We’ve been in the city since Saturday evening; feeling the highs and lows of enjoying the good life while realizing that it’s not all you imagine it to be while you’re in the jungle. Saddest of all, for me, is the lack of good internet connection this time round - one of my top reasons for coming to Kampala is to research things long overdue (by internet), download new songs, and get online chats with friends . . . .I’m frustrated that none of that has been able to happen.
But in the meantime we have been enjoying great food; Chinese and Lebanese, for example. And David has begun the endless errands of Kampala. Making relationships at the Ministry of Education has been particularly important, though replacing shredded tires and buying groceries are high up there too! Naomi got her chipped tooth fixed, beautifully, by a Canadian dentist that has been in Uganda since before I was born. God provides amazingly. I will post pictures of her new face; she is so happy, the big gap in her mouth was really bothering her.
I am also doing a lot of reading and thinking. I just finished the book on contemplative ministry by Mark Yaconelli and wonder ” how can we apply that here?” Things always look simple in theory but complicated in application, especially against cultural norms. I am also reading several books about feminism, women, and the failures of the church. All of this is simmering around as I contemplate how to encourage our Ugandan women and girls through the muck and mire of valuing themselves, seeing God’s value for them, and living with unfair assessments and treatments by the men and often the churches, around them.

The highlight of my time here has been a wonderful conversation with my good friend, Dana, catching up on the news of her three little ones and sharing my own life. We just passed the two year anniversary of our entrance to missionary life, to Ugandan life. I realize that in some ways I feel ready to be done, instead of to be just beginning. I am sad how much of my relationships at home I am missing. Sad that two of my best friends babies are growing fast without my hugs. Sad that I am not there to see the gestation of my longest friend, to see her glow, in person. And aware that I am not cultivating these friendships well, that I am having trouble loving people well across the miles and that perhaps I risk losing some of what I hold most dear because of my life here.

And even here, relationships are hard in these conditions, as they are hard, always! Pray particularly this week for David and I to love each other well despite all the stresses. Pray for good times of talking and hearing each other, of truly being present to our children, of loving into our extended family and friends who are so sorely neglected by us. Most of all, of course, that we would be available to our Lover who longs to meet with us and to heal and help our hearts.

Scott and Jennifer toasted us last week; here’s to the survival of your first term leading CSB alone. More than that, here’s to the survival of a crazy term 2 - the term which seems to have a habit of bringing violence at schools. We said a hearty, Amen.
In Term 1 (January to April) we, as a school, are all getting settled. It’s a new year with new classes and teachers and students are finding their pace, figuring out their schedules, making new friends and reacquainting with the old. Term 1 is also football season and the weekends are full of spectating and cheering and generally letting off steam. In term 3 (September to December) everyone is buckling down to serious study, disciplining themselves for those fearful and all-important end of year exams. Term 3 is short because of the national exams, and carries huge academic weight in students minds; it’s the cramming term.

But term 2 (May to August) . . . . It’s a term for discontent and distraction and disturbance. Students realizing all they lack and teachers realizing how ill-equipped we are to meet all the needs. Students need families - and families are absent and often ineffective. Students are teenagers craving relationship and the release of their hormonal urges; yet sexuality is rife with danger. They crave movement, action and the pushing of new ideas but they are within fences, held by class schedules and curfews and the restrictions of meal lines for every bite to eat. It’s a hard life for kids; and it’s hard for us staff, too. Boarding school doesn’t seem a natural environment for growing up. And Uganda doesn’t encourage exploration or independence or the valuing of uniqueness or new ideas or rebellion; all natural phases of growing up.

Of course we know why they’re here; here in this unnatural boarding school environment. They’re here to learn enough to pass national exams and have a hope of higher education. They’re here to learn that Jesus loves them and that He invites them into His family. They’re here to gain weight and increase hemoglobin through good feeding. They’re here to learn to speak and read fluent English. They’re here to learn to gain through service and to bring the Kingdom to others. They’re here to play sports and discover how amazingly their bodies can work. But it’s a challenge; for them, and for us.

