The Super Bowl: America’s Most Faithful Gathering

 

Football season is wrapping up with the grand finale this Sunday, and Seattle is buzzing. Our very own Seahawks are heading to the Super Bowl to face the New England Patriots on February 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Super Bowl Sunday is basically a national holiday here. Over 100 million people tune in every year. It’s the second-largest food consumption day after Thanksgiving. And Americans will wager more than $15 million on a single game which is wild, considering I still can’t figure out why they stop the clock every 12 seconds.

But I’ve learned this:
The Super Bowl is less about football and more about community

People gather with friends, wear their team jerseys, and serve food that should come with a warning label. Even the commercials get their own fan base. It’s a whole cultural moment.

Meanwhile, as an immigrant…

Football, real football is soccer. I have tried, truly tried, to understand this American version but between the helmets, the tackling, and the endless timeouts, I remain a respectful outsider.

Still, I admire the passion.

During my brief spell in Boston, Fridays at work looked like a uniform inspection. Everyone even the people who normally avoided eye contact suddenly became friendly. A simple “Go Pats!” could thaw the iciest coworker. It was like watching community form in real time.

Then I moved to Seattle in 2015, and it was déjà vu. On Sundays, the whole city was dressed in blue and green. Church services felt… expedited. People were ready to sprint to their TVs. I kept seeing jerseys with the number 12 and wondered if everyone had accidentally bought the same one. Turns out the fans are the “12th player.” I think this is genuinely sweet.

My ongoing confusion (and reluctant fandom)

Over the years, coworkers have huddled during football season, passionately explaining plays I still don’t understand. The game feels rough, long, and slightly chaotic to me. I’ve never attended a Super Bowl party and now that I think about it, I’ve also never been invited to one. But that’s a different story!

Still, in the spirit of the place that has become home, I own some Seahawks gear. I love the way this game brings people together, how loyalty survives both heartbreak and victory, and how a city can move in unison for something bigger than itself.

So even though I won’t be watching the game, I’ll be cheering on and for the love of dear Washington state with all limbs crossed hoping the Seahawks bring the trophy home.

A Sojourner’s Reflection

Moments like this remind me why I wrote my debut book Sojourning in America. I may not fully understand the game, but I understand belonging. I understand watching a community rally around something they love. I understand the beauty of being shaped by a place even when you still feel like you’re learning its language.

And maybe that’s the real Super Bowl story for me not the touchdowns, but the togetherness.

Sister Wives, Social Media, and the Sovereignty of God

 

Every once in a while, as you wander through the streets of social media, you stumble upon a meme that either makes you laugh out loud, shake your head in disbelief, or sit there completely shook.

Today I found one of those. My first reaction was laughter, the kind that comes from recognizing the strange paradoxes of life.

The meme joked about the night Jacob spent with Leah, thinking she was Rachel. One person blamed Jacob (“Men are wicked!”), and another replied, “Fear women,” as if Leah had masterminded the whole thing. The absurdity made me laugh, but it also made me pause.

Because if you’ve read the story, you know the real architect of that chaos wasn’t Jacob or Leah, it was Laban.

And as I sat with it, I felt that familiar tug: everything in Scripture is there for a reason, and usually for a lesson. So, I let my mind wander into that ancient household to see what it might teach us in our 21st‑century lives.

Deception Complicates Everything

Laban’s lie set off a chain reaction of hurt, rivalry, and years of unrequited longing. His deception was rooted in cultural pressure, greed, and the desire to appease people, not so different from the curated performances we see on social media today.

A “small” lie can grow legs.
A “white lie” can reshape someone’s entire story.
And sometimes the people who suffer most aren’t the ones who lied.

Love Isn’t Always Instant, Sometimes It’s Learned

Jacob loved Rachel from the start. Leah, on the other hand, lived in the shadow of comparison. Yet over time, Jacob learned to appreciate her. Together they had ten of the twelve sons who became the tribes of Israel.

That doesn’t erase the pain, but it reminds me that love, healing, and acceptance often require effort, patience, and time. Life rarely gives us perfect beginnings, but grace can rewrite the middle.

