The sun is setting and I sit, watching students pass by calling and laughing to each other as they prepare to head into their classroom for evening preps. My ear is pressed hard to my cell phone; I am listening for the sound of a baby squeal.

I talked to two American friends tonight. Yet my heart still feels sad. I am lonely. Talking tonight, however briefly, to two good friends, helped. Maybe it’s our lack of internet connection since Saturday night coupled with the events of exam week - things we don’t discuss with our staff friends because of confidentiality issues. I have been sick too, since Saturday night with intermittent fevers, vomiting, headaches and general aching weariness. I’m tired of killing roaches in my cabinets each morning, tired of thinking of what to prepare for dinner, tired of sweeping the sand from 14 small feet out my door each night and again each midday.

The kids returned to Padre Pio today. Poor sweet Quinn cried all the way there, tears of quiet desperation . They were both dreading the morning at school. But once there they did well and once again came out victorious. Survivors. Miss Ashley taught in their classroom for part of today, the special treat I dangled in front of them like a carrot to help them walk inside their class. As Quinn likes to say: “the best part of school is Miss Ashley.”

Uneb’s started on Monday (there is a backlog of blog posts because our internet has not been working since Saturday) and they have kept David extremely busy. We suspected we might have major trouble on our hands in the form of corruption on Monday morning in our first exam, but over the next two days events worked themselves out. David, in the process, has become a private investigator. His days have started early and ended late with multiple trips to the police station and official starting of exams each day, plus the normal business of managing a large school.

And what I have I been doing? I have been working on school issues too: creating a massive spreadsheet to track the economics of rabbit production( agriculture is complicated!), reading and mailing all of the letters from orphans to their sponsors, tracking problem students and talking to them about their falling grades, inventorying the science departments equipment and books and moving new shelving into their staff room, working on facilities repair for staff, and trying to decide who will move to make room for the new wives who are coming on campus. (Five staff members are marrying before the start of the new year, yikes! We are going to have to do some serious juggling to make everyone fit in our family housing!)

So that’s my week: sickness, tired, kids, corruption, sweeping, banana cream pie (from the girls, yum!), visits with friends, spreadsheets, malaria tests, inventories, talks with students, books, books and more books . . . . . Let me not forget to look Up.

Hope no one is offended by this Ode to Quinn on his official birthday - October 10th! We teach our kids the proper names for all their parts and Quinn is not slow to pick up on humor! (His career goal is to be Seinfeld when he grows up. )I wrote this last week, drinking in the soul-sustenance of enjoying my little boy. It’s a proper Happy 6th birthday to my little Man who is a complex and beautiful creature.

My ever-bigger-boy
Sits, still dirty in his tepid bath water
Enquiring eyes
Aimed up at mine
I have ordered him to wash his Whole Body.

“Uranus!” . . . . . giggles
Is that your favorite planet?, I ask wryly.
“it’s just a funny one”
“uranus!” . . . . . giggles
“my favorite planet is earth.
It’s my home planet”
(and I marvel
That this boy thinks in these terms
A traveler, at heart)

What’s your favorite country?, I ask
Ever-full of the mom questions.
He is barely thoughtful.
“of course I like at least two best,
America and Uganda.
Because I have friends both places
And favorite things.
Maybe I’ll like other countries best too.”

He scrubs vigorously
At his truly filthy
Little boy body
Scrubs till the soaps lathers hard
Then does his upside-down hair-rinsing trick.
Oh, how I love this boy.

Barely dry
“Cause I’m so URGENT!”
A vessel is pulled from his window-sill jar collection.
‘Ugandan Grenadian Syrup’, the elegant bottle reads.
Now a new home for fireflies which are
“totally tame” according to him.
He tells me how their lights help them to attract their mates,
As he slurps the noodles out of his chicken noodle soup
And recites his meal time prayer with extra strength.

