Virginia Politics

Here is my mom tonight, conferring with Congressman Wolf at his post-election party, where she was invited based on her past political activism. We were able to thank him in person for his help with Basime's visa. And to experience a small dose of American culture, the balloons and flag-themed sweaters and happy people and sense of purpose. Not sure where the representatives of Jesus' priorities are (care for the poor, justice, repentance, righteousness, sacrifice) in this election, and certainly people on all extremes think they're speaking for God, so it's hard to go beyond the concrete and relational: glad my mom is glad, glad Basime made it through.

Eternal Friendships

Today, four women drove from places within a few-hour radius of Sterling, to have lunch with us. All were members of our Uganda team between the late 90's to early 2000's. All were single women then, courageous, serving, loyal, wonderful. And all are married now, some rather later in life than average due to their commitment to missions. What a blessing to hear about their lives in recent years, to play with their babies, to look at their pictures, to remember how things were, to talk about mutual friends. To see them now in the life-stage I was in when they came to our rescue, to see them parenting children the ages mine were when they were with us. To see how the time they spent in Uganda still haunts their hearts, how it impacted who they are today. To feel at home with them, even though I haven't seen them for years.

Michelle brought 1-year-old Masie (Zach had to stay back with grandparents due to illness), Heather brought 2 1/2 year old Ellie, Kimiko brought Yael (2) and Portia (9 months), and Mary Ann brought her pictures and love. What strikes me is that though these women are now mostly moms, and married, they still seem exactly the same to me, same characteristic tones and laughs and viewpoints and ways of moving. I love that touch of consistency in a changing world.

Thankful once again for the rich parade of women, mostly teachers, who have blessed our teams. And wishing we could see all of you together at once (Natalee, if you're out there, we should at least talk on the phone!).

Claiming citizenship

I have a voter registration card, and I used it today, the first time I've been in Virginia on the first Tuesday of November in 14 years.  Last time I stood in line at this polling station we were on the way to the airport with baby Julia, 1 month old to the day, returning to Uganda, and I remember there being lines and worrying about getting to the airport in time. It was 1996, a presidential year. Today however, there was no line at all.  Two dedicated 60-ish looking people stood outside the elementary school where my mom and I went to vote, one handing out a "sample ballot" with the democratic name marked, and the other handing out a sample ballot with the republican name marked.  Inside we presented ID, and confirmed our name and address with two women sitting at laptop computers.  Then we stepped up one at a time to a touch-screen computerized polling station mounted on an easel-like frame.  There were only two candidates for congress, and four questions.  I figured that in spite of my ill-informed political awareness, I could legitimately vote for the congressman who graciously listened and responded and helped Basime get into our country.  And vote in favor of policies that helped senior citizens and disabled veterans.  I left one question blank, since I really didn't know about it at all.  It took all of about 30 seconds.  

Contrast that with recent elections in Bundibugyo.  Students were being pulled out of Christ school to vote in spite of the fact that we knew from their registrations that they were under-age.  The cronies of the powerful always win, because the entire system teeters on chaos.  Here are a few of the things that made voting in Virginia smooth, but would be lacking in Bundibugyo:  drivers' license ID, a computerized registration system, a functional mail system for sending out cards, a school with electricity and space and security, laptop computers, literate volunteers, literate voters who can read the ballot, no fear of reprisal, no one knowing how I voted (well, I just told you, but otherwise .. . ), cars to drive to the polling station and back so the whole thing takes only a few minutes.  Not to mention a firm date set years in advance, something you can plan around.  Our democracy rests on our abundance.  It should be possible anywhere, but practically, it just isn't.

