What a precious gift yesterday was as our “Stateside team” (others who, like us, are in the States, not Bundibugy for various reasons) joined us here in Annapolis in the wake of the chaos that is enveloping our district and team.
There were three of us families plus Luke and Scotticus (Amy, we missed you). And I was struck as I looked around the room, that none of us is in a place of stability. All of us, though grateful and blessed to be out of danger have significant uncertainty in our daily lives and futures. One family, heading soon to Sudan but with funding and a team to raise up before heading to that also uncertain place. Another with a third born child needing serious medical interventions, uncertain about whether they will be able to return to their home in Africa, us; also waiting for medical results and God’s direction for reopening of Christ School Bundibugyo, in time.
But what a blessing to share team jokes, stories and the culture of community together. Though here we are not each other’s lifelines like we are on-site in Africa, we are still good friends who have shared inexplicable life circumstances and there is that sense of just “getting it.”
This, for me at least, was a gift from God. I’m so thankful for Scotticus, able to come up and stay with Luke and bring Luke here to us. So thankful for Luke, playing in the snow with the team kids who idolize and love him. So thankful for sweet baby Chase, so beautiful and precious, and for Quinn’s chance to see Grant after his unexpected leave from Bundibugyo, something we’ve prayed for. The reunion of these team kids was sweet and there was much weeping on separation (okay, so Gaby hid in a closet and had to be carted out.) I’m thankful for Rick’s realness as he empathized with what we’re all feeling about how this can make sense in what God calls us to.
This is real life and despite it’s severity I am thankful to be living it. I can’t say I look to the future with anything more than uncertainty right now, and I will admit that I feel fearful about this life that God’s called us to and about what the choice to follow that call means for all of us. Yet where is there to be but here, living real life, following a real and personal God who in His very God-hood is enigmatic, unknowable, but worth trusting.