“I think you and Dad might really be
. . . . .aliens.” he tells me,
Straight-faced,
At bedtime.
We question, how then he came to be human??
“It’s possible”, he says. “Hard to be sure.
What if our imaginings can make things true?”,
He wonders.
And I am reminded that my job is to allow his
Fantasy to fly while reassuring him
That reality is solidly behind, before and around him.
He is safe.

He hates underwear.
He loves weapons.
He tells gruesome fantasy stories.
And he cries to me not to kill the insects
Making their home, uninvited, with us.
He is hopeful that he may someday
Be able to marry his sister or his
Mother.
And he fervently declares that he hates us,
Whenever we cross his will.

This is the boy-man that I hold,
Lightly,
In my arms. Whose face I stroke
In sleep.
The one who wiped my kisses off
This evening.
But who will burrow into me in the morning
Desperate for snuggles.
Oh, how I love this boy.

It stands for Ugandan National Exam Boards and is the most feared and revered measure of success for young people in Uganda. Unlike our SATs, students who score poorly have no future chances in this country. And sadly, the exams themselves are often poor indicators of intelligence or study skills, reflecting more of a dependence on rote memorization. Students sit for ten papers in their various subjects of study.
Exams are closely guarded secrets. Every aspect of the testing process is fraught with red tape and confidentiality. The UNEB exam room at our school was set up on Friday for our Monday morning beginning exams. Each desk must seat a single person and must be separated by a designated number of centimeters from it’s surrounding desks. Students across the country all sit for their exams on the exact same date at the exact same time thus preventing some common forms of cheating. Students must apply for UNEB six months before the actual test including photo ids and the slightest discrepancy in their paperwork will disqualify them. Got malaria and unable to sit for your exam? Wait till next year, paying another year of school fees and another series of UNEB dues . . . . . Sorry.
Five days before the exams begin we got our phone call for receipt of the “Confidentials” - the secret information that explains what materials are needed for the lab practical exams, to allow each school time to prepare. They are hand delivered in sealed envelopes by the area supervisor for UNEB (this year, one of our former teachers, Andrew) and revealed to two to three people who will prepare the labs. Then an emergency request goes out to a lab supplier who will rush the supplies to us by Monday.

Each day of UNEB exams, which go on for about six weeks including both Ordinary level and Advanced Level students, David must report to the Nyahuka police station and enter a locked room for which only the area supervisor holds the key. There he will be handed sealed envelopes with the days exams. The envelope for each exam may not be opened until the moment the exam is to begin. This process appears more ludicrous when you take note of the Nyahuka Police Station itself. A small building with a decrepit “jail” - really a holding cell made of floor to ceiling wooden boards, smelling strongly of human waste and with hunted eyes peering out from behind. Police in our part of the country (like most parts) are not known for their honesty or devotion to civil duty. Perhaps that explains why only the area supervisor holds the key.

For the last week Ordinary level (senior 4, senior high school equivalent) students have been in their final reading week. Classes have ended and they are “reading and revising” a process of going through four years of notebooks holding the collected wisdom from teacher lectures, chalkboard dictations and occasional access to textbooks. They seek to organize themselves and prepare for the papers that will tell their future. Their best eight papers will form their score; their hope is to score Division 1 or 2 . . . Even Division 3 has some possibilities.

Meanwhile David looks forward to a stress filled month of supervising details; from lab equipment to testing room set ups to photo id checks. A mistake in any of these areas carries federal fines and jail times - a risk we are not interested in taking. Headmasters from all over the country are regularly jailed for infractions that we might not even have been aware of - which sure does keep us on our toes. So pray us through - our first UNEBs - nothing to be taken lightly.