The sports gap

The Yale club football (soccer) has been a key component of Luke's adjustment to America, to college, to life as an emerging adult.  Exercise, outdoor time, friends, competition, purpose, brunches, trips, challenge.  A healthy atmosphere for growing up, functioning in a group, taking responsibility.  And Sterling Youth Soccer has been the highlight of Jack and Julia's experience in America, for many of the same reasons.  Pushed to work harder and run further, team-work, laughter, being known by some peers, cheering, having your name called in praise from the coach on the sideline, being invited to hang out with kids for an evening.  (Oh, and they both scored goals in their games in Saturday; Jack always expects more of himself and Julia comes away glowing).   And RVA's JV team has been great for Caleb too, I think, though we're thousands of miles from observing that.

When I drive Jack and Julia back and forth to various practices, I notice that this country has such an abundance of programs for youth.  In our suburban county alone you could be involved in basketball, volleyball, soccer, football, fencing, swimming, baseball, softball, lacrosse, ballet, tennis, karate, and a hundred other things I don't even know about, all with opportunities for coaching, for competition, for developing identity and networks of friends.  There are summer programs, camps, weekend events, casual leagues and intense "travel" teams.  There are lines of cars dropping kids off and picking them up from various events at the rec center.  

Then there are church groups, Sunday schools, midweek youth meetings, trips, service projects, Bible studies.  Music.  Instruction.  Role models.  Constructive and creative and supervised fun.

Sometimes I think of the scads of kids around our house in Bundibugyo, for whom there is no real meaningful adult input through most of their lives. Once they are weaned their moms' focus inevitably returns to the garden, to eking out enough food, to carrying water.  In school the classrooms are so packed a teacher might only offer a swat of a switch.  Kids are too much on their own, to find sustenance and entertainment and education and life.  Out of probably 100,000 kids between the ages of 5 and 18, I would guess that no more than a few hundred a year ever even get to play an organized sport of any sort, watched and cheered by adults.  

There is good scientific evidence that involvement in sports delays sexual debut, a strong protective factor against AIDS.  We're not talking about chalking up resume points for achievement, about winning trophies or outdoing the neighbors.  We're talking about a minimal boost to bring a child alive and intact to adulthood.  To teach a generation some self-discipline, some connection between effort and outcome (a tenuous connection with the school system).  To teach the value of team effort, one that cuts across clan and tribal lines.  To reflect back to kids some of the glory with which they were created.  To say," you matter".

What a powerful vehicle for the Gospel, one that does not subvert indigenous churches or take away from a growing post-colonial independence.  How could we invest in the youth of Africa in a way that develops body and soul as well as mind?  Even as I'm grateful for the opportunities my kids are now having, I'm even more aware of yet another gap between them and all their peers from Bundibugyo.  Which is one reason I guess it is good to be in America for a while, to catch a little vision for what could be.  Even if the fact that it isn't there yet leaves me sad.

Trains, departures, Sudan, birthdays, pizza, and dispersal

November 1, rumbling southward through the sprawl of Philadelphia towards Washington, a tourist in my own country, relieved at successfully purchasing an on-line ticket, finding the right station, transferring in from the commuter line, scanning the bar code in the email, self-printing three tickets, and navigating myself with Jack and Julia and bags into the right line and onto the right part of the right train.  At least everything is in English, though the constantly running disaster preparedness video in the waiting hall was a bit unnerving.  I've rarely taken trains in America, but I love this mode of travel, the independence of walking place to place, light luggage, actually seeing the trees as we slide southward.  

Woke up this morning tired of saying goodbye, the final twist of cost to every reunion.  

Saturday we grabbed Julia straight from all-star practice to speed up to Philadelphia, racing the depressing creep of the gps eta past 7 pm.  The Massos were gathering for the finale of Acacia's Birthday (13!!!) at Catherine's, the house on Girard Avenue where some of our favorite people have lived post-Uganda.  This was Miss Becky's room . . this was Miss Bethany's room . . now Catherine is the lone Bundibugyo teacher still living there.  We made it just after the candles were blown out, but in time to be introduced to the famous Philadelphia Cheese Steaks, the culinary dream of our WHM friends.  

