Here in Uganda we say “well be back” rather than “well-come (welcome!) back.” Makes sense once you think about it. I have always imagined the phrase as welcome back but I think here it was imagined as well come back, or “come back well,” which is sort of an African way of speaking English.

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you . . . . This was a week of well be back’s for us. After arriving home a little over a week ago and being “well be back”‘d by enthusiastic friends and well wishers ourselves, we jumped right into welcoming others as staff arrived over Saturday and Sunday in time for students to arrive on Monday of last week. I personally welcomed back a great many students as I was in charge of girls admissions at the gate. My first time in this role (there were few female staff around!!) it involved about five hectic hours of checking through student luggage for contraband such as too-short skirts, cell phones and illegal meds. Yes, this was how I said welcome: ” well be back and I am confiscating those high heeled shoes!”

We also welcomed girls back with mandatory pregnancy tests for the first time ever. This after having three girls show up pregnant a few weeks into our last term. The program seemed to go well and was accepted by students and parents. Staff enthusiastically thanked us for taking this initiative.

Several staff did not return, one woman that was a sort of toxic influence after her beau was sacked last year and another new male staff who didn’t seem to be holding up his end of the contract. It’s always hard to see people leave the team but we welcomed some new ones as well. Most exciting to me is our new librarian who is an amazing gift to the school: mature, a degree holder in library science, a woman(!), bright and cooperative. Wow. Praise God with us. One of our weakest areas is that the “reading culture” of the school is quite poor. We are hopeful that Justine will help us coordinate improvements to supporting students and staff in the use of books and reference materials, so important in a culture where students do not own their own copies of books.

In the welcome backs I have been trying to make time to push to the next level in some of these relationships. Confronting my (new?) fear of honesty and the pain that comes with it, I have tended to leave well enough alone. If the staff member doesn’t welcome my relationship I haven’t pursued so much. But I feel God pushing me to love deeper, to love despite the pain. So pray for me especially as I pursue one of our female staff who seems angry with me and has since the beginning of the year. And pray as I advise another staff member who has trouble controlling his tongue!! Pray most of all for wisdom about how much of myself is wise to share with those I am in community with here. I want to dive in, but I am afraid.

I am also exhausted; physical exhaustion is often one of my signs of emotional and spiritual exhaustion. This week I have welcomed back routine; morning exercise and extended time with God. It feels so good; pray for me to be able to wake up each day and have this time with Him.

“When the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be cancelled.” 1 Corinthians 13:10 from The Message

All my incompletes cancelled, what a day that will be. As I continue to walk brokenly in relationships . . . . Relationships with God, with myself, with team mates and co-workers and family and friends . . . . I long for the day when all my incompletes will be cancelled, when the Complete arrives.

Right now I feel very fully what the Message says, that we “don’t see things clearly, we’re squinting through a fog, peering through a mist.” I can see some of the issues (my own and others), I can begin to see some wrongs that need righting, some that need forgiving, some ways I have agreed with the Enemy and hurt those I love. But I long for the day when, ” the weather clears and the sun shines bright!” When I can love others well, perfectly even, because He has perfected me. And when I can be truly known without danger, without regret, without such fear or loss or disappointments.

But until then, we do three things, “trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.” God help me: I am trusting, I do hope, but my love fails greatly in it’s extravagance when I fear. “Complete”, won’t you arrive? If it’s not your time to arrive in this world, then arrive in my heart in new and needed ways. Come, Complete One with your extravagant love and help me in all my incompleteness to be just enough for what and who you call me to live with . . . . and to love.

“Go after love as if your life depends on it, because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives to you.” 1 Cor. 14:1 What would that look like right now for you, and for me???

I wake briefly in the early morn of my birthday, not long after the real hour of my birth, 4 am if I remember correctly. It is now 5 am in Mundri, South Sudan, and a beautifully full moon is setting directly over Kim’s tukul. I view it through my tent window. It is so beautiful I want to snap a photo but instead I drift back to sleep.

David wakes me again a few hours later with a “good morning beautiful”, a cup of coffee and the flowers of a Flamboyant Tree: absolutely, incredibly gorgeous. I get my gift from Naomi over breakfast, an African Woman magazine. We will later pore through it together and admire fancy dresses and laugh at silly platform shoes. She has also bought me a beautiful gift bag and gift card and written a precious message from ” your sweetie-pie Naomi.”

Surrounded by the Mundri team, I spend most of my morning doing art with the little girls and reading a new book about a spiritual quest in three different countries before Michael offers me the chance of a motorcycling lesson. I am ecstatic but nervous; and I wonder again at how little confidence I have in myself these days. I spend an hour with Michael and Kyle, falling off the motorcycle once but successfully learning how to shift, start and stop, balance and turn. The bike is heavy, I am slow, but it’s a step towards my dream of owning my own bike and putting around Nyahuka town on it!

Back for a lunch of sandwiches and an afternoon of girl-talk with Larissa. My soul lightens as I share burdens long unspoken. We talk about the complications of monogamy and the difficulties of labeling among other interesting topics. I am renewed.

