“We are caught between the predicament and the provision, reassured only by the promise.” - Alan D. Wright. God you promised.

We ate a feast last week; a sort of Biblical wedding feast. A time to be reminded that we are in the “already but not yet”, as Michael Masso always informs us. And it was an already. But still a not-yet.

Cuts of choice beef, sweet pumpkin casserole, hearty brown bread and minty brownies - these were the delicacies of our feast. Candlelight, brightly colored kitangi tablecloths, and our best clothes - these made up the atmosphere. Toasts, speeches, short stories, poems, and a crazy game - these were the events. And at the heart of it all; love. Love constituted of a patient endurance. Love that says we are willing to be caught between the predicament of today’s difficult goodbye and the someday provision of heaven because we believe in a truly great Promise.

This week ended the months of preparation for the Masso goodbye. And what a week it was. A final Saturday adventure, three major parties, one big sleepover, a whole lot of packing up, closing up, handing over and saying farewell. Our house feels empty and abandoned. Every nook and corner of our Pierce home is filled with Masso memories - Gaby and Liana spent a LOT of time here and they left their mark on us and ours. In response to our friendships, Naomi and Quinn and I worked on a short book for the Masso family as our goodbye tribute, based on Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit collection of spoonerism poems. The Stollected Cories as we called them, remind us of all the good times we have had together here and the ones still to come. The joys we have shared here are a sweet foretaste of our future shared Home with no goodbyes, no separations, no sticking-it-out-alone times.

This week has contained tears (mine and Naomi’s mostly). David and I joined this team with much faith partially BECAUSE so many kids our ages were here. Over the last year God has stripped those friends away. When we came two years ago we made the fifth family along with nine singles. Our team feels very small now; us, the Myhres and four wonderful single gals. It’s a big adjustment to a bare-bones survival group supporting medical, nutrition, education, water, translation, and church partnership. and our hearts feel the losses. Our faith is forced to grow, our hearts forced to expand, lest we let them shrivel.

So we spent only Sunday in sadness and began on Monday to work with hope. Naomi and Quinn went back to classes with joy, despite the loss of their only two classmates in our tiny mission school. Together, I and the kids have taken advantage of our time together for shared activities of cooking, holding rabbits, beading and reading aloud. We have pulled our African friends deeper into our lives. And biggest news of all; today the kids started local school, one day a week. This is, by far, their greatest challenge in their lives here so far, as they step into rural African school in this child-destructive culture. And for me, one of my greatest leaps of faith ever. This heart is in no danger of shriveling - exploding, maybe.

More tomorrow.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives. Let not your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27

My pastor wrote that perfected love is love inhaled from God and exhaled onto others; drawing me to the conclusion that perfect peace is the inhalation of God’s peaceful omniscience so that we live lives not of knowing all but of total trust. No more what-if’s; how would that feel??

I am reminded that there might be an occasional benefit from fear; an adrenaline response can save your life. But there is no benefit from worry. Worry steals our joy while getting us nowhere - it poses as responsible concern and continues to waste our precious time and hearts.

God keeps bringing a certain verse into my life; “God’s mercies are new every morning . . .” Lamentations 3:23. And as Alan Wright says (the guy who got me thinking through all of this); God gives grace for actual needs, not potential problems. God says in Hebrews that He will give us ” Grace to help in time of need.” Not when we’re imagining a problem or dreading a potential problem or considering the possibility of a problem. Can I wake each morning with the joy of a baby - fully rested, and that’s enough? Can I let God’s mercies sustain me each new day without worrying about what’s come before or what I imagine might be sure to come later?

I won’t bore you with my list of what-if’s. The fact is; the things which have brought me the greatest joy in my life have been the biggest risks. Marriage was a huge risk - and boy has it paid off. And each child is another risk of all of our hearts; choosing once more to let it walk around outside of our bodies. Living life is a constant risk - especially in some of the places and times God has called us to. Saying goodbye to those we love feels like more risk.

We experience God’s peace not by a greater understanding of what’s ahead but by a deeper sense of how little we know. Babies rest in peace because they have nothing to fear; they may wake with hunger but they won’t spend hours dreading it’s arrival. And this is true for us as well. Relaxing into a childlike realization of our finite understanding forces us to rest in the omniscient One. And the omniscient One says, ” fear not for I am with you.” God teaches that it is in our weakness that we become strong. In the same way it is in our lack of knowing that we know that which is most important - He’s got it ALL covered.

