Moving up the East Coast

This post comes from New Haven, CT. Though Luke chose Yale sight-unseen (for any of us), we have now spent an afternoon walking the campus with my cousin Geoffrey who completed a graduate degree in Architecture at Yale and still lives in the area, and we are all excited about his choice. Yale's system of residential colleges means that the vastness of the University is divided into manageable blocks of classic, integrated buildings and courtyards where students and faculty live and interact. It's almost like EVERYONE gets to live on the Lawn (for our felllow Wahoos). Geoffrey knows a ton about the history, and of course the architecture, of New Haven, so he was a great guide. He even met us to start off our afternoon at THE original pizza restaurant in America, Pepe's on Wooster street. Everyone who knows us knows there is nothing like a superb oven-fired thin-crust pizza in a congenial atmosphere to put us all into a positive mood about this city! Lux et Veritas, Light and Truth, is carved into many buildings. We pray Luke seeks both while here. And we trust that Light and Truth will find him.

The last few days we have been gorging on relationship, drinking in the kindness of others. Team mate Sarah and former intern-WHM kid Tim W both showed up at our Sunday School presentation. In spite of a sound system glitch it was a great morning (Scott, handy man that he is, had brought an extra speaker set). Grace Church knows and loves us and Bundibugyo, so it was great to have an hour to talk to them. Afterwards we were treated to a fellowship lunch at the assistant pastor's house, and reminded of the richness of new friendships that can unfold here. Then we left on this trip early Tuesday morning. First stop was Rick and Wendy's in Delaware. Our old neighbors. I'm awed to find people like us coping so well, integrated into American life, and using their Africa hearts to bless the several thousand international graduate students in the nearby University of Delaware. Chase is the smiliest little thing, and the devotion that the family is pouring into all the boys is humbling to witness. We got to see Grant's arm-in-process. Only Aidan was pretty intimidated, too young to remember us but old enough to be shy. That was a real treat. Then we stopped at Princeton where one of Luke's best friends is about to start school. And ended the day in NW New Jersey on the Elwood farm. After two years knowing Nathan, and hearing about this place, it was almost like another home-coming. Horses and organic vegetables, a rambling historic farm house, beds for all (due to the sacrifice of the family), warm hugs, a gracious candle-lit pasta and salad dinner from fresh ingredients, and even the famous apple-cake we tried and failed to replicate in Uganda. We were made to feel like family, and it was wonderful. This morning we added to our treats by visiting Pamela B-P in her apartment in New York City! I love the way that seeing someone's home unfolds new depths of seeing that person, not just who Pamela is in Uganda but how she reflects that in her space in NYC. With Nathan, Sarah, my mom, and all six of us, we pretty well filled the place, but she managed to host us with bagels and tea and a chance to catch up on our lives. Afterwards we drove around the part of town where Columbia's medical school and school of public health are housed, where Nathan and Sarah will spend the next few years. And then on to New Haven, as above.

Thankful to find old friends and great food and reunion and beauty as we move up the coast.