Today is the second meeting with parents. The students are returning slowly by class; Wednesday was s4 and s6, otherwise known as “the candidates” – students who will take their big exams this year. Today we have our first year students, s1′s, some of them looking too small to be a part of this crazy family that is a boarding school.
Wednesday’s meeting went well. After the current headmaster gave a report on the evolution of events leading to the closing, parents, staff and even students were invited to react and respond. There was good conversation mostly by parents who gave the typical litany of “when I was a kid I had to walk through neck-deep snow to go to school and I was grateful,” but of course in more Ugandan fashion. Most speeches related to how many strokes with the cane these parents had gotten for various offenses and how grateful they are for it now because it had shaped their character. Though the Ugandan Ministry of Education outlawed caning in schools a few years ago it is still widely practiced in private schools and most government schools will bring parents in to cane students in front of a school assembly as a way to get around the law. Caning is universal here (I hear) as a form of discipline and unfortunately usually seems to involve real beating. I have heard stories about students who were not able to school for days afterward. And these students are high schoolers!! Even girls!
Thank you for praying for our school. I think the prayer we need now is that the hearts our students and staff will remain open to each other and that we will find healing ways to move towards each other in love. As I see my role in the school primarily developing into a holistic approach to shaping the whole student (while most staff members are primarily focused on academics) this is an area where I hope to really get involved in listening and facilitating conversations in a school wide way. Please pray for David as he moves more directly into mentoring and leadership training with our leadership team at the school – using this as jumping off place. Please pray for that team as they learn how to really advise, guide and instruct their staff in ways that will make for a more healthy school environment. Please pray for the staff as they interact daily in big and small ways with students, that they will model humility, respect and love. Power is so big in this culture. Knowledge is power, therefore we as staff often withhold or restrict access to knowledge as a way to keep power in our hands. Information is similarly restricted. And many times the power of authority is used in negative ways to keep a grip over the student.
Change comes slowly. We are trying to run a school which is so different in character from what is culturally normal. We do this on a sliding scale of what seems most important. After ten years of working with staff (of course many have come and gone during that time) we have created a culture where physical abuse in the classroom (rapping knuckles, hitting on the head with pencils, slapping in the face) is no longer acceptable. But it takes work and teaching and advising on different approaches. Some issues, like physical abuse, are clear and we are clear on not allowing them. Others, like respect and the use of power, are much more subtle and require more maturing and disciplining and just a lot more time.
But each and every day we are working in God’s power to try to bring His norms of love, justice, and the right use of power to almost four hundred students and staff. And to the degree that God gives us success in individual lives each one of those people may go out into other parts of Uganda or East Africa and keep spreading the word about what Jesus has done and how it changes the way we live. The work at Christ School is BIG, complicated, and requires tremendous patience and perseverance but the rewards can be monumental.
Keep praying.

I have just collected our two most recent prayer updates to email to the blog, you can read them below. Sorry to be out of contact. It seems the more emotionally and physically draining life here gets the less able I am to write. When you see that I haven’t posted updates it probably means we need a lot of prayer. Of course my head says that I should post more so that you can pray better, but in reality it doesn’t work that way. I can’t seem to write when I’m barely keeping my head above water as I feel I have been over the last week.
God is teaching us good lessons in relationships, culture and dependence on Him right now. Though we are struggling with difficult things our hearts are well. After last week’s stress and upheaval, we left for just two nights and headed to a remote part of the country just to pray, reconnect as a family and get away from the rumors and questions for a little while. It was a good thing.
I think I am struck more and more lately by how hard-hearted I am in the midst of a lot of suffering. I feel convicted about that, sad about that. Sometimes something comes up that reminds me how much I have seen in the last year and how it has changed me in some dramatic ways. I need God to show me how to be wise yet gentle and how to love people well. There is a bottomless pit of loving needed here and sometimes I find myself rushing past people to get to my real ministry. Of course the real ministry is being present with whoever is in your life and loving them well. It’s the endlessness of those people and their needs that is overwhelming.
This week Naomi and Quinn are off from school (due to travel of a lot of the team and interns). I am hoping for some good time with them. Meanwhile David and I are involved with the reopening of the school, parent and staff meetings and fall out, etc. That takes a lot of time and I am thankful for other team moms who take N and Q in when I am working. The needs of our house workers (for care, love, guidance, support) is a constant that faces me in the morning of every single day, even as I put real energy into what has to happen to get dinner on the table each night. Neighbors continue to fall seriously ill regularly and other neighbors continue to find new ways to cheat and deceive us to get a handout. Meanwhile friends and partners in ministry continue to choose to make big mistakes with their lives.
And we all continue to need Jesus, desperately.
This is my life, now-now (as they say here), briefly. I hope you can appreciate our lives and work even when I can only write poorly and sporadically. You are getting the reality of my life, glorious and not so.

