Grace in Greece-->Back to Africa

The sun-soaked Kenyan highlands race by as I experiment with typing en route, this being a relatively reasonable paved road (at least it seemed so until I got the computer out) and moments of internet connectivity may be few and far between in the week ahead, so a post in the outbox seems like a good idea. Yes, we are back in Africa. We returned mentally even before our plane lifted off, as the boarding gate for the flight to Nairobi filled with people who laughed in spite of having their bags ruthlessly checked, people who saw no reason to limit a bench with two seats to hold only two people, jostling and open and high-spirited. I've missed Africans. We only have one in WHM and an evening spent talking to her was like a long draught of cold water. When we landed in Kenya yesterday the muddy streets, lawless traffic, paint-peeling low-rise buildings, swarms of pedestrians, loaded bikes, modest used clothes, all seemed striking after the white city of Athens with its sophistication, cleanliness, and sidewalk cafes. But today Kenya looks pretty normal once again. We're back.

I can't sum up the two weeks of conference with any hope of doing them justice. So I'll just say that we are deeply grateful for the stateside staff who organized, the donors who sent us to a place of sun and beauty and clean tiled floors and sparkling water, and most of all to Joanna and Karen who did not listen to me when I said we would do all our closure in Africa during the Sudan Team (aka former Bundi team)'s visit, and instead surprised us with a slide show of old pictures one evening in front of EVERYONE. I am still processing just what that meant, the sweet honoring respect showered upon us when we merely held on to God for 17 years just like everyone else has and is doing.

The highlights for us mostly came in unplanned moments, conversations on the sidelines, over breakfast or late at night, slipping away to a seafood restaurant or hiking a hillside above the beach. WHM is nothing more than the people who have thrown in their lot together, as is the church, so it is no surprise that the wealth of our heritage is most apparent in the depth of the unique individuals who come. There are many people whose value we missed, but have to trust that God allowed us to hear His voice reflected through the people we did connect with, and save the rest for next time.

Greece was full of grace. Grace was preached and celebrated, grace was experienced as we feasted physically and spiritually. And we pray that grace will now be poured out of our lives to bless others.

Greece

Another continent, another alphabet, and another civilization. As soon as we stepped through customs and spotted the water fountain (drinkable water! for free!) and women wearing shorts, we knew we were in a different world.

The World Harvest Leadership meetings start tonight, Monday, but the flight from Cairo arrived on Saturday, so we had about 48 hours on our own. Karen came through once again, having booked us into a backpacker hostel a short block from the Acropolis right in the center of Athens. It's no small feat to herd two families, 5 kids, 9 bags, through the metro changing lines and up into Athens. We ditched our bags and went straight to the excellent new Acropolis Museum, where again the artifacts of an ancient civilization are displayed, this time in an ultra-modern setting. The Greek treasures overlap but extend later than most of the Egyptian ones, marble, more delicately carved, folds and gowns, paint and pottery. We watched an excellent video about the Parthenon and saw the remaining friezes and pedicles which had not been pillaged by the British a couple of hundred years ago. Then Sunday we walked the site, sitting in the amphitheaters, climbing the hill, shuffling through the temples, gawking at the columns, admiring the view. Mars Hill, where Paul again defended a "King of gods" by suggesting the unknown deity whom the Greeks honored was the Creator.

Our other adventure excursion was to take a public bus south-east to Sounia, to see the temple of Poseidon, perched on a commanding hill top at the southern most point of the peninsula. This was a 1 1/2 hour drive along a coastal road that curved and dipped, with every view over the water more picturesque than the mile before. We clambered down to the sea side as soon as we arrived, to swim in the frigid waters, jumping off rocks and paddling around the inlet (after discreetly passing a cove where several older Europeans were sunbathing nude). At the temple we ran into Stu and Ruth Ann Batstone, WHM friends who were also spending a night in the Athens area prior to the retreat! The best part of the day came on the way back--we realized the buses ran every hour, and that we had passed a seaside town with several restaurants right on the water. So we jumped off the bus, crossed the street, and allowed ourselves to be beckoned in by a hospitable older Greek gentleman. We said: we have one hour until the next bus, can you cook us fresh fish for 9? He was delighted. A pitcher of chilled local white wine, crusty bread drenched in olive oil, bowls of tomato-cucumber-feta-olive salad, and then slabs of grilled sea bass. He insisted that Scott and Michael actually see the monster fish and meet the cook. The sun was setting over the water as we dined, and we finished just in time to hop back on the next bus and head back to our hostel in Athens.

