Sunday was the kind of deep rest that we all need once in a while. Skip preached at chapel in the morning, talking about giving God our all. His style contrasted and complemented beautifully with a young student who talked about sexual purity in passionate tones. As always, the students shone during their time of praise and worship, their hearts and bodies expressing joy and excitement with every movement.

We went home to hot monkey bread coming out of the oven and coffee with milk. A lazy Sunday breakfast. Visitors were few, time alone was plentiful. The sun had come out after days and days of rain and mud and the children spent the afternoon playing in their basins in bathing suits and slip-sliding on our tarp. I pulled from the fridge one perfect ripe watermelon carried home from Kampala and we sliced it into exact wedges and savored each amazing bite on our front steps in the heat of the sun. My soul drank up the day as my skin did the Vitamin-D-making rays. We played games, napped deeply without disruption and let our God meet us in some of the hurt.

Thank you for praying for us. Don’t stop.

We drove back from Kampala on Tuesday, took Wednesday to get resettled and back into the CSB routine and then life took back over. As usual there is no break in the constant dizzying action.

This week we learned that our food procurement officer has taken another full time job; meaning that our biggest cost and the one that is financially taking us down is less well-managed than we thought. Do we fire him? There are only a few weeks left in this term and it’s hard to procure without him. Pray for the emergency response to his failures that are endangering money we have already invested in food. And pray for wisdom about improved ways of buying next year. This is a make or break financial decision for the school.

We had a very serious bullying incident on our first day back, a strangling episode involving school uniform trousers and a bunk bed both of which we provide free for our students which somehow makes the whole thing feel worse. I hate that we are impotent to protect and care for them in so many ways. I’d love Christ School to be an oasis of utopia in the midst of the big bad world of Bundibugyo but it isn’t always so. We also received a letter from Senior 1 girls alleging bullying within the girls compound. A number of students were named and so we begin the process of trying to sort out the elusive truth with integrity. Some of these named girls are ones I have suspicions about but several are dear to my heart and I’m sad to hear that they may have mistreated their younger peers.

On Wednesday one of the staff came to me privately to talk about a marriage proposal. This is a very sticky and complicated situation and one that we had thought might be coming. In fact we gave some new rules in thw sexual harassment meeting last week that might bring this out of the woodwork. It worked! Now I am praying for the right words and attitude as I address this woman’s choices with boldness. I want the best for her and I hate to see her step into a bad situation but ultimately we must let our friends make their own choices and love them through the good, the bad and the ugly. Pray for wisdom.

In other sad news, we received confirmation today that the Senior 1 girl who turned up pregnant a month ago did abort while at home following her positive test at school. Our staff have been doing a good job with investigations and we feel fairly sure now of the man who impregnated her (thankfully not one of us) can be caught by police for what they term here “defilement” of a minor. We are sad for the loss of this baby, for this girl’s loss and for our failure to protect her well.

All of this goes on in the midst of the beginning of A-level exams, the closing of O-level exams, staff evaluation periods in preparation for the end of the year; meetings on discipline, academics and everything in between as we try to improve policies for the coming year. It’s a lot. But the official end of school is coming on November 21st, a week early in response to the food crisis. Pray that we end well; with courage and determination and a deep sense of our own weakness. Our first year running Christ School is almost over. But we dare not say that the hardest is behind us.

Okay, so you can see from the title that my attitude is lacking. We spent the last weekend traveling to 7 hours each way to Kampala, our capital city, for our scheduled two day “break” from the term and mostly to have Naomi’s tooth fixed. It wasn’t much of a break. However, I have MUCH to praise God for: we were able to travel to Kampala quickly, the roads were passable; David had a break in the UNEB exam schedule so I didn’t have to travel alone with the kids; we got to fit in a last minute visit with the Masso family who were just about to leave for Sudan but were still staying in Kampala; and most of all, Dr. Chapman, the American dentist had no-show appointments all morning on Monday so we got HIS services for 2 1/2 hours.

So that is some of the much I have to be thankful for. Many answers to prayer including the miraculous provision of Dr. Chapman. Having said that, it was a long 2 1/2 hours at the dentist with two shots, lots of blood, half a tooth gone and a a silver cap to end it all. Since this is our first experience with anything other than six month cleanings; it was a doozy of an introduction to pediatric dentistry.

Naomi is quite proud of her silver cap and wears it as a badge of honor. I am horrified, somehow taking the thing as proof of inadequate mothering though the dentist assures me there was little I could have done to prevent it. But Naomi, despite her good attitude, is having a very hard time with life. She cries a lot and wishes her life were different and is generally struggling to see the goodness of God right now. Night before last she had a truly terrifying nightmare which I see as direct attack from Satan. She has had a lot of loss in the last months and needs your prayers.
That’s right where I’m at too. Even though on the surface I have so little to complain about, somehow my heart is still unsure and tired and lonely. I had a chance this week to read The Shack on the advice of my counselor and as sent from a dear friend. What a gift that has been. I don’t dispute that the book is certainly controversial, but there is so much truth there that my heart needs reminding of. God is active, alive and deeply invested in me as well as the great big world that I worry about. I took an hour this morning to breath deeply, to finish The Shack and to let God seep a bit of that truth into my soul as I cried. I feel lighter now, still sore and weary but not quite as heavy as I did.