The other day as I sat out on the porch, talking with friends about corruption, I caught myself in this sentence; “The big money find many stomach to feed.”
And I’m sorry to say, this is not unusual these days. Day by day my English grows more and more broken . . . . Less American, more British, and much more African than anything else.
A small price to pay for friendships, the spread of His good news, and acculturation.
Just be prepared when next you “speak me”.

I have been reading two books this past weekend that have been shaping and molding my thoughts. I have also been praying and considering continuing developments in my relationships with locals and with the local orphan school. These developments have not been obviously positive. And over the weekend, I have begun to see more clearly that in the midst of all my mercy and compassion for the hurting, I am full of judgment and self-protection. I continue to return to acting like an orphan fighting for my life and what’s right rather than a loved, accepted and protected daughter of God, King over all the universe.
“Mercy Streets” tells about seeing grace on the streets of New York city. It talks a lot about seeing, about looking and observing and re-vision; having our eyes open to who God is and what He is doing in the world around us, despite apparent ugliness. Reading about God’s grace in the hearts of New York’s homeless opens my eyes again . . . . We’re all just people here together struggling through difficult lives and then we catch a vision for how God sees us, and trust what Jesus has done for us and accept each day to live as sons and daughters of the King.
At the same time, “From Fear to Freedom” highlights one woman’s experiences of living out of her own strength, in bitter failure then moving to living out of Gods strength. Though I began the book thinking “I know this stuff” I found that God used the words in my heart. I recognize in myself fear, concern for others opinions, and a need for success. I recognize that many times I continue to choose hurt, frustration, and anger over an accepting love of others. I begin to see how I often believe that people’s behavior is more powerful than God, leading to hurt and damage. Instead of feeling victimized, angry and tired I can claim God’s power over sin.
Through my whole time here, and before, God has been nurturing in me a sense of His presence and a peace in His arms. I like this quote from Thomas Kelly, “There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings.” This is where I find peace in chaos, as I am receptive to God’s breathings throughout the moment to moment of challenging days.
Coming back to re-vision; Thoreau said, ” The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” Paul Minear says, ” Our point of view is determined by our point of viewing.” The book of Proverbs say, ” the poor man and the oppressor have this in common, the Lord gives sight to the eyes of both.” Jeremiah writes with God’s voice, ” Call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and hidden things which you have not known.”; and Isaiah writes” You will rebuild those houses left in ruins for years; you will be known as a builder and repairer of city walls and streets.” Krister Stendhal writes “God’s agenda is the mending of creation.” (quotes taken from “Mercy Streets”)
Perhaps to you, these quotes don’t obviously connect with each other. But for me, as I seek to see God rebuild lives, social structures, and an entire country left in ruins by war, famine, and oppressive traditions, I find myself needing daily to surrender to God’s power over difficult people and difficult circumstances. I have felt your prayers acutely over the last several weeks in many moments where I felt sure to erupt in anger, frustration, and sharp words but somehow, outside of myself felt soft words and a softening heart speaking instead. This is only God’s grace and mercy coming to me and proceeding out of me.
As I move deeper into this culture and ministry here, please continue to pray that God would give me a heart to see others as he sees me, and to live out of who He says I am; beloved, accepted, already a conqueror because of Christ Jesus. Pray that I would continue to reject despair, frustration and discouragement in favor of praying with power for God’s will to be done in this place. My weakness can leave room for His strength. May it be so.

I’ve noticed since I’ve gotten here, that having money isn’t all that.

Not that I’ve ever wanted to be rich, but I never thought that rich people had all that hard of a life. Now I know. Being rich can really stink. I know you think of me as a missionary who lives on support (and I DO!), but in my East African life; I’m rich, very rich. I have a permanent house, a vehicle, and real furniture. My husband is a big man, a university man. And that makes me a big woman. BIG. In the best sense of the word.
My money, and standing in the community gives me a lot of friends, but not necessarily relationships.

As I sat with our women’s bible study group again today, I swung from the heights of fulfillment and satisfaction - because I LOVE hearing people’s hearts and meeting them with God’s heart; to the depths of discouragement, as I once again came face to face with the reality that friendships can be an illusion. I told them the story of Ruth and focused on the reality that suffering is a part of life. We can’t always understand it or appreciate it, but even if we never see what God’s doing, His plans are big and good. Ruth was a woman who experienced a lot of suffering in her life but who became one of the ancestors of Jesus. Through her struggles, Jesus came.

