For the last four days I have been enjoying the beauty of coastal South Africa, a slice of Europe in the great African continent. I could never have imagined (after my time in Uganda) that Africa could be like this. Yet it is; great wealth and great poverty, side by side. And buried deep in the hearts a hurting from both.
We were there for Women of the Harvest, an organization that supports and encourages missionary women around the world. They offered us an all expense paid retreat with teaching, counseling, and pampering. How could we resist?? The conference was all I hoped and more; allowing me a respite from the constancy of demands in the village and re=opening parts of God’s word that I desperately need to keep on breathing. Counseling and times of healing prayer allowed me to use the events of the last eight months to move me deeper into the knowledge of who God says I am and how He relates to me. Perhaps without this opportunity all of the tumultuous experiences would have left me farther away.
We saw Robben Island (where Mandela was imprisoned ) from a distance. Tabletop Mountain was gorgeous though we did not make it to the top. Times with the family and friends of my soul-sharing friend Yvette allowed me the privilege of stepping into her life and beginning to understand her better. In addition the teaching at the Anglican church there has opened my eyes to the sweetness of ministry to students in a new way.
And so very dear was time with team friends; Amy, Kim, Stephanie, Pamela and Jennifer who joined me to enjoy the conference. As we are renewed together we have the privilege to move back into service our hearts deeper, wider and closer.
Wonderful thanks go to sweet hubby David for not only keeping the kids but loving into their lives while I was away. And to more team friends who supported them all through it by staying close.
Thank you God for another chance to peel back a layer of the onion skin that covers the beauty of my soul as you created it and once again walk freer and breath deeper and shine in your Beauty.

As we approach our church, we are drawn in, through the maze of mud houses towards the sounds of drums and songs – the people of Calvary Worship Centre are beginning their worship, and they’re not afraid to praise God with their whole bodies.
Worship through music is refreshingly African in our church – most everyone dances as they sing, many songs have hand movements or even whole body movements, many different people lead the music and oftentimes whole groups will go to the front of the church to join others in dancing. It is beautifully chaotic and I think God is pleased.
Later on, we move on to testimonies and that is where we have our little Babel moments. Perhaps you remember the Tower of Babel as the time in history when the Bible claims that the diversity of languages began. Well, here in our church and it seems in any village in Uganda, there is always a diversity of languages. One woman may stand to speak and begin in a different dialect, but no worries there is someone in the church who speaks that language – they jump up to translate from Lukonjo to Lubwisi and then the words are translated yet again into English. In a single service this could easily happen several times, or perhaps the speaker himself is using a language different than the local one and he too must be translated twice. Even more entertaining are the times when Pastor Daniel single handledly translates multiple language himself; flying from KiSwahili to Lubwisi and then doubling back to add in English so we aren’t left out.
We in America are so blessed to share a common language – though we would do well to embrace the languages and cultures of the many who come to join us as fellow citizens, we retain the precious gift of universal English.

Perhaps some of you will laugh to learn that I am now a cross country coach (of sorts). All I know is that sports is statistically one of the very best ways to keep girls’ body images strong; to keep them away from sex and eating disorders and to help them to embrace their bodies as temples given to them as gifts and under their own safekeeping.
So I joined my team mate Scotticus who just began the first cross country team at CSB. There are a lot of kids, but few girls – we hope for more in the future. Yet it is an opportunity to demonstrate to many more that sports are cool, fun and worthwhile even for a busy mom. It’s a chance with the few girls we have, to develop friendships and show love and begin to understand better the life and thoughts of African girls on campus, straddling the worlds between village life and modern life.
Mondays we run intervals, trying to improve our speeds each week. Tuesday is relay races. Wednesday, my favorite day, the kids jog up to our yard to do circuit training, running games and a devotional. Since I love relational ministry, my heart is to build this team into a real family of students. To help them really relate to each other as brothers and sisters and to look up to us as life-coaches not just sports coaches. Since we are a large boarding school there is a great need for relationships – family relationships are missing (though ever doubtful here anyway) and opposite gender relationships can easily take their place. Thursday we break for our team meeting. Friday we run off campus giving our students their much-desired chance to be out in the town and villages. Saturday Scott does fun stuff again, but at the school.
We are slowly bringing in shoes and more appropriate clothes for running. The students persevere under conditions American students would never accept; for the first month they all ran barefoot all the time, which we deemed safer than using their flip flops. Girls continue to run in long skirts or jeans with kitangi cloths wrapped around their butts and legs (deemed very sexual in this culture), and with no bras. Now we have finally accessed enough running shoes for almost all the students but we still need sports bras for the girls and long loose running shorts or capris.
We hope soon to have some races to showcase our runners in the community. We also have plans for a school wide field day, to increase appreciation for and interest in running as a sport.
For Scott, who grew up running cross country, the lack of discipline in the students is difficult to work with. But here, unlike in America, students are running because there is little else to do. I think privileged high school students in America have a myriad of choices in how to spend their free time; if they choose to run it’s because they love the sport and are willing to put in the work. But for our students here they are running rather than reading, hanging out or playing football. Those ARE their choices. Kind of puts life into perspective, especially when you consider that their choices are far better than kids who live outside the school gates.

