Heavy Hearted.

These last two weeks have been so challenging and has really made me grow in more ways than I had originally planned on growing. But that is how God works. Huh? He uses experiences and things that come up in our lives so that we will fully rely on Him in every aspect of our walk. Sometimes we have to endure certain things in order that Christ may be glorified. This week was exactly that.First of all I am going back to the old fashion way and using paper and pen for everything. I have had a glitch in my laptop and it has really been something that I have been struggling with. The not having it. It has become quite frustrating to accomplish the work in which I want to do. I constantly have to remind myself that it is just a thing. It is a thing that people have been working without for many years. But it sure makes the work lighter. My heart was being played with. We went to a place called Banda- right outside of the local university to get my computer “fixed” only to have sat there for 3 ½ hours to have windows 8 cleared of my laptop and no wifi capability left in sight. I sighed. I was ready to freak out. I am so thankful for our sweet team. They have been so helpful and encouraging and offer to let me use their laptops in my laptops absence. This is most likely the reason I have taken long to blog I was letting my heart settle down so it wouldn’t turn into a rant….oops. here we are. Ok. Moving forward. I am trying to think of what I even blogged about last time it is not even near the front of my head by any means…Ah yes the youth. How about we start from there- the youth are incredible and I am so thankful that I have has that opportunity to watch them grow just in these last two months. They have been so encouraging and I am grateful to be so close to them even with some of their ages, it is really like seeing good friends I always tell people when I have to wait a week in between to see them that it is like seeing one of your best friends and when we arrive in Zirobwe on Sundays I always go looking for them. This last week I had the privledge to share with the youth bible study. I shared about being the salt and light to the world. How it related to evangelism. And how it should look in our daily lives. We are so excited to see how God is going to use the youth- it is so beyond anything I could have ever imagined. We are still planning and inviting guest speakers and the like to be a part of our youth conference. (If you attend CRCC- I know you already know this and that you are praying for me because when my dad was on the stage on Sunday I was sitting in the front row on my sisters phone watching my dad talk about me and eating mango ice cream on the couch in the living room. Technology is so cool.) We know that everything that goes into planning this event will fall into place and we are hopeful for a big turn up! Last Sunday we picked a leadership team among the youth: Alex is the leader, Frank is the assistant, and Mastulah is our communications. We had all of the youth vote for our leadership team and the new spent time in prayer and just asking the Lord to lead these youth to exactly where we are supposed to be. Tonny, oh Tonny. My sweet boy. I am so thankful for this kid and wish you could all meet him. I feel like I have connected with him so well and he is really one of my great friends. Seriously don’t know what I would do without him. Tonny is 16 yrs. old. Earlier this summer he was diagnosed with lymphoid cancer- stage four. After his first round of chemo he got to come back to the EAC compound and he was doing well. He was able to walk about the compound, drink juice, make jokes, and just have regular conversation with you. After some time he would get a headache and make his way back to his room. I was determined to make him smile and get him anything he needed. We have pasta in the evenings for dinner and he is not supposed to eat it because it doesn’t mis well with his meds. So whenever it would be on the menu I would go get him whatever he wanted. Most of the time he just wanted local food. So Edgar and I would walk to the ghetto in the dark and get him some real food. There was one time we went after it had rained all day and it was so slippery but all three of us had gone. There is a trench that separates the ghetto to the main road (that is all muddy and slippery) and we had to jump across in the dark that I couldn’t already see I think I stood there for a solid three minutes before I took the leap of faith never have I ever seen Tonny laugh that hard. I thought he might break a bone because he has lost so much weight through this process that he seems so weak. It just makes me more passionate about going to see him and making sure that he is ok and purposing to go see him and make sure he is doing alright and just watching his face light up. He has such a great smile and when he is happy everyone in the room is happy. I know the Lord is going to do great things with this young man and this is only the beginning of his testimony. Anyway last week he headed back to the Mulago cancer institute so he can start his second round of chemo which is supposedly more intense. He has no appetite and is not able to  keep any food down. I asked him if it would be alright if I visited him and he was quick to assure me that I was most welcome. I asked him what I could bring for him and he said Lucozade (it is like a juice energy drink). Saturday we hooked him up with all the juice he could want, along with some potato chips, and candy. I also brought him a spiral notebook with a letter in it and asked him to be writing to me while he is there, I wrote some of my favourite bible verses in there and encouraged him to be reading it. If you would like to write to Tonny some sort of encouragement please email it to me shannengrace26@gmail.com and I will print it out along with a picture of you so that he can be blessed!! He would absolutely love that! At the moment he is struggling to even speak sometimes. Some days are good- and others are really hard for him. BUT to be honest I rarely even notice I am to thankful to see him breathing another breath and seeing him just be totally in love with Christ even through all the hardiships he is enduring. I don’t know why God is allowing this in Tonnys life but I do know that God has a master planned that is grander than anything that I could even imagine. I know that he is still good even through this.There is so much going on right now and I wish I had more time to write. It has been such an incredible blessing to be back, things are moving so fast.I just added another button onto my blog for one time donations which will go towards flights, bibles, hospital visits, among other things. If you are wanting to donate a one time gift of any size that will be such a blessing! Thank you so much for considering me. I am still short a couple of monthly sponsors. If this sounds interesting to you there is a link at the top of my blog on the right hand side! A gift of any size will help. Thank you so much.