a short thankful list

Fifth day back in Africa, third day of work, and starting to feel like we never left.  I'm getting used to sweatshirts and down blankets, to the rattle of wind and the cadence of Swahili.  But I'm not used to the absence of half our family.  Rinsing dishes, setting out the morning granola, hearing the motorcycles, walking into the bedrooms, the startling absence of guitar chords, all leave a gap.  More like a crater.  So tonight I'm remembering a few things to be thankful for.

 First, Scott.  This is us in our favorite airport, Schipol, on the way home.  Only the coffee gives you a hint that we had been awake for more than 24 hours straight at that point . . . This year has involved a lot of separation, and more to come, something I didn't think we'd allow in our lives but now seems to be part of the territory of compromise.  Allowing children to be different ages with different needs, allowing jobs to continue.

 These smiling faces.  Julia hard at work on a Bible paper, when she's not at tennis practice, or a meeting.  She's a jewel.


And Acacia shown here working on an art project, standing as she prefers when working.  Note the incredible drawing of her cleat.  So thankful to have her in our family for a good chunk of the year.

Jack I think refused to be photographed . . .

NMy USAFA paraphernalia.  Besides the rainbow moment, the placement of Caleb in the THUNDERBIRD squadron was a most confirming moment for me that he's in the right place.  My dad's car, and the camp where Scott and I worked the summer after college.  This was like walking into the chapel at Yale and hearing a hymn that meant something very specific to me, ways that God affirmed His presence and planning.  On a lighter note, my mom found this late 1940's pillow in an antique shop in the small town where my Dad grew up.  She had to buy it.

This baby was born on Tuesday.  She weighed 760 grams with all her equipment, and was an unexpected precipitous surprise at 26 weeks, feet first, head caught, an all-around disastrous start to life.  But she's pink and fighting, and her parents raised 13,000 KSH ($160, no small sum in this place) to buy her surfactant, a slippery soapy liquid derived from the lungs of pigs and cows that should be present to smooth and expand all lungs, but is not developed at 26 weeks.  So day two of work saw me struggling to pass an endotracheal tube into the minuscule airway of this tiny girl after more competent but less senior people failed.  It took two tries and a bold out-loud prayer but we got it in, and today she was improved, huffing along with the extra airway pressure blowing into her nose, but no added oxygen.  And though her chances of survival are still slim, between her spunk and her parents' love and my doubt we had to try.  Partly because of babies like the one pictured here:

Her mother walked and hitched rides on a motorcycle at night when she was born tiny and premature, arriving at Kijabe holding baby Leah against her skin for warmth.  Now she's about as cute as they come.  This is the goal, a growing active alert little person who eats and cries and is almost ready to go home.  

Home is on my list, with the profusion of blooms where once there was mud alone.  The top picture our gardener Ernest created around a bare stump that has now been engulfed in flowers.  Though this house looked cluttered and dirty and small after America, five days in it feels quite homey.  I'm thankful for this place.

Chardonnay and Star.  Nothing beats a dog.  Chardonnay is perky and pesky, Star tolerates her. (Luke take note that C is outside, and S moved inside . . )  I've taken them on some walks/jogs since returning.  Today a mentally ill frequenter of these paths saw me go by with Star, and said in the friendliest way, something along the lines of "you're running!  We clap our hands for you!"  Made me feel nearly olympian.

NOT PICTURED but the most important:  friends.  Anna L and Bethany F are now working at RVA, Anna for at least a year and Bethany for one term.  Wonderful to have team mates, people who have known us for a decade and counting, people who worked with us in Bundi.  And they're both just wonderful women.  Karen M was here when we arrived, orchestrated by God to give us a welcome.  Last night we had a prayer time with a couple of neighbors.  It's been wonderful to see my good friend and partner Mardi, and to welcome new paediatricians (3 since I left!).  More on all those people when I remember to snap their photos.  Then there are RVA friends, our fellow-sponsors of Julia's class, our fellow nurses and parents and teachers.  There's nothing like connection to ease the sorrow of goodbyes.  We've been here for less than two years, but the relationships are deepening and precious.

So we're back, immersed, in work and meetings, patients and phone calls.  We're reading books and making meals and mourning the terrible news from Libya and Egypt tonight, the news that reminds us we are strangers in a strange land in many ways, and Africa is vast and other and capable of anger.  But Africa is also home, and friends, and solid useful work, and history and love.