Sorry to update hear via prayer letters but I don’t seem emotionally and mentally capable of more right now and I want you to get the info you need. I am sending this update as well as this blog post in the morning, the same day that our school will reopen, see below.
Friends,
The very day when I sent the email about our God, El Roi, was the day of major escalations in tension at Christ School, our ministry here.
Christ School has about 380 students, male and female and about 25 staff. The kids are in the equivalent of high school/junior college classrooms but they range in age from pre-teen to early twenties. Putting so many adolescents, especially so many young males together can bring problems. In secondary schools all around this country there are periodic problems with tension that can eventually lead to violence. Such was the position we found ourselves in this week. After almost ten years in existence, CSB faced it’s greatest low as we shut down the school and sent students home to avoid what we think was inevitable rioting come nightfall.
Why the tension? The easiest way to explain is to say that there are the normal problems you can imagine in a boarding school but without the resources to manage conflict wisely (at least in the case of the students). Students are unhappy about food, available water for washing, rules, discipline, some staff members. Some of these complaints are legitimate issues that need to be resolved, others are unreasonable demands. Since communication and conflict resolution are not strong points for our students, and perhaps even many of our staff, small problems can become bigger than they should. This is an opportunity to see areas of growth for how we educate the whole person and the effect that has on their ability to succeed academically.
On Tuesday, after several nights of rocks being thrown at staff housing, of written threats against staff, of noticeable tension in the air; things got worse, not better as we spent a full day in assembly with students being given a chance to talk among themselves and then with staff members. We feared the potential for serious harm to staff and property should our facility remain open so the current headmaster made the tough call to close the school until we could resolve the tension. At the time this was a dramatic moment when us women and kids drove our cars off the compound in a mini-evacuation, fearing that the students would riot when they heard the news of the closing. David remained behind with other missionaries and staff to manage the situation. We all feared for their safety and some of you got emergency prayer updates. Thank you for praying, we know your prayers were the vehicle to provide for student and staff safety that day.
We now have a plan in place for reopening of the school. The Christ School Board of Governors has met over the last few days and there is an ongoing investigation into the ringleaders who provoked other students. AS usual, most students were passive participants in the plans of a few. Starting today, Wednesday, students and parents will be called back in class by class for individual re-entrance to the school. There are likely expulsions as well.
Please pray for us!! This situation has been emotionally difficult on many levels. We have so far to go before this is resolved and the issues are complex and difficult. Many missionaries sponsor kids at the school and so this affects our relationships with them as well as with parents, the community, our staff. In many ways we see this as an indication of Satan’s attack against progress we have seen in our entrance into ministry here. Pray that we would stand strong in the power of God. Please pray for truth and for reconciliation. Pray that staff would see this as motivation for working towards better relationships. Pray that we would be good guides of peacemaking, discipleship, reconciliation, forgiveness, and honest relationships. This is HARD WORK.
And please pray for Naomi and Quinn to feel secure in the midst of instability, potential violence and many many conversations that they don’t understand but know effect them. Their hearts fear sometimes. We are thankful for you.
Love,
David and Annelise, Naomi and Quinn