Today a “John” showed up on my porch and asked if I had a globe. I spoke to him for a few minutes trying to make sure of what he meants, and then went inside to get our inflatable globe.
John said that he had studied globes in school today and learned about latitude and longitude and wanted to see them. The children are studying geography in this seventh grade classroom (if you can call it a classroom) with no globe or map, in fact there is none to be found in the entire school.
Reminds me of the kids in a local secondary school (not Christ School) that study chemistry not by using Bunsen burners but by reading about them and looking at pictures of them in a book.
This seventh grade kid, who was quite fascinated by my globe, could not name or find his continent and seemed unsure about the name of his country. Perhaps it was just a language problem. He kept repeating over and over again the terms “latitude” and “longitude”, and running his fingers over the lines.
This boy, who loves to learn, has the misfortune to live as an orphan in a country of poverty. We can hope and pray that he will continue to have chances to grow.
And this is why we are here, at Christ School, reaching out to 300 students; so bright, so talented and yet so stunted by lack of nutrition, medicine, access to reasonable education. Yet they have made it this far and now we nurture them through academics and sports and friendships. We hope to love them forward to a better future – all the while meeting their physical needs. It’s a big job that could make a really big difference in the massively big problem that is life in Africa.

As I clean up for the evening, I catch sight of the moon through our amazing kitchen window view . . . . It glows bright orange with a halo shining out into the surrounding clouds, tinged with pink. I have to go outside.
I grab my ipod and something warm and head out into the darkness that now feels safe and familiar to me. Locals walk without a “torch” and so do I, the moon is light enough, though I watch the path before me for snakes and impala.
I make my way down the path that leads past our mission workshop, past the huge canopy tree that “rains” for no apparent reason, up to the mission-built community center where I sit on the cement step and gaze at the wonder of the vast sky above. Bats flit in an out of the porch I sit on, nesting there, disturbing me from my upward-looking pose. Bat poop, yuk.
The day has been full, too long for me, but now kids are asleep, David resting at home recouping from several days of unpleasant intestinal illness, drinking and eating and trying to become himself again.
This morning I got the chance to sit once again with my group of bible study women and tell them a story. We are going through the major stories of the Bible chronologically now, as I realize how few of them are at all familiar with the most familiar of Bible stories. Today I told the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, believing the lie of the snake and falling from God’s grace.
Telling Bible stories to the uninitiated is pure pleasure and so eye opening. Those of us who have been privileged to hear these stories from childhood forget sometimes their drama and beauty. But I am vividly reminded of the awe of the story when I hear a gasp throughout the room as I describe Eve reaching out her hand to pluck the forbidden fruit. The group sighs together as we read the curses and they recognize the suffering in their own lives, so accurately prophesied in the Bible. And for me, suddenly, the Bible story comes much more deeply to life.

Afternoon comes, after a busy morning with Gaby and Quinn, exploring their four year old world. Now our kitubi is filled with young local children, playing cards, ball and using chalk on the concrete floor.
One young boy (maybe five) sits holding a baby almost as big as himself! I get brave and decide to hold this wee naked thing, in the hopes he won’t fear me.
One of the small yet difficult changes for me in life here is the propensity of small children especially babies, to fear my skin and hair and general “whiteness”. I am doing better and better with them as I realize some of the things that lead to that fear, the biggest of which seems to be an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. I like to gaze into baby’s eyes, but people here seem to make eye contact with babies for only a very short time.
So I reach out my arms for this baby and the little boy gladly gives him to me and races off to join the other children at play. And this little baby accepts me. Trusts me. Lets me hold him, sing to him, lift and pat him as I have seen Babwisi moms do. He holds my hair, a novelty and sucks my cheek. He chews anxiously on my finger as he teeths. What a small, soft bundle of sweetness. I wonder if I would recognize his need to urinate or defecate – as are most all babies, he was naked except for the usual strings tied around neck, wrists and ankles – to ward off evil spirits.
Daniel shows up, back from lunch and takes in the scene . . . . “I am enjoying the mwana (baby)” I say softly, caught in the spell of this precious child . . . .

In the Biblical narrative, there is story after surprising story, miracle after miracle, big acts by a great big God. In the story of Abraham and Sarah, Sarah becomes a mother for the first time in her eighties – a feat as impossible then as it is now. When she hears that this will happen she laughs in bewildered disbelief and her Maker responds by saying ” is anything too hard for God?”

This morning as I sat huddled in my warm fleece against the chill of the early morning, gazing again in awe at the silhouetted mountains against the golden pink sky, the canopy of trees over my head, I read this promise. It was as if God was speaking just to me.

A close friend of ours here has made another descent into significant mental illness. For the last few days he has been missing and we have all feared for his life. I have cried tears of despair, bewilderment and deep sadness. Tears of disbelief in God’ presence or plan in the midst of heart ache. Tears mostly for this man, a prisoner to his illness and the power of Satan through the witch doctor; and for his wife and children, pulled along, helplessly through this pain.

Meanwhile, another friend, a man so close to death from malaria, had recovered enough to translate slowly and painfully for me today in church. I look at him, so much thinner and more weak and at his young wife and baby and I cry both tears of thankfulness and of sadness for all they have and will go through.

Here people will often say ” God is there”. No matter the circumstances, when there is nothing else to say, “God is there.” And really what else is there to say in the midst of someone else’s deep and unfair pain?? I don’t understand but I know a God who does. He is trustworthy despite appearances sometimes to the contrary. I take it on faith and I know it to be true.

So I said to our friend, who I managed to visit today, and who threatens to take his life . . . Nothing is too hard for God. Be strong and of good courage for He has already overcome. I praise God that this man knows Jesus, though his faith is small and childlike he has chosen to give his life to God. Please won’t you join me in praying for him? As Quinn prayed at bedtime tonight, “God please help Satan’s power to get broken so M will be okay.” Amen, my son, Amen.