Two fun thoughts from the world of TCK’s (Third Culture Kids) N and Q, who live on an English-only campus now but still get lots of exposure to many tribal languages.

Last week Quinn used a word I didn’t understand when speaking to one of our staff friends here, a young woman who is kind of a big sister to N and Q. Turns out the word means “fart” or the verb for “to gas” and was quickly picked up by Quinn from his two friends . . . . A common language of their play is the cries and waving arms resulting from a few too many CSB bean meals.

As Naomi arrived into town Sunday evening, with friends yelling greetings to us as our vehicle passed through town, she jumped up and down: “Mom, mom, now my tongue can speak the lanuage it likes again!” (which amazingly enough was referring to Lubwisi!!)

Gotta love language.

As we talk about ownership with staff and build ownership into our student leaders assignments, we have the chance to explore delegation. An easy concept, but far less easily implemented. Unfortunately, yesterday was the first time I can remember seeing the majority of staff actually working collaboratively. Post-meeting, it was a pretty amazing sight to walk from staff rooms to classrooms to dorms and see small knots of staff in each place, animatedly discussing decision and plans for the new year.

Yesterday David announced to the CSB team what he will (and won’t ) be doing this year. A lot of our personal focus over the last two months has been asking God what in our actions has been necessary and what has been too much. Delegation is a life-saving means to success, so necessary for us right now. David informed his team that he will focus on only two things this year: coaching them to higher levels of leadership, and financial stability and efficiency. This list of tasks looks unbelievably short! But I have been thankful and proud that David has clearly stepped into the challenge already, forcing staff to think through decisions on their own and to let him know what the solutions will be. Decentralization is on it’s way, but the process will not be easy.

As Donovan discussed extensively in our CSB retreat, the process of building trust is a messy business. Each time we entrust ownership of a part of the school to a staff member we face very real risks of difficult and damaging complications. Yet if we are to ever succeed here we must step into this risk. Beside these risks, beside the leadership principle of delegation, we trust that your prayers for REVIVAL (as requested in our last newsletter update) are present with us. Only through the power of the Spirit can real change come.

Staff orientation began yesterday with David’s “Caleb” message, which will soon become famous. It is REALLY good and deserves it’s own post, coming later this week (along with post-retreat stuff – so much to say!) Staff gathered before nine in the newly arranged staff rooms. Junk is being cleared out in preparation for the new year (yes, even in rural africa, junk accumulates!), and we are painting, well due in our tenth year in operation! There is a spirit of hope and optimism as staff pass around the spreadsheets that highlight their new living locations, collatoral duties and teaching assignments.

All this, in spite of having lost two more teachers in the last week, due to more “hidden things” coming to light. These are both bright and full-of-potential young men who have made big mistakes. We hope and pray that God turns their lives around, but our female students’ protection seems more important than taking the risk of redemption on them here at CSB right now. David has counseled and discussed and worked with these men and we have not seen change. Yet we trust that God can use this termination too, in their futures.

David’s themes for the staff at the start of ’09 include having a vision and taking ownership; two things the Biblical Caleb did well. His talks with staff yesterday centered around what it might look like for each of them to take ownership of both their teaching and their extra responsibilities. Since CSB is a school where we all both live and work on-campus, we have many jobs beyond teaching: dorm parents, facilities managers, bursars, hospitality, etc. I wrote down David’s quote which I think may become a posting on our welcome wall this year for staff and students:

“No excuses, no complaints, make it happen. You CAN because you are loved by God and His power is yours.” Amen, brother. ’09, here we come.

We’re back. And what a great re-entry. An over-the-top meal by Jennifer Myhre. An entire hysterical family with unconscious child in the kitubbi to close our first evening. And a whole lotta activity at CSB. After our arrival last night, today was the start of the teacher orientation week. We had lots of cleaning, painting, spreadsheets, meetings, brainstorming, team-work and OH SO MUCH MORE.