The party was concluding in time to move a few blocks down the street to Liberti Church's screening of a documentary film entitled "The New Sudan", At an hour-and-a-half it might feel long to those who aren't immersing themselves in what looks like home, that's the same teapot we have, the same jerry-can, the familiar look of a hospital or a mud-walled school. But it is worth the time investment.  The producers managed to get great face-time one-on-one interviews with political and religious leaders in South Sudan, and balance that with day-in-the-life-of kind of stories of four ordinary citizens.  Bottom line:  invest in water, health, education, and supporting the indigenous church.  Which is precisely what our team in Mundri is doing.  One comes away from the movie with hope, hope that such dedicated and resilient people will, as one person puts it, be able to "join the third-world".  They aren't asking for luxury, just survival.

Sunday afternoon we made it up to New Haven so Jack, Julia, Karen, and Acacia could see Luke.  The FCYU (Football Club of Yale University) beat Fairfield 5 to 1, and we  cheered for the particularly strong defense from #3, chilled by the sinking-sun wind, chatting with the other handful of parent-fans, sitting in the Massos borrowed camping chairs.  Then a tour of Luke's dorm room where Scott installed the pull-up bar high enough in the hall to accommodate Luke and his 6'5" crew-team suite-mate.  It's pretty much the only thing he's asked for since moving to college.  Then to pizza at Sally's, a seedy-looking but extremely popular and historic pizza place which unbeknownst to us is also famous for its slow service.  By the time we waited 2 hours in our little booth for pizza we were all pretty hungry, thankful for talk-time with Luke, but aware of the dent we had put in his study time for the weekend.  Goodbyes in the dark street by the dorms, and another 3 hours back to Philadelphia.  Treasured time really, 3 up and 3 back makes 6 straight hours of conversation with Karen, which was a real gift.

Which brings us to this morning, more goodbyes, kudos to Uncle Eric who swept over-sleeping Gaby to the train station to hug us goodbye at the last minute, he gets the TCK honor award for today.  The Massos are ensconced in Karen's family and the close-by community of WHM there, and we're grateful that they could make space and time for us to join in, even though it meant wall-to-wall mattresses in the kids' rooms.  We aren't likely to intersect with the whole family again for a long time.

The world just seems sort of large and complicated this morning, and parts of my heart are stuck with Luke striding out into academic intensity that he's not convinced is necessary, looking for a way to get back to the Africa he misses so much.  With Caleb who is navigating growing up too much on his own.  With Scott heading up to WHM leadership meetings that I'm not a part of any more.  With Acacia and Liana and Gaby who are being forced to accept the necessity of shoes and coats as the frost settles.  With Heidi and Ashley looking for clues about what's next.  With Sarah who called Luke while we were all in the car ("I have to interview an adolescent for a class, and you're the only one whose phone number I have") and Nathan immersed in a world of study and city-survival.  With Bethany thrust into leadership of a team holding their balance as the country teeters on the verge.  With Patton and Lilli  and Aidan and their parents and Anna in Kampala getting ready to step into the time machine that brings them to the 21rst century for a few weeks, disoriented.  With Pat gathering the energy after all these years to mold the old Chedester house into a ministry center for women and arts.  For the Clarks and Chrissy and rest of the teams, for friends in Uganda, for Basiime recovering in the foreign world of Tennessee, for my family and Scott's who have to put up with our fragmented hearts and good-bye weary souls.  

Some days like this, ready for the last good-bye.