And so we end our Myhre-Masso pyramids-to-parthenon odyssey. Clearly the Masso state of grace outweighed the Myhre travel disaster tendency. Our kids encourage one another on, and we had such delightful moments of wine and food and fellowship, little tastes of eternity.

Pyramids to Parthenon, a rapid tour of ancient civilization

In one glorious day in Cairo, thanks to our knowledgeable young tour guide Mohammed and trusty driver and excellent planning by Karen, we sauntered around the pyramids, climbed down into a burial vault almost 5 thousand years old, walked through the temple where kings were mummified, viewed the Sphinx, rode camels, viewed a demonstration of how papyrus reeds are turned into parchment scrolls, spent a few hours guided through the treasures of the Egyptian Museum, munched fresh pita at a sidewalk cafe, saw from the outside one of the holiest sites in Islam, elbowed our way through the narrow streets of a bazaar with its persistent and aggressive merchants, and watched evening gather on the Nile as we cruised aboard a dinner boat. Wow.

So a few highlights. The Pyramids, with their geometric simplicity and gigantic scale majesty, a moderate crumble when viewed up close. Withstanding almost 5 thousand years of desert wind and marauding forces, silent and impressive even today.

Camels, fly-swarmed, an appearance of tame docility but feisty none- the-less, gangly-legged and large-toothed. Woven rug saddles, a steep and ungainly ascent. Very touristy. But fun.

The museum was our favorite. Mohammed, a 23 year old, had recently finished a degree in Egyptian History. He would pause before a statue and then explain the symbolism of the hand positions, or remark on how a female pharaoh had herself depicted with a false beard and muscular arms to inspire confidence, or how the features of a famous slave showed he was a dwarf. The place is packed with items that were being carved while Abraham loped through Mesopotamia. Of course the burial treasure of Tutankhamun is the most spectacular and famous, with the jeweled golden mask and the series of sarcophagai and ark-of-the- covenant like boxes each one larger to enclose the one before. But we most enjoyed the story and display of his father, Ankhenaten, whose images display a remarkable African flavor and who introduced the concept of a "King of the Gods", a One Highest Deity, a sort of early monotheism. For this the priests of the pantheon of lesser gods maliciously removed his name from his casket after his death. One can either assume that Hebrew images of cherubim and seraphim have been influenced by the Egyptian winged gods . . . or that both reflect an interpretation of some beings that are spiritual and real. It is awe inspiring to stroll through room after room of stones and tablets and statues that have been around for thousands of years, no protective glass or alarms, just right there in front of you.

And lastly, the Nile at night, lights of Cairo in huge waterfront skyscraper hotels, a cool breeze on the water, the slow chug of the boat, chairs pulled up to the deck rail, the same water that melts from the Rwenzoris in view of our home and feeds Lake Victoria then winds up through Uganda and Sudan, here again with us in Cairo before flowing into the Mediterranean Sea.

On to the Parthenon . .

St Catherine's Monastery

St Catherine's Monastery: the oldest continuously inhabited Christian community in the world, a fortress of worship and contemplation, surviving a hostile environment and waves of invasions. Proclamations from the Prophet Mohammed himself, and centuries later Napoleon, guaranteeing its safety. A prolific shrub said to be the descendent of the actual burning bush, no other specimen of this species in the Sinai peninsula, and no cutting from this bush ever survives transplantation. A gallery of icons protected from purges, including colorful portraits of St. Catherine herself (a feisty Mediterranean lady who defied culture and family for faith almost two thousand years ago, a legacy of passion for God and martyrdom). A library of manuscripts second only to the Vatican's, a bastion of preservation, with Gospels dating back to within a couple of hundred years of their original composition, painstaking ink strokes crowding page after page, delicate miniature paintings decorating them. An ornate church floating incense, a well where Moses was said to have met his wife, a narrow passage through meters of stone, long-bearded Greek Orthodox monks.

