We’re leaving Bundibugyo in 24 days . . . Not that I’m counting.

Most of the time I have a pretty decent attitude about this somewhat abrupt shift in our life plans. Most of the time I maintain a “what’s ahead?” curious attitude. Most of the time I think with deep gratefulness of what we’ve done and here and of of the release from this work God has given us. Clearly it’s time for something else.

But not always. Sometimes I just feel mad, sad and worried. Sometimes the “what-if’s” and “if-only’s” and “what’s next’s” overpower the peaceful joy. And then I have a bad day. Tears fall. I struggle to get through dishes and cooking and hugging my children. All I want is sleep.

Yesterday turned out to be one of those (thankfully rare) days. Blessedly, God fortified me for it be waking me early for an extra-long quiet time with Him and during my reading He gave me this verse in The Message which I hold on to like a drowning man, ” My help and glory are in God; Granite-Strength and Rock-Harbor God. So trust him ABSOLUTELY, people. Lay your lives on the line for him. GOD IS A SAFE PLACE TO BE. Psalm 62:7-8

And I went on today to read this on God as a Shepherd and us as His sheep from Hannah Whitehall Smith’s book God of all Comfort:

” The part of the sheep is very simple. It is only to trust and to follow. The Shepherd does all the rest. He leads the sheep by the right way. He chooses their paths for them, and sees that those paths are paths where they can walk in safety. When He puts forth His sheep He goes before them. The sheep have none of the planning to do, none of the decisions to make, none of the forethought or wisdom to exercise. They have absolutely nothing to do but trust themselves entirely to the care of the Good Shepherd and follow Him wherever He leads.”

In 24 days we launch out from here. In 24 days we pack down to a few trunks and suitcases and leave behind a place that has wrung more from us than anything that has come before. In 24 days we leave this life and world behind – and only those who have lived in remote places know how far behind it will truly be. And we step out into the unknown. Where will we live? What next? A car? A place to stay? All of these are questions. My comfort-loving heart has latched onto the idea that if only I have a space of our own; a basement, an apartment, a bedroom; that I’ll feel okay. I just want a little space of my own over the next six months or however long. My comfort-loving heart says just a few deep friends around me, that’s all I need. And once my heart cries out to God to give me what I need, then my brain goes into planning mode to make sure I get it.

But God’s words says in Matthew 18: NEVER GROW UP. Become like a child. Trust. Live in Dependence. Lose everything and gain your real Self and Soul in Him.

It takes all I have right now to live as a child in dependence on my father. To live as a sheep really following my Shepherd. To not solve, brainstorm and plan. To stop trying to hedge myself with safety. Can I truly do absolutely nothing except trust myself entirely to His care??

I’m game to try. Help, Lord Jesus.

“It is pure and simple unbelief that is at the bottom of our lack of comfort and nothing else. God comforts us on every side but we simply do not believe His comfort. ” Oh if I could only feel it was all true, we say. And God says, ” of only you would BELIEVE it is all true.”

Our Christmas this year is like a string of shiny red beads; one memory joined to another, each sparkling, each reflecting -  and all-in-all a thing of beauty.

Memories, the beads on my string:

- watching the teenage faces of boys set in concentration as we labored multiple times and days to learn to cut paper snowflakes and improve on our snowflake-making skills.

-Late evenings by the light of our improvised advent candles reading Jotham’s Journey with our children and any visitors.  Quinn learning the word “cliffhanger” to describe the story’s always exciting denoument during EVERY night’s reading: “Dad, it’s another CLIFFHANGER!”

- Pounding bottletops and shaping with glue and feathers in “Santa’s Workshop” in our lower room.  Making angel ornaments, bruising our fingers, getting covered in glue.

- Our children and a few friends, walking in a line through the jungle carrying their Christmas tree home from the school farm.  The juxtaposition of Christmas and jungle – beautiful, surreal, laughable.

-  Quinn’s utter and spontaneous joy at cutting his first real paper snowflake.  ” I DID IT!”

-  Dinners in darkness by candlelight, not for romance but because there is so little power.  Snowflakes dancing on their strings in the flickering light just above our faces.  Smiles, contented sighs, good meals, good company.

-  Our dining table, littered with paper, markers, paints – an artist’s dream workspace.  And around each chair intent people, Amina leading the way, creating cards, gift tags and gifts.  Real giving happening; the giving of self, the giving of creative energy with a healthy dose of love.

- Begged and borrowed Christmas movies: from Prancer which induced tears and cries of “it’s too SAD!!” to Elf which made ALL of us roll with laughter.   Shrek the Halls is our new favorite.

