Life goes on . . . . And since we know so little about what is actually happening on the ground where our team is I’ll write here not about Ebola but about what we’re doing in the meantime, and the uncertainty.
Yesterday we made beautiful gingerbread houses with Shari and her daughter Kacie, the friends we live with here in Annapolis. We went upstairs from our basement to a table full of candy decorations and batch after batch of whipped icing. It was a full afternoon of non-stop fun and very good for taking my mind off what I know and don’t know about “home.”
I worry about little silly stuff, like our dog and whether the Ugandan friend who is feeding her has the money for food. Meanwhile people are dying of an untreatable disease, so who really cares about a dog, yet she’s our dog and our responsibility and I worry occasionally that she will never be “normal” after these four plus months practically always alone behind a fence.
More difficult for me is not knowing when/if we will get home to Uganda. Certainly we are so grateful to be here, safe, comfortable. Yet since we left in late August expecting to be back in six weeks, it’s been a long time of uncertainty. I think I was looking forward once again to a “certain” date of return, December 31st. But of course just as for everyone else in this scenario, there is no certainty. We don’t know yet whether a return at that time will just add a burden of numbers to a team already living in evacuation, or whether our presence is necessary to shore up a small team and help reopen Christ School at whatever time that makes sense.
As I think is somewhat normal, I have thought endlessly about the circumstances of others in this crisis, yet I eventually have come back to ourselves. We are packing our trunks for Uganda this next week, finishing up shopping you would have thought would be done ages ago (new needs arise, children grow, etc) before heading off to NC for the holidays but who knows what may come. We may be spending another four weeks, six weeks or months here in the States. I hope not.
This life in our basement home, shifting our plans every three to four weeks feels right now more like an existence. We feel between worlds, like we have fallen between the cracks of both Uganda and America. Between the cracks is a safe place though, a place free of Ebola and running for one’s life. But also a lonely place, and not as restful and soul-satisfying as I hoped being here would feel.
I’m sure this is, once-again, a lack of trust. I don’t see the big picture so I worry, I fret I harass God suggesting what’s best for our family, our team, the people of Uganda. The picture is a bit out of focus right now for me. Blurred by my tears, perhaps. I know God is capable of refocusing me and my thoughts, calming my personal fears, solving the foreseen problems as well as the unforeseen. It remains to be seen whether I will relax into His arms or, like the tantruming child who fights so hard for what she believes she needs, I will continue to fight; anxiously, restlessly insisting that I know what is best and I need it NOW.