So, last Friday students packed up and headed home. We were woken by happy singing in the morning, the singing of kids who are leaving school. Sort of disappointing to realize how happy they are to be going home, but also a dose of reality. School life, no matter how well-intentioned, does not replace family, community and freedom - no matter how lacking those things are for these kids.

Campus is empty now, except for our staff who are furiously marking papers and entering grades for report cards. Everyone is dressed in smart casual clothing and radios blare in the staff room - we are relaxed without the kids around. I commented to David how running a school feels almost ideal without students to worry about!!! David and I are trying to dig into the big picture, talks with staff and starting more projects. Thinking about things that daily life is often too busy for.

Next week we take off for a working week in Kampala; doing errands, using internet to explore new options for home and work and generally having a restful, caring environment to brainstorm and plan. Meanwhile 1/4 of our student body will come back on Monday to begin the Candidates Camp - three weeks of intensive study for those students who will sit for their national exams. One thing has ended, the next will quickly begin. I like the cycle but I crave balance in our family and home life and ministry life. We’d appreciate your prayers that we’d love each other well, that our kids would feel their value despite busyiness and that we would pull CSB staff together as a team; all the while taking care of the mundane and extraordinary daily details. It feels like a lot to juggle. So perhaps God has new things to show us, new ways to let go and let Him or to relax our standards for ourselves or others. Pray that we would give Him the time to speak and ourselves the time to listen.

I’m reading Contemplative Youth Ministry and thinking deeply about what it means to love the kids in our school, to love people . . . And to be loved. Unavoidably, inescapably, these thoughts bring us back to experiencing the love and presence of God. We can’t help others to experience Him if we ourselves aren’t touched by His presence.

I’ve been thinking about this within the context of marriage. Since I am reading through Captivating with my book study group, I have noticing the universality of a woman’s desire to be pursued, noticed, desired, CONSIDERED. That last word is one I had not thought much of before. It’s true though, we want to be considered. We want to be noticed and to be noticed with thoughtful regard. Perhaps this is really true of all people, but women’s needs are more acutely felt and expressed in this regard. I know I need that and a lack of consideration is an easy way for me to felt hurt, unknown and unloved.

One practice Contemplative Ministry discusses is the Lectio Divina - an ancient practice of meditation and reflection using Biblical words as a starting point. The other day I began my morning by using Psalm 90 for the lectio - I have been finding it difficult to wake early these mornings and often don’t get time alone with God, yet I am clearly thirsting for him, I need His presence and His comfort. Lectio is so simple as it requires reading a short passage three times and then waiting for God to reveal personal truth from the passage. It is not study or exegesis or passionate prayer, it is a showing up.

The verse God showed me from Psalm 90 was this, as read in the The Message: “awaken me with your love in the morning, then I will sing and dance all day long.” I felt God was calling me to time with him, calling me to awake each morning, to spend time in his presence, to reap the joy of being close with him. He was asking me to consider Him, much like women world-round call for their husbands to consider them. Today I read another quote, “God is right there, it is YOU who have gone for a long walk.” And Psalm 22 says (in the Message) “He has never wandered off to do his own thing; He has been right there, listening.”

While I wish that God was more connected with me, that He spoke more quickly and clearly to my heart, that we were working more hand-in-hand; God is asking me to spend time with him, to acknowledge and enjoy His presence, to consider him. He doesn’t ask out of an incompleteness in Himself, yet somehow He is completed by relationship, something like we are. I wish for God not to be distant, and He wishes that I would make time to hear His heart and to pour out mine. Sounds a lot like the universal withes of women within marriage!

My heart is thirsty yet I drink from cracked cisterns, from pots whose water is ever-flowing away. God calls me to drink His water of life and I complain that I can’t hear him, can’t see him, don’t know how to find him. Just show up, He asks, much like I ask my husband to sit and talk with me. Wait in my presence, enjoy just being with me, then My heart will become clear and we will walk hand in hand, He says.

And what joy that will be - the slaking of a deep, dry thirst.

