Just returned from Kampala. Back into the district with its beauty and
heartbreak (not to say there wasn’t tremendous heartbreak in Kampala, but
the beauty was lacking). Seeing this place through the brand new eyes of
Scotticus, our newest team member, who is here to teach mission and Christ
School kids for two years, is a revelation. How quickly I have become used
to this place. I have already forgotten how far it is into the middle of
nowhere to get here, how primitive and more primitive as you pass farther
and farther around curves and over mountains to arrive in Bundibugyo.

We’re so thankful to be home. And that is a blessing and true answer to
your prayers that we feel home is here in Bundibugyo. It was wonderful to
return.

But the guilt. The guilt as we unload box after box from our vehicle. As
Ugandans, looking for a little work/money unload box after box from our
vehicle, containing things they have never seen or heard of. The bulk more
than all they own. The cost more than everything they have ever had, maybe.

As our friend/worker helps me to unload the goods, I am keenly aware of each
prices marked on the containers, pancake syrup (we are overjoyed to have
found) for 7000 shillings, more than a days wages and a weeks worth of
groceries for his small family. ( we pay our workers a similar wage to that
of the other mission families workers, and the best wage in the area) How
can I explain how that small jar is worth so much to us, to my kids. How
can I explain both how much we don’t have and how much what we do have means
to us. Should it?? How could they ever understand what we left behind in
America, and does it even matter?

I have always been a people pleaser, the source of much of my own pain. I
somehow want to satisfy my children, myself, and the hearts of people living
in poverty. I am caught between and among these completely different lives
and hearts. And once again I am in a place of trying to find rest in
individuals. I’m not sure if the way we are living here is right. I’m not
sure if it’s right to buy cases of toilet paper when people here don’t use
it and that money could be spent on them. What about soap? They rarely use
it! (maybe once a week) How will we choose what ways we will lives our
lives the same as this culture and in which ways we will be different
because we choose health, sanitation, nutrition. I can only do what I feel
is right, with prayer, with pleading that God will show me the next step.
All I know for sure is how much I don’t know, and that the knowing is not as
important as the trusting day by day, hour by hour, yes, for sure, minute by
minute.

And still sick, so pray for health . . . .