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Through the eyes of a team member:  Amy Langdon

Joel Schmidgall

Amy Langdon - Parable of the Lazy Worker

I write now as the only non-lover of hard work in the group.  If God humbles us in order to show his strength in weakness, he definitely has plenty of room to shine in my hard work department.  I wouldn’t say I was lazy…but others might.  In the days spent in Uganda before we started building, teammates would say to me “I can’t wait to start working” or “I wish we could spend more time building.” To which, my reaction is always the same.  My eyes become wide with panic, I smile and say through gritted teeth, “Oh yeah, me too.”

So these last two days spent moving brick, smacking down mortar, painstakingly assembling row after row of wall after wall, should have been pure torture.  But to my eternal surprise, it has been such a blessing.  I saw God work through me long after I know my physical body would have given up.  Trust me, (and people who know me or have worked with me for any amount of time can attest to this) I do not work this hard.  I know we are encouraged to use our spiritual gift for God, but I had never felt the joy of God showing Himself to me through my lack of talent.  I know he was at that building site these past few days.  He was in me picking up a brick when my arms were jelly and in me scooping mortar when my back was on fire.

The whole experience has made me feel so lucky.  I keep thinking back to the verse “Who are we, and who are my people that we can give as generously as this?” (1 Chronicles 29:14) I feel lucky to have been chosen to come to Uganda.  I feel lucky to be here with a group that daily are a model of service and generosity to me.  And most of all, I feel lucky to have a God that loves me more than I can ever know, a God who uses my strengths and my weaknesses to bring Him glory.

Quotable

You may never meet the kids that will live in this orphanage, but they’ll know you in heaven.  -Pastor Joshua

One of my favorite moments today was when one of the Uganda workers handed me a piece of fruit and said, “This is for you, You are my friend Bob.” -Bob P

I was encouraged by a Ugandan woman I worked alongside, who sang her way through her work.  It was absolutely beautiful.  -Joanna C

Fav’ Five

Amy working the trowel.

Simon (from the Ugandan team helping us) cuts open the jack fruit during our break.

This is half way through our day.  We had just finished our first wall (the back).

Peter, aka Bobby Wine, busted out in dance for our rowdy group.

Pastor Joshua gave a word of encouragement to the team at the evening meal, courtesy of Watoto.

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