This was a prayer update from last week . . . .
I awake to rain splattering through our glassless windows and onto my face – having a window behind the bed is wonderful for breezes but not so handy in a storm. The sound of rain is a torrent all around me, bringing to mind pictures of flooding. In reality this is just another downpour of the rainy season in Bundibugyo. I can barely think because the pounding of water against our iron sheet roof is magnified many times by the metal until the noise is too loud even to speak over.
A tremendous boom of thunder shakes the house and reverberates as the sound circles around the the mountains which somewhat enclose us. Naomi and Quinn have sought refuge from the storm in our bed and they snuggle closer, seeking warmth and security as the lightening strikes near and far and the thunder continues to sound and the rain pounds down.
I get up in the pitch black of our night here to find something warmer to put on. Who knew that I would be cold in the middle of Africa? I head to the bathroom for a quick midnight call – always hazardous in the rain since the stovepipe ventilation over the toilet allows the rain to fall right the user! I am drenched now and colder than ever. As I stand in the blackness, surrounded by the powerful noise of the rain I feel so small, so alone in this vast jungle which is our part of Uganda. We are a tiny speck in the universe, a few whites living with a small people group amidst kilometers of banana and cocoa trees and spear grass and, semi-circled by huge and beautiful mountains, submerged in rain.
As the next bolt lightens our interior I see that I am not alone; Quinn stands beside me,just a moment before invisible to me in the darkness. But in that next moment I see his mass of golden curls, his tie-die shirt and red sweats, the fear and sleep apparent in the lines of his body. I gather him in my arms, savoring the smell of his sweet self and carry him back to the warmth of our bed and our bodies together, reminding us that we live in community for a serious reason!!
Hagar was apparently the only person in the Bible to give God a name – she called him El Roi, the God who sees. What it really means is the God who sees ME. Who can see the whole world and yet uniquely see me. When I saw Quinn in the darkness of our home in the silence of the rain’s overpowering sound, I was reminded of how I look and how I feel in this place. I look alone, I feel alone, I am small. But GOD SEES ME, just as I saw Quinn. And He doesn’t require a bolt of lightening to do it.
Worship with me El Roi who called us to a place of poverty, despair and hopelessness for a reason. Praise El Roi who sees the mess of this world as a whole and yet sees into the heart of each person whose life or body I touch each day. The name El Roi reminds us of the greatness of the God we serve. Because even in His all knowing-ness, He is personally and intimately involved with each of us.
Perhaps it was watching the movie Blood Diamond a few days ago and being reminded in such graphic ways of the 200,000 child soldiers estimated to still live in Africa, a significant percentage of them live and are trained within or bordering our own country. The suffering of those children, only a few hours from me, reduces me to a smallness that I cannot give words to. Rebel soldiers live in jungles nearby me. Malaria kills hundreds of children around me each month. HIV/Aids steals life and hope from hundreds of others, betraying individuals in relationships as close as mother and child. Poverty and malnutrition stunt the minds and bodies and break the spirits of so many of the rest of these people. And only a few hundred miles away, some use fear, violence and witchcraft to train the child soldiers who will deepen this cycle of despair. But El Roi is Rohanga (in Lubwisi), the one true God, the God who appeared to Hagar, and the God who stands beside me in my smallness and in my ineffectiveness to stem the flow of suffering I see around me; both in this place as a whole and to new depths in the lives of individuals.
Continue to pray for God to have mercy on this country and this continent. And to have mercy on each of us who continually forget that He is all we have and yet it is enough.
Annelise

It’s a Wednesday, late morning, and I realize that so far this week I have already had four specific set-aside-for-prayer times with team mates, a lot in a busy schedule.
Sunday night we also had our every-so-often extended prayer time as a team, starting with singing together at 5 and going till almost midnight praying specifically over each family or individual that is part of this team and each Ugandan that each of us work in partnership with, as well as our projects. It is exhausting work but in that satisfying way that reminds us that the battle is won in the spiritual realm.
I’ve started a devotional that my mom sent; Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. Turns out that I started it just when I needed it. The second chapter deals with the spiritual attack which I have felt so acutely over the last month. The author describes Satan’s age-old tactic as consisting of the three D’s; distraction, discouragement and doubt. I think it was her description of his method of beginning with distraction that really opened my eyes. I look at the heart-mess of the last month and see how much of it stemmed from simply taking my eyes off Jesus and putting them on myself (my shortcomings) or others (their suffering or lack of progress or bad opinion of me). From that distraction of whatever takes our eyes off of Jesus and His beauty and the beauty that He created us to reflect and that He is constantly calling out in us, comes the discouragement that we feel when we are centered on our circumstances. And from that comes the doubt, not that God exists, but that He loves us, messy as we are.
When the lightening struck Christ School, our team leader commented that Satan was not being subtle enough. I felt the same way when I experienced an intensely oppressive dream last week – Satan, now you’ve crossed the line. I know this is war and I am reminded that I am equipped to fight.
Our pastor gave a great summary of spiritual armor that I still have on my fridge here in Uganda and that I read over most days:
I am Committed to truth. (Belt)
I am Accepted in the Beloved. (Breastplate)
I am Prepared with a purpose. (Shoes)
I will Resist against doubt. ( Shield)
I will Rejoice over discouragement. (Helmet)
I will Release from disobedience. (Sword of the Spirit)
The battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritualities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world.

Yesterday was one of those days of refreshment that makes you thankful for the tiredness beforehand just because the rest felt so good.
Departing from our normal church schedule, we decided to join our Christ School students in their weekly fellowship time. This meant that we grabbed some fruit for breakfast before heading out to the 8:30 service.
The far more western school service ( more western than our typical traditional African church) was a real blessing to all of us. Bible readings in English, short messages of encouragement from students about selected passages and some familiar English songs as well as the African songs; all of these were refreshing to us and to Naomi and Quinn.
Also nice was heading home from church by 10:30, the time we are usually leaving for our morning service (and we’re usually not back till 2pm, walking in the hot sun about 1/2 hour each way after a 2 1/2 hour service.)
We always take Sundays as a rest from work and from visitors. This Sunday, because of our earlier church schedule, we felt we were taking more of a rest than usual.
Once home I prepared us a big brunch, cooking being therapeutic for me when I have time to do it. We ate fried eggs, made-from-scratch sausage, hash browns, and a pineapple passion fruit salad. It was DELISH! Oh yea and we drank Bob and Jordan Kee’s care package vanilla biscotti coffee too!! Thanks!
David and I slept a bit, we watched movies with the kids and played word games (so much fun!), by about 4 I was cooking again; bread, beans for burgers, etc. It takes time to make good food from scratch! For dinner we enjoyed cumin black bean burgers on home made whole wheat rolls, mango salso and homemade barbecue sauce and sour cream. Ginger cookies for dessert!!
Getting to cook and wash dishes alone in the kitchen with my husband, sit on the couch watching movies with my kids, relax mid day in my bed. These are all wonderful pleasures that are so hard when people are coming and going in and out of my house all day.
Thank God for restoring us yesterday, and pray that He will continue to show us simple ways to be rejuvenated.

