“Mom, mom, I finally found a yellow stick!! I’ve been waiting for one forever!” The prized yellow stick was cast in through the open porch door for safety and Quinn was off again, back outside in search of more treasures and bigger adventures. My boy, constantly amazing me.

There is a tree in this yard that has special sticks, they fall off as they age and get brown. They have a kind of a handle. I think Quinn has twenty of these sticks in his collection, and he knows if I move even one. I find it absolutely fascinating. He also has what we call his “weapons basket” (and this from a mom who didn’t believe in toy guns) which carries an array of guns, battle axes, lances, etc. Many are home made or adapted from Duplo blocks or playmobile or the outdoors.

Yesterday I helped him and his two friends Ben and Muroongi, fellow lovers of fantasy weaponry, construct bow and arrow sets using bendy forsythia style sticks and twine. They are loving them, just as I did when I was a kid. And today, Ashley’s question of the day at school must have been something about a favorite toy because Quinn’s page came home with these words, written in the most astoundingly perfect handwriting which I have NEVER coaxed out of him at home: “My favorite toy is a Bo and aroe. I like it bekus it is home mate.”

Meanwhile Naomi has spent another day on the couch with vomiting and diahhrea. This is her third intermittent bout this week so Jennifer came today with her malaria test. Negative which is a relief. Naomi also has a growing abscessing wound on her skinny little thigh. But she is full of her usual personality; curling her hair each night, Shirley-Temple-style and then bouncing in and out to check it in her mirror for pertness every few minutes. She has fallen in love with the movie Big Fat Greek Wedding and has watched it over and over this week during sick mornings home from school. She can’t wait for our trip to Greece next May when she experiences Greek culture in person.

Our kids teach us so much about what is true and what is false, what is safe and what is worth fearing, what is fantasy and what is reality; how to become our best selves. I’m thankful for the moments I remember to listen.

Term 3 is starting to swing into action - drums were pounding this Sunday as students led their weekly Sunday morning “church” service. And a big game of pick-up football was keenly played and watched in the afternoon.

I went over on Sunday afternoon and painted the s3 and s4 girls toenails with my new stash sent from Sue and friends - thank you!! They look great and the girls were so happy. Hot pink is definitely the favorite shade but the designs are the biggest hit.

There was a big group of girls waiting to be painted,so I was just saying “next” then as their toes would appear in front of me I’d look into their eyes and ask them what they wanted. I got a chance to paint the nails of several girls who I have had discipline issues with. It was a great feeling to be able to simply, wordlessly love them this way.

Last night we had just gotten the kids off to sleep after a remarkably peaceful and lovely evening together. I had extra time in the afternoon and managed an early dinner; grainy rolls, roasted potatoes and a beef barbecue, just for us. We all ate a happy dinner and got some good reading and snuggling in with the kids before bed. So nice not to be rushing to bed an hour late as we so often do. David and I were looking forward to some quiet talks afterwards with drinks or at least the dishwashing!

Moments later we heard an eruption of student noise and looked out the window to see that power had shut off in the second block, not an infrequent occurrence (working on getting that fixed permanently.) Since the night before we had had serious discipline issues in the s1 and s2 classes and since David suspects that students may have found a way to tamper with the power, he biked over immediately to try to clear things up. I started on the dishes but almost immediately heard a lot of noise begin in the girls compound. A lot of fearful wailing in Lubwisi that sounded a lot like a death.

Leaving my kids home alone I ran next door to the girls compound where I found a crowd surrounding “Dali” who was yelling in Lubwisi that men with machetes were after her, looking around wildly as if she was being followed and beating at her three friends who were holding her down. It was almost comical and I didn’t know for a minute whether to laugh or be worried. I’ve heard lots of stories from those who came before me (JD and Joanna, you know you’ve been there!) and so suspected it might be a mental issue related to anxiety rather than a physical problem. But she did seem to have a fever and cerebral malaria can present with some pretty spectacular mental symptoms.

With Jennifer’s advice I decided to take her to the hospital. Though we all suspected anxiety issues she was surely in no condition to sleep with forty other girls in a small dorm. So off we went to admit her; me, driving and the three friends in the back holding “dali” down.