Adoption has been a life-long dream. And since Naomi was an infant in my arms I have had the distinct understanding that someday I will adopt two dark skinned children, that their lives and ours are inextricably linked. That I am waiting to step into this destiny. I have been sure for the last eight years that those two children will come to me; that they were designed from before the beginning of time to be carried in the womb of one mother and walked through much of life by another. Someday, I believe, I will receive into my arms the treasures of a woman’s heart, her very lifeblood in the form of two small and fearful children. And for the rest of time, they will carry my heart around in their growing bodies, opening me to new fears and joys, pain and delight. Giving me more heartache and happiness than I dare to imagine.

Over the last few weeks I have had a growing sense that my children are coming “soon.” Soon is a relative term when you have been waiting eight years. I would need sure signs from God to bring new children into our family during this time of transition and instability. I would need permission from our mission agency too. All I know though, is that none of this is mine to fix or figure or find solutions to. He brought us here to Christ School as part of our journey, if His plans for us include two adopted children, He will bring them to us and work out the details too. The journey can include whatever He wants it to. New adopted children may give us longevity here or a shortened stay. If it’s part of the journey He’s called us to; it’s all good.

It’s the oddest sense, though, to be cleaning and sorting a room and to suddenly know that you’re preparing for THEM. To suddenly be surprised by the realization that it seems He may be preparing our home for new little ones. Reading this week through a book about international cultures of childrearing, about parenting around the world, I found a beautiful quote that only increased my longing for these someday-maybe-if-He-wishes children of my heart:

Did they say you were born during hard times? When there was famine drought war disease?
When they had no wealth, no food, no medicines? Did they say you arrived during good times? In a world of calm and abundance? Did they protect you? Abandon you? Embrace you? Neglect you? Cherish you beyond measure?
I hope someday to cherish beyond measure not only my current two amazing children, but two more. Would you pray with us for God’s leading and for our heart-children to find their way home in His perfect timing.

Hospitals take away much of our identity, some of our dignity, some of our humanity. Last year I submitted to a six hour surgery on my thyroid and tongue, removing tissue, cysts, bone and cartilage . . . Removing something that had never formed quite right in-utero, something that had given me ten years of difficult health.

Walking into the hospital that morning, stomach empty, I remember having the rest of my identity emptied too. Wear this gown, they said, put your clothes and shoes into this locker. Take out your earrings and take off your rings, send them with your husband. Lay on this gurney amidst a sea of other pre-surgery faces. Your husband can’t come any farther now. And so I journied forward, without a clue of myself, not a shred of my own clothing, nor an id, and trusted myself into the hands of masked and robed strangers who told me I would be okay. A cold room filled with cold and serious hands, a warm blanket given with compassion. A large needle in the arm and a few moments of sleepy fearfulness, then nothing.

I awake to the sound of hoarse animal crying, to an insistent beeping and bright, bright lights. I struggle and meet the resistance of endless lines wrapping this way and that around my body. Six hands push me back towards the bed, soft voices quiet me. It is then that I realize that the animal sound is mine own, the pain is my own; I can not move, I hurt and I am afraid. I am not free to pee or cough or speak. No words can come, only the hoarse cry. I know no one around me, for the masked and gowned are a different set than those who prepared me. Yet I somehow feel less afraid when I realize that three nurses are watching me. Maybe I am sicker than I realized; why are so many with me? But they give me peace.

Over the next day I navigate relatively quickly to an improvement in health and independence. I walk, supported, to the bathroom within a few hours though I nearly fall and am supported by the kind hands of one of my helpers as I complete the most ordinary and personal of tasks. I learn that they have removed something that they did not recognize but worry may be an essential calcium-regulating node. They are watching to see if I will plummet, if I will need calcium regulation multiple times a day for the rest of my life.

Since the back of my tongue has been cut out and the remainder reattached, it hurts to swallow, to breath, to try to talk, to cry. Drugs from the anesthesia have hit me hard anyway and I sleep and sleep and sleep. David appears shortly at my bedside and I hardly seem to care. I care about drugs that ease the pain in my throat and mouth, I care about soft hands that turn my body and readjust my wires, I care about the smooth straw in my mouth delivering heavenly cold liquid into the fire in my throat.