The impali ants that attacked our front door were one thing (you don’t want to mess with these blood-sucking insects.) The “EDIBLE rats” were another. I guess any old rat is probably edible but these are the old traditional meat of the Babwisi people. Their Christmas chicken before they had chicken. The “nsumba” (sp?) is bigger than the normal Bundibugyo household “embebe” rat but still looks just like a rat. To be more specific an R.U.S. The morning’s fun was the discovery that there was a nest of these rats hiding out in the girls compound behind the rubbish pit. What followed was an hour of digging with hoes and pickaxes followed by triumphant shouts and blows as each mongo-rodent was discovered. There were five in all. Four boys and a girl, I learned, as the men yelled excitedly to one another post-killing. Who knew that the “man” rat is so much more tasty than it’s female counterpart?

Even better was watching david follow these guys (who just happen to be our school cooks) into the kitchen where they began to prepare their rat-stew for consumption mid-day. David claimed Muslim cleanliness rules and asked them to take the beasts OUT. “But Master”, they chimed, ” this is not a pig, it’s a rat!” Aah, yes, but oh-so-very-equally unclean.

Another sign of the ABUNDANT LIFE your prayers have brought us here at CSB.

Here’s our latest prayer update:

” I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you – and profitable, too, very likely, if you ever get over it.”
– Gandolf, speaking to the title character in Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Praying Friends,
Reading The Hobbit this month with our kids, we are reminded of ourselves. Not great adventures here in Africa fulfilling a childhood dream of missions but comfortable middle class Americans doing something we never wished for or dreamed of and finding it hard. The Hobbit joins a band of dwarves for whom high stakes adventure is everyday stuff. Meanwhile he longs for his safe burrow, his hourly snacks and warm tea. They have a treasure to find, though, and it is Gandolf’s belief in him that draws out His best. Even when not only others, but also the Hobbit himself, don’t see his potential, Gandolf sees it, calls it and nurtures it.

Our Gandolf, Jesus, does the same for us, a soft Navy family who dreamed of life on the water-front, and non-traditional education for our children. We got the non-traditional part all right!! In all of our yearning for the safe burrow of life before Africa we are also glad, like the Hobbit, to be part of this great adventure, part of this epic journey towards the Kingdom where treasure awaits. There are great challenges along the way but also great rewards. Rewards, not for our monumental efforts, but for perseverance, for staying the course.

Recent great Rewards on the journey:
– Deliverance from our debt at CSB! WHM, our sending agency, stepped forward this month with a promise to pay the entire pre-existing debt of Christ School ($80,000) to free us from carrying the burden developed over many years before we came. This is a HUGE release for us and a truly amazing gift from our mission during this very difficult economic time in America. It signifies their commitment to us, their trust in us and a belief that the adventure will lead somewhere GREAT, somewhere worth risking for, because they’re risking too.

-More financial deliverance for CSB!! additionally by using some of the money given for capital projects during ’08 we have miraculously broken even this year at Christ School!! And while capital projects are always helpful, God has also allowed us to survive with them through free water tanks and batteries that just keep going and going (though they’re definitely not Energizers). This has been our prayer since we took over the school; to break even this year. It is NO SMALL THING during a year of doubling food costs. We are in awe of God’s work through your prayers and giving.

Woke up last night to a large rat running along the wooden mosquito net frame above my head. I stayed still and quiet to prevent startling him into falling on me and then we staged a full-out man-hunt for him over the next hour but with no success. He has been spotted twice more since then. We have gone to great lengths to eliminate rats in the house after my spring illness and it has mostly worked. We found the spot where they had gnawed holes through some sealant to come down from the attic. Now we need to find the exterior hole. Meanwhile I fear not the rat but the snake that I imagined has followed it in to eat it.

In other wildlife news, we seem to have an African Wild Cat living in our school compound. Acacia, Jack and Julia came over to help us identify it in our African mammal book. It’s a nocturnal creature though so we don’t see it too often. It looks much like a domestic cat but slightly bigger with a longer tail and pointier ears. It’s tail is striped like a bobcat. It’s beautiful. It hides in the grasses of the football field, perfectly camouflaged.

