Processing

 

This 40 days of Caleb's Basic Training is a great gift for me, which others are paying for in sweat and blood.  For the first four days, I followed a scripture meditation guide from Donovan Graham and read the book above, all of which I highly recommend.  Our lives are so cluttered with input, and we try to escape emptiness with busy-ness, when what we really long for is God's presence.  So this period is an attempt to create space to hear, to know, to fill.

On Tuesday morning I started my task for the rest of the time here:  writing.  When we first arrived in Uganda in 1993 I wrote my mom and said I would never be able to keep a journal AND write letters, so would she please save the ones I sent her?  She was true to her word, and I lugged hundreds and hundreds of pages of them to Colorado. Below see them spread out in stacks from 1992 to 2010.  I spend hours a day reading through these detailed letters, and trying to distill the year's reality into a dozen pages or less.  This is for my own heart and perspective; for my kids to have a written record of their life; maybe for the all-new Bundibugyo team to be reminded of the history.  If God wants to take it further He will, but for now I am committed to simply writing.

 In the evenings I ramble, wandering the ranch as I think of the memories and pray for the people who helped make them, Ugandan friends who work steadily on, old team mates. 

I'm grateful for this time, and would appreciate prayers that God reminds me of the things that should not be forgotten, gives perspective, brings thanks and healing.  Pray also for the current team who are starting their own chapters; they meet in Fort Portal right now for vision and planning.