I woke up today remembering this helplessness. Remembering that I didn’t have a voice to speak my pain or my thoughts. Remembering how hard it was over the next few weeks to think about typing anything to express it either. I was able to move into and out of that experience with a fearful, quiet, confidence because I was convinced that God had planned it, had found my surgeon and led me to him, had given me this chance. I trusted that His plans were good and I was not disappointed. My surgeon wrote to me this week and I was reminded of the miracle that God did through him. Sheer miracle. The best thyroid surgeon in the Navy, the very man who would operate on the president himself, should he need this surgery. God provided him for me and gave me a chance to share God’s heart for him, too. The day I met him he briefly introduced himself, suggested that he do my surgery in the next two days (despite normal delays of one or two months), then sprayed a numbing spray in the back of my mouth and inserted a wide and long tube down my throat to look at my internal neck structures. It’s hard to swallow when the back of your throat is paralyzed; I was afraid but I trusted him, I trusted the One who had led me to him. I felt alone but I knew my very being there was a sign that I was so not alone, He was with me.

We are journiers . . . .we work so hard to maintain control, to limit pain of heart and body, to stay where we feel called to be, to help. We feel competent, we work hard, we improve ourselves and deal with our issues, we try to parent better than we were parented and to carry on relationships that don’t contain the same traps that our friends’ relationships do.

It’s an illusion. A thrashing, crying body clothed in hospital blue surrounded not by those we know and love and trust but by others who are equipped to help us. I am not competent here, not working through anything but my own pain. He’s the one who’s holding me, who has surrounded me with pain experts and readers of noisy machines. He’s the one who gives me pureed food to eat and allows me to enjoy nothing better than the feeling of softness in my throat. I am a journier; afraid to lose control, afraid to not have the answers. But sometimes it’s in being flawed, in needing help, that we will finally find His comfort. Cry out, for your God hears you. He will respond, He will answer, and do great and marvelous things which we can not understand. Cry out for your Redeemer hears you; He will redeem you, He will buy you back. He will hear your heart’s cry and He will answer. He will show you your worth and the limitlessness of value. He will comfort you with his tender voice and soothing hands . . . He will give you Peace.

Mondays have become one of the hardest and most rewarding days of my week. A full morning of staff meetings, a full afternoon of kids at the house and an evening dinner and book study with the female staff. I usually start Monday feeling excited, hit exhaustion and stress around six pm and then rejuvenate as I enjoy yummy dinner and great conversations with fellow women. I never knew I would find real friendships here, but they’re beginning.

We’re studying John and Stasi Eldridge’s book, Captivating. Subtitled “unveiling the mystery of a woman’s soul”, Captivating is a an amazing journey into the pain of women’s hearts and out into a walk based on redemption, grounded in healing. We are wounded people trying to heal ourselves in the most unhealthy of ways. Understanding our wounds, bringing our hearts to Jesus and being mindful of the pain and accepting the sadness can lead to true and lasting heart-health.

Last week the chapter talked about the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding so I invited all the women over on Saturday night to watch the movie with me, a real classic. It was a great look not only at how love brings out our beauty but also at cultural issues. Then, following our usual weekly routine of international meals (Italian pasta, American pot pie, Mexican tacos) last night we ate Greek food as a tribute to our movie experience. As usual God intervened to multiply my food and give me unusual creativity and resourcefulness so that an abundant and delicious meal came out of my meager resources. We ate home made pita bread (it’s easy!!) wrapped around chicken and veggies for gyros. Homemade yogurt went into the tzizdaki (sp ?) sauce which was also easy to prepare and delicious. We topped the meal off with a Greek salad but I didn’t get baklava made (no pistachios)!

