A 15 year old Muslim girl who is in her freshman year at our school, Fatuma is quiet, sweet, and cooperative. She loves netball and games. She is quiet because her English is not yet so good. She is also demon harassed.

These last two weeks, many quiet early mornings have been broken by the sounds of frantic screaming from the girls’ freshman dorms. Fatuma falls into trances where she sees a relative coming to kill her with machetes. She falls to the floor unable to move. She is unresponsive to anything but intercessory prayer. She screams and screams and screams. The other girls run from the dorms where they sing praise songs and huddle in fear.

But by now we’re fighting back. Fighting, because we’re no longer annoyed with the devil, we’re plain fightin’ ANGRY. Depression, apathy, violence, sickness, inability to pray . . . . .the devil has been mighty busy here in Bundibugyo, working against us all. And we’ve just about HAD it. So Eunice, our new counselor, and Smith, a pastor who teaches for us now, spend hours interceeding for this precious girl. She moves out of the dorms and into Eunice’s space where she sleeps deeply and freely while Eunice keeps watch with prayer through the night. She renounces her Muslim heritage and chooses Jesus. She tells us the story of the aunt who has chosen to practice this strong witchcraft against her. And this morning, Fatuma joins the other girls who hide Easter eggs around our compound for the staff and mission kids to find.

One life, one soul, one heart at a time; we have determined to fight back. And each precious person rescued from the peril of a future without Him is worth all the cost. Thank you Lord for precious Fatuma, and for the angels dancing in heaven today because of all she has chosen to give up and all she will gain.

We lost the regional finals in boys’ football yesterday, but I consider it a great success. The CSB team played beautifully and many of the young players made vast improvements over the course of the year. After a rough first game of the season, they settled down and played great football twice a week for the last month. It was a joy to watch, a joy to cheer, a real testimony to years of investment by Kevin and Kasareka, both of whom are no longer involved.

In the thick of the game, I screamed my heart out on the sidelines with the CSB girls, inhaling glucose powder with the best of them to keep my strength up and watching with every inch of my body. For a while I really BELIEVED that my faith would make our team win; sadly God had other plans.

Nathan blessed my heart greatly with his mature response towards his team. After the game, the team gathered for the post-game talk. The air was filled with the sounds of teen girls dramatically “mourning” the loss. Some girls were really in hysterics of disappointments and sobs reverberated through the compound. I and some other staff wives held the staff babies and looked on, speaking encouragement to some of the girls as they passed. We were also in position to see the faces of Nathan, Alex and the boys as they recapped the game. Some boys had been crying, in particularly the keeper, who had “lost” us the game by letting the winning goal through but who had played QUITE well. Nathan’s face and body radiated calm, focused appreciation. There was no hint of disappointment, no hint of anger . . . . And as each boy got up and left after the talk, Nathan placed himself squarely in their path and hugged them all in turn. Here in Bundibugyo, that was a great and precious moment. A moment of real grace poured out through Nathan’s redeeming heart.

I must admit I cried too. And as we headed up to the Myhre’s for Passover just an hour after the loss, David decided to stay behind with our mourning school. It didn’t feel right to be celebrating as a team and family when our hearts were so sad with our school.

But this year we saw real success as our boys played fairly, decently and with great dignity. We saw real success in individual growth, success in acceptance and friendship between Alex and Nathan as they co-coached the team. Even in Semuliki’s win (which hasn’t happened for eight years, I believe) we saw real progress because they played fairly, without mercenaries or cheating. And almost all of their best players are our former footballers, dismissed for poor behavior or lacking academics. So the win is somewhat ours as well.

So rejoice with us in loss and wish us better in future.

Naomi requested two parties this year, one with team “family” and one with her Ugandan “family”. In many ways these are the two separate worlds she lives in, even here.

So yesterday we celebrated with her local family, the ones she spends most of her days with: kids and staff friends who teach her how to cook over open fires, how to play Bolingo Ya Yay, and a little more each day about acceptance and community. Naomi had an invitation list of twenty five women and children who she sees as integral parts of her life. This itself is an amazing answer to your prayers and ours. Prayers that she will find life and community and connection here. She has.

I am so thankful for God’s amazing resurrection powers, helping me to host a party for this group just two days after being on IV drip and bed ridden. We played old fashioned party games: potato carries, backwards races and duck duck goose. The children has a blast and the adults laughed hysterically as children fell down, spun round and generally tried their hardest at the silly games. According to Naomi’s request, our house helper, Asiimwe, cooker pilau ( a rice dish with Middle Eastern background similar to fried rice) and sombe (greens) and of course we all drank soda and ate cake. In another wonderful moment, Naomi agreed to serve each of her guests their lunch, a culturally symbolic means of thanking and respecting them and one Naomi never would have been willing to do a year ago. She is growing in so many ways and I am proud of her strength.

We closed the party as yet another football game began, with birthday songs, a few presents that she loved from her Ugandan friends and prayer. What a great chance to draw closer to our community as they love and bless us with their presence.

