Scott Fillmer » africa

Still Adjusting to Life in the Fast Lane :: Friday Feet

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:04:56 +0000

This is just about the first time I have felt like or had the energy to get back on my blog since I got home from Uganda. This particular trip has been the most difficult trip to readjust from and just back into just the normal routine of things. I got sick just about the day I walked into my house (and am still recovering), then Deborah got sick yesterday (and she is still recovering) so I never could distinguish between jet lag and sick lag. I could probably have seen this coming as I spent every ounce of energy I had in Africa over that 10 day period.

It’s more than that though, it’s a deeper connection made with some people literally half way around the world, and our life in my cultural context doesn’t give you any time to “adjust”, it just keeps moving forward at breakneck speed. There is nothing wrong with life over here any more than life anywhere else, ever single place has it’s own struggles, and often they are almost identical in nature, we just always think they are different because of the lens we look through every day.

Today’s Friday Feet comes to you from Kampala as we waited with the gals from Sixty Feet to go inside the second children’s facility in Kampala. I took those shots above that day with this post in mind, even if the two K’s (Kelsey and Kirby) didn’t know what I was doing, and honestly, I can’t remember which K’s toes are shown below, I think they are Kirby’s. What was really amazing to me about life over there is that almost everything we did was either preceded or followed by some kind of worship to our King, and it was often 60-90 minutes at a time, and it didn’t matter what day of the week it was. They just hauled the drums over, dropped them down and we were good to go.

I know Sixty Feet’s ministry name has to do with number of feet deep not actual toes and shoes, but it works for my Friday Feet today, thanks for being such great sports and for the work you two are doing over there Kelsey and Kirby.

Posts Related to This Topic:

Heading to Entebbe International Airport for the Long Ride

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:30:17 +0000

This is the last trip post before we get on the plane in a few hours. I will continue to post some photos from the trip over the next several weeks and months as I go through the thousands of images I’ve taken over this trip. I can’t reflect over this trip any more, especially since we really have no distance in time for all our experiences over the last 7-10 days. For now I will leave everyone with the photo above that sums up our awesome driver, who took care of us the entire time. Everyone who has been over knows what this photo means. We love Eddy.

In this post are some shots of us in the crazy fast Eddy van along with one of Olive we all just loved. She was a super nice lady who went with us just about everywhere. It’s hard to sum up this trip. I think I probably will find it hard to sum up the trip for months to come, but overall it was a learning experience, a humbling experience, and hopefully one where we lived out the love of Jesus.

Posts Related to This Topic:

The Challenge of Being Salt and Light in the Darkness

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:01:26 +0000

We have just about two full days left before we head back home. Today, at least I was thinking, was supposed to be a little easier than yesterday, but as when you try to plan for God, he often has different plans. This was by far the hardest day we have had, and as we met tonight we struggled with what we saw, and ultimately had to give it up to God and go to bed. There were 7 of us (out of the 9, the other two went to the University today) that went to the 2nd and 3rd children’s facilities today and when we got back to the guest house I think we all felt beat up and worn down. It was such a night and day difference between yesterday and today. We have compared and contrasted with each other for hours, struggling with what we can do, what we can’t do, and what we have to just give up to God and be ok with.

The photos in this post were only taken at the 1st place we went to today. The second place we went to we were told the government would not allow any photos within the facility, and for the first time, in perhaps years, I really had no desire what-so-ever to take a single image away from that experience. It will be forever burned into my mind as God showing me what His heart breaks for in this world today. With my camera stuffed in my backpack I was immediately taken out of my own comfort zone, behind the camera, and shown the realities and challenges our world can deliver. I’m grateful for that opportunity and I think I will learn from it for a long time to come. There were several team members who suggested that I write a short post and not put up any photos at all to correlate to the experience we had with the second children’s facility, but that was really only half of the day today. So, the other half of our day is shown in the photos in this post, there were none from the second half of the day. I love the shot of Amy Frye at the top. I think that pretty much sums up the day, but we are thankful for God’s love and that he is in charge.

The other two members of the team, Probakar and Emile, went to the University today and had an incredibly positive experience. Probakar was able to give a guest lecture to about 100 students and Emile explained her process of making clean water from sale and light. They brought back many new connections for future work that can be done and had a very positive and uplifting day.

We took away several positive individual stories from both places, and we have planted many seeds for our local partner church in Buloba or Gaba to pick up the work where we just barely got started. The team is really looking forward to tomorrow where we will go across Lake Victoria to Bethany Village Orphanage and then on to Buloba in the afternoon where the ladies will share with some of the woman from Buloba Church and the men, plus Amy Frye, will install some rain catches.

