Back Home, at least some of us

It is an ill wind that blows no good . . . I was explaining this saying to my kids, sort of the idea that some good for someone comes out of most problems. It reminds me of the rainbow that appears only in the rain, good and hope and beauty which arise in suffering, which we had spectacular example of in Kijabe (see above). A prime real-life example would be today's travel. Our truck has been having difficulty starting for some time, and the cold air and high altitudes of Kenya made this issue even more urgent. So we left it with the Land Rover doctor in Kampala, a trusted mechanic, for diagnosis and treatment (he suspects a major overhaul will be necessary to re-bore  the pistons) and flew back to Bundi today on a Caravan with Ashley and Sarah. Now it is 5 pm, the time we would normally be jostling into town, dusty and exhausted after 8 hours on the road. Instead we soared over the uneven terrain at a smooth 10 thousand feet (we ascended briefly to a mind-tingling 15 thousand but the clouds prevented a pass over the peaks so we dropped back down to the usual pass), and were lovingly received by the team only an hour after we left Kampala, with a lunch at Pierces and time to hang out and debrief and tell stories of our time apart. Now the food is unpacked and the fridge beginning to get cold, the laundry in piles, the trunks opened, and the tedious process of settling back into life has already begun.

I am grateful for the easy final leg of this trip, the respite from the road, after many many hours and jolts to and from Kenya. We are physically and emotionally spent. Driving away from Luke as he stood watching us leave under a tree at RVA was perhaps one of the low points of our life (and we've had a few lows, so that is saying something). We were all crying, and it was all rain and no rainbow at that moment. I am now dully sad, and Scott is beginning to recover, but watching him as a father part from his first-born son was brutal. We all (even Luke) still believe it was the right step. But it was a hard one. We are particularly anxious about his soccer try-outs which have proceeded daily this week. Like most boys who grow up in Africa, Luke loves the game. He is not alone. There are still over 50 boys trying to fill the 15 JV and 15 Varsity spots. The opportunity to be on a team was a huge factor in his desire to give boarding school a try. We of little faith feel the parental angst of wanting this good thing for our child and fearing it will be denied, and the ambiguity that if he makes the team someone else's kid won't.

And all this sorrow comes in the context of a year of goodbyes. Many readers of our blog have also been following the blog of Dan and Nancy Macha, missionary colleagues in WHM. Nancy died of breast cancer in Philadelphia as we arrived at RVA, and her funeral was held as we drove away. I suppose the terrible finality of that parting should put ours into perspective, and it does to some extent. But both are reminders that this world goes not well, that things are not quite right, that the separation which began when Adam and Eve hid in the garden plagues us to this day. Whether it is for a school term or half a life-time, we grieve the loss of fellowship, of joy, of presence when we part from those we love. Both partings may not have happened, or at least been delayed, if we were not walking this difficult road of mission. And again, both remind me that it is one thing to accept the cost for ourselves, but quite another to accept it for Luke who now lives in a dorm instead of a home, or for the Macha kids who now have no mother to turn to on earth.

So here we are, back in Bundibugyo, relieved to be home but slightly uneasy and guilty that we should feel the respite of resettling without a sixth of our family. And a hundred times a day our thoughts turn eastward, feeling the weight of the almost three solid days of travel that lay between us. We need the memory of the rainbow.