Here are the photos, finally. People gathered outside each window wanting to catch what was happening inside the packed one-room building. Pictures of the crowd inside.

Here are team kids waiting for the plane while climbing a termite mound, and .. . . . .
The plane has arrived!!!
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Larissa was here for two months, and just left us this last weekend. A labor and delivery nurse who is going on for midwifery training, Larissa wanted to see more of third world medical practice. We wait to see what work God will call her into once she completes her training. We know that there is at least one little baby Larissa in Bundibugyo, named after nurse Larissa who met many antenatal and postnatal women during her time here.
Larissa’s sister Renee joined her for her last week here. Taking advantage of her sister’s time in Africa to see the country of Uganda herself. We were amazed and grateful to discover after she arrived that she is a veterinary doctor! She graciously agreed to spay our six month old puppy, Jessy, to protect her from wild dogs and to protect more puppies from the painful and uncertain life they face here. (Unfortunately in a culture where there isn’t always enough food for the people, the “pets” get short shrift and most dogs forage for food looking mostly starved. Because wild dogs sometimes contract rabies and attack people, most people are afraid of all dogs and dogs here are often stoned to death.)
The surgery took place on our back porch. All went smoothly thanks to the expertise of vet Renee and her assistant, sister and nurse Larissa. Dr. Jennifer looked on and assisted to get experience for future team pet needs! Team children can be seen pressed up against the bars of the window behind the surgical scene catching as much as they can of the action. I held Jessy’s head throughout the procedure and tried not to look as miserable as I felt. She was sedated somewhat and pain-free but very uncomfortable because she was not completely out and was afraid. As my dog’s insides were pulled out for all to see as we hunted for her tiny uterus we all got some great lesson in biology; musculature, wound care, suturing, etc.
Jessy ended up with a huge incision but seems none the worse for the wear. She regained her usual energy within two days and we are thankful that no infection has set in.
Life is never dull here!!

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Lift your weary hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.
Hebrews 12:12-13

Dr Jennifer mentioned to me a child on the ward this week with a serious arm burn. As the muscle, tendon and skin heal from this burn he is in danger of losing full function of his arm. Skin that needs to stretch to accommodate the motion of his elbow may heal without doing so. In order to avoid this simple but oh-so-costly complication of his burn, Dr. Jennifer must straighten his arm each day; moving it so that the contracture of the skin, tendon and muscle don’t leave him permanently maimed.

You can imagine that this is painful. You can imagine how he cries and how unpleasant it is for Jennifer to be associated with a great deal of pain, fear and sorrow. But she continues to go to him each day and bring pain into his life because she loves him and wants “what is lame not to be put out of joint but to be healed.”

Someone prayed with me this week, “God is not disappointed with you.” I cry each time I hear or read those words. Disappointing those around us is painful, how much more painful when we think we’re disappointing our Daddy-God. How true those words are as I let them sink into my soul, as I rest in that assurance even as I more fully acknowledge that the brokenness of this world and the brokenness of our hearts does result in inevitable pain. When I look at myself I see someone who who is lame. I know that I am not whole, healthy and perfect. I have heart-pain and I cause heart-pain. I live within the suffering of this world and I add to the suffering of this world. At times this piles up in my soul. But when I feel condemned, when I feel worthless, when I feel that I hurt more than I help . .. . I am not hearing God’s voice but the voice of disbelief, doubt and fear that is spoken in the subtle way of our enemy.

God doesn’t want to leave me bound up in the contractures of my sin and others sin against me. He takes me through the painful process of lifting my drooping hands (that don’t want to be lifted but rather to stay in the stillness of their frustration and disappointment and fear), of strengthening my weak knees ( rather than allowing me to retire them early) and taking what is lame and making it not less lame, and not out of joint, but WHOLE.
Can I reiterate that this process is painful?! But as an adopted and well-loved daughter of the king I rejoice in knowing that He is committed to my becoming whole. That just as His kingdom is coming in the world around me it is coming in my heart as I learn to walk trusting his love.