- Caroling on the 24th with staff friends in  the darkness of Nyahuka night.  Walking through town with glow-bands on our arms, Timothy playing guitar in the darkness, shouting out “we wish you a merry Christmas” in Lubwisi as the drunks roared back “BE QUIET” also in their language.  Was there every such a precious moment of freedom in community in the Spirit as this??  I felt God’s heart pleased.

- Mixing dough, cutting out Christmas shapes, baking and decorating each one to perfection (of a kind.)  Little Petra, becoming perfectly at home with a rolling pin in her hand, learning English at our counter and always coming back to her best phrase: ” I want to eat!” (a cookie)

- Christmas morning and a special note from Santa.  Ephraim experiencing his first American Christmas (Have we ruined him forever?  Naw, we’re not THAT American.)  B experiencing her first Christian Christmas ever.  The long unwrapping under the tree.  Twinkly lights glowing, Nyahuka glitzy paper glistening, Santa tying his presents in newspaper because he “ran out of the good stuff.”

- Christmas dinner: lasagna and ground nut sauce, anything but traditional but truly yummy.  Taking too long to cook, stress as the day melted away, trying to manage time with both our Ugandan family and American team family.  Stories of Ugandan politics around the table

These are a few glimpses into our Bundibugyo Christmas.  Sometimes teary but always wonderful -  a gift from God just like His Son.

Note: written on December 17th:

The Pierce family has a tradition of decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend and this year was no exception.  Before we headed for Jinja and the Nile two weeks ago we decked the house out.

So we returned on Tuesday very late to a Christmassy home.  Unfortunately we also returned to such a large rats nest inside the stove that the whole house smelled like rat. Yuk.  My houseworker had also decided not to sweep at all during our time away since she “didn’t like her broom” so my floors were covered with dead lizards and various poops.  A biologists dream, perhaps, but a mom’s nightmare.  I swallowed hard, changed sheets on beds and tucked us all in for the night.  The next morning I turned on my oven to bake biscuits having forgotten about the rats and baked a lot of rat urine onto all the stove surfaces filling the home with an even more unpleasant odor of rat.  Double yuk.  We got that cleaned up just in time for me to start a large kitchen fire.  My heating oil overheated and burst into five feet of flames while I went out back to gather clean dishes from our outside drying rack.  The black sooty walls are still there as a reminder – “don’t walk away from hot oil!”  Thanks to Quinn for saving the day with his tremulous cries of, ” Mom!!”

Of course visitors were abundant, unpacking was, as usual, unpleasant, and the kids were ready for all their favorite home cooked foods and breads on the double.  It’s been a busy last few days as we have swung back into work mode and into Christmas mode.  I’m being a full time mom right now and hoping that my work will save but David continues at the office, plowing through.

Our last two Christmases have been a bit funny so this is the first time in a few years that we have nested prior to Christmas in our own home.  Yes, we have given away almost all of our things by now, including all the non-essential Christmas items.  But that doesn’t mean our Christmas lacks ANYTHING.  Wednesday we took a trip to the upper CSB farm with Alex, our manager, to cut our own Christmas tree, a little pine that was being grown for timber.  It’s sweet, feathery and beautiful.  Traditionally we hand make our ornaments each year choosing a theme: one year stars, one year gingerbread.  This year our theme is angels and we are having fun designing them with wire, cloth, shells, etc.  We also hand make new stars each year for the top of the tree and this year we used colorful feathers to do so.  It’s a bit over the top but it makes us all happy.

Several close staff friends have stayed around for the holiday and one even brought her family back with her to the district for Christmas, so we have children’s company as we cut enough snowflakes to skii on and hang them all over the house,  decorate gingerbread cookies to feed the whole neighborhood  and work on bottle top crafts.  It’s been a blast.  I’m getting to know one of my dear Ugandan friend’s oldest son, and he is delightful.  Naomi and Quinn have their special friend Ephraim back and we are about to welcome Amina into our home for the holiday as she returns from her exams in the city.  Christmas with friends, what could be better.

This year I rejoice in Christmas music, Christmas smells and tastes, Christmas traditions.  I am so thankful that we did not leave Uganda at the end of the school year but that we are still here for another six weeks, gathering precious memories which we will never lose.  I have little sadness left about leaving but I am savoring the days, the friends, the experiences.  Something new is around the corner but for now, here we are: Living, Loving, Learning  . . . .

Note: Written on December 2nd:

After a crazy week we spent last Sunday mostly holed up at home, decorating for Christmas.  I’m so glad we are here for Christmas.  Last year after an awful first year at Christ School we were so desperate to be away from Bundibugyo as the school year ended that we gave up the Christmas season to travel to Kenya.  It was wonderful.  But this year we have been looking forward to being “home” for a little longer.  Within a few months “home” will look different and I have a feeling we may take a while to settle into a new normal.  Putting up stockings, playing Christmas music and lighting an advent candle while reading our Advent story each night in beds we are used to feels pretty glorious right now.