As evening comes, rain threatens against the severe, dry heat and a few big drops even fall. We pull bikes under cover and throw clothes from the lines inside relishing the cool winds and the heavy breezes. Lightening flashes across the sky. We head out with umbrellas and rain coats to visit a restaurant of sorts in Mundri town. Just a few minutes walk down a dirt road to a small dim room with shaky tables. The food is good: Egyptian/Arabic fare – a rich red meat sauce and a cinnamony lentil soupu that we sop up with soft chewy pita. Canned soda off the shelves and blaring African music completes our ambience. I am content.

Back home for orange cake, twice-baked in sun and charcoal ovens until the proper heat was reached. Presents of books and jewels, a basket and a shirt. Most precious of all, home made art and poetry from my husband and son. Hugs all ’round.

At twenty-nine I feel far less sure of myself than I expected. far younger and less experienced. Far more ignorant and far less educated. For the first time I begin to realize that time is passing quickly, and renew my determination that life must be savored; the marrow sucked out. I cling to relationships as my grounding love, force, value. Yet I must face my inadequacy to love others well, my failures in relationship, the many ways I have disappointed and neglected those I most want to cherish. Most of all I am called back to the One who always waits for me, who is never disappointed but sometimes lonely for me. I have so many wishes, dreams, hopes and plans. And at the center of all those longings, He will meet me.

We hope to leave this afternoon for our week and a half away. First we have to pack, close the house and load up all the things that are supposed to make it to Kampala (some of that decade of accumulation!) It feels daunting but the kids are eager to be off so maybe we’ll make it out today.

CSB Girls football team plays their first tournament match today at 11 am in Fort Portal. We won’t make it in time to see that game, but should see at least one game tomorrow. We will spend our first two nights in Fort Portal. On Tuesday afternoon we’ll head on to Kampala where we’ll begin errands there before flying out Thursday for Southern Sudan!! We will spend four full days with our new WHM Sudan team and most importantly with Naomi and Quinn’s friends Liana and Gabriel. None of the kids can wait!! It is very hot in Sudan, not my favorite thing, but I know we’re going to have a blast.

We’ll spend another day or two in Kampala on the return end before heading back here a week from Friday, just in time to greet the teachers with more beginning of term briefings. Students will return on Monday.

My expectations are low for this to be very restful. But I do hope that it will be restorative in many ways: new sights to see, new foods to eat, talking with friends, dreaming new dreams, and letting our minds wander far from CSB. Pray for us.

One of the areas I’m developing at CSB is our CA process. The process of continually assessing each student in many ways is the most urgent and personal to me . . . . Some students who we have lost to poor grades or behaviors could have been saved had we noticed them earlier, counseled them, helped them. There “failing” our system is really a sign of our system’s failure, of my personal failure, to care about students as individuals and to help staff treat them as such. The loss of one boy Businge, drives me forward in this work. Perhaps I fool myself, but I wish to believe that he could have been rescued from the choices he made. At least I wish we had tried harder.

And so, I develop forms, methods, and reviews for assessing students via teachers, dorm parents, student leaders and others at the end of Term 1. But equally important this term, ” continuous assessment” is just jargon reminding us of the need to assess far more than students. In fact David and I have been overwhelmed by the need to assess staff, programs, student leaders, facilities . . . . A few weeks ago we worked hard on reviews with each staff, talking about their areas of authority and responsibility, about what has improved and what still can. Then we face decisions of what we will keep moving forward on and what we will let go of. This process allows us to make plans to start Term 2 at the next level of development.

But what about the school as a whole? There is also an overall assessment of our work in ministry at Christ School. Assessment of ourselves, assessment of the project, assessment of the work as a team. Thankfully we decided as a team to have quarterly reviews of our ministries this year, so a few weeks ago we spent several hours talking about these same issues in bigger terms. It’s a helpful and thoughtful process to prepare for these meetings, to think about the work others do, to pray it through together, to be reminded that we are partners in a broad and diverse work.

We personally shared with our team the directions we feel God leading us personally and Christ School broadly. We will share a different version of this with our leadership team as they return. And a much more simple version to the staff as whole. Though there are many unanswered questions in our minds and hearts we feel God moving us forward in healthy ways.

It’s sort of like that first week of spring here; beautiful warm, sunny weather and cool breezes. A little time to waste. We wake up a bit late each morning and I make blueberry scones for breakfast with our Ugandan coffee. Naomi and I watch Gilmore Girls reruns until our house help arrives and giggle and cuddle.

Most of the staff and their children are gone; back to their ancestral areas or the city where they are on holiday university programs. This leaves us with just a few here, where we are among those who call this place our “real real” home. It’s a nice feeling, a feeling of belonging, of being established, of having some roots.

Naomi and Quinn get out into the sunshine early each day, running to find those friends who are at home. They dig in the sand for lizard eggs and play Native American Indian with sharpened stick spears. They garden using small plants donated from the the gardens of other moms here at school. They play house and baby, school and explorer; and they do all this despite their friends speaking few words of good English. I watch in wonder.