We toured the monastery on Thursday morning after coming down from the mountain, and by noon were in a shared mini-van type taxi (this time air conditioning!! Ok, we are weak .. . but I can sympathize a LOT more with the complaining Israelites, the sense that the Sinai goes on forever, waterless and winding ways.) The long trip, back to Cairo, this time with a heavy wind of desert dust (another reason to be glad for the AC with closed windows). Cairo must be one of the largest cities in the world, should look that up, but it holds about a quarter or more of Egypt's entire population, mostly in high-rise apartment clusters which are austere and uniform, block after block. Blaring horns, swerving buses, street-side vendors, donkey carts piled with unbelievably beautiful watermelons a splash of color and moisture in this parched place, men bustling, veiled women, the creative script of Arabic everywhere, then the wide Nile which cuts the city in half, and more of the same. We met back up with the Massos Thursday night, relaxing to be finally on the "Karen plan", merging into the pre- arranged take-care-of-you tour. After two days in the Sinai, sequential 7 hour bus trips, getting up at 1:30 am to catch our flight and then 3 am to climb the mountain . . we were ready for the showers, the beds, and the care of a tour guide! On to the pyramids . . . .

On the mountaintop

Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire. It's smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke with God, and God answered him by voice. Then the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And Moses went up. Ex 19: 19-20

The God of grace meets His servants at a point of effort, after 40 days or 40 years, in desserts or on inhospitable peaks. After journeys and danger and strenuous climbs.

We rose Thursday at 3 am to climb the sheer, steep, bare-rock slopes of Horeb, the Mountain of God, also known as Mount Sinai. Cool darkness, quiet monastery, sleepy kids who were nevertheless game for adventure. Problem was, even with flashlights, it was dark and confusing. 99.9% of people who go up the mountain use a gradual camel path that the Egyptians made in this century. We had read about a steep but more direct ancient path of 3,700 stone stairs made by the monks of old. And 99,9% of people start earlier, so when we got to the base at 3:30 the last camels were setting off, and the handful of guides still at the bottom tried to push us that way. But an angel named Joseph agreed to guide us, I think he found the idea novel and thought we'd probably never make it anyway with three kids.

Which is how we felt most of the way up, too.

"Path" and "stairs" turned out to be generous descriptions. Without Joseph we would never have found our way, we might be in a ravine somewhere wandering like the Israelites still. This was a serious climb, from just above sea level to about 7 thousand feet, on boulders, into the crevices of the mountain, in pitch darkness, with our tiny lights. Gasping for breath, aching legs, aching lungs, short rests, moving on, racing to beat the 5:45 dawn. Joseph turned out to also be a fantastic cheerleader, holding kids' hands at various times and assuring us of our progress. We did not see another soul all the way up, though he pointed out a dim light that indicated the cave home of a contemplative solitary monk.

At nearly the top our path intersected with the main path, and there we met a long line of people from every tribe and tongue. We sat outside a bedouin tea shelter where a group of Korean Christians were singing in beautiful harmony as the sky infiltrated with rose, then picked our way through crowds of pilgrims to find a perch on the very top and await the sunrise, sitting on top of a small rock-hewn building (of course there is a church on the peak). I read Exodus 19 and 20 out loud to the kids while Scott photographed the stunning sunrise. Surely this mountaintop is a foretaste of Heaven, with austere beauty and people from all over the world who have nothing in common except a desire to worship God.

And then, because God delights in small gifts, while we were taking a family photo, an American-sounding dad called to his son who was climbing up on a rock, "You're a gentleman and a scholar". Which is a phrase my dad used all the time, a way of praising and teasing all at once, since he was using it with two daughters. It's not something I hear people say often, ever. So to hear it on the top of Mt. Sinai was a small but profound delight, a reminder of earthly and Heavenly fatherly love and approval.

Once we diverged paths again we were alone, this time in the light, wending our way down the same slope that Moses and Elijah descended after their meetings with God face to face, unchanged from those times, nothing but bare stone.

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. But you have come to Mt. Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, . . to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Heb 1218-24

Climbing Mt. Sinai was very similar to our final ascent on the Rwenzoris: dark, cold, unknown, physically pushing to the limit, leaving me trembling and spent. But in both cases, the experience of God on the mountaintop was not fearsome awe, but a deep awareness of love. I can't explain that. When Moses does have God pass before him, after the second set of tablets, He calls Himself merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth. After the intense terror of His glory, those who approach are left with the still small voice, with the assurance of grace, with the wonder of a feast (Ex 24:11).