Then as we ended, came the inevitable request for some form of support. The women want to form a kind of cooperative project. It’s a reasonable idea, a good one, one that will take a lot of thought. It’s money entering relationships again and potentially screwing them all up. I felt my heart shrink up into a painful ball as I wished, for just once, that these relationships could be completely separate from money.

Relationships as illusion - how cynical can I get? I’m not really in a position to judge the motivation of those who do or don’t greet us, who do or don’t make overtures of friendship. But I do have the option of withdrawing from any significant investment into relationships. I can be proactive in choosing not to be rejected or shamed by others. I can simply back away.

Admittedly; It’s difficult having relationships with locals. We have between us, cultural, language and economic barriers that are impossible to ignore. Even for those few people I do consider real friends, I can only guess at what they feel. And guessing across cultural chasms is much harder than guessing ever been for me before. Will I choose to let these people pierce my hearts with their humanity, even if they never see me as a fellow person also longing for relationship?

Again, not that different from how we all so often treat God. His heart’s desire; to know us and be known by us, to relate to us in soul-satisfying ways, to live in community with us. Meanwhile we treat Him as someone to be pleased, to be obeyed and then to be given privileges by. Father thank you for revealing my own heart, again , as you allow me to share others lives. And help me to love like you do, with abandon, with a willingness to be hurt, to be rejected and to be shamed. Your love is agape love, sacrificial, life-giving love. And your life, given for many, was never a life of foolishness . . . . Yet no matter who calls it such, your love will continue to prevail. Please give me faith.

These days, PLE’s have just come out. Primary Leaving Examinations have no parallel in our Stateside school system. They are taken upon leaving primary school, or what we might think of as seventh grade. All P7 (primary 7) students take them, and the results are what determine if/where/how you will get into secondary school. Ugandan education is heavy on exams, drawing on rote memorization. Ugandan education is really quite difficult.
Two days ago, PLE results came out. People here listen on the radio (for those who have both a radio and expensive “dry cells” to run it) for news that results are in. Then children travel to their primary school to see if the headmaster is actually there to pass out their results (definitely not a guarantee!)
Students are scored in four areas; english, math, social studies, and science. What we look for is their aggregate - the combined scores from their results. Lower is better. There are four divisons that a student may be ranked, depending on their aggregate, Division 1 being the best. For Kampala students, with access to far better schools, about 25% rank as Division 1. Here in Bundibugyo, our scores have now improved to the point where we have about 3% scoring Division 1 on Primary Leaving Examinations. Bundibugyo’s primary schools need help.
Now, daily, daily (as we say here), we have scores of students arriving in our kitube with a desperate plea for school fees. When we first arrived we saw many parents of primary school students, needing funding for uniforms, not a substantial amount of money. Now, as we are known as Christ School people, we see mostly secondary candidates. Each desperate to go on beyond primary school and do something more with their life than dig.
Two days ago a girl sat on my porch. I knew from the letter that I had received from her, through my worker, that she too needed school fees. This individual had spent two years in secondary school, but her performance declined on the second and she was facing the need to change to a less demanding school. At the same time, her uncle, the one who paid her school fees, had died, leaving her unable to find sponsorship. I was her final hope. Yet I could not feel at peace about sponsoring this student, who because of poor performance, was leaving Christ School. I knew it was a clear no.
But, as with many students, she couldn’t hear the no. Instead she continued to plead, argue and reason with me. She quietly refused to go. Asking me instead, again and again, “what will I do, madam?” She said if I did not pay her fees she would have to go and “dig” (”dig” here means to work the land, or garden for subsistence). She said ‘I cannot go and dig, madam”. I know I keep using the word desperate, but desperation is deep in these faces. The desperation of tasting a better life and having to turn back to digging, carrying water, chopping firewood, and little to no intellectual stimulation. It’s heartbreaking no matter my opinion of the student before me. It seems wrong that any of these P7 students should have to end their education now, just barely beginning to have a grasp on spoken English, their country’s official language. Now, just beginning to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel of rural poverty that they live in.
As a team, we talk a lot about God’s kingdom coming here in Bundibugyo. We see it evidenced in our new maternity and pediatric ward, being built at our simple health center. We see it in the water lines that now deliver clean water to thousands of people. We see it in the shining faces on the campus of Christ School - students who have the chance to use their God-given intelligence and skills to do something big with their lives.
Yet can we also see God’s kingdom coming in desperation and discouragement and dismay? Does God’s kingdom also come in wrenching heartbreak? I think of Elisabeth Elliot, a young missionary wife whose husband was brutally murdered by the tribe he went to serve. Truly God brought beauty out of the ashes in her life. More close to me, I think of Daniel, our pastor here, a really intelligent guy who scored quite well on PLE’s and managed to skip a year of secondary school by testing out, really amazing given his access to education. Yet in his third year of secondary schooling, he had to drop out from lack of money to pay his fees. I am angry and saddened by this apparent waste of his mind and his life. Yet God called him, instead to pastors school clearly showing him that his future is to lead a church and its people well. And unlike many indigenous pastors, Daniel is well-equipped for the job because of his intelligence and the education he does have. Though I still feel sad when I think of what Daniel could have experienced and learned had he gone on in school, I cannot doubt that God’s plan is far better than what I could wish for him.
And now, with each student I see, I see Daniel’s face. Though I don’t know these students at all, as I remember his need for school fees, gone unmet, they gain a history and a story. I cannot turn anyone away without a tearing of my heart. Yet daily we turn away five or more. To sponsor is to begin a relationship. It’s a commitment to a student and a welcoming into our family. As leaders at Christ School, we must choose carefully who we sponsor.
I must believe that there is some combination of God’s kingdom coming in the success of students at Christ School as well as in the disappointment of those who must go back to dig or carry cocoa. I look around me at those here who have been successful in the eyes of the world, and also those who have “failed” and I see beauty in both. I see people, transformed by God’s grace, who are living out beautiful and successful lives in the mist of grinding difficulty. He can call us to be anything, and if He calls us to it, it’s good.
Please pray for God’s heart for these young people, to develop in your own heart. In the next few days, we will open our sponsorship program at Christ School, and you will have the chance to join us in choosing one or more students to sponsor. I can think of few more rewarding and long-lasting ways to give away your money. Ask God to speak clearly to you, and stay tuned . . . .