Domestic Days

In between churches and road trips, we have assembled a bit of temporary life here in Virginia.  My old bedroom, cluttered now with all our personal papers, books, clothes, computers, a card table for Scott's desk and TV tray for mine .  .  . the rest of my mom's house is unerringly neat, so I'm not sure how I failed to emulate that, but this room is scattered.  Mornings at the dining room table coaching Jack and Julia through Geometry, vocab and grammar.  Highlight of my day is figuring out a formula for how many discreet areas 100 intersecting coplanar lines will create, and then trying to explain it.  Or finding a latin root cross-over in a mathematical term.  Afternoons in the car, doing the traditional Northern-Virginia-Mom thing, driving to soccer practices (now extras since both kids made all-star, and never at the same time or same day), music lessons.  Thankful that this little period of a couple of months can be a time to launch my youngest two with opportunities the older two missed:  clarinet for Julia, drums for Jack, piano for both, hopefully enough to get them started in case they want to keep on with it in Kenya.  Library runs for books. Pulling from the abundance in the fridge, strawberries any day of the year, unlimited salads.  Seeing deer cross the back yard.  Trying to squeeze in some medical study/updating time.  Trying to get Caleb on the phone (success yesterday!  Hooray!  miss him so much).  Posting support letters and sending out our video to those we can't personally reach.  Maintaining life, no glamor, just plugging on.

Scott in the meantime spends a lot more forward-focused time.  After weeks of email exchanges the import taxes on a new vehicle to Kenya have just proven prohibitive.  As the American economy falters and our support account sputters, we scale back expectations, which feels right.  Downwardly mobile missionaries.  Find out we're moving into the same small duplex housing at Kijabe where we stayed for about six months post-ADF when Jack was born!  Will be a bit tighter with three teens than three toddlers and an infant . . but part of the simplifying of life.  And the full-circle sense is satisfying.  

This USA time is more than half over.  We've been present in all six churches that support us in some way.  I can't even count the number of meals and beds with gracious friends, the encouraging words from those that still care for us.  Another paradox, the peculiar juxtaposition of multiplying the interactions in America and yet aching for those we've left behind in Uganda.  Of deep and yet time-limited relationship.  Being back, but always moving on.  How to explain to people calling and emailing now that even though we don't leave until Christmas, we can't maintain this social pace all the way through to the very last day.  Scott is already in Philadelphia for meetings with WHM and will be mostly there until mid-November, then one more trip southwards to my sister's, Thanksgiving with both sets of parents, and then the final stretch.  Hate the awkwardness of being non-committal to people we'd love to see.

On prayers and answers

Basiime Godfrey landed in Atlanta Saturday night, and today had a successful surgery on his best eye.  If his recovery goes well, he'll preserve the limited vision he has left, which is enough for him to function in Uganda but be declared legally blind in America.  He is overflowing with thankfulness for this opportunity, it is a bit like a benevolent millionaire offering someone time travel into the future to save their life with a procedure not yet developed in the present, there is the relief of getting taken care of, and then the over-the-top amazement of the vastly different world he has entered. The same things our kids notice when they come here, automatic garage doors and dishwashers and quiet empty streets and strangers who pray and give sacrificially.  America.

Pray for our Bundibugyo team's two days of prayer tomorrow and the next, a pause for breath as they come towards the end of this tumultuous transition-filled year.  Nothing is ever smooth, or simple, evil never rests, and when one problem is solved another one comes.  The Johnsons and Anna will be on a month of travel to the US for meetings, so Pat, Chrissy, and the Clarks need special prayer to "keep on holding on to the One  who's holding" them as our prayer video sings.  In Sudan Bethany is now the interim leader as the Massos begin a 7-month HMA too, so we have a team of hard-working and creative and caring very young people living at the edge of a national crisis as the vote on the referendum approaches.  The Kenya teams need prayer for wisdom in mentoring church leaders, working with Somali refugees and immigrants, and teaching Bible storying.  

And lastly, World Harvest Mission is about to enter a season of meetings.  Scott leaves Wednesday for the first phase, a prayer and fellowship and spiritual accountability retreat with the other overseas field directors. Next a week-long leadership meeting in Philadelphia, then another week-long team leader training in a small town outside the city.  I'll join him that third week.  Pray for our mission to collectively listen to God and each other, to love, to risk, to bring clarity of vision without eliminating the important things that Jesus himself would have us do and be.

