Yes, the subject caught my attention too . . . . I found it posted on the student announcement board earlier this week as the proposition for this week’s debate . . . . Talk about an interesting topic!!

What an eye opener to actually sit through a section of it, though. First lesson I learned was that it is such an intense topic that many people were a bit afraid to talk about it. The second was how vastly excepted polygamy really still is, even within an educated culture like ours at the school. You know something’s not quite right when most of the school’s student spiritual leaders are standing up in favor of the topic and not because they were on the docket either!!

I reached my saturation point when a new staff member got up and talked about his own personal experience with polygamy. In his words ” when my brother died and left behind a very beautiful wife, I couldn’t just leave her alone, now could I??” This in the context of how polygamy is important because it helps to solve the problem of widowhood. He also talked about how size didn’t matter as much as endurance in a totally inappropriate way but . . . . .well, let’s just say it was a revealing day for this staff member’s future at the school!

We also got to hear lots of arguments on how polygamy is necessary because it can make even a short, small man feel big (and we got a lot of those around here). As well as how producing more children through multiple wives produces free labor which enhances a man’s status, security and financial situation.

Overall the debate was a pretty bleak description of how hard old habits die. One boy did bring the house down in a positive way when he said ” there is only one reason why you shouldn’t even consider polygamy. That is that polygamy is most likely the leading cause of malnutrition in Bundibugyo.” You go, guy.

I have always been an amateur counselor, perhaps those are the worst kinds. I listen sympathetically to friends and sometimes I offer them something helpful in response. Mostly I am willing to share my journey with others, especially the painful and disgraceful parts. The parts that remind us that we are not alone in our disappointments and failures. Perhaps sharing my short comings has been the most significant part of my journey this far.

Over this last year we came to the realization that counseling is a huge need at Christ School. We played around with the idea of discipleship for selected staff members, of trauama counseling for significantly needy students. We looked at many interesting books. And we heard loud and clear from staff and students that any discipline improvements should contain a clear counseling component as well as the necessary rules and punishments.

We’ve been praying about all this and now we see God beginning to move. Our ten probationary students are beginning counseling with individuals on the leadership team, new students are signing up for counseling all the time. Now we need to do some staff training and bring in some reinforcements.

Enter Eunice, an amazing Ugandan Christian lady who has the peaceful and beautiful countenance of one who has been satisfied at His table. She has agreed to move to Bundibugyo to serve as a full time counselor to both boys and girls at this school. The third in a line of interviewees, Eunice came at the perfect time. She has no educational background in counseling, but she has a firm grasp on grace and an equal appreciation for the need of law. As I have begun to see ever more clearly, grace without the context of law is just permissiveness and doesn’t do a soul any good.

I was reminded of the need, watching staff on duty this week “discipline” students at preps, meal lines and class times has been the observation of an endless litany of criticism and judgment. When I watch how we are breaking down these children it hurts my heart. I don’t want to rush in with my own criticisms of these teachers, but I hurt to see how we are handling heart issues with behavioral focuses ONLY and a lot of shame and guilt.

This week I will start a Mentoring 101 course with one of our staff ladies. Last week I started counseling with the thumb-sucking gal. We begin a study of the book Resiliant Parenting with our staff this week to talk about counseling, discipleship, the place for punishment and restoration. And I will introduce a new format for one-on-one counseling questions to a staff who often, like me, just criticize and give advice.

Here’s how The Message put what we’re looking for here.
“You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy it’s results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other and treating each other with dignity and honor.” = James 3:18, The Message

Would you pray it into being here?

And we have asked God to provide the needed funding to counsel at least one full time counselor this year. We have made an informal agreement with Eunice but are looking for the finances to finalize a contract. A counselor is not a luxury in a school where nearly 50% of our students have lost at least one close family members, where the school is located directly next to a former IDP camp where many students grew up, where the number of AIDS orphans grows all the time. The total financial costs for one counselor is about $185/month including salary and feeding. We are praying that God will provide the need.

It’s Sunday afternoon at Christ School. Morning chapel has finished, the student movie has been watched and lunch eaten. Now we enjoy afternoon football and look forward to one of two special student meals in the week; Sunday evenings are beans with rice instead of the usual corn or cassava flour.

Rain pours down intermittently with bright rays of sunshine, none of which slow the students’ play. This is their time, their chance. Messages on the student board declared: “A-level vs O-level Match, 3 pm, Come and see your boys play great football.” So we all have. The pitch is lined with cheering students dressed in rain coats, stomping and clapping to encourage “their boys.”

A few parents have just arrived, despite the weekend, to sign in new students. They are several weeks late but we welcome them anyway, especially since they bring students to our under-utilized Advanced Level program – the junior college students. One parent, a local “big man” arrives in a pick up truck, a sign of the development of both the area and the school, unheard of in past years.

Girls strut around the campus in as much makeup and jewelry as they can muster, reminding me that we need to post new instructions regarding what is permissable for girls to wear. It’s a fine line to walk between encouraging girls desire to be beautiful and allowing them to throw away their best chance at sexual and emotional safety. I’ve had several conversations with girls this week, reminding them that their very beauty is why I encourage them NOT to dress up. Seems to make them glow, even when being disciplined, to be reminded that they are beautiful, delightful creatures who will someday leave this school more educated and more beautiful than ever, ready for a little more of life and experience.

Naomi and Quinn play in the yard with friends, Muroongi, Patience and Ben. They climb trees to play lion and use their new “bad” Lubwisi words with delight to each other. They form small choirs in imitation of the CSB girls they watched this morning and sing “Jesus love is bubbling over” in chant as they march around the yard.

I mix up a flavorful pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes, onions and garlic and add in some battered and fried eggplant to make a parmesan, we are still enjoying the last of our hoarded Kampala veggies. Soft pretzel dough is rising in the oven and I head to the garden to pick basic to add to a salad for the meal.

Another week is coming. My thyroid tests this last week showed a significant change which might explain why I feel so exhausted and why I sleep SO MUCH. I am trying to embrace this new bigger body that seems to come unbidden, perhaps from thyroid imbalance and as a result of all the extra calories I add to our food in my quest to help Naomi grow (it’s working, BTW.) I seek solace in my Daddy-God, in special times reading in the quiet of the morning, sermons listened to in the quiet of the evening as I clean up the house. Worship music floating loudly over the sounds of student chatter as I prepare dinner.

He’s here with me, with us. And each day, however tiring, however simple and ‘unproductive” is a day in service to him, a day of fulfilling the things He has designed us for here.
Job said it well:
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and in that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart longs within me.” – Job 19:25-27
We are a moment, He is forever. And in the mundane rhythms of school life; forming calendars, making organizational charts and schedules, marking furniture, moving books – it’s a great thing to remember. He will stand upon this earth. Someday He will thank me for the time I took to make a pasta sauce with extra everything to satisfy my family but He is smiling too as He reminds me to take time for myself, to enjoy the new books that just came, to sleep deeply and well, to cry when I need to, to laugh whenever I can.