Today, Sunday, is our mail day. We save it for Sunday mornings as we enjoy
oatmeal with mix-in’s . . . . A simple yet fun meal for all. My desire is
for Sunday to be both a sabbath - day of rest - and also a shining day for
all of us. A day of peace and fun. For this reason we have instated “no
visitors day” on Sunday, which is real bliss here!! It must sound terrible,
but it is the only day of the week when people aren’t knocking on the door
by 7:30 and continuing on with little pause until nightfall. We luxuriate
in our uninterrupted family time.

Mail is opened, we have quite a pile, as we haven’t gotten any for a few
weeks due to travel (ours and others). I am amazed by the goods piling up
on our dining room table as we open several boxes containing lots of
clothes, toothbrushes, protein bars/powder, and little goodies for us as
well (who knew that a kitchen timer could bring such rejoicing in my heart!!
Thank you to whomever sent it in our Mariners box!) You wouldn’t imagine
the fuss that was made over a bag of walnuts and another of roasted almonds.
Nuts were immediately devoured!!

Each time we receive a box from the U.S. we are amazed by the cost
associated with sending it and the time that went into picking and packing
the things inside. Each box is such a testament of the love and care
directed our way. And the heart that friends back home have for the people
we live among. Perhaps economically, there is a cheaper, easier way to get
things to these people. But I don’t think God is as much about effective
finances as he is about relationships. And I marvel at how those boxes
connect Americans, Ugandans, and us.

When we decided to come here, following what seemed to us to be unmistakable
leading from God, we disrupted what we and others believed about resources,
intelligence, and our place in the world. Some said to us, surely there are
others who are qualified to do this kind of work, you are overqualified.
You will be wasting your intelligence and experience in a place like that.
You will be risking the lives of your children in a place like that. You
will be throwing away your career and your future in a place like that.
And our responses to these questions could not center so much around
refuting their truth. We had to agree at least in part, that it didn’t make
a lot of sense. Really, it still doesn’t. But it reveals something big and
important about who God is and what His kingdom looks like, I think.

“God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful
and powerless death of the crucified Messiah. If that shocking event is the
revelation of the deepest truth about the character of God, then our whole
way of seeing the world is turned upside down . . . . All values are
transformed . . . God refuses to play games of power and prestige on human
terms.” - Richard Hays

God’s reality is upside down (or more accurately right side up) from what we
are accustomed as seeing and believing as truth. When we trust what He
tells us not because it makes sense, because it feels right, or because we
understand it, but only because we trust His character, His wisdom, and His
love for us - only then are we able to step out into His worldview . . . .
And catch a glimpse of glory.