God’s Plan Still Unfolds Through Imperfect People

Despite the deception, jealousy, favoritism, and heartbreak, God still fulfilled His promise to Abraham. The twelve tribes came from this messy, complicated family.

It’s a reminder that God’s sovereignty isn’t threatened by human mistakes.
Our circumstances don’t cancel His plan.
Our detours don’t derail His purpose.

 My Own Quiet Bearing

As life unfolds for me, I’ve known betrayal, dishonesty, loneliness, and the ache of distance. I’ve also known deep love, joy, and the kind of connection that doesn’t require explanation.

The hard moments feel sharper because of the miles between me and the people who “get” me without effort. From the outside, someone might ask, Why stay far from home when you could live close to those who love you?

I don’t have a perfect answer.
Life isn’t always simple.
And sometimes obedience (LOL in my case the need to survive) looks like wandering.

This is the heart of Sojourning in America, learning to carry both the beauty and the ache of living between worlds. Like Leah, like Jacob, like Rachel, I’m navigating imperfect circumstances, unexpected turns, and the quiet work of trusting God’s higher plan.

I’m learning that bearing life quietly doesn’t mean bearing it alone.
It means trusting that even in the mess, God is weaving something purposeful.
It means believing that distance, disappointment, and detours can still lead to destiny.

And it means remembering that the God who brought order out of Jacob’s household can bring clarity, peace, and direction to mine.

When the Internet Goes Silent: A Wanderer’s Morning in America

 I don’t know how people lived before mobile phones. It’s embarrassing to admit, but when mine isn’t with me, I feel like something essential is missing. It’s not just a device for calls anymore; it’s my journal, my news source, my Bible, my music, my entertainment, my little portal to the world I love but no longer live in.

Because I know this attachment isn’t entirely healthy, I’ve spent years pruning the things that keep me glued to the screen. Some social media apps had to go. I didn’t like the version of myself that reached for the phone before my eyelids were fully open.

These days, my mornings look different. I silence the alarm, whisper a small selah of gratitude to God, and sit quietly with my thoughts before the rhythm of work begins. Working from home gives me that luxury or temptation, depending on the day. And because I’m not a morning person, breakfast rarely happens before noon. The term brunch was probably coined for people like me.

But this isn’t a food post. It’s about my love‑hate relationship with the phone and how that relationship was tested today.

Every night, I put my phone on airplane mode. With loved ones scattered across time zones, it’s the only way to sleep without being startled awake. So, each morning, once I confirm nothing urgent is happening at work, I switch it back on and scan through WhatsApp. That app is a lifeline for those of us whose families live oceans away. Without it, staying connected would not only be inconsistent but cost an arm and a leg.

This morning, January 13th, the messages from my people in the pearl of Africa were to the tune of   “Keep safe.” “See you soon.” “Pray for us.” Short, urgent, unfinished sentences like people were speaking from the edge of something.

Uganda is heading into national elections on January 15th. And in the name of “free and fair elections,” the government shut down the internet. I’m not here to write a political analysis; this is still a phone post but the impact was immediate. By the time I read the messages at 7:20 a.m. PST, it was already evening in Uganda. All the messages I sent back were single ticked, they had crossed back to analog before I could respond.

The silence felt eerie. Not because of what might unfold in the coming days, but because of the sudden, heavy aloneness. Not lonely but alone. A word that doesn’t quite capture the feeling of being cut off from the people who make you feel tethered to the world.

I’m not on the phone with my loved ones all day. But knowing I can reach them matters. Knowing I can laugh with them, hear their voices, catch the small jokes and daily chaos that matters too. When the internet went off the silence was so loud, the suddenly the distance seems wider. The miles feel heavier.

And this, I suppose, is part of my ongoing journey, my sojourning in America. Living here while my heart beats in two places. Learning how fragile connection can be, learning to trust the process in the places I cannot control learning that even when the lines go quiet, God is not quiet. And neither is hope.

I don’t know if the living between worlds ever stops, the distance on days like this is even more real, but so is the grace that carries me through it.

 PS

Woke up to Uganda’s internet shut off and felt the weight of distance in a new way.