish I could kiss them at least one hundred more times and say "knwagala nyo" until they became annoyed. I want to tickle their necks and blow raspberries on their little brown tummies. I want to see them twenty years from now and see how beautiful they've remained. Motherly? Maybe. I've never loved anyone the way I loved them. I guess I should come to some kind of conclusion, but it's not time to conclude this journey. It's not over. Was it the best experience of my life? Yes. What do I regret? Leaving. Farewell Uganda, for now!