Maggie's August Blog

Grab a Kleenex. This may be a difficult blog to read. Uganda is a country of contrast. A country overflowing with natural resources and abject poverty. A predominately Christian country that actively practices witchcraft. Uganda has beautiful, welcoming and wonderful people, riddled with rampant corruption. Uganda is a country full of love and betrayal, hope and despair, life and death. It is a joyful country and at the same time a traumatized country with dark secrets that are passed on from

The rains have returned as AHI, with Cornerstone Development Africa, enters its’ 12th year of serving in Uganda, East Africa. Located in the bush of the central region, AHI is a refuge in one ofthe least educated and least developed areas of Uganda. As a discipleship and vocational training program AHI is also a destination for mission teams to work amongst rural isolated villages. Having two very separate people groups to serve: unemployed African youth and mission teams visiting from all over

Men shout, shake their ebony fists, shout more, storm off sweating and exhausted, only to return shouting louder. I found myself often in the middle of this angry mass, a tinderbox ready to explode. Land disputes are common in Uganda. Our ministries are enmeshed in one now. Villagers have lost land to these land grabbers as well. The villagers worry that our ministries will be shoved off land – exposing their children to more suffering. Every meeting, someone comes to get me; to make sure I am

“A Protestant minister named Charlie Andrews comes to join Gandhi. The two men are walking down a city street when three teenagers emerge from an alley, carrying rocks, calling names and threatening violence. Charlie pauses and suggests the he and Gandhi take a different route. Instead, Gandhi moves forward and beckons Charlie to come along. As they walk. Gandhi notes that Jesus taught that if an enemy strikes a blow on one cheek, you are to turn the other. The danger grows with each forward

African Hospitality Institute is a storytelling community. As we share our stories, we learn that God allows the first part of our story to be written through the choices of our ancestors. Some of us have been blessed with a Godly heritage – generations of decisions to follow God. Others have suffered from generational sins that have wounded and destroyed. Yet for each of us, there is a point where God invites us to co-author the rest of our story – we must choose how we will respond to the

There hasn’t been much time for ‘Porch Ponderings’ – it’s been wildly busy with one large team after another – staff and students have worked for weeks without days off; up at 4 AM to bake bread and muffins and falling into bed around 11PM after full days of cooking and cleaning. These are the months we give the students a taste of what working in the hospitality business is like year-round. These are days of the great exams; faced with multiple groups, followed by a group of 38 on retreat for

CHANGE. – It’s a word I fear. It’s a word I yearn for. I am learning much about resting in the mystery of God. I am learning about my need for self-care, compassion as well as unconditional acceptance of myself and others. I am learning about saying “Yes to life from the belly of sorrow”. At this season of my life I stand at a ‘Threshold’. Thresholds require a ‘crossing over’ into the unknown; demanding vulnerability, surrender and an ‘opening to receive new life’. As I live a mindful and

In March, we took our students on a Field Trip to the Silver Springs Hotel. Many of our students had never been to Kampala before. No one had ever entered a Western Hotel before. We were given tours of all the departments in the hotel and then had lunch in their dining room. The students were studying the napkin design; which the manager thought we didn’t know how to do – so at the end of the meal each student left at his chair a beautiful and complicated napkin design to prove that they are

Living in the remote bush of Africa without daily news, radio, internet has made me an observer of world affairs. The lack of current news creates detachment from world events and keeps me focused on my community. When people come to the ranch, I see the polarization of politics through our visitors’ eyes and emotions. It will be interesting to see how history writes itself of our current times. As a student of history with many historical events playing out in my own life, I keep learning to