The health center felt faintly intimidating at night, especially after the only non-patient I could find was a drunk night watchman who breathed waragi fumes profusely while declaring that no one was around to help me. Slowly medical workers appeared from the dark, some more drunk than others, and found us a mattress on the floor of the pediatric ward from which to take a health history for admissions. Health histories are not easy when a patient is mentally disturbed. Fortunately “dali’s” mother is a nurse but I received a dose of culture shock when she walked in and started grabbing her arms, shaking her and yelling at her to stop behaving this way immediately. Culturally appropriate and perhaps even the attention this girl is subconsciously looking for, but appalling to me especially with about fifty pediatric families looking on. The gatekeeper came back in with his stick and waragi breath and waved everyone back with dramatic drunk gestures while another drunk medical worker came in and proceeded with an abusive line of questioning. I remained torn for the next forty minutes between trying to appreciate the cultural norms being expressed and trying to fulfill my responsibilities to my student. I finally left her in the care of her mother who seemed unsure at best.

Debriefing quickly with Jennifer on the phone (”Did I do the right thing to leave her there with those people who say they love her?”), I was reminded that the hospital receives about one woman a night with these symptoms of severe anxiety. This is what women here do when they no long know how to cope with their lives. I don’t know what Dali could have been so upset about. She is confident, athletic and pretty smart and is not facing exams right now. Perhaps she has financial or personal trouble.

For now she’s at home and we’re back at school, slogging through another day of small crises; our kitchen manager is VERY sick and almost got admitted yesterday for severe vomiting, our meat rabbits are escaping in droves from the rabbit pen after a termite infestation or perhaps just the accumulating rain water has caused most of our supporting poles to fall over, the district water supply got cut off again causing a temporary morning disturbance in our water (but hurray for our new storage tanks, bailing us out within the hour!!), and we deal once again with those spunky s1s and s2s once again. It’s another day in the life of CSB.

Fragility has continued throughout this week, a mixture of fearing the beginning of this new term and concern about some issues with my kids. I miss my friends at home, I miss a context where I belong without trying. Last night at Quinn’s party, as team who has been here forever rehashed stories about old team mates, I cried a few quiet tears of frustration at not fitting in ANYWEHRE, not even with team. The enemy, getting me down.

We had a mail call when team left, though. Pat, just came from Kampala had brought two boxes. Both were amazing. One, from Davids parents, contained playmobile for Naomi the answer to her tearful prayers earlier that day as she had felt so left out by all the attention focused on Quinn. I know I should know Him by now, but He still constantly amazes me by His timing and His tender heart. Naomi was overjoyed - you picked well Mim!! And spent the rest of the evening playing hard with her new toys and pouring through the catalogues she had requested to be sent.

The next box was from Mariners Church and I cried (yes, again) as a huge pile of note cards fell out. The customs forms read; 70 personal notes. Seventy of our friends from Mariners church wrote us personal encouragement notes for our 2nd anniversary on the field. Is there any way to describe how it feels to have a church family like this? Or a God who can bring those letters in a week when I so badly need those words of hope, faith and love? Mail from heaven, it feels. The first card on the stack containing pictures of a deliciously chubby baby that I cannot wait to meet. God knows that my love language is words; that nothing could be as uplifting as the words of so many, expressing His love to me. Thank you, God and all of our friends at Mariners.

Thursday of this week our team gathered to discuss our relationship with the local church. With many of our team who have been involved in church planting and discipleship gone or soon going, we need to be on the same page with what kind of support, encouragement, time and programs we are able to give the local church. It was a three hour long meeting that barely touched the real issues of our fears, hopes, dreams and disappointments with how holistic ministry intersects with the life of the local church. All of us wish we could do and be more, but we have to accept our limitations. In January we will meet for vision planning as a group and will have new chances to think about how we may be able to partner with local churches to share the gospel through mercy ministry and evangelism.

My mom sent me a book by Helen Rosevare, an olden-days missionary to Congo, back when things were REALLY tough. She said it reminded her of me but in truth I felt shamed by it. Felt shamed by how little I sacrifice here, how much I protect my time and my health and my family. It’s a crazy hard balance to keep. And perhaps my perspective can be skewed. Relating to the local church is part of that picture. For most of us we take Sunday as our Sabbath - a true day of rest when we escape many of our daily cross cultural interactions to renew ourselves within our homes, hearts and family relationships. But working with churches is a Sunday based activity. How do we do it all and do it well? Of course the answer is that we don’t do it all and most of it we don’t do very well either. Pray that He will give us clarity on how we spend our time, what sacrifices He is asking us to make and a reassurance that He has already paid the ultimate price.

