Bringing in the Triple

Party number 3:  a Romp. Julia and Acacia had planned a Narnia Birthday, and the Romp from Prince Caspian was a pretty good picture of how it turned out.  We ended up with about 30 people, as team and friends filtered in. Games based on Narnia books, including a treasure hunt where the prize was blank books we had covered in beautiful kitenge cloth so that kids could begin to write their own stories, and a relay involving yellow and green rings and various worlds as in The Magician's Nephew.  Pizza, and at the end an Aslan-cake (thanks to Pat's decorating help!).  The highlights:  first, that the entire team poured creative effort into costuming themselves.  Most creative mention goes to Heidi for coming as the Lampost, complete with missing arm.  Best use of artificial hair was a Masso family tie between Michael as Tumnus and Liana as Trumpkin.  Julia herself chose to be Fledge, the winged horse.  Second highlight, Julia's true joy in the event.  She was lit up all evening.  Her girlfriends who have celebrated almost every birthday with here were there along with team and a few other friends.  She beamed and hugged and generally delighted in the spotlight, particularly since she could share it with Acacia.  And last, the final half hour of dancing, outside in the grass, in a circle of candles, the freedom of laughter as the kids jumped and swayed under a crescent moon.  Though thunder had rumbled threateningly, and though we are in the midst of our most intense rainy season, the gathering clouds moved down the mountainside and left our plot of ground amazingly untouched.  I am very, very thankful.

Reflecting back on this week I wonder if we are just humanly worn and tired from goodbyes, or if there is a particular spiritual intensity to life in Bundibugyo right now.  In favor of the former:  as the Massos prepared to depart, their heavily loaded truck was parked in our yard, hugs were passing around, and Jack came for comfort saying that this goodbye reminded him of leaving Luke, and made him sad. Thursday the people constructing the new road held a town meeting in which it dawned on all of us that the Ngite water system (along with Butogho and many other water lines) will be destroyed in the process of road construction, and relying on the district to re-construct water lines feels long, stressful, and uncertain.  They have now been gone less than 8 hours but first desperate request from a person who was primarily their friend has landed on our doorstep.  Sigh.  But in favor of the latter:  a church leader stood up today in the testimony time at church, to say he had been awakened from a dream of a snake by screaming only to find a monstrous snake coiled around his arm. In the darkness it took time to find light and eventually a metal pipe with which he killed the intruder, and he then passed around a photo of himself holding a heavy python that was over 6 feet long.  He radiated thanks for God's deliverance.  The other testimony came from a man who had been accused of being bewitched.  Perhaps there is an undercurrent right now of spiritual warfare, and we are close enough to feel the ripples of effect.

Either way (or both ways), a party that celebrates community and a lovely 12 year old girl and points to Aslan's country is a good antidote.  Thanks for praying.