Uganda marked another year of Independence on Thursday, October 9th. Staff and students worked together to prepare a full day of celebrations. We assembled early in the morning for a reading of Ugandan History which students actually seemed to enjoy! Then several students performed ceremonies involving a color change - it was amateur but still quite well done. A very spirited debate followed, sponsored by the CSB debate club and titled: ” Has Uganda gained independence through the front door only to lose it through the backdoor?” This debate was one of the most encouraging moments I have seen in our time at Christ School. Students forumed the debate but staff got involved in a peer manner, sharing their viewpoints with obvious energy and passion. The crowd roared time and time again as various speakers made their points. Many of the points circled on what I see as peripheral issues of symbolic independence (western clothing and hairstyles) but many also reached further to ask why our own Ugandan leaders are failing to act in an positively independent manner. Education is an obvious example: Uganda still struggles with an imported, outdated and illogical system. But the Ministry of Education is now Ugandan-run. Why don’t we see change? Perhaps these questions are more complicated than they appear. And perhaps our students will someday be the ones to make these positive changes.
Remembering our last Independence Day here, where we were the recipients of stones, I felt some trepidation as I attended the debate. The most positively received speaker statements centered on anti-white sentiment. I think that I have to receive that criticism, willingly, as penance for the sins of the white ones before us who treated humans as animals and used and abused for their own welfare.
Students watched a special movie brought by Scotticus last year: Endurance is the story of an Ethiopian runner who came from abject poverty to win the Olympics. Students made more noise than I have ever heard while watching this inspiring video about African success. Then they acted out their own success in subsequent table tennis, football, volleyball and running competitions. Fun was had by all.

The evening ended with the Candidates Party; a sort of homecoming as we discovered. Candidates are students who will sit for their national exams this year. For many it will be their last year with us. Candidates Party is a time to celebrate these kids, to encourage them, and to give them one last night of fun before the hard work of sitting exams starts. Girls dressed in party clothes, boys were smart too. There was meat and soda, the requisite speeches, and a little bit of dancing. And now, starting Monday, we face UNEB together.

Naomi and Quinn started school yesterday. Started Ugandan school for the very first time. Took a leap of faith that I consider miraculous - and survived.

It all began several years ago with a dream that someday our kids would share education with their Ugandan friends, that they would acculturate in this important way. Schooling within a host culture is one of the few proven ways to assimilate healthily for children. It seemed like an impossible dream given our experiences with local schools, local teachers and cultural traditions surrounding children.

As we learned of the Bartkovich and Masso departures and foresaw our children with no team friends their ages we began to long even more for a shared school experience. And then in the past few months we set our eyes on a school that is taking a higher road than many here. Details worked out in amazing ways; our American curriculum being adjusted for four days of school a week. Ashley, our kids’ teacher, wanting to work in this local school as well. And so, a month ago, we set the goal of beginning local school one day a week.

St. Padre Pio Primary School is located about 1/2 mile away from us in Kanampono - “the place of the pig”, where pigs can safely be butchered away from our local muslim market. The road from Christ School to Padre Pio leads through “Palm Oil Ave.” - where old Fanta bottles are filled with thick greasy orange cooking oil, extracted from local palm nuts. Barber shops line this dusty road as do small local restaurants comprised of a cookpot balanced on the requisite three stones and a sweating, tired woman.

After months of thinking, praying and wondering how to soften the inevitable blows of my children’s experiences at school, I had made some decisions. We would drive most of the way, sparing them the road with the constant cries of “mazungu mazungu” and the local children running up to touch their hair and skin. I would send sweet Assimwe (her name aptly means blessing), my house helper, to school along-side my children, to safeguard them and provide backup for the lack of true childcare within school. Should rebels strike or a fire break out, Asiimwe will grab them and run. I will limit their time at school to a single day a week. I will explain clearly to the school authorities that my children may NEVER be beaten. I will be on-campus as often as I can to watch staff at work and look for the normal human rights violations found in our local schools. I will pray for my children. Most of all I will trust God with them because I want His plans for them and not my fearful own.

This process has been nothing less than miraculous so far. A walk of true faith starting with a hope as small as mustard seed. God has walked us through each fear, each need, giving us enough for the problems of today without reassuring us about tomorrow. A month ago when I first announced to Naomi and Quinn that they would soon start school at Padre Pio; both clearly said “no way.” I kept a confident, positive approach - yes, this will happen; but in my heart I kept asking God, “can this really happen?” By this week Naomi’s mind had completely changed so that when I came home with her new uniform for school she paraded around proudly in it and even went to bed early so as to be at school more quickly in the morning. This is nothing less than miracle. The path has been harder for Quinn. As we headed off to school yesterday, Quinn steadfastly refused that he would go. As we parked on the road near the school he refused to leave the car and as I finally coaxed him out and we walked onto the school yard together he was stuck to my side like super-glue amidst the cries and stares of the other students.