Posts Related to This Topic:

An Incredible Day 1 on the Ground in Uganda

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:09:35 +0000

Our first full day on the ground in Buloba is just now coming to a close. Everyone is in bed, probably fast asleep at this point (it’s about 10pm here), and hopefully gaining enough energy to last the full day tomorrow down in Buloba. So, I know this post is going to take forever to load on some slow connection but I just couldn’t eliminate any more images than I posted here. In total I think I took about 5,000 images, and for my repeat readers here I tried to make them as unique as possible so I didn’t just show the exact same thing as last time. Keep in mind as I write this post I am barely able to keep my eyes open, so I know it’s going to packed full of typos, but it will just have to be so this time.

A small note about the timing of everything over here. I always get questions about when I will be posting, because the timing seems so odd. I post in the airport and all that and then… nothing, for what feels like days over at home. We arrived last night into the guest house from Entebbe airport at about 1L30am and we were all asleep about 2am. No way I could post last night, and then today, we got up at 6am (yes that was about 3-4 hours after we went to sleep) and headed out for the day. We got back tonight in time for dinner, then I did a quick edit of the images and here we are at about 10pm. From this point forward, I will hopefully get to post around this same time for the next few days. Today’s photos ended up being Amy Frye day just because of the specific interaction I was able to capture, but each had their turn in the camera spotlight.

Today was great in so many different ways, and as we met after dinner to discuss the days events we discovered how tired we all actually are. Today was to be our orientation day to understand, yes, we are in Uganda, and it ended up being a day crammed packed full of God’s love. The day started off with a walk over to Gaba church where we were given a detailed tour of the Africa Renewal Ministries (ARM) buildings facilities and classrooms. The guest house is located on Lake Victoria, in Gaba, basically right next to Gaba Church and ARM. The shot of Amy below with arms wide open is shot on the balcony of their office.

Next up was a trip into Kampala for some administrative duties, and lunch, and then we headed out to Buloba. I’m grateful that since this is my second trip the ride and culture shock going into Kampala was basically minimal for me but those who hadn’t been were trying to comprehend what they were seeing, hearing, and smelling. When we arrived in Buloba we had the customary (i.e. extended) greeting and prayer at Buloba church and then we proceeded to visit the well and haul water up from the old well. For those who hadn’t been yet, doing this routine of going to the old well was and will continue to be a very important part of our welcome to Buloba. There just isn’t anything other than the experience of carrying 50 pounds of water 2-ish miles, which can explain why the other well was so important. It was pretty impressive to see Amy carry 50 pounds of water up these hills, but if she can do it I’m not sure who couldn’t.

After that we watched Emile do her water experiments with the local ladies. Through a simple process of making water into a chlorine based water with a solar panel and some salt, she showed the ladies how they could use this water to disinfect various pots and pans, bathrooms (per-sa), and do so in a very simple and inexpensive way. We did spend some time visiting with the children and meeting some of the sponsor kids before heading back to Kampala for dinner, and then here we are.

A quick explanation of some of the photos below. The first shot was for Bart, who seems to have a facination with the roosters here between wanted to eat them and keep them as a pet. That photo is standing at the gate of our guest house looking out to the main road in Gaba. Amy is not actually calling rain to fall in the next shot, she is directing the boys singing hymns about 50 feet below here. The shot of John Dow with the Water Buffalo, steer, cow, thing (it was big and had horns and looked like you could probably eat it) was John saying as we are watching the explanation of the bore well, check this cow out, and the shot of the shot of Emile is her performing the experiment for the ladies.

All in all a fantastic day, and an overwhelmingly exhausting one to boot. If all goes well I will post again this time tomorrow, but power is very limited here it seems, and I may or may not have a battery, time, or the energy, so if not tomorrow, the next day. Thanks for all your prayers. It is greatly appreciated by all the team members.

Posts Related to This Topic:

Over Egypt

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:20:44 +0000

If I timed this right, and that’s a stretch but it should be close, we are flying over Egypt right about now looking out over the Saharah Desert. The shot above is what we should be looking at right this very moment as we cross over from the Mediterranean Sea into the great land of Egypt. No, I don’t have wifi on the airplane unfortunately, I just, for once, planned ahead. I’m not really sure why this point in the trip has significance to me, perhaps because after all this preparation we are finally over the continent of Africa, but if you are looking at the photo above and thinking, there’s nothing there… that’s sorta the point. Nothing, for miles, hundreds of miles, except sand. All I could really think about was how in the world did the Israelites wonder around in the desert for 40 years? No wonder they were ready to kill Moses at that point.