Re-entry, again

I never lived at Kijabe with Luke.  So when we said goodbye to him in college and moved here, departure was a sorrow, but arrival did not bowl me over in poignant memories.  I suppose that's why this morning broadsided me, going to worship at RVA where Caleb played guitar a few times and sat with us every Sunday, where the people are familiar and connected to him.  Sometimes life seems like a series of surprises of grief-waves, that one has to bob to the surface of and hold onto the raft, gulping air until the next crash.  Good to be home, yes, but this particular home points out absence as well as presence.  

And this particular home is a mess.  I'm not a good housekeeper, I admit it.  Half my family is pretty messy as well.  A veritable herd of people have slept/eaten/hung out here over the last couple of months.  It's raining and muddy.  We have a puppy who has to be kept largely indoors. There are bugs and sticks and spattered sauces and dusty corners. Junk accumulates.  We brought back four suitcases FULL of it.  None of this bodes well for visual peace or healthy cleanliness.  And it's all ten times more noticeable when coming from my mom's.  

So in the midst of missing Caleb and Luke, and of despairing over dirt and disorder, it was God's good plan to plop a buoyant cushion of wonderful WHM friends here to soften the fall.  Karen spent the weekend.  Bethany has moved here for the term, and Anna for at least a year.   Plus I saw my friend and colleague Mardi.  Instead of merely unpacking, I had multiple good friends to share with, to hear, to debrief.  

Transitions are just tough.  Tomorrow will be a doozy of a day.  Will be glad when this week is in the past.  But given everything else in life, I'm super thankful for Karen, Bethany, Anna, and Mardi, and many others I greeted at church, even if their kind words made me cry.

From the African Skies

At 583 miles per hour, a thousand miles from home, far above the eastern reaches of the Sahara desert into northern Sudan, we speed southwards towards the equator.  In two hours the epic which has been a two-and-a-half month sabbatical for me, and a two-week family visit for Scott, will end.  So before that happens, a few more thoughts on the value of sabbath.We are coming up on 19 years in Africa, 21 years with World Harvest Mission.  And while we've failed to keep the sabbath at many turns, to our own harm, I think the rhythm of our life has not been completely off of the patterns established for good.  A weekly day of rest?  Mostly, at least a day of worship and family time, though in medicine one does get pulled into the mercy exceptions.  Yearly weeks of festival?  The Israelites traveled, gathered, camped three weeks a year, and we've done similarly, with team retreats and adventures, though the return travel in Africa generally seems to negate the rest of that time away.  Years of sabbath every seven?  Hmm.  We did that after the first seven years, but then as leaders we felt less option to leave for extended periods.  One year after 6 1/2, 5 months after the next 9, perhaps another year after 5 and that will even out a bit.  The once-in-a-lifetime Jubilee, the 50th year after seven cycles of seven, debts forgiven?  Not exactly, but this summer was my approximation of that, a true forty-day period of solitude, prayer, reflection, rest.  Perhaps not all these rhythms are eternally applicable to a non-agrarian society, but perhaps they do reflect the way we are created, and the concept of sabbath is part of the ten commandments.

The old missionary pattern was four years on the "field" and on year back at "home" in every five-year cycle.  This pattern was set when travel took weeks not hours.  When kids had little schooling option or flexibility.  When expectations were low for maintaining American culture and relationship in the interim, when letters crawled back and forth over the globe, when those in "foreign" lands had little contact with their family and friends left behind. And when those kids were expected to fully immerse in American school on that fifth year, because they were more American than global citizens.  It's a different world now, where we can fly to America for important events like weddings and Parents' Day weekends, where we can check on facebook and find out immediate news, where we don't want to miss anything.  What used to be the year-long furlough can be parceled out into smaller chunks that allow us to remain connected in more immediate ways with people we love.  Where our kids have consistently attended Ugandan and missionary boarding school because we haven't pulled them out for a full year.  This is largely good.  I believe it was the RIGHT thing to be physically and emotionally and spiritually more available to at least some of our kids this summer by taking a trip.  And as my mom said, it's the most time I've spent with her since I was married 25 years ago (or more likely since I left for college 32 years ago . . . ).  Perhaps one surprise of this phase of life is that graduating from high school is not graduating from the family, that it may take more from us to get ourselves to regularly input and support in young-adult lives than it seemed to when we all lived together.

