Angels at War

As we flew out of Bundi, I saw the neat concentric circles of the UPDF barracks that guard Nyahuka, perched on the ridge between us and the border.  We don't think about them much.  A few soldiers are dispatched to the mission at night to guard us, coming and leaving in the darkness, silent unless one greets them.  But the vast majority are down a path that we rarely frequent, on the perimeter, holding it.  

After we left yesterday, our team had a red-letter day from, as Rick Gray used to put it, H-E-double hockey sticks.  Thieves smashed our house lock but did not get in, workers made off with sheets, children tried to steal school supplies from RMS, a friend's friend was assaulted, a vehicle wouldn't start, the attempt to move the internet dish led into technical insurmountable problems, the knowledge that bombs had been detonated in Kampala leant an air of insecurity and isolation, and on and on.  It was not a subtle attack, it was an hour by hour one-thing-after-another attack.

But the team persevered through the day, and ended together, in prayer.  And a bit of laughter.  A holy combination in the face of evil.  And as we pray for them too, now one step removed, still in Uganda but not in the community, I am comforted by the image of those barracks.  Because we are surrounded by the heavenly host of warring angels.  The fact that the thieves got so little, that the victim of the assault escaped, that the stubborn car finally started, that the bomb in the neighborhood where we are staying was defused, all point to a limit to the evil.  This far but no farther.  

The angels are pretty busy in Uganda this week.  Please keep the many devastated families who have been hit by the terrorism in prayer, as well as our team.  Thanks.