Padre Pio is a Catholic school so we sat through the morning prayers together, me explaining things to the kids. Quinn barely budged from his clutch on my arm and I just kept praying and asking for God to help him, miraculously, into the classroom. I knew I couldn’t force him to go in. And God did, time after time providing Quinn just enough to move on to the next step of his day at school. Perhaps it sounds simple when written but I felt I was watching miracles unfold all morning. God is enough.

The classroom was a big adjustment for the kids. I made the decision to place them together in the P1 (similar to 1st grade) classroom. Naomi flies through the material while Quinn is challenged by some of it but they are there to learn culture not academics. It seemed to work. They studied math; mostly a lesson about the three most basic shapes, giving them confidence that they would be fine here! Then on to English where they answered basic questions about objects found in a classroom. For each subject they have small exercise books that they write copiously in. Quinn’s biggest challenge at school is the writing, as Ugandan schools start from nursery school tediously copying sentences from the board whether or not they understand how to read, know the alphabet or have any comprehension. Social Studies and science followed with parts of the body in English and some songs. There were the usual disruptions of classrooms here - the teacher, an old man whose name I never got, left the classroom about four times every hour and the headmaster came in multiple times to yell at the students for various small infractions. Quinn was most horrified and fascinated by the “beating” of students within class. The teacher made liberal use of a switch on children’s arms and legs - a sight I had hoped to spare my kids. Discipline within Ugandan schools is really just beating - there is generally no consistency of application or understanding of the infraction. As the headmaster told me when I questioned him on this illegal practice I had noticed in his school - “yes, we should find other forms of intimidation.” Um, yea.

We have a long way to go. The morning lasted from 7:30 am to 1:30 pm - I never knew Quinn could sit for two and half hours at a time on a wooden bench, staring at the blackboard! And Naomi and Quinn need confidence to join their friends in play at recess time. I need to work with Asiimwe on standing up to the men at the school as her natural tendency is to do whatever they tell her to. And we will have to address the students’ tendency to stroke Naomi and Quinn whenever the teacher is out of the classroom. Yes, there are many details to work out and my heart is still heavy with this burden. But I can not forget the miracles I saw and how God came through for me and most of all my kids. This is one of the hardest things I have walked them through but I sense that true blessing will come from responding to God’s challenge to take this step of faith. And I am pleading that all of you will pray us through.

“We are caught between the predicament and the provision, reassured only by the promise.” - Alan D. Wright. God you promised.

We ate a feast last week; a sort of Biblical wedding feast. A time to be reminded that we are in the “already but not yet”, as Michael Masso always informs us. And it was an already. But still a not-yet.

Cuts of choice beef, sweet pumpkin casserole, hearty brown bread and minty brownies - these were the delicacies of our feast. Candlelight, brightly colored kitangi tablecloths, and our best clothes - these made up the atmosphere. Toasts, speeches, short stories, poems, and a crazy game - these were the events. And at the heart of it all; love. Love constituted of a patient endurance. Love that says we are willing to be caught between the predicament of today’s difficult goodbye and the someday provision of heaven because we believe in a truly great Promise.

This week ended the months of preparation for the Masso goodbye. And what a week it was. A final Saturday adventure, three major parties, one big sleepover, a whole lot of packing up, closing up, handing over and saying farewell. Our house feels empty and abandoned. Every nook and corner of our Pierce home is filled with Masso memories - Gaby and Liana spent a LOT of time here and they left their mark on us and ours. In response to our friendships, Naomi and Quinn and I worked on a short book for the Masso family as our goodbye tribute, based on Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit collection of spoonerism poems. The Stollected Cories as we called them, remind us of all the good times we have had together here and the ones still to come. The joys we have shared here are a sweet foretaste of our future shared Home with no goodbyes, no separations, no sticking-it-out-alone times.