Sitting and enjoying the dinner by candlelight last night I was so thankful for all the ways God enters my heart, my home and my fellowship times to bless, to pour out Himself to me and others. And a few minutes later as we talked about what it means to unveil the beauty of our souls as women, as we talked about vulnerability, about choosing to live rather than hide, about ceasing striving and embracing who He made us to be . . . I came very close to breaking into tears. Sometimes when these women talk the Holy Spirit comes so close to us that it is all I can do not break into tears of joy-pain.
Captivating reads:
” A woman of true beauty offers others the grace to be and the room to become.”

We unveil our beauty as we rest in who He made us to be and delight in sharing our true selves with others. This is a soul-ish beauty. Our unveiling of ourselves invites. Last night one of the women read a passage from the chapter and thanked me for unveiling myself enough to invite them in to my life and my home. And last night they also thanked me by unveiling some of themselves . . . In their unveiling I glimpsed more of their beauty and so it I who was blessed.

I cried this week when I opened our monthly donations statement from the mission, outlining the gifts given to Christ School in the last month. Several people had made large one time gifts, others had begun generous monthly giving amounts. It was an amazing answer to a daring prayer of faith: ” God provide for this school.” The prayer hasn’t ended yet, we are only at 50% of what we need each month for the school and we are desperate for more funding to keep our school running well. Still, 50% is amazing progress against the harsh realities of money amidst what is meant to be an eternally centered life. God showed us this month that he is at work in hearts and lives and that we can continue to trustingly ask Him to provide. I needed that, God knows I did.

I am currently reading a Scotty Smith book, Reign of Grace. In it he has a chapter titled Romantic Generosity which holds this quote: ” Giving isn’t the primary measure of our generosity, rather it a symbol of our joyful surrender to a lifestyle of stewardship, and a refusal to be seduced by the illusion of ownership.” I LOVE that, a refusal to be seduced by the illusion of ownership. Jesus owns me, but I have no need to own anything. I belong to the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills, He has enough to cover my needs.

When we left the States we got rid of almost all our possessions. One of the most striking things God did during that time was to softly and surely ask us to sell our home to friends at half of it’s value. We did it with very little thought, only the surety that He wanted them to have it and that what He provides will be enough for us. As if in response, we raised our one time needs and monthly needs for our personal support in record-breaking fashion - people giving quickly and generously, our not lacking a thing.

But some days I have wondered . . . . if we had sold that house for it’s true value, think of what that money could have done at Christ School? I have thought that perhaps that money could have been wisely spent to shore up our financial situation at the school, to provide for expansions. I have briefly and hesitantly questioned God’s calling on my heart in that situation - God did you REALLY know what you were doing? Yet I know that when I think that way I am thinking with the wisdom of the world; which says THAT much money can equal THIS much gain. God thinks bigger than that, his economy is about far more than finances. I know His plan is good even though I groan while waiting for the most needful of money for our project here.

I don’t want to be seduced by the illusion of ownership. I want to be owned by Jesus. I live in a house owned by the mission, drive a car owned by the mission, and accumulate some possessions, most of which will have to be given away when we someday leave this place, it’s not easy to transport things across continents. But I truly feel rich. We were asked last night by a friend, a short term missionary here, how we think we will live when we someday return to America. All we know is that we want not to be seduced by the illusion of ownership. We want to be rich in what we give away, rich in what we do not have. It’s amazingly freeing to be dependent on Him.

And we get to experience a little bit of God’s side of a love-drive economy. As people give generously and sacrificially of their resources to us here, we get to see how God uses that money in simple and practical ways and in stunning and surprising ways. We get to see money being used to buy real food for real stomachs that have often been hungry. And we get to see money used to provide class trips that open doors to visions and dreams that our students have never known to imagine. Most of all we are aware that the money you spend here does eternal work, impacts hearts, changes lives and directs destiny. Pretty amazing stuff.

I stumbled across a mirror this morning; the kind you find in Kampala stores. Thin, cheap, with a plastic frame and a particle board backing. Nevertheless I put it in Naomi’s room. Placed it carefully on her small desk and shelves - in a place of honor, a place where it must receive much use. I think a mirror is perhaps one of our best tools in growing . . . . .

