Today we sent out a prayer letter, so if you're on that list thanks for reading and praying. (If you're not, you can message your email address in a comment which I'll add to the mailchimp and delete here as soon as I see it.) Short story is: we are in West Virginia after a week with my family in North Carolina, snow blusters in waves but the forces of Spring are definitely winning the day, and the major prayers we had for our son who was in training were realised (oh JOY). Plus the court in Uganda recognised our appeal yesterday as a valid reason to delay requiring payment of the extortionary fees, and our team in Nyankunde escaped with pretty much everyone else in the hospital and aviation compounds after days of escalating violence between a local mono-ethnic militia and the national army. We have had meals and hikes and games and talks with 3 out of 5 kids, 1 out of 2 moms, and the sister who lives in the USA. We entered the WV vaccine system. We tested negative for COVID. All that has been pretty great news in the almost 3 weeks since we began this journey. What is harder to explain is my own reluctance and hesitation to post about any of it. True, for the big family news, we are now entering a new life stage of security so that will no longer be part of what we speak about on the blog or social media. But even given the mind-spinning nature of tracking with people on two continents and multiple time zones, the desire to be mentally and emotionally fully present with people we love whom we've not seen in 18 months, the gaps in tech as I replaced a broken computer . . . perhaps it is just too much. But I have noticed that there are two deeper realities I'm aware of in this time.
First, in Luke 2, Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. April has been a season of treasure and ponder. And second, related perhaps, I think that the last 13 months have taken a toll on us all. Last April, we wondered if we would survive the pandemic. We had been making hard calls for a month about who should go when the occasional evacuation flights opened after all our Area's countries closed borders. More and more Americans were going back to the USA and it was really hard not to second guess ourselves constantly. We knew that ICU care would not be an option, and in many places not even oxygen. An entire year of uncertainty, of pockets of doom, of feeling cut off, of help melting away and little returning, of knowing that if one of our moms got COVID we would not be able to reach them, of concern for our front line essential worker kids, reacting to restrictions, closed schools, protocols, questions. Plus the added layers of ongoing baseline problems like TB and malaria and malnutrition and corruption and broken utilities and no mail and always more work than we could accomplish. And the heart-wrenching near-misses for the above mentioned child. All that time we wondered if we would be here in Sago where my family settled, if we would see our nearest relatives again. And yet, here we are.
Treasuring the sheer incredulousness of being alive, being OK. Pondering what that means for the next year, and the next, for us and those we love. Grateful to be in April 2021, while knowing that the scars of April 2020 will also always be part of the story. Trying to take this space we've been given to process and breathe.
Winter lingers. The spiritual battle never ends in this life.
But evil never wins.
Life breaks through. Spring is here.
If you've never been to a special olympics baseball game after a year of COVID delay . . you haven't lived.
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