This week has contained tears (mine and Naomi’s mostly). David and I joined this team with much faith partially BECAUSE so many kids our ages were here. Over the last year God has stripped those friends away. When we came two years ago we made the fifth family along with nine singles. Our team feels very small now; us, the Myhres and four wonderful single gals. It’s a big adjustment to a bare-bones survival group supporting medical, nutrition, education, water, translation, and church partnership. and our hearts feel the losses. Our faith is forced to grow, our hearts forced to expand, lest we let them shrivel.

So we spent only Sunday in sadness and began on Monday to work with hope. Naomi and Quinn went back to classes with joy, despite the loss of their only two classmates in our tiny mission school. Together, I and the kids have taken advantage of our time together for shared activities of cooking, holding rabbits, beading and reading aloud. We have pulled our African friends deeper into our lives. And biggest news of all; today the kids started local school, one day a week. This is, by far, their greatest challenge in their lives here so far, as they step into rural African school in this child-destructive culture. And for me, one of my greatest leaps of faith ever. This heart is in no danger of shriveling - exploding, maybe.

More tomorrow.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives. Let not your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27

My pastor wrote that perfected love is love inhaled from God and exhaled onto others; drawing me to the conclusion that perfect peace is the inhalation of God’s peaceful omniscience so that we live lives not of knowing all but of total trust. No more what-if’s; how would that feel??

I am reminded that there might be an occasional benefit from fear; an adrenaline response can save your life. But there is no benefit from worry. Worry steals our joy while getting us nowhere - it poses as responsible concern and continues to waste our precious time and hearts.

God keeps bringing a certain verse into my life; “God’s mercies are new every morning . . .” Lamentations 3:23. And as Alan Wright says (the guy who got me thinking through all of this); God gives grace for actual needs, not potential problems. God says in Hebrews that He will give us ” Grace to help in time of need.” Not when we’re imagining a problem or dreading a potential problem or considering the possibility of a problem. Can I wake each morning with the joy of a baby - fully rested, and that’s enough? Can I let God’s mercies sustain me each new day without worrying about what’s come before or what I imagine might be sure to come later?

I won’t bore you with my list of what-if’s. The fact is; the things which have brought me the greatest joy in my life have been the biggest risks. Marriage was a huge risk - and boy has it paid off. And each child is another risk of all of our hearts; choosing once more to let it walk around outside of our bodies. Living life is a constant risk - especially in some of the places and times God has called us to. Saying goodbye to those we love feels like more risk.

We experience God’s peace not by a greater understanding of what’s ahead but by a deeper sense of how little we know. Babies rest in peace because they have nothing to fear; they may wake with hunger but they won’t spend hours dreading it’s arrival. And this is true for us as well. Relaxing into a childlike realization of our finite understanding forces us to rest in the omniscient One. And the omniscient One says, ” fear not for I am with you.” God teaches that it is in our weakness that we become strong. In the same way it is in our lack of knowing that we know that which is most important - He’s got it ALL covered.

We hear in the news and through the grapevine about the financial crisis in America. It’s rather hard to imagine. Is the whole thing like a balloon with a little too much air in it? Just ready to pop? I have trouble feeling as disturbed as I should by the stock market and the real estate losses. I just want to know how all this affects the big picture of world economics and how much we ourselves are responsible for. Do we create this havoc as we do so much other havoc - by demanding more than the world was meant to give?

Food prices are skyrocketing in our little town of Nyhuka. When we arrived one and a half years ago, 800 shillings could buy a cooked meal at the local “restaurants.” That’s about fifty cents. Now, this short time later, the price has nearly doubled to 1,500 shillings for a comparable meal. Rice is selling for nearly twice what it used to; so are beans. And from what we read in the online papers - this food shortage is widespread. Soon, they say, as the rich get richer, the poor of the world will simply cease to survive.