When I was young my mother gave me a mirror. It belonged to her Gramma Alison, I believe. Small and rectangular - it had perfect mitered mirror corners within a notched and carved wood frame. Simple and elegant, the mirror had a slight waviness that evoked an aged beauty. It was one of a few treasured items that my mom passed on to me from her family. Each of these items carried for me, immense mystery and wonder. They were old, handled by people I had never met yet whose blood I carried within my veins.

I used to watch myself in that mirror for long minutes, many times a day. When I was very young I thought deep thoughts beyond my countenance. As I grew older I self-analyzed my looks and person inside and out. I criticized and judged myself relentlessly. It was looking in that mirror that I was most acutely aware of being alone within myself. Aware of my uniqueness, body, soul and spirit different from every other individual in the universe. I wondered what it might be like to know me, if I wasn’t myself.

The other day Naomi was smoothing back her hair and trying out a new bun. Spontaneously I blurted out for the millionth time in her young life, ” you’re SO beautiful.” Her response was equally spontaneous and vulnerable and captured me with the essence of our hearts; “mom, you know you and dad are the only people who say that to me.” So matter of fact was her statement, yet I can see where that thought goes. I too remember noticing as I grew that my mother was the one who told me daily how beautiful I was. And somehow Satan managed to twist that. As if my mother’s delight in my beauty somehow signified that I was less than lovely, that only she could find me so. How early the enemy of our souls begins his assault.

Yet yesterday, as Naomi spoke those words to me, I finally caught a new glimpse of the real picture. As my heart longed to respond to her heart, as I wondered how to explain to her why her mommy and daddy are the ones who most often tell her how beautiful she is; the image of my old mirror came into my heart and mind. That familiar rectangle, daily reflecting back my moods, my faces, even my soul. Those who see us most often, know us best. Dear daughter, I see your amazing soul, your gorgeous heart almost more than anyone else; and it only makes your appearance grow daily more beautiful.

A mirror symbolizes alone-ness so well. The being stuck with ourselves. We are never alone, we are always with our true selves. It gets wearying sometimes, doesn’t it? Yet the One who knows us best - our true Husband - has been watching us since before our birth. He sees us, flawed (cracked teeth and funny pinky toes and all) and yet finds us growing ever more beautiful as we approach our wedding with him. In our alone-ness, in the sense of not yet being known well, we are taunted by our soul’s enemy who says; “you are not enough” or perhaps ” you are too much”. You are not beautiful enough or too lovely and therefore dangerous. You are not talented enough or maybe too talented and therefore disliked. Yet God says, “you are my Beloved, the one I am waiting and longing and aching for. Just like you are lonely (for Me, you might not know that’s what you’re missing, but you’re lonely for ME), I am lonely for you. I desire to be completed by relationship with you. God is not incomplete, yet somehow He also aches for us, desires to be united with us.

I think all my life I have thought that I could escape loneliness, escape that fear of being alone. I have looked for soul-company in the most expected of places (a husband, deep friends, family) and in the most absurd (control, productivity, thinness.) But the feeling of aloneness has never really left me. It has been a haunting, subconscious presence throughout my life. Yet this weekend God showed me new things. Showed me the beauty of alone-ness, the truth and essence of why God created us fundamentally unique. I AM alone . . . I am a bride surrounded be dear friends and family, yet fundamentally alone in my prospect of marriage to the Husband who claimed me before time began. And who somehow can claim each of us in that special way. Somehow he meets the deepest needs of our hearts, and each of us, uniquely, meets the deepest needs of His. He is the only One who will know me perfectly, love me satisfyingly, fulfill me completely. I can embrace my alone-ness as I move towards Him.

I live inside the Christ School compound now . . . . We are fenced, gated and walled in, along with our students and staff and the rabbits and the goats too. It’s good for us to be fenced in - students study better without the distraction of marijuana and opium and waragi (local brew) and without free access to the village girls who are so easily impregnated.