We hear in the news and through the grapevine about the financial crisis in America. It’s rather hard to imagine. Is the whole thing like a balloon with a little too much air in it? Just ready to pop? I have trouble feeling as disturbed as I should by the stock market and the real estate losses. I just want to know how all this affects the big picture of world economics and how much we ourselves are responsible for. Do we create this havoc as we do so much other havoc - by demanding more than the world was meant to give?

Food prices are skyrocketing in our little town of Nyhuka. When we arrived one and a half years ago, 800 shillings could buy a cooked meal at the local “restaurants.” That’s about fifty cents. Now, this short time later, the price has nearly doubled to 1,500 shillings for a comparable meal. Rice is selling for nearly twice what it used to; so are beans. And from what we read in the online papers - this food shortage is widespread. Soon, they say, as the rich get richer, the poor of the world will simply cease to survive.

Apparently this lack of food has to do with choices us rich people make (I might not seem rich to you; but believe me, relatively speaking, I am.) As we focus more on biofuels we divert for our own uses the cheap, easily grown grains that the less affluent use for filling their stomachs and gaining their calories. And as the wealthy parts of the world eat more meats, the less wealthy end up with even less of their normal grain diets. Our meat uses an unbelievable amount of their grain to get to the table. Running on biofuels, our energy uses even more of what their bodies need simply to survive. This is simply what I read, you understand. And because I’m a rich American with choices; I choose how much I want to know and how much I want to ignore.

I don’t have answers to these problems, and I’m going to avoid offering cliched solutions. I’m just taking this chance to notice, to observe the casualties. To realize that the painful prices of fuel affects our way of life so little in comparison to the lives of the poverty-stricken across the globe. To notice that the average annual income in Uganda is $300 and to realize that our part of Ugandan falls far, far below the median of that average. We have choices about how we will live. They are hard choices but important ones, because they affect lives. God cares about the least and about those of us more privileged with affluence. Solutions are there to the problems if we look to the true Answer Man. And I’m preaching to myself here, as I find comfort in a car with fuel, meat hauled from the city, and care packages sent at great expense from home. Where is the balance of enjoying good gifts with protecting those less fortunate? Truly hard to say.

David headed off to the city Monday morning; to pick up stationary from the Ministry of Education, for the official Ugandan exams which will begin in a little over a week. A quick several day trip that did not warrant the hassle or expense of all of us going - especially as we are savoring our last week with the Masso family and preparing emotionally for the goodbyes over the next four days.

Life goes on, though. Monday night my book study group joined me to hear more of Captivating together. I reveled in having real friends to fellowship with, to share my time away from David with. We ate, talked and discussed till ten pm leaving me too tired to miss David much. And I was SO not alone. As I headed off to bed by 11 the drums of Eid started, reminding me that I am more surrounded than I ever needed to be. Ramadan has ended, the celebrations begin.
I got to spend the last few days being somewhat in charge of school, the go-to woman: the woman with the keys: the woman with the money: the woman with the ear of The H/M. Someday, maybe, I’ll have a life of my own.
Now here we are, two days later and David has driven in, filling our house back up with life and joy because some of us are just not enough. The kids are overcome with their need to share every minutes with him and I am eager to tell him what CSB is like without its’ headmaster!

We survived; Muslim holiday, rowdy chapel service, escaping rabbits, and suspended students returning to threaten others, notwithstanding. And we are the stronger for having done so.

Wilson, our “old-boy” (alumna) who has come back to work for the school kitchen as our procurement officer - spending more in a month than many here have ever seen or touched in a lifetime - has experienced more than his share of hardships for us.

Last time it was being robbed at machete-point. This time it was a wrongful arrest on the Congolese marketplace where he travels weekly to find lower food prices on our staples of corn flour, beans, and rice. Congolese officials are understandably jumpy (not to mention corrupt). An “unknown” person buying large amounts of food is suspected to be a rebel supplier and so, just a few miles from our home, Wilson spent the night in Congolese jail. David did a lot of learning in a few hours and got both an internal security officer and a “fixer” who works both sides of the border, to head West towards Wilson. A day later and he is back at work, none the worse for the wear. We paid a small “fine” for the trouble Wilson supposedly caused and we built new relationships with Congolese and Ugandan officials.

We were at team meeting on Thursday night when David got the phone call that Wilson was in jail. And David led us in prayer, that God would bring surprising goodness out of this seemingly bad situation -that we would soon be grateful for this arrest. And to my amazement that prayer seems to be coming true. Congolese army and government officials gave him the full-ahead green light to continue crossing the borders and buying foods, due to the interventions of our the Ugandan internal security officer. Now Wilson is known to Congolese security and will hopefully have safe passage in the coming months and years. Good reminder for my sometimes faith-less heart, that God DOES have a plan.