I had a little scare recently that made me suspect my kids my not be as safe on-campus as I hoped. Since then I have spent the last week and a half monitoring them both constantly; supervising every interaction and stressing myself out with it all. Can I keep them safe? No. Do I have a responsibility to take healthy precautions and be aware of their exposures? Yes. God help us to balance what our fearful hearts don’t know how to handle.

Staff meetings usually end up centering around something David hadn’t planned to talk about - good, but frustrating. This last week meetings turned to third term elective offerings and general curriculum discussions. I was reminded, as David and I talked through what he had learned and how he had responded, that ALL of this feels impossible. Which is why we must not allow for Impossibles in our lives.

We follow the national Ugandan curriculum in the hopes that our students will pass the national Ugandan exams but its quite hard to even determine some of the most basic things which might help us and the students succeed. For example, which subjects are compulsory as part of this high school education program? When David talked to the leadership team about this he was faced with new questions; what does compulsory even mean here in Uganda? It became clear after hours of conversation that no one is quite sure what subjects are compulsory in Uganda or even what it means for a subject to be compulsory.

In another example we recently went to the Ministry of Education looking for a list of approved textbooks. Surely a country with standard national exams for EVERY subject would have approved textbooks that the exams are based on. We found a list so outdated the the Ministry advised us not to use it. So we start from scratch, questioning other schools, talking to teachers, trying to reinvent the wheel as we choose textbooks in rural Uganda. It’s a clear waste of time and energy not to mention the money that can be spent on buying books that don’t work out well.

We began a new meal card system as part of our efforts to control the incredible food costs. Three meals per student, per day; 90 per month. The meals are certainly sufficient in size; normal size plates are mounded to several inches high with starch and a protein sauce; David can barely finish it. The second day of classes I was doing furniture inventory in the s3 classroom and had to laugh at the creative slogans posted on the chalkboard by enterprising students. In big cartoon bubbles, such messages as, “Four free eggs to the first person to defeat the meal plan by gaining access to at least two meal servings in one period.” Yes, these students are wonderful impossible also.

Power went out in one of our two classroom blocks just ten minutes after preps started on the first evening back. David went over to trouble shoot the next day and found the problem. In the absence of the proper lubricating material for battery connections, David had used an acceptable alternative, petroleum jelly, available locally. Problem is that African petroleum jelly contains a whole lotta extra junk. The batteries did not like it and David spent a morning cleaning every connection and reapplying pure petroleum jelly he found when we were in Kampala.

These are some of the impossibles of the week here, which, as you see, are not really impossibles. For with God, ALL things are possible. A sense of humor is helpful if not essential, and also a sense of perspective. This began before us and will continue long after us; we’re a part of this pictures, a piece of the puzzle of what God is doing here. He will not fail or succeed because of us.

From Monday:

Prayers were answered in an unexpected way as we experienced a total down day today due to Naomi’s vomiting all morning long. It wasn’t too fun for her but it did give us a peaceful friends-free day which we all badly needed and I can really feel the difference.

David spent the day in meetings and preparations for the new term. Students began trooping in this afternoon and they are still coming as I write, sitting in my front yard in the light of the setting sun. Naomi is beside me on the porch, cooking African-style with homemade charcoal on a tin can charcoal grill with food sizzling on top. She loves it. Meanwhile Quinn and his boy friends are catching grasshoppers . . . As long as they don’t use Naomi’s “stove” to start roasting them alive to eat ( a real delicacy here) I’ll be happy.

Teacher friends who I haven’t seen for the last month are back and I’m so glad to see them. I’m remembering the things I love about term-time here, like friendships and book study and laughter and connections with people I care about. So thank you for holding me up before the Father. He sees, He hears and He knows.

Happy Birthday Quinn!

We celebrated Quinn’s birthday today, one month earlier than his actual October 10th birth-day. Gaby, his best friend here, will leave for his move to Sudan on October 5th and a birthday without him was unthinkable. So Quinn celebrated 6, though he’s not quite six. He’s the kind of kid that just rolls with it.

The book Captivating says the question that all little boys ask is “do I have what it takes?”. We certainly see that in Quinn who is constantly challenging himself and looking for new adventures. At his request we designed a Knight party to celebrate the quest for manhood and the legend of King Aurthur and Excaliber which he has been fascinated by recently. We made Coat of Arms Shields and watched Sword in the Stone for the first time. Then we went on the Quest that David had created which include a wizard messenger appearing in a dark robe to hand Quinn a scroll and map. Quinn’s face as he saw David appearing like this was absolutely priceless.

