Fifteen Years

October marked our fifteen year anniversary of living in Uganda. As
the month draws to a close I was thinking about this, about the
changes in our neighborhood over the last decade and a half. More
mbati (tin) roofs instead of grass. More vehicles, motorcycles, and
bikes. More kids. More schools. More people wearing shoes. More
buildings, shops, paths, roads. More trash. More choices, for us and
others. More expenses. More organization. More communication. More
obligations.

Our newest team mate, Nathan, will land tomorrow. When we landed 15
years ago this month, we sat forlornly on our pile of bags outside the
somewhat decrepit old Entebbe airport as the sun rose and smoking
cooking fires filled the air. Luke was an infant being swarmed by
what I thought were malarious mosquitoes (they were lake flies,
harmless, just annoying). We had no phone, no contacts, and no plan
for what to do if our team did not pick us up. Several Ugandan
drivers approached us, but we kept hoping that someone who knew us
would show up. We had heard of the Sheraton Hotel and so were about
to try and hire a taxi when a blue pick-up pulled up two hours late,
and Atwoki, the Ugandan mechanic who served our team over many years,
jumped out. It turned out that both Dan and Betty were sick with
malaria and therefore had to send him. . . we went back to the
Namirembe Guest House, back then a very simple place with common
bathrooms and hostel-like bare accommodations and Ugandan food, to set
up Luke's pack and play and try to get some jet-lagged sleep in the
heat. No A/C, no fans even. To make a phone call telling our
families we had made it we all went to the lobby of the Sheraton
(which was why we had heard of it before arriving), a past-its-prime
somewhat dingy place at that time, where the only international line
was located for pay. No cell phones, no internet. No bottled water,
few sodas. Then Lynn Leary took us shopping--no grocery stores, no
mall, just a 4x8 foot duka, opening onto the sidewalk, where we bought
flour and oil and salt and sugar. The biggest treat was Ribena, a
juice-like drink. I think I still have the shopping list Lynn wrote
us in pencil on a legal pad, detailing all 20-some items available for
sale in the country. Thankfully the Herons went to Kenya in those
days and came back with huge rounds of cheese, which a thousand
kilometers later we divided up to share. When we finally got into our
4-wheel-drive vehicle to drive west, the road soon petered out into a
dirt track. It took two LONG days to get to Bundibugyo. People waved
and stared. A passing truck was a rare event then. We waved back.
This was to be our home, and I remember how stark and National
Geographic it looked.

But I also remember driving into the mission for the first time, and
looking up. The mountains. My heritage is Appalachian, West Virginia
Hills. Somehow in all the anticipation and discussion it had never
dawned on me that we would be living at the foot of Africa's third
highest mountains, the Rwenzoris, where equatorial snow rises above
the palms. Some people feel a sense of belonging in the city, by the
ocean, in a suburb, on a plain. For me the ridges populated by
insular clans, the rivers running down, and the green hillsides rising
up, felt like a gift of beauty and security. My Dad's favorite Psalm
was 121, which happened to be my reading today in Peterson's year-long
Psalm devotional. Driving into Bundibugyo 15 years ago with a baby
and trunks and little else, the hills reminded me that our
transcendent God gives unexpected gifts.

And that, though much has changed in 15 years, He has not. The
glaciers have receded but the mountains stand, unmoved.