Naomi, the child who opened my womb and my heart, turned nine today. It has been almost a decade since I first saw that little pink line on the test strip that turned my life around, took my breath away and opened me to more pain and joy than I would have dared to dream of or imagine. Being Naomi’s mom is infinitely difficult and infinitely good. It was only yesterday that I told God how very complex and challenging she is to raise and He told me ” that’s why I picked you for her, Dear one.” Somehow, on the days when I feel most at a loss to mother her, he reminds me that she and I were picked for each other from eternity and that He and I together have all it takes to mom her through life.

And what a joy to realize, as I resurrected from deep sickness this week, how much she needs me. The day I finally felt well enough to get out of bed and tuck her in to her own for the night, she broke down in tears over a small episode at school during my sickness that had deeply hurt her heart. As she shared what she could and held back what she couldn’t, as I struggled to love her and trust her enough to respect her privacy while embracing what she held out to me, her hurting heart, I was reminded of what she wrote in one of her sharing journals: ” my mom loves me and she helps me through my problems.” She reached out for a hug and told me how glad she was that I was well enough to listen and to hold her when she was sad. And I was glad that was enough.

Naomi is sparkly and silly, brave and bold, timid and tenacious. She is drawn to people yet has a hard time meeting new ones. She is CRAZY about babies. She loves food but won’t eat unless it’s something GOOD. She spends her late nights designing new fashions by torch-light or writing down new praise songs in her song journal. She has a journal for every one of her interests: songs, fashions, animals, secret thoughts, church and spiritual and writes prodigiously in all of them. She stays in bed in the mornings for long hours to “think my thoughts” or read animal novels. She is fascinated by history and cultures and spends oodles of time reading through history encyclopedias. She wishes she could have been Abraham Lincoln or William Wilberforce and have played a great role in abolishing slavery. And she is actively looking for what she may abolish someday when she takes up her dream of political activism as an adult (yet another journal on THIS topic!) She is crafty but not too. And she has not outgrown an imagination that takes her from being Queen Cleopatra to Anne of Green Gables complete with costumes and appropriate set-ups all in the same afternoon. She insists her father is crazy but still wants endless cuddles and “pumbles” (wrestling) from him. She never fails to remind me that I am only nineteen years older than her (it’s really much, much closer to twenty but she never believes me) and vacillates between being sure she is nothing like me (thank goodness!) and being proud that she thinks she is. She loves to dance and praise God Ugandan style. She wishes we led a simpler lifestyle here in Bundibugyo yet is happiest when we are at a luxury resort. She is nothing if not complex and fascinating – exactly what a woman should be.

Today, her hair is twisted into extensions that fall all the way down her back, a birthday treat. She has gotten new fabric that glitters with a golden print, deep purple and hints of pink and green and she wraps it around her body innumerable times as she tries out new fashions for the dress she will wear to her Egyptian team party next weekend. She runs in and out of the house, the center of all the children around, organizing new games, learning new ideas, strong yet weak, confident yet vulnerable. I make her lasagna and fresh bread for dinner and she eats to her hearts content after curling up next to me to watch Gilmore Girls, a show that leads to wonderful questions and discussions for us as a mom and daughter. I LIKE nice things, she says at bed time as we talk about love languages and how we feel love. ” Nice things like when you make my bed for me, and make lasagna for me and have brownies on a pretty plate when I come home from school. Nice things like an organized room that you helped me with and a really cuddly pillow and a good story to read together.” And now you see how hard this transition to Africa must have been for sweet Naomi these last three years. Perhaps hardest of all, for her.

Somehow I got the job of raising this extraordinary young woman (time and physical changes force me to admit that she too will become a woman someday “soon”), learning from her, loving her, crying over her, and asking her forgiveness for the many times I hurt her. It’s a frightening job. And I’m SO BLESSED to have it. Thanks, Daddy-God, for this firstborn child, the one whose real name only you know, thanks for giving her to me for a little while in the span of eternity. I think you know how hard I try, how much I fail, and what you will do with her beautiful life anyway.

I’m ending day three of my nastiest yet experience with an intestinal virus (we think. ) Today I woke with sharp pain in my lower right abdomen. Following two days of fever and vomiting and severe diahhrea we suspected appendicitus and I almost got on a medical evac flight this afternoon. But here I sit still, feeling better after a bag of IV fluid or “drip” as the locals all call it. And finally peeing again and thinking a bit straighter. I still can’t really walk around because of the pain in my abdomen and resulting nasuea. We haven’t figured out what that is or how long it will be around. But I have determined to be well enough tomorrow to get out of beds for my kids.
You would think I would have learned all sorts of wonderful lessons about faith, life and God during this time but mostly I was semi-unconscious and miserable. I did gain a renewed appreciation for my faithful husband who did the things they don’t tell you about in pre-marital counseling but which are very significant in a lifetime spent together. I am so grateful.

And though I barely remember Tuesday at all, I will always be grateful for Scott and Jennifer’s injection of medication which dropped my high fever and brought relief to my non-stop vomiting.

Naomi’s birthday is just around the corner. The end of term is only three weeks away. There’s so much work to be done. I’m ready to be well again.