Unbathed from three days of camping we headed to a ministry site for a chance to meet some folks who are interested in our joining their team. We spent a very brief day and half just south of Gulu, looking at a project that seeks to restore Northern Uganda and it’s people through orphan care, education, evangelism and discipleship, business opportunities, agriculture and medical and dental care and teaching. It’s an ambitious (to put it mildly) project and it’s only just beginning.

Though the site is remote by many standards (off the grid, 40 minutes from a decent town) it’s hard for us too feel “in the bush” when there is a paved road just ten minutes from the team housing. Has Bundibugyo spoiled us?? Will other ministry sites seem as dramatic, as exciting, as intense?? The Nile surrounds the acreage of the ministry on three sides, though and we got to walk down to see a water snake swimming in great River. Crocs and hippos come onshore on their land and a very impressive python skin was rolled up in one team house. Mamma Rose, an orphan caregiver, told me to sing when I walked near the river so that the pythons would know to hide! “RG” needs help in many, MANY ways, one of which is a primary school for their orphan children who may soon number 240 and vocational schools for nearby kids. So they ask us to consider joining their ministry and we agree to pray.

Now here in Jinja with long-time friends the Massos, we delve into development philosophy with Michael (and Karen when she’s willing!). We talk about the needs and our gifts. We talk about how to do development, about aid mentality, about when projects have too much money and too few people and vice versa. We talk about the joys and hardships of working long-term and the needs of short-termers. They are planting a new team in Sudan and so all of these questions are fresh and relevant to them too. David and I are enjoying the time here in Uganda to look at other ministries.

In some ways it is the first step both in pondering what Bundibugyo was for us and how it has shaped us and in what God may be asking us to do next. We dream, we imagine the roles we feel most gifted in, we think about what we’d never want to do again. The questions of development, of providing physical, emotional and spiritual support to the poorest and most abused in the world are HUGE questions. There are many answers and few are clearly right or wrong. That’s why we’re so grateful that we have the Teacher, Encourager and Comforter, the Spirit who will show us where to go, how to speak and what to do. On our own we have little hope of plugging into a “good fit” ministry, of finding a place that is both challenging and possible. Yet with the guidance of God we can dream of accomplishing the impossible and of loving it as we do.

So many thoughts and ideas rolls through our heads. I don’t even know how to summarize them here. But it all begins and ends with this: HE will plan the way ahead. HIS dreams for us are better than any we know for ourselves. Just as HE knew the last four years in Bundi were for our good and the good of His kingdom, so He has new plans now. While there are many questions there is little fear. It’s so exciting to wonder what’s on the road beyond BGO, for us.