David spends full days at work but hours of the afternoon at home. He is trying to catch up. Our time so far at Christ School has been a digging ourselves out of a very deep hole. We are enough dug up to see out and see the sun now. So this week we continue to dig and make it farther up. Last night David called us all over to see his finally clear desk. For the first time in three years he has a functional, organized desk and an office that is almost clear of unused things. I love to see the peace that this gives him.

Down at the kitchen and elsewhere, break facilities projects are in full swing: a new volleball and two new netball courts, improvements to the food line, electricity for the DOS offices, gate improvements.

We put a few staff to work on helping us to clear out a decade of old computer and electronic parts that have been gathered and stored in bins and boxes at the school. Some will be sold, others donated in the city. It’s part of the process of making room for growth. And I think as Martha says, “it’s a good thing.”

Meanwhile I putter at home, doing spring cleaning with my house helpers and continuing to offload what we don’t need. We anticipate a shift to a smaller more indigenous living situation in December. And we hate holding on to and organizing things we don’t use. So more books go to staff at the school, more clothes to friends in the community, more papers to the trash heap for burning and we gain space, cleanliness and perspective.

This is the week here . . . . Plus some good team time with the other who are “left behind”, a scary bite that looked eerily snake-like, and some really decent food.

Next week we’re off to the city for break.

Our newly elected student leaders are called ministers. The program names follow closely after those found in Ugandan government for the most part, so we have ministers of sports and energy as well as Prime Minister, a humble quiet boy who is new to the school and lovely to get to know (seen in CSB green and white uniform.)

Monday and Tuesday of the past week were dedicated to this great group of kids. They spent hours crafting their new student leader constitution and revising all of their mission statements. They met with their staff points of contact to share ideas and begin working partnerships. They were prayed over by the whole staff. And they played an amazing number of team building games. Team building was my responsibility and BOY oh BOY did I have a great time. Here are some of our twice a day times of games; working to flip a student head over heels in a chair without dropping him, playing trust games of falling and learning to get up and down as a group. There was so much laughter, so many happy faces and bodies. What a joy to get to enjoy these kids outside of the pressure of enforcing rules.

We have high hopes for these students whose government is modeled after what is found in most Ugandan schools. Our hopes are to match our system to common Ugandan school systems here while still including a transformative difference of the applications of faith. So far, so good, but it needs lots of prayer.

Both of our children are fascinated with the historical aspects of race relations in America. I haven’t quite figured out how it all goes together in their brains, but I suppose for them, like for me, the idea that fifty years ago it was okay to treat people as less than human because of the color of their skin seems tremendously hard to imagine. Drinking from a different water fountain?? Using a different rest room?? Racial equality still needs much improvements in America but oh, how far it seems we’ve come. I know that I am like many other Americans today when I choose our family’s churches and schools based on their inclusion. And though many still harbor hate in their hearts, it is becoming less and less okay to do so.

So it is with awe and interest that our kids learn the stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman and dream dreams of how they too may help to establish real equality the world round.

A beautiful player in this historical saga is little Ruby Bridges, famed for being the first black child to attend William Frantz public school. She attended flanked by four Federal Marshals for protection throughout her entire first year. Robert Coles children’s story is beautifully written and illustrated and we read it over and over and over. We recently discovered Ruby’s autobiography called “Through my eyes” telling the story in news photos and her own words which has added a whole new level of interest and meaning. Even the white children whose parents refused to boycott the school for it’s single token back child were pelted with eggs and rocks for their stand for racial equality. Absolutely unbelievable!!

Quinn pointed out the significance this week as we read the autobiography: “Mom, I’m a sort of backwards Ruby Bridges!! I’m the only white kid at a black school and it’s hard for me too!” Yes, son. And despite occasional stones, lots of stares, giggles and teasing, stroking and touching . . . . .we’re pretty lucky. No federal marshals are needed; we are far safer than Ruby Bridges ever was. We have angels all around though and they work overtime for N and Q as they travel to their personal William Frantz. Just a few minutes from home, down Palm Oil Avenue and through the Place of the Pig, to primary school we go.

Students left last Friday after a whirlwind four days of cram-packed exams. There was a noticeable improvement in behavior during exam week probably because we spaced them so closely they had no time to think about anything else!! (not sure if this is an improvement or not)

Since then it has been that “after the big party” feel, not exactly a care-free relaxing time but certainly quieter than it used to be. Old halves of flip flops litter the compound where they were tossed in haste as students ran for break and classrooms breath in silence as they sit undisturbed for the first time in three months. Meanwhile we and the rest of the staff fill staff offices with noise and music as we grade, mark, fill in report cards, hold meetings to prepare for next term, decide who will stay and who will “be deleted” (never knew before this that you could delete people . . . . .) from our student ranks. It’s been a busy, busy week.

We took last Sunday off, post-students, and then dived in to the Student Leader Retreat on Monday and Tuesday alongside the endless meetings and markings. More fun, more laughter and a lot more work. Pictures to come.