Getting to this point in the trip keeps me thinking about being stuck between two worlds, the western world and all it offers is now so far behind us, yet we sit on a plane, which is basically our own civilization and culture, while we look out over a land that Moses walked across some 4,000 years ago (give or take a few). Another 4-6 hours and we will land in Rwanda, then Uganda, and leave the culture we know and understand behind for the next week or so. From then until we leave we will be known as the Mazunga who came to visit.

I’m a terrible poet, but this view and this flight across the desert, where so many thousands and thousands of people flown before today, deserves to be written about at some point. I know, at least for me, I’m excited that we have finally crossed over into Africa.

Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again… Genesis 46:3.4

I love that God has called out this land from the beginning, and I am now able to see it as none of the Israelites could have ever imagined, from 40,000 feet up in the air. Looking forward to some sleep on the ground in another 6-8 hours or so. Till next time.

Posts Related to This Topic:

We Arrived in Amsterdam or About Halfway to Uganda

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:21:20 +0000

Well, each trip is different, and this one was interesting. Taking off out of Atlanta on such a beautiful night, not a cloud in the sky, flying up the east coast in calm skies was just a relaxing few hours before heading out over the Atlantic and apparently non-stop weather. We came into Amsterdam in the roughest crosswinds and heavy rain, and it was calculated that 22.22% of us lost our lunch on the way down (they didn’t want to name names), and those who didn’t, wanted to, except perhaps Bart who seemed to be bother by nothing. Now we are sitting in Amsterdam at the gate watching a zero visibility ceiling, very heavy rain as it blows sideways across the tarmac. But, we are all in good spirits, ready to be above 25,000 feet where we can see the sun again.

You can prepare and prepare mentally for two 10-12 hour plane flights but I’m not really sure you are ever ready to sit on a plane that long. This is my 3rd visit to Amsterdam, so far, in the last 2-3 months and I’m getting a little tired of seeing the cloudy gray cold rain of this side of Europe, but that’s Europe. It’s not quite the bustling zoo that is Atlanta Hartsfield but they do have a Starbucks and an Airbus inside the airport (though I still haven’t had time to get over to see it yet).

This flight coming up is by far my more desirable flight out of the two. We fly the entire flight during the daylight hours, except for the last leg when we stop in Rwanda, and it’s over what seems like the most remote areas of the world (to me) that includes almost the entire length of Italy, the Mediterranean Sea, into Egypt, and over Sudan.

Posts Related to This Topic:

Our Uganda Team Says Goodbye To the USA for Now

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:38:27 +0000

The day has finally arrived and today as our team heads for the Atlanta airport, and I know we all have prepared and prayed as much as is possible for this moment. In a few hours we will be over the Atlantic, at which time comes my very favorite feeling of all, having no control of driving the bus whatsoever by sitting in a medal tube at 40,000 feet for the next 2 days. Of course I did contemplate with Deborah for a short time about taking a slow boat to Africa but she reminded me we wouldn’t make it back before 2012 was here, so I guess it’s for the best we have planes now, I guess.

In case you missed my last trip from a few months ago (just hit Uganda on my blog and scroll down), we travel from Atlanta to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Rwanda, then on to Uganda (yes, we fly right over Uganda to land in Rwanda), for a total of almost 10,000 miles in just about 36 hours from start to finish. I timed my trip last time from the moment I left my house to the moment I got into the guest house and it was right at 36 hours, which translated into 1 sunrise and 2 sunsets. By the time we landed last time I remember thinking, this has to be Africa, if we traveled any farther we would start to head back home around the other side.

For those few of you who might want to follow a more exact detail of what’s going on as we board and land etc, you can follow my feed on Twitter @scottfillmer or you can friend me on Facebook. For those who are unfamiliar with Twitter, You do NOT have to be a member of Twitter to follow our trip/team on Twitter, it is an open page, just click on my name above and it will give show you the updates (if you want to respond to something on there you do need to join Twitter if you haven’t already). For Facebook of course you will need to be on Facebook. The information and photos I post on Twitter and Facebook are unique to those two media’s so you won’t see those pics on my blog. I will also be able to update both while I’m actually on the ground in Uganda during the day, so if you are so inclined you can read what we are doing over there as well.

For now, I would like you to meet our team. From the photo above (in no particular order here) we have April Olive, Amy Frye, Bart Hyche, Emile Ewing, Jamie Moussirou, John Dow, Lisa Randall, Prabhakar Clement, and me, Scott Fillmer. Please be praying for each of us through the stresses of travel, and being away from our loved ones, that God will give us the strength needed to make a difference in just the way he has called us to do. See you here when we get to Europe if I can.