Apparently this lack of food has to do with choices us rich people make (I might not seem rich to you; but believe me, relatively speaking, I am.) As we focus more on biofuels we divert for our own uses the cheap, easily grown grains that the less affluent use for filling their stomachs and gaining their calories. And as the wealthy parts of the world eat more meats, the less wealthy end up with even less of their normal grain diets. Our meat uses an unbelievable amount of their grain to get to the table. Running on biofuels, our energy uses even more of what their bodies need simply to survive. This is simply what I read, you understand. And because I’m a rich American with choices; I choose how much I want to know and how much I want to ignore.

I don’t have answers to these problems, and I’m going to avoid offering cliched solutions. I’m just taking this chance to notice, to observe the casualties. To realize that the painful prices of fuel affects our way of life so little in comparison to the lives of the poverty-stricken across the globe. To notice that the average annual income in Uganda is $300 and to realize that our part of Ugandan falls far, far below the median of that average. We have choices about how we will live. They are hard choices but important ones, because they affect lives. God cares about the least and about those of us more privileged with affluence. Solutions are there to the problems if we look to the true Answer Man. And I’m preaching to myself here, as I find comfort in a car with fuel, meat hauled from the city, and care packages sent at great expense from home. Where is the balance of enjoying good gifts with protecting those less fortunate? Truly hard to say.

David headed off to the city Monday morning; to pick up stationary from the Ministry of Education, for the official Ugandan exams which will begin in a little over a week. A quick several day trip that did not warrant the hassle or expense of all of us going - especially as we are savoring our last week with the Masso family and preparing emotionally for the goodbyes over the next four days.

Life goes on, though. Monday night my book study group joined me to hear more of Captivating together. I reveled in having real friends to fellowship with, to share my time away from David with. We ate, talked and discussed till ten pm leaving me too tired to miss David much. And I was SO not alone. As I headed off to bed by 11 the drums of Eid started, reminding me that I am more surrounded than I ever needed to be. Ramadan has ended, the celebrations begin.
I got to spend the last few days being somewhat in charge of school, the go-to woman: the woman with the keys: the woman with the money: the woman with the ear of The H/M. Someday, maybe, I’ll have a life of my own.
Now here we are, two days later and David has driven in, filling our house back up with life and joy because some of us are just not enough. The kids are overcome with their need to share every minutes with him and I am eager to tell him what CSB is like without its’ headmaster!

We survived; Muslim holiday, rowdy chapel service, escaping rabbits, and suspended students returning to threaten others, notwithstanding. And we are the stronger for having done so.

Wilson, our “old-boy” (alumna) who has come back to work for the school kitchen as our procurement officer - spending more in a month than many here have ever seen or touched in a lifetime - has experienced more than his share of hardships for us.

Last time it was being robbed at machete-point. This time it was a wrongful arrest on the Congolese marketplace where he travels weekly to find lower food prices on our staples of corn flour, beans, and rice. Congolese officials are understandably jumpy (not to mention corrupt). An “unknown” person buying large amounts of food is suspected to be a rebel supplier and so, just a few miles from our home, Wilson spent the night in Congolese jail. David did a lot of learning in a few hours and got both an internal security officer and a “fixer” who works both sides of the border, to head West towards Wilson. A day later and he is back at work, none the worse for the wear. We paid a small “fine” for the trouble Wilson supposedly caused and we built new relationships with Congolese and Ugandan officials.

We were at team meeting on Thursday night when David got the phone call that Wilson was in jail. And David led us in prayer, that God would bring surprising goodness out of this seemingly bad situation -that we would soon be grateful for this arrest. And to my amazement that prayer seems to be coming true. Congolese army and government officials gave him the full-ahead green light to continue crossing the borders and buying foods, due to the interventions of our the Ugandan internal security officer. Now Wilson is known to Congolese security and will hopefully have safe passage in the coming months and years. Good reminder for my sometimes faith-less heart, that God DOES have a plan.