welcome home (!)

As one of the UNICEF visitors said today, this is a hard district.  The national reputation of Bundibugyo is one of inefficiency and corruption, and the objective indicators of disease and death are as high as the more frequently spotlighted areas of the post-LRA-conflict north in Gulu, or the drought-stricken east in Karamoja.  And while we feel at home here, we also feel the weight of these issues.

And if that were not enough . . . let me just describe Scott's first morning back, while I went down to the hospital to see patients, he went out to load the medicine we had purchased into the truck.  Only to find that after driving thousands of kilometers through four countries, we had our first puncture of the trip in the last few meters, right in our own yard.  Which would not have been so bad, if that discovery did not lead to the discovery that when the car was serviced in Kampala, the mechanic's minions broke the bolts holding the wheels on then welded them back together to cover their error, leading to an entire morning wasted by Scott in phone calls, tools, help, and frustration just to get the tire changed (the mechanic apologized on the phone up and down and is giving us a new set of bolts free . . ).  Perhaps that would be easier to take in stride without the roach colony which expanded in our absence to become a roach universe.  Or without the line up of needs, or the days of rain.  Let's just say that the sheer effort of daily life in Bundibugyo is a pretty quick wake-up call back to reality.

So why stay here?  I suppose because we cling to the hope that the school fees we are helping with are gathering a core of children with a new view of the world, a new way of living.  Because the infant whose mother bled to death yesterday should not face starvation.  Because we've known the elder dancing in worship for a decade and a half and resonate with his joy and leadership.  Because we followed (to the best of our ability to discern) that pillar of cloud and fire that leads through wilderness before reaching the promise, that refines and cleanses as we plod along the way.  

So in spite of roaches, mud, broken bolts, theft, and dependency . . . this is the place, for now, on this earth, that we call home.