As I Go

Hello all of you,

Well it is somewhat difficult for me to write that in a few hours I am heading down to Boston where I will begin my flights heading to Rwanda and then three weeks later to South Africa. It is difficult because to be utterly honest I don't want to go yet. I know, that sounds odd coming from the girl who loves to travel but I am leaving with intensely mixed emotions this time. As most of you know I have been living in Montana since last summer which means I have only been back with my family for a month. Not very long. In fact I just had to say bye to my brother who is off to the camp he works at and my sister is leaving in an hour for work. I'll miss them so much. I'm also feeling a scary 'I don't want to leave my comfort-zone and head into the unknown again' sensation. Now you know where I'm at. So why go at all?

Because I will not be lukewarm. I will not be a comfortable Christian. I want my faith in Jesus Christ to consistently lead me to do things that are scary. I'm not talking about being stupid in my faith but maybe a little reckless. The times when I take steps to follow God's commands in the Bible that I don't think I can handle; that's when I know that God is all-sufficient. He has never ever failed me. And He is the best cure for a case of nerves that I have ever found. When I focus on who my God is my surroundings and circumstances don't change but they're sure not very intimidating anymore. He kind of dwarfs everything on earth by comparison.

I am spending three weeks in Rwanda and am tremendously excited for that. The purpose of this visit is simply to visit friends. My dear friend and sister Laura Mutesi, who was in the DTS with me in Rwanda last year, has moved back to Kigali to teach English in a school there. I will be staying with her at the same place we lived last year which means I get to see my teachers and some of my classmates again. On July 1 I fly down to South Africa for Youth With A Mission's (YWAM) Introduction to Primary Healthcare school.

I am not entirely sure what to expect from this school but what I do know excites me. I will spend 3 months of classes in Worcester, SA learning the basics of health care in a developing nation. The second half of the school I will go somewhere and work in a healthcare setting. This part could be in SA or it could be another country. I am something of a loner who tends to avoid responsibility so the thought of someone's health depending on me...yeah, I don't naturally want to go there. This is what makes me get over that tendency:

-Approximately 25,000 people die every day of hunger or its related causes. 9 million people per year. Think about that. The leading cause of death in the world is from a lack of food.
-1.2 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water. As a result 5 million people die every year from water-related illnesses and every 15 seconds a child dies from this. I wonder how long it takes you to read this blog?
-In the U.S. and Europe 2 out of every 1,000 children die before they turn 5. In Africa, 165 out of every 1,000 die before they are 5 years old. The highest percentage of these is from birth complications followed by pneumonia and on and on and on...
-Malaria kills between 1.5 million and 2.7 million people per year and one child every 30 seconds.
-There are 33 million people in the world infected with HIV. 70% of them are in Africa. 3 nations in sub-Saharan Africa have an infection rate over 20%. There are 15 million children orphaned by AIDS.

I could go on but I think you get the idea. I know that I can't save every person who makes up these statistics but those numbers drive me crazy. It pushes me past myself and screams at me so loudly that I can't ignore them. I don't even want to imagine how loudly it screams out to God who sees everything. Well, there you go. That is what I am doing and why I am going.

Some of you have expressed a desire to support me financially, which is greatly appreciated, and I will need a bombardment of prayers. You can contact my father ( a.k.a. my banker) if you would like to send funds along. I also am encouraged to hear from any of you while I am away. Talk to you later!

Isimbi Johanna