Cross-cultural travel, day 1

Traveling makes me realize how much I miss Uganda, which has become rather normal.  So when we land in Egypt, we're not just struck with how not-America this place is, but also how not-Uganda.  Yes, it is technically Africa.  But among the thousands of tourists milling about airports and pyramids and buses and shops and museums, I saw precisely 8 dark-skinned sub-Saharan-appearing people. Which is rather unsettling.  Indians, Koreans, Chinese, French, Germans, Australians, Americans, British, Greeks, Brazilian, and who-knows-what else . . .but not the people we're used to. And not the wildness, the lush greenness, the bustle and no-personal-space community of the Africa we know.

So some random thoughts and impressions, saving the serious for later.

A proposed index to replace the awkward "developed" vs. "developing" world labels.  Is toilet paper a luxury?  If TP is a given in your life, you know you are not in the places we usually frequent.  BYOTP is the rule for travel.

MAF flights (the small missionary-planes that take us from our grass airstrip) and Egypt Air have this in common: they start their flights with prayer.  BEFORE the safety briefing, the videos showed pictures of a mosque and a lovely flowing prayer complete with subtitles in Arabic.  Appreciate the acknowledgement of the spiritual.  Followed by an advertisement showing a happy Egyptian family munching away on Kentucky Fried Chicken, the familiar colonel's red logo on the white cardboard bucket of chicken the only recognizable element in the entire pre-flight brief.  Who knew that Egyptians favored KFC?

Security was tight I suppose, metal detectors abound.  But as I glanced around the gate I thought that EVERYONE sitting there would probably fit some sort of profile for increased surveillance in an American airport.  Which is in reality probably the safest way to fly.

Upon landing in Cairo the tour operator whom the Massos hired (great planning by Karen) dropped our family and Acacia at a bus stop to find our way to Sinai, which was not included in the pre-packaged deals. So our first encounter with the country outside of the ultra-modern spiffily-clean air-conditioned airport was a litter-strewn curb-side noon-heat bus stop, blazing sun, blowing horns, vendors, veiled ladies sitting discreetly on the missing-slats wooden bench, young men hawking packs of toilet paper (BYOTP) and cigarrettes, unintelligible anything.  But our first encounter with a real Egyptian was wonderful.  An old man took a liking to Jack (they always do, he's the kind of solid all-boy kid that old people like) and tried to strike up a conversation with us, in which we learned that he had been to New York.  That's about as far as we got.  As he and his buddy and everyone else in the country chain-smoked, we watched buses come and go, and smiled a lot, and tried to strike the right balance between not dying of dehydration and not having to go to the bathroom for 8 hours on the upcoming trip.

The bus had seen better days, maybe a couple of decades back.  Grimy windows that cracked open to provide the advertised "air conditioning".  We pulled out of Cairo, and into the dessert.  And more dessert.  Brown.  Brown.  And more brown.  The road runs east to the Suez Canal, which is traversed by a tunnel, and then south along the coast of the Gulf of Suez, a branch of the Red Sea.  Which is sparking turquoise, exquisite, in contrast to the harsh sand-blown rock and dust.  We tried to watch other travelers to figure out bus culture.  There was a rest stop after some hours, but even then we were afraid to get off for a while, lest we be stranded in the dessert.

Most of Egypt looks like it is in a state of construction or destruction, and it is hard to tell which.  Apartments rise from the brown bleak earth, looking just as brown and bleak (84 million people have to live in a narrow strip along the NIle and the major roads).  Almost every building has steel girders sticking out of the roof, as if another story is about to be added, or a bomb ripped a story off.  We read that an unfinished building is not subject to taxation, so almost ALL buildings are left unfinished.  No precious water is wasted on landscaping, flowers, bushes, or grass.  I wonder if the homes are like the women--presenting a face of dull uniformity to the world, veiled, colorless,  .. . . but underneath or inside a treasure of beauty.

Wind.  Trash.  Trash blowing in the wind.