"Furloughs" or "HMA's" involve visits with family, because through the years away one can't just show up for the weekend, or gather for Thanksgiving dinner.  They involve doctors' appointments, dentists, getting glasses. They involve paperwork and shopping and errands compressed into a few days that someone in America might spread over a couple of years.  They involve thanks to supporters who are the essential bedrock of everything, but too often silently taken for granted, as we show up at church, at lunches or dinners or prayer meetings.  They involve (often) meetings with supervisors, plans for the future, or debriefing the past.  They involve recruitment of new help.  They involve updating of skills and qualifications, perhaps study of some sort, a course, an apprenticeship, access to resources after years of isolation.  All of this takes time that a normal person might spread out over weekends here and there, afternoons, phone calls, vacations or study leaves.  Instead we do it in concentrated doses.  All of that with international travel can probably fit into an annual 6 weeks, or a biannual 3 months.  All of that except the most important part, the actual sabbath.  The rest.

That's why this summer was so different for me.  I did a lot of that visiting time and appointment time and errand time, and it was good.  But in the middle I had the inviolable 40-day block thanks to Caleb's basic training and the kindness of our friends who leant me a cabin-like home on a ranch.  I don't know all that happened on a soul level just by doing that, but I sense that some good things did.

It would be easy for the shorter more frequent time periods to always fill with the fixed amount of family/church/errand/appointment time, because those events are a constant whether done every year or every five years.    There is freedom, I think, for us to take the sabbath principle and use it for our good.  The sabbath was made for humankind, not humans for the sabbath.  As always truth lies in two paradoxical poles:  hard work, solid rest.  We can easily drift into over-busy over-working over-self-importance.  We can also drift into fixation on our right-to-rest, fear of the challenge can drive us to be away from ministry more than is right  It's hard enough to strike the right balance for ourselves, let alone for others.  If sabbath is always equated with leaving the "field", that can lead to disruption of bonding and language and sense of home.  I think that's why I rarely use the missionary-ese "HMA, Home Ministry Assignment".  Home is a complicated concept.  So is ministry.   The phrase implies geography, leaving Africa and going to America, which is not necessarily better for purposes of rest and reflection.  And not necessarily home for 2/3 of the family who spent their entire lives in Africa.  As I said, complicated.

More Christians who are not in professional ministry probably need to think through issues of sabbath and sabbatical, of rhythm and rest.  We're blessed to be in a profession, and a mission, where such time is valued and even required.  In the end for us it boils down to the same issues of faith that determine the rest of life.  Following God's patterns involves cost, to me, to my kids and coworkers and extended family.  Following God's pattern requires faith that the time of not-being-productive is good time, that Gods' grace will bubble up to infuse the spaces created, to supply our needs.  I need that faith as we land this evening, that the cost others have borne will not truly hurt them.  That I'll be able to walk back into relationships and work and life after such a long absence.

Khartoum has passed beneath us as I type, and we are nearly to the Ethiopian border, nearly to the curtain of night time.  My body has changed time zones a lot lately--this is the seventh switch in a month, from 1 or 2 to 7 or 10 hours difference.  Ironic that rest should make one weary, but anything that is worthwile usually does.

Parenting 101

Perhaps by now we're actually in Parenting 212, or 365, or even a grad school course.  We've been at it for 19 1/2 years, which is longer than it takes most people to get a PhD.  But the subject keeps changing faster than we keep learning.  We made enough mistakes in the first year (horrendous sleep habits, for instance) that we probably did deserve to fail and repeat. Which we did.  But parenting, like living in Africa, is one of those endeavors that never morphs into something simple.  I know when we had our first full night of sleep (at the end of year one) we probably thought we had arrived.  Instead the whole thing just keeps getting more complicated, but also more interesting, and more fun.

Now we're in a whole new phase.  Two kids in America, two in Africa.  Two in college, two in High School.  Plus the bonus child, Acacia, who comes to us 9 months a year as a gift.  Plus a dozen ambiguous, good, "foster-child" sort of relationships with teens and young 20's back in Uganda.  It's a phase that involves a lot of email, and airline flights, and prayer.  And a whole new round of sleep deprivation.