As the kids prepared for bed tonight, we sat together reading on the floor. A tarantula ran out from under the bed. I marveled at the kids casual interest as I gished it with a shoe. “But at least it’s not a big rat, mom, those are harder to catch!” they said. Later on, we woke up to vociferous barking from our predatory dog. Upon inspection, a toad blinked up at us sleepily, disturbed from his rest. The dog hates toads but we get a little less excited.

And Naomi woke up yesterday with cries of anguish. I rushed to her room whereupon I discovered the source of her pain: dreams of boxed chocolate cake, just baked and about to be eaten, then waking to the reality that there is NO CHOCOLATE CAKE. Reminded me of the stories my friend Amy tells about her childhood in Kenya dreaming of Taco Bell and Burger King meals in near-delusional moments of craving. We got out the Wycliffe cookbook and baked Jungle Camp Chocolate Cake which very nearly was as good as the dream, Naomi said.

Isn’t that a wonderful name for a cake? Can’t you just see us sitting in the jungle eating chocolate cake and spilling the crumbs that will bring the rat which will entice the snake that lives in the house the Barts built??

Last night we went through our usual bedtime routine. Dinner, baths, Daddy-story (the Hobbit right now), teeth, into bed and another story. We sang our current favorite song; “Over in the Meadow”, as the children lay in their bunks in the dimness. We prayed for all the new babies, for the grandparents, for our cousins, for our friends. And we prayed for new friends, who are here visiting the mission, praying about God’s plans for their future and who had lunch with us today: ” God, help Mr. T and Miss A know what you want them to do. Help them to know where to live and how to serve you.”

A little voice piped up from the bottom bunk, ” I’m satisfied with your choice.” What? Quinn repeated for my benefit “I’m satisfied with your choice of how to serve God.” Oh. I smile in the darkness. Then a moment later ” what does satisfied mean?” Naomi speaks from the top bunk ” it means content. I’m content with your choice too.” Quinn: “Oh.” . . . . . “What does content mean?” And I say, “it means you feel settled in your heart.” Quinn asked, “is that how you know God is speaking to you, when you feel settled in your heart?” “It’s not always easy to do what God says,” I say. “But when you’re sure God’s giving you directions for your life you can be guaranteed that in the end it’s going to make you happy because God loves us and wants what’s best for us. He’s on our side.”

“Yea.” says Quinn. And I am reminded profoundly that God is using each struggle and challenge and joy of our lives in this place to mold their hearts too. IN the last months we’ve heard a lot of emotional turmoil in our kids hearts. It was healing to hear this moment of “settled”.

Here are pictures of Quinn on his Christmas gift, a zip line!! And Naomi getting her hair braided in a weave by a local friend.

Soap Opera style reporting from the jungles of Africa:

One room of the house flooded. If you have never mopped up gallons of dark brown filthy water with a hand towel and a basin . . . . Well, it’s not pleasant but it reminds you to be thankful you have not survived a hurricane.

Naomi developed a nasty eye infection requiring antibiotics. Subsequently she developed vomiting from the antibiotics endangering her already precarious appetite and intake. I cried more than a few tears throughout the day, in worry. Especially difficult when there is not a fellow teammates’ shoulder to cry on. She’ll be okay. She just doesn’t have margin at the moment and this is a place where one needs margin. I prayed for supernatural healing and despite all the medicine being vomited up today there is significant improvement in her eye. Thanks, God.

Our current refrigerator wick and kerosene supply seems to have developed the qualities of the famous cruz of Elijah’s day. The thing just doesn’t go out!! One of the trade-off’s of the luxury of a fridge in the middle of a jungle is the constant maintenance and refilling of fuel required. These are the days of Elijah, as the song says, and we just keep checking the flame and grinning in amazement. Thanks, again, God.

Fruit bats migrated to our trees this week. The large pale bats hang in the mango trees outside David’s office, swooping away in fright occasionally like flocks of birds. Little boys outside the fence poise, slingshots in hand, to shoot them for target practice. The bats lay in the grass, stunned, as we take in their skeletal wings, their rapidly beating hearts. They are beautiful in strange ways.

We finally have eggs again!! And I bake a celebratory batch of brownies which rapidly disappear. Boxed milk makes it’s appearance again too and we dip our desserts in delight. What a difference good food makes to hearts, souls and bodies. Come, all you who thirst.