Police.  Everywhere.  They stop the bus and examine tickets, ID's , our passports.  It's not they type of bus where Americans are very frequent I suspect.  There are cement road blocks at regular intervals.  The further we get into the Sinai peninsula, the more likely these are to have a machine gun poking out of a concrete bunker, watching the road.  Our bus is mostly full of young men, who sleep a lot.  Until at the last major town the last matronly robed veiled women get off.  Then they perk up, make jokes with each other, pass up and down the aisles, are loud and raucous as young men anywhere.  Some are in green fatigues, and others go to the back of the bus to change into theirs.  They stare at Julia and Acacia, who are oblivious.  I guess that besides touring Mt. Sinai or the coast, the only reason to be going where we're headed is if you are a soldier.

Just before sunset we reach a ravine with some palm trees, camels, donkeys, low houses made of stacked stone.  The soldiers disembark at a military camp.  Then a few kilometers later we see signs.  St. Catherine's Monastery, our destination.  After a day of heat and dust and no food and little to drink, the monastery guest house looks heavenly, with simple clean rooms and spectacular showers.  And the toilet paper is included!

Egypt, My People

And the LORD will strike Egypt, He will stride and heal it, they will return to the LORD, and He will be entreated by them and heal them.  In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians  In that day Israel will be on of three with Egypt and Assyria--a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, " Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance." Is 19:22-25

This was the chapter I read as our plane descended into Cairo, just happened to be where I am in my multi-site read through the Bible.  What a beautiful vision of the MIddle East.  No rhetoric about rights of one country over another, but a promise of healing, of family, of three siblings all valued and unique, all loved and blessed.  

In fact much of Isaiah, and other parts of the Old Testament, express God's concern for the nations of the ancient world, for Sudan and Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, Palestine and Ethiopia.  The people of Israel are called to bless them, to live as channels of God's mercy and grace to the rest.  A far cry from most of history, I'm afraid, but a burden of tenderness towards diverse civilizations nonetheless.

More in the next few posts on a three-day three-night sojourn into Egypt.  Scott's seminary professor taught him that one must see and grasp and tread the geography to understand the story of the past, because rivers and valleys and rainfall and coastlines impact the movement of peoples and the progress of cultures.  Nowhere is that more true than in the biblical lands.  So it was a great privilege to follow the paths of Joseph, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, from the Nile to the deserts and back. To appreciate Truth, with a capital T, embedded in ancient Egyptian civilization, to admire the scope and scale of their art and ambition, to marvel and hope, because this is a country of God's people.

On the way . . .

So far so good: almost 24 hours of driving has brought us from Bundibugyo to Nairobi, with only one two-hour mechanical delay (worrisome loud clicking thump whenever the wheels were turned sharply, so we purposed to drive in straight lines, but the final descent from the escarpment to Kijabe consists of hair-pin switchbacks so we finally decided to check it out . . a mechanic at a roadside fuel station took off both wheels and globbed in thick grease, which in spite of our skepticism miraculously did the trick).  We passed numerous disabled vehicles including a large truck hanging precariously off the road on the mountains coming out of Bundibugyo, and braked numerous times for barreling lorries using our lane to pass, or oblivious drivers pulling out heedlessly into traffic.  So it is no small thing to have crossed most of two countries and parked our truck and be waiting now in Nairobi for the taxi that will take us to the airport in the middle of the night.

Along the way, a day of respite at our favorite breathing place, Sunrise Acres.  I wrote notes to family and friends and supporters using the excuse of Luke's graduation announcements, pondering the American cultural issues with which I am out of touch (to whom does one announce a graduation?) and hoping that our friends will see them as expressions of THANKS for an ebeneezer of grace which we can view together, and not a subtle hint for gifts (which have already been given in the support we need to live here).  Scott pulled together some slides for a brief team intro at our upcoming retreat.  Both were exercises which involved some tedium (importing slides from a hard-drive onto a travel-laptop; addressing envelopes) but both reminded us over and over of how blessed we are.  Sacrificially generous friends, and a wealth of incredible experiences.

By morning we hope to be landing in Cairo.  Egypt Air turns out to be the most economical option between East Africa and Greece, where we have our meetings.  Thanks to Karen who planned ahead, we followed her lead, and are having a three-day lay-over in Egypt with the Massos.  Stay tuned, hopefully for tales of wonder and not of despair. It seems that Scott Will is poised to earn the Myhre Disaster Travel Award this time, after inexplicable delays and missed connections and horrific service and finally bailing on Ethiopian Airlines, we heard he arrived, stretching a ten hour trip to several days.  Heavy hearts for Scott Will who was already sick and beaten up by Sudan . . . and whispered prayers that we slide under the radar and progress without incident.  

