Circling the Source

Tomorrow morning we will embark on our odyssey to take Luke and Caleb to school, the LONG WAY AROUND, counter-clockwise around Lake Victoria . . . first around the Rwenzoris, then south, through Queen Elizabeth Park for our first stop. Then southwest to Kabale where we will join the Massos (and we're bringing Ashley) for a few days on Bushara Island in Lake Bunyoni: cool air, otters, bracing lake water, tents, and sweet fellowship for the soul. Then further south, across the border and into Rwanda. Though we lived within a few hundred kilometers of the 1994 genocide and suffered through some of the after-effects of war in Congo and incursions to Uganda, we have never visited this country. We would like to encounter, as a family, both the memorials to the unspeakable loss and suffering, and the testimony to forgiveness and rebuilding this country has given the world. From Rwanda we head east, around the southern tip of Lake Victoria, to Mwanza, Tanzania, where our friends the Pecks work, and then on to Arusha where other friends the Jacobsons founded an incredible new mission hospital. The Pecks represent the generation following us: Rob was our intern in 1997 and is now a doctor with a family in TZ. The Jacobsons represent the generation we follow: Scott visited them when he was an intern in 1986! In both places we hope to have our vision expanded for medical missions in East Africa. And in between the two lies the Serengeti, the vast plains and rift escarpments of northern Tanzania, where we will camp in the game park and enjoy some family memory-making with the wild animals. From Arusha we turn north, back to Nairobi, and on to Kijabe for the New Parent Orientation as Caleb enrolls for 10th grade at RVA. Once he and Luke are settled, we go west, back to Kampala, and finally Budnibugyo!

The entire loop will take us three weeks. We will be driving thousands of kilometers, much of it on questionable roads, in places we have never been. We will completely encircle Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, and quite possibly the cradle of humanity. We are praying for a rest from the day to day wear and pressure of Bundibugyo, for family focus, for good conversation, for love for each other. We would also hope for a minimum of mechanical problems, punctures, difficulty finding food or places to stay, encounters with bribe-seeking police or dangerous animals. Please join us in praying that we would go with God, the true Source of all life, and see Him in new ways as we see the wonder of what He hath wrought.