Finally... I see Adrine!

I made it to Kamwenge to see Adrine yesterday. I was overwhelmed with emotion when I arrived in her village. When I met her a year ago she had a grim future ahead due to a disease called obstetric fistula. Adrine lost her child, her husband and then was left with infection seeping from her body and stayed confined to her home due to the condition she was in. She had no money for treatment or any means of getting better, only getting worse, she became isolated, was living in extreme poverty, and had no hope. Her community had outcast her and she felt all alone. That is when we found Adrine, last year. Since then, she has had surgery, become sponsored and in now living a life that she never would’ve imagined. The emotion I felt as I approached her village was relief and familiarity.

I can relate to Adrine in a way. I know what it feels like to feel alone and unloved…unconditionally. Our situations are different but the need for love is a universal need that none are immune from. This last year has been quite an interesting one, to say the least, but it has also been a life changing one for me. I was engaged last November and I can honestly say that I had never felt more loved in my life. I thought that the love that I had been looking for my whole life I had finally found… until he left. This was not an unfamiliar pattern in my life. While the pain of him leaving was there, there was also this certainty that I was not alone, not this time. Last year while I was here in Uganda I begged God to make His love for me real to me. I was tired of looking for love in all the wrong places and always feeling so unfulfilled and empty. God made good on His promise to me. I have never felt more loved by my Savior than I do today. Its not that he didn’t love me before, its just the His timing is perfect. My life has changed in ways that I can not explain this last year. I now know that I am loved unconditionally and that love has changed my life. I wanted Adrine to feel that love. I think a woman’s biggest fear is that she is alone and I want her to know that she is never alone and she certainly is not forgotten. I am attaching some pictures of gifts being exchanged between us. You have to understand that the last thing that any person living here in Africa expects is someone from America to travel 10,000 miles to visit them and bring them gifts or send them money every month. I hope this was a mission accomplished!