Sometimes, though, I forget how the world looks outside. Perhaps I don’t make enough of an effort to move around, to visit the hospital and nutrition projects, to see local friends outside the gates. But inside we have many friends too, the yard is always full, the door always swinging and footballs always in play. Yet this world looks different from the one just outside our gate. Here, the babies are chubby, the preschoolers speak some basic Enlish and understand imaginary play. Mothers check in on their children with words, not palms raised in heavy-handed threat. Students move around with clean and whole uniforms and their bodies and skin show that they being fed and fed well, that their water is clean and that they have mattresses and nets.

WHM Bundibugo recently held the latest Kwejuna Distribution, where food provided by generous donors was distributed to over 100 positive moms and their babies. They are thin, weak, and impoverished and their lives have been taken over by a fatal, debilitating and disgraceful disease. These are “the least of these”, the ones who pull at your heart, who make you cry. Down at the health center are more of the least, small Biira whose malnutrition is devastatingly complete and those children born with open spines or suffering post-malarial brain damage.

Sometime I wonder what I am doing here within these walls when “the least of these” is right around the corner. When children are dying within word of my voice, I am here with those that are fed and well. But isn’t that why we’re here? To offer a cup of cold water in Jesus name - or an experiment on a never-before-imagined bunsen burner. To offer three meals a day when at home there may only be one. We are here to begin the work of Kingdom coming - in the lives of a few hundred at a time. Here they begin, just begin, to experience more of who they were created to be, to start to see the lives they will be able to touch. Our lesson in contrasts, the life lived on-campus vs the life lived off, allows our students to see that they desire more, that there is more to be desired. To see that life can be lived whole and well, that food can be enough, that their minds and hearts can grow strong. That they are believed in, valued, and worth healing and helping.

But the vision is even bigger . . . .We are in the business of multiplication here. Christ School is offering a foretaste of greater realities in Bundibugyo. A time when our students come back with a knowledge of what can be and how life can be lived. When they bring their skills, their knowledge, their integrity and their deep commitment to both their people and their God; and use all that to change the future for hundreds and thousands of the least in Bundibugyo. Someday we pray, nutrition and HIV projects will be staffed and directed by the Babwisi themselves, men and women of integrity and purpose who have the qualifications and knowledge to do the job well. The other day one of our students told me that she hopes to become a chemist and open a fertility clinic in Bundibugyo to help those who don’t even understand what infertility is. Amazing. Our students are on their way; from lives of abject poverty to this middle ground of struggle and promise and on to a future that is, we pray, both well-fed and poured out in abundance towards others.

Three BIG water tanks (10,000 liters each) showed up at the school on Saturday, the result of much prayer, hard work and the abundant grace of God towards the school. Like most of our neighbors, we access water from rain as well as a tap that runs water from a nearby fall through a gravity-flow system, to us. The problem is storage. With a population of 400 at the school, our existing concrete tank doesn’t store more than a day’s worth of water. And as is inevitable in Africa, disruptions to the central line that should provide a constant flow of water, are many, leaving us stranded with hundreds of sweaty athletes and no water to bathe them in. (Not to mention the usual needs of cooking and drinking!)

During our time at home in the fall, we raised money for an expansion of our water storing capabilities at the school. And upon arriving home we began making plans to start the project. Michael Masso, our water engineer on the team, tipped us off as we were budgeting again and preparing to start buying materials, that some free tanks may become available. Unicef gave these tanks to local primary schools in high-need areas of Uganda, but some schools never used those they were given, perhaps because they already had access to a tap. After numerous phone calls, meetings and requests David got access to request that schools donate their unused (and becoming damaged) tanks to CSB. A staff member approached leaders of schools with the all-important signed and stamped documents, and here we are, two months later with not one, but THREE 10,000 liter tanks, equal in value to almost half of our budget on the water project!!!

Work started two days ago and you can see in the pictures our old tank (still functional just not so pretty) and the space they are clearing beside it to install the new tanks. There is still significant cost in the installation process, but we are blown away by God’s amazing provision for our needs! Money has been freed up to combat other issues like the need for textbooks and latrines - Hooray!! Again, so many thanks to Mariners Church for funding our water storage project at CSB.