I leave our home, towards evening, with both kids in tow. What started as my desperate attempt to get OUT into the fresh air, the jungle beauty and away from the ceaseless people at my door, on my porch, and in my yard . . . has turned into a bit of a family affair. Still, I am thankful to be walking free, walking amongst people who are not there to see me. I feel bone tired, so weary, from what I do not know. These days I am constantly exhausted, my mind shut down; no room for the introspective, journalistic thinking that leads to my usual daily blog posts - sorry, pray for me to have that kind of energy.

Naomi and Quinn tag along as we follow the little driveways down to the main road and wrap back up around and beside the community center. People are out, everywhere. They are heading to the taps for water, to the market for food, home from wherever. Mostly they are women. I notice how they walk - true tiredness, making my “bone-weary” look springy and energetic. I feel chastised for my self-pity.

We pass the house of “friends”, constant comers to our place for food, medicine, and anything else. I see the mamma home, passing out some food to her children. I hold out my hands towards her and to get a laugh say “na enje??” (and me? Where is mine?) We all laugh, free for a moment from our tiredness, from the sucking desperation of this place.

Naomi chooses this moment to ask, “why do we not live in houses like the africans?” drawing me back to her questions, her tiredness, her struggle with this culture. We all balance not only our own burdens, but the burdens of those we walk beside. We discuss . . . . .the decisions made by missionaries come years and years ago, what we think of those choices, what we are willing to give up, how we can be most effective here, what God asks us to do. We are never satisfied by these discussions. There are no easy answers. We live daily with all we have given up and yet our amazing abundance amidst true poverty. It will never become simple.

When I feel tired, I know around every corner in our corner of the world, there are women far more tired than I’ve ever been. When I feel hungry, faint from low blood sugar, I can depend on there being many scores within shouting distance that are currently feeling more hunger than I have ever felt. When I breath in the desperate sadness of this place and am overwhelmed by the need, I can know without doubt that all around me are people feeling more desperate, more overwhelmed and more discouraged than I have ever had cause to feel. I am a small fish in a very big pond of difficulty.
And God owns the pond; the fish and all the muck and mire answer to Him. He IS making this pond new - fresh clear water is coming, an endless supply of food, and true beauty in all the right places. I can’t think it clear, but I can trust . . . . And I’m choosing trust.