So Sunday, after a VERY boring morning at church we trekked home through intense sunshine and past palm trees to set out nativity scenes, heat some care-package hot apple cider and listen to snow-centered Christmas songs.  It’s just a different kind of Christmas mood, really.  Two days later and we’re still enjoying the Christmas music nonstop. We’ve made the missionary equivalent of sugar cookies which have already disappeared.  And we are about to start work on a recycled items advent wreath and a home made advent calendar.  I remember our first Christmas here three years ago.  The sense of deprivation, the awful simplicity.  How far we’ve come when we feel we have too many decorations and should give some away.  When the joy of not having something and not having  a store to buy it in is that we get to innovate and make it ourselves.

We’re lucky to be living these lives.

Today I gave away a freezer full of meat to many happy neighbors.  It hasn’t been often that I have been able to spare much to give away at the end of a long time in-district.  I usually scrimp and eke down to my last pack of mince meat.  Today God blessed me with the ability to bless others as we prepare to be filled up by rest and family time out of the district and away from the restless and ever-needy CSB.  As always it is a marathon event to prepare to leave.  Closing the house, shutting down the fridge, instructions about the school, many last minute visitors who have heard we are leaving and want to have one last conversation . . . .etc etc.

Though this last week has been without students and staff around it has been unbelievably hectic nonetheless.  We have had some wonderful moments: especially watching baby Nancy, our neighbor’s daughter, blow out the candle for her first birthday.   We have had some awful moments: walking through family tragedy with fellow staff.  Most of all we have had many many exhausting moments.  I personally have had many moments when all I have wanted to do is to lie down on the floor and fall asleep. And the spiritual attacks have been intense.  Yesterday I realized that we needed to LEAVE, NOW.  The spiritual and physical environment has become overwhelming.

So we are finally about to rest . . . .tomorrow morning we head out for one night in the game park with our team and a goodbye to Sarah, and then more nights on our own as a family at a lodge overlooking Jinja’s Nile River.  I can’t wait to be just us.  And Him.

What a long three and a half months this has been.  Some of the longest and most intense days I can remember.  It was only August, such a  short time ago that we drove back into our district never imagining that this would be our last term serving at Christ School.  Now we drive back out, both lighter and heavier.  Both happier and sadder.  Both fuller and emptier.

And He is Still, Still, STILL Enough.

I spent yesterday morning at Ruwenzori Mission School (RMS) – that’s the little several-room-schoolhouse where our children and the Myhres’ spend their days. Last weekend it was shifted . . . . From a building on the Christ School campus, up to the mission and into our old home, B.C. (before Christ School). The gate still reads: The Pierce Family Baghenu Tuli Mu (Visitors Welcome) as muraled by Pat for our arrival three+ years ago. How full circle for our children to be studying 2nd and 5th grade for the last week at RMS in their old bedroom . . . . The masking tape “territory” lines put up by Scotticus and Josh on our first Christmas Eve here long ago are still there. Quinn’s favorite climbing tree still beckons. And the home built by the Tabb’s is still as sunny and quiet and cheerful as ever. We will be home schooling our children through the 2nd half of their school years while we travel and rest and pray in the States for a bit over the next year. So I was up at RMS to observe and watch the teachers in their pseudo-school environment. To learn how my kids learn so that I can better teach them. (though I could never hope to have the flair for organization and structure that Ashley holds together there!) I noticed so many things as I sat there and watched, listened, doodled, dreamed, remembered. I noticed that Quinn’s dimple rarely rests; that he is full of sunshine and sparkle and humor and joy even while studying. I noticed that the teachers are infinitely patient, kind, wise and helpful. That they love the kids. That they have created an incredibly safe, valuing and loving community. And that the kids love being there. What struck me most was noticing Naomi’s clear, strong, quiet, gentle, wise spirit shine through as she recited the poem she has been memorizing, “IF.” She is the less charismatic of our two children, the one less likely to be noticed, the one slower to warm up. But she is truly, truly amazing. Tears came to my eyes as I saw the deep brightness of her soul as she spoke the words below.

IF….. By Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools

Here’s a grand thank you to all the teachers of RMS: to Anna, Sarah, Ashley, Nathan, Kim, Amy, Josh, Scotticus, Aunt Karen and Melija . . . To all who have taught my children in their years at RMS. You have been loved well and deeply and you have loved even better. Thank you for your sacrifice that makes our sacrifice possible. Great be your reward.