Not quite Heaven yet . . .

Tomorrow we load our truck with a half dozen trunks and a few duffels, to drive to Kenya one last time (when we go for Luke's graduation in July we will fly or take the bus).  So this week we've been sifting and sorting, a bittersweet process of trying to extract a carload of sentimental and practical treasures from the accumulated bulk of 17 years of living.  School papers and legos and cake pans and pottery; photos and music and a few meaningful gifts and a guitar.  It is hard work, so many decisions, so much clutter.  And only a small percentage of the work which is still to come.  

In the meantime I only went to the hospital two of the last four days, and found I enjoyed the time more for its limitation.  Our boys have been working around the yard and eating lunch here daily, so it's a dozen for that meal most of the time.  A couple of afternoons I've been able to visit neighbors.  So the tedious material focus of packing has been balanced a bit by the relational treasures of time with others.  I'm thankful for that, too.  In the wake of the Sudan team's visit we entered this week, our first one of really turning our sights towards closure, well prayed-for.

It is easy to idealize our history at the moment of wrapping it up . . but not too easy, since difficulties still crop up, like a stolen bike, the sense that people are kind of watching and waiting to take what they can.  In debriefing some cross-cultural frustrations with team mates this week, I found myself as I have often before wanting to apologize or justify the hard parts of peoples' behaviour here.  The Johnsons in particular are just such great people I want to protect them from the thieves and the manipulators, the liars and the abusively dependent, as well as the just plain hard truths of poverty that surround us.  Travis' response has echoed in my mind:  Jennifer, we didn't come here because it was already heaven.  Amen.  If this was not a broken place, then we wouldn't all be here.  

So we pull out of this not-quite-Heaven-yet place tomorrow, never and easy task, planning ahead on school fees and worker salaries and dog food and cow plans and all the details that have to be anticipated when leaving.  The entire World Harvest Mission will gather in Greece, one week for the leaders and then a second week when we're all together.  We're flying in and out of Nairobi, partly to take this load of "moving", and partly to accompany Caleb on the way back so he doesn't land at 3 in the morning alone (Luke and Caleb join us for the latter part of the time).  In the midst of packing we can lose sight of why we're going . . but hope that the fellowship of the retreat will be a closer taste of Heaven than we've had in a long time.   

for Micah

My nephew Micah turns ten next week, on a day we'll be in an airport somewhere on the way to World Harvest Mission's triennial (well, due to the economy, quadrennial this time) conference.  So this is an early tribute to him, inspired by one of my patients today.  Micah is a special kid, born with Down Syndrome.  I have been through many trying moments with many moms and kids, but few with my own relatives.  So it is no small gift that God allowed me to happen to be in America a week or so before my sister went into labor with her 4th child.  And to be in the delivery room with them when we cleaned off the tiny newborn boy and noticed a certain way he looked and moved.  We wept together for the hard road that lay ahead, and rejoiced together in God's perfect plan for him and all who love him.  I have NOT been present for most of his life, missed many late night trips to the Emergency room when he could not breathe well, or joining in family searches of the neighborhood when he escaped the house.  As the years add up, and the pain of our distance takes a toll on all our hearts, I think Micah is the family member most likely to forgive all that absence, the one who will unconditionally embrace us when we show up, the one who reflects a gracious and accepting reality of God's love.  I hope we can overcome the decade of barely-being-there.  I am looking forward to seeing him soon.

I have a patient admitted this week with Down syndrome.  He's an 8 month old Ugandan, but when I look at him I see my memories of Micah.  Today as I was doing rounds I heard laughter (not the usual sound on the ward, I can assure you).  This baby's mom was playing with him as he lay on the bed, snuggling and getting him to laugh, and she was laughing, too.  When I reached him he made such funny faces and then smiled at me.  This was such an unusual interaction, both the one I witnessed and then the way he received me, that it really struck me.  My patient has some pretty significant heart problems that Micah does not have, and he is extremely unlikely to reach the age of ten.  But during his sojourn on this earth he is, like Micah, already reflecting the image of God in a unique and powerful way, and I am humbly thankful for that.

Happy early 10th Birthday, Micah.