Yale Family Weekend

Fall colors, exploding in New England, brilliant, rich, as sun filters through the trees. The solid stone campus, clusters of families in and out of buildings, chatting, showing. Yale Gospel Choir, enthusiastic harmonies, swaying, clapping, beautiful praise. Walking and walking, in the breeze, absorbing time together. The Yale Sustainable Farm, organic vegetables arranged on fresh pizza from the brick oven, inspiring creativity with rutabaga and ricotta, delicious. Popping into the rink to see an ice-hockey scrimmage, violent, fast, sweaty odors on icy air. An elegant dinner of Spanish tapas with Luke's buddy from RVA up visiting his sister at Yale, three kids from Africa all finding their way through the Ivy League. A men's varsity soccer game, Luke's room mate playing with speed and precision, but a loss to harsh refereeing decisions, under the lights in the chill of night. Church on campus, rousing praise, and a powerful sermon on the Prodigal Son. Afternoon club soccer games, Yale wins twice, Luke in uniform, happy to be outside, playing the game he loves, team camaraderie, meeting a few other parent pairs on the sidelines. And the weekend ends with an orchestral performance in the Battell Chapel, students filling the building with Rimsy-Korsakoff, building, spiraling, crescendos. Then the goodbye, another tearing of the heart, another inevitable sadness, a young man finding out who he is amidst late-night all-suite discussions of politics and Jesus and the environment and love, finding out what he can do in classes with the most brilliant of the world's youth, finding out what his priorities are and who he will become, while we cheer from the sidelines.

Latest Prayer Letter

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the gospel in Charlottesville

This past weekend we journeyed back to our college days at UVA, to thank Trinity Presbyterian Church for many things. Supporting us. Fasting and prayer for our lives during the ebola epidemic. Believing in us over decades, particularly a former professor of mine who has encouraged us greatly, a former director of the Center for Christian Study who was one of my primary mentors in faith, and the former pastor who impacted our lives through his preaching and his concern for Uganda. And, the fact that Scott and I met BECAUSE I needed a ride to church as an 18 year old first year student one Fall 18 years ago, and he was a year old with a car and picked me up on a street corner one Sunday morning. Trinity has sent us a solid group of interns, at least two missionaries (Mary Ann Carter and Ashley Wood) . . . and two of their pastors over the years as John Hall became a missionary to London and Bob Osborne our executive director. So this was a homecoming in many ways, and one in which we were blessed. The current pastor opened the service with a moving gospel invitation, for the weary and broken to find resurrection life. This set the tone for a spirit-filled worship service that spoke to our souls. And after two services, we were joined by a good quorum of interested people at a luncheon where we once again showed our video and shared our life. Ashley's dad ended with a true benediction, good words of blessing, as he told a story from his time in Uganda speaking with experienced military types unrelated to us at all, who said the real impact on Africa only comes through people who are willing to live out their lives in villages, small-scale and long-term. It was a kind and gracious conclusion to our reporting.

The weekend was also very significant because we stayed with Ashley's family, who had been to see us in Uganda. And not only did we enjoy reuniting with Ashely, Heidi was there as well! So there was this interesting combination of "It's Sunday late afternoon, must be time for family soccer with Ashley and Heidi .. . " and "It's Sunday afternoon, must be time to watch Redskins football with the 'dad' in the den". I felt our family relax.

To cap it off, we drove back to northern Virginia Monday via the Skyline Drive. Not exactly efficient, but beauty rarely is. Fall, muted somewhat this year, but still glorious, spreading over the Blue Ridge Mountains we love so much.

Now we've visited all five of our supporting churches, and a good number of individuals as well. Just in time to plunge into major planning meetings with WHM through the first half of November. Semi-homeschooling and survival, travel and correspondence, not as restful as I perhaps imagined, but I think we're where we are supposed to be this season. Not a lot left to offer, but that's the message of the gospel we were reminded of, we receive and carry the Life in spite of ourselves.