The group of team kids and a few of Quinn’s best local friends journeyed around the yard and campus climbing trees, ascending a ladder to the top of a water tank, slaying a cardboard dragon and finally killing the bad Knight to gain Excaliber.

Of course, fascinatingly, Quinn is truly struggling to be enough. We found him a decent bike in Kampala and bought it for his birthday, replacing the one he has been riding which barely rolls. The bike is big, though, and Quinn couldn’t quite talk himself into taking the risk of practicing on it, leading me to ponder; how do we help boys to see that they’re enough not because they’re enough but because He in them makes them enough? Because if we try to answer those questions in our own abilities, Satan will defeat us every time. He knows that we are not enough; only God in us can have what it takes.

Ashley helped me create two really fun cakes, including a huge stone brownie with a butcher knife stuck in for the famed Sword in the Stone and a beautiful stone castle.

Can’t believe my baby is six.

It is with a bit of dread (honestly, always honest here) that we welcome our student body back tomorrow. Our eighty candidates will be joined by another 240 boys and girls and the hectic pace will begin again. Have our lifestyle changes, our preparations, our prayers, our plans . . .been enough??

My heart is fearful of more chaos and more just-getting-by, but I have some excitement too. I’m excited to see students come back. I’m excited by how much most of them look forward to the restart of the term, just as they looked forward to going home for their term break. I have been working on re-opening our CSB school library and it is almost ready for use with a contained book room and a separate reading area for candidate students. I think students will feel loved and cared for by that space and the improved access to textbooks. We are also working on some changes to student discipline which may just add more work but could end in some positive changes to the environment. I’m excited to work with our sponsored students, and excited to review the s3 students community service work.

Meanwhile my kids and most of the staff kids have one more week of school break and so that, for me, means one more week of vigilance and hosting many many children each and every day. I am so thankful for my kids’ friendships - a truly miraculous answer to prayer. But it is a LOT of work to facilitate these friendships, to watch over the dangers introduced into my kids lives, to help interpret between languages and cultures and give good boundaries to all. I am tired from it and perhaps resentful so I need God’s reminders that this is what I asked Him for.

David and I have been spending a lot of time looking at money, upcoming projects and the future of Christ School in terms of the quality of academics and the sustainability of the finances. No big announcements yet, but we see God moving and teaching us and we continue to mull and pray over the possibilities for next year.
And we miss Luke. Dinner table discussions at our house have centered around when our kids might go to boarding school in Kenya; they think it sounds cool. Meanwhile I am fighting just to try to relinquish them the little bit I have to for allow all the cool African relationships that they are developing. And I ask God that He wouldn’t demand more of them than I am able to give.

I feel fragile. Luke leaving; we all face the reality that this life is HARD, that is requires death and separation and pain. The Massos in their final month count down here and every day brings reminders that our great, great friends are leaving. Shut down, my heart says, don’t be close to the people that you so easily lose. A great friend in America emailed me today to tell me she is pregnant for the second time and I just cried. I miss HER and miss so badly being somewhere where my thoughts and experiences and heart seem to make some sense. Today I am badly homesick - for Papa Johns pizza and Snickers bars and girl-talk and Mariners Church and one hundred other things. So pray for my husband who is balancing my teetering emotions along with the weight of the school and what seems to be a broken finger from a fun game of football today. No dull moments.

As I type, students are crammed onto our front porch, computers on laps, bodies hunkered down on hard wooden benches, eyes fixed on the glowing screens on front of them.

They are experiencing the internet for the first time, courtesy of our home wireless system. We’d like to provide the same thing for the school but the power needs are beyond what is practical or prudent. So the small class of computer students come here, for the first time, to learn what a URL is and to open up the amazing world of internet searching. David is showing them how to find online newspapers, how to buy products online, how to use google and wikipedia and other search forums. It’s pretty astounding to hear him explaining all of this totally from scratch to these 18 year old boys!
Imagine not even knowing what www stands for, or having to grasp for the first time what a google hit actually gives you. For students who have never owned a book of their own in their whole lifetime, the world suddenly opens up. I get so excited thinking about their possible futures, about how big their worlds may be. About all the things they may dream and learn and understand and experience and develop . . . .

It’s a Saturday morning at Christ School and minds are growing, hearts are grasping new hope and wonder and I, well, I’m just happy about it.