Know that we all greatly appreciate all your prayers as we leave and while we are over there. For those who have my cell phone number, please feel free to send text message to me while I’m over there, it’s like getting a letter from home, and I can receive unlimited text messages on my phone, just can’t send a large number. I probably will not reply, but I will receive your message.

Posts Related to This Topic:

A Photographic Look at the Faces of Uganda :: Part 2

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:34:55 +0000

This is part two of a post I did last week (part 1) on the faces of Uganda. This set of images was a quick project related to the kids at African Renewal Ministries (ARM), which is the ministry group in charge of the sponsor child program we work with at Cornerstone Church. This is a pretty amazing program for the kids in Uganda and ARM coordinates the sponsorship of over 7,000 children in Uganda right now, along with being a bridge for churches and other non-profit organizations among other things. They are an amazing group, but you can really see the difference they make when you actually go over to Uganda and meet the children in the program in person and see that it really does make a difference to them.

To me, they are in the business of producing fruit… something we all should have on our to-do list as Christians, if I can say that and not make it sound like a checklist. They, and the people who work with them are producing the fruit, described in John 15, for future generations in Uganda. Something not just talked about in John but all over scripture, and to me that’s exciting. Our October mission team leaves in about a week and I can’t wait to get back to see those kids again. Just saying that feels a little weird since I’m not really one for searching out kid-friendly whatever but there is just something about the joy those kids have about life that is contagious, except perhaps when they get caught in the rain, but who likes that.

Posts Related to This Topic:

A Photographic Look at the Faces of Uganda :: Part 1

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:29:11 +0000

Today I finally had a chance to process some more photos from the shoot in Uganda. These were specifically pulled out for the kids, and there were way too many to put into one single post so I broke this up into two pieces. I’m not sure what preconceived stereotypes you have in your head when you think about the phrase “Uganda kid photos”, but what I had in mind was the late night 2am TV commercials guilting you into sending money. That just wasn’t what I saw when I was there, and below is a very small sampling of what I encountered while I was there in August. There is no sugar coating their hardships, and they do exist, but as you are surrounded by people who have basically nothing, according to our western standards, you find they are happy, smiling, laughing, and overall excited to see you.

It was quite inspiring to be around people who seemed to genuinely happy in spite of the adversity they face. There are so many things we (I include me in this) complain about every day that I think some days we just flat out lose our joy for life. Perspective helps, but that too fades with time. Ultimately I pray God will at least change my heart for the things He cares about, like the people in these photos. Only about 10 more days before I head back to Uganda with a completely different group of people, a completely different mission and schedule, but I’m pretty sure all of us have a soft spot in our heart for these smiling faces. In some respects this upcoming trip will be emotionally harder as we are scheduled to be in two different children’s prisons in the middle of the week. I know God will be moving with us and the kids while we are there, but I know the entire team would appreciate your prayers as we get closer to leaving.

Keep an eye out for part two of this post with the remaining five or so photos from this particular batch. Have a great weekend.

Posts Related to This Topic:

Cultural Priorities and the Breakneck Speed of the West

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:32:15 +0000

I love this shot of Jason, Eddie (our driver in Uganda), and myself. If you are holding a machete in the middle of the woods-jungle I think it’s a rule, you have to stop to have a photo taken. Jason and I were attempting to clear a few branches away for a lady who lived on the property and to say thanks she gave Eddie these awesome avocados (you can just see her in the photo in the upper right background). Actually, we both thought it would be really cool to get to use a machete to do some actual real work, and I ended up with the machete and Jason the axe pipe thing (sorry Jason).

I know I have said it before but it still amazes me. The speed and priorities of life in Bulboa where this lady lives is so extremely different from the west, even different from just up the road in Kampala. Life down in Buloba isn’t really run by a clock on a wall like we know it, and no one seems to be in a hurry to do anything, it’s just TIA (this is Africa). I didn’t really hear that said too much while I was over there, but I did hear it a few times, which generally refers to “whenever”. I personally loved that and enjoyed the down time, especially since that pretty much doesn’t exist at all on this side of the world. I fight for it every week but it’s certainly not the norm no matter how hard you try to slow things down. The little wood we chopped up was supposed to last her about a month, although I’m not sure how, the same bit of wood wouldn’t have been enough to start a fire to me. We did spend about an hour or two walking around this neighborhood while others in our group worked on some painting. It was very low key, very laid back, very TIA.

Over here this week life moved along at our normal breakneck speed. Nothing inherently wrong with that but every minute of every day is packed full and it didn’t take me any time at all to fall back into life at hyper-speed where you have to fight for margin. Margin is where life happens, where we meet with God and remember why we do what we do.