We interview Ugandan agriculture workers to save our sinking school farm which has so much potential but for which we have so little time. We anticipate contact with a new family who may have interest in joining our educational endeavor here. We type and format recruiting posters to place in Kampala hotspots to hire a needed teacher, librarian, and counselor. We contact security agencies to find out how much we will spend for really secure security on-campus. (One of the mission houses lost $5000 worth of solar panels in night heists, we tremble to think of such a loss at CSB. Bundibugyo is growing and developing, so is the trouble.) We design and order prefect badges for our incoming student leaders. We finalize our decisions for who will make up the staff leadership team. We prepare for our Christ School, team, and leadership retreats all coming up in the next few weeks. We crunch and re-crunch budget numbers in search of the elusive balance.

These, folks, are the days of our lives, as the world turns, here in deepest darkest Africa.

I’ve been reading about living water a lot in my times with God. Yesterday I listened to an amazing message about Isaiah 55 and I am reading Brother Yun’s book “Living Water.” Seems God’s trying to get something through to me!

Rereading through Isaiah 55, it strikes me how well it fits our situation right now. We had bountiful giving from school supporters in December, as we hoped but did not expect. The money was enough for us to pay salaries for December and January, no small gift. Meanwhile, between our paying for school food out of our own pockets and our end of year trip we are down to nothing extra in our personal accounts. So all the projects that we had hoped to pay for at school over the break are still on hold. Maybe those latrines won’t get built, the books bought, or the staff houses rehabbed.

Looking ahead to 2009, David will spend this entire week trying to refine the school budget and get a handle on all of the numerous expenses that he handles each week. The infrastructure for this financial project is immense and I thank God daily for David’s practical experiences with spreadsheets, budgets and financial planning. We are facing the same situation that is happening in many places across the globe, increasing costs of operation, decreasing donor support due to economic issues and less money available to our consumers. All together it means – tighten our belts.

Isaiah 55 has the antidote for all this realism and practical planning. Come, everyone who thirsts, and drink. Come buy bread without money and without cost. This is a God who works in the impossible, whose best challenges are those practicalities of no money with food to buy, of no healthcare and bodies to heal.

I have a strong sense of God pushing forward to work here in our lives, at the school and in this community. It’s not a matter of trying harder but of pulling inside-out our empty pockets and yet walking forward. Of acknowledging the total lack and keeping going. So far that’s what he’s directed us to do. So many prayers for hope, for courage, for His presence have already been answered. After all that, we just have the food and etceteras to wait for . . . . .

David spends his ” school break” days at the office; plugging away at finances, endless, endless finances. He has put out a no-visitor-without-appointment alert at the CSB gate to prevent constant interruptions (we are talking dozens a day, each one requiring the usual African courtesies that we Americans sadly find tedious.)

Meanwhile me and the kids putz at home. We are few. The whole team is away except for us and there are only three CSB staffers here on-campus. But with the two new babies to play with and Ingrid and Ben, our little buddies, we are happy. We have been playing and organizing and brainstorming and planning for the year ahead. And reading the Hobbit whenever Daddy is home.

And I am working the calories for Naomi. We found out a few weeks ago that her weight has dropped seriously low for her age. She’s always been a skinny one but now she is way too thin. Probably a product of life here, stomach issues, teeth issues, her busyness and recent interest in biking and playing nonstop. So my job is to find a way to fatten her up to at least HER normal. It’s not an easy job. This week there were no eggs to be had and milk ran short. But I have been adding extra fat and protein to everything in every way I can. You can pray for her.

So what are the usual fears? Our kids: health, emotions, their needs. Money: the school, ourselves, all the desperate people of Bundibugyo and even the American and world economy. Time: to be with each other, to get a handle on CSB, to be with those who we are called to love here.
So we head back to Him, the carrier of big burdens and lay ours in His capable hands. I’m a mother and my children’s challenges lay bare the unbelief and doubts in my heart. And then that’s where God brings me to meet him, not because I have perfect faith or no doubts but because I know that He DOES have answers.