The cell phone question nearly did us in.  In Africa it is fairly straightforward.  You buy a phone, for as little as $20 or as much as $100 depending on the model.  You buy a SIM card for $2.  You buy as much airtime as you want, load it on, and you're good to go.  It takes a few minutes, only requires a few decisions, and if you don't like the SIM you chose there are a handful of other companies and you're only out $2.  Ten dollars of airtime can last days, weeks, or months, depending on what you do.  An SMS costs next to nothing.  Calling America is about 5 cents/ minute.  Data is more complicated, but possible.  It's not perfect by any means, but it is no preparation for life in America.  We just watched Hurt Locker, with that fantastic cereal-aisle scene.  We felt equally bewildered by the simple necessity of buying our son a cell phone.  Prepaid versions it turns out don't work at the academy due to some fluke in which the companies don't rent that tower for that service or something.  That means a 2-year contract . . . as we were trying to sort all this out we could tell that we didn't know what we were doing, and this was small comfort to the child involved.  We also messed up communication about Thanksgiving break and airline tickets, another unexpected steep learning curve where information is not very forthcoming from the academy and we aren't on top of it all.  Being around too many other parents always makes me feel like we are behind the curve.  Then there is the whole unexplored territory of relating to your kids as adults, of their character and emotional state and potential relationships, their friends.  Of all the things we don't hear or know anymore, because we aren't around.  It can feel like a lot to learn.

Thankfully a very nice Sprint guy explained the whole cell phone contract in ways we could understand, like an unexpected angel.  Luke worked out Caleb's travel.  Others keep offering help.  We've had three great days with Caleb at the Grahams, with their comfortable, private basement apartment allowing him to just relax, sleep late, do homework, skype friends, and not be under the constant pressure of the USAFA. We heard about some of the myriad of opportunities and the things that draw his heart and imagination, and came away with even greater peace that he listened to God's call and is in the place that is right for him.  We had a great time with Luke before that, meeting his friends, and giving him what he called the "perfect start to Junior year".  He is also in the right place.  Little moments of grace, of food, of hugs, of asking questions, listening. 

And mostly of seeing with a degree of awe what people these sleepless/ sleepy babies turn into.  I think at this moment that's the thesis for the degree:  discerning what unique gifts have been instilled in each child, and cheering for them along the way loudly enough that they have the courage to step out, to become their own person, to choose hard directions, to march to their own beat.  Hoping that they stand confidently upon the love, that all our mistakes do not obscure the fundamental truth that they are particularly and absolutely loved.

This phase has some amazing views.  And more than a few tears.  As we bustled Caleb back in his full dress uniform for the 7:10 pm deadline to sign into the dorm, the sun was dropping behind the Rampart Range of the Rockies, the eastern clouds suffused in grey and pink and then a stark half-arc of rainbow stretching right up from Caleb's dorm.  Scott pointed out that it looked very much like a promise from God not to destroy something, like Caleb, and instead to bring hope.  We were about to say goodbye when the loudspeaker system came on at 7:05, all over the cadet area. Playing, I kid you not, "I'll be home for Christmas", in a tinny sappy Bing Crosby voice that immediately made me cry.  Thankfully we are planning that Caleb and Luke will be home for Christmas.  But not until then.  And I thought it was a bit cruel for every mom getting and giving goodbye hugs to be hit with that song.

So this chapter, this unit, ends tonight.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) we fly to Virginia, drive to West Virginia for one day (Wednesday), then depart for Kenya on Thursday, arriving Friday.  To another good chapter, the one where we study how to support high schoolers again, where we cheer for Jack playing varsity football (soccer), Acacia playing JV basketball, and Julia playing on the tennis team.  Where we go to sponsor meetings and health clinics and work and feed the dog and cook and pull in friends and proof-read papers and quiz on vocab and find missing uniform pieces and art projects.  And the one where we try to SMS and email and stay in touch with the two college sons too.  

This is one course from which I have no desire to graduate, only progress.

Parents' Weekend Day One

7:15 am we meet Caleb at the gate.  Along with 8000 other parents.  The place is swarming with civilians, and we anticipate heavy security checks so set out an hour early.  Only they seem resigned to the onslaught and wave us all on through, so we're EARLY, early enough to breath in the 50-degree morning coolness, squint into the sunrise, watch the peaks of the Rockies suffuse pink, and get emotional when we hug in the flesh the boy we've been carrying in our hearts all these weeks.

Caleb has no early classes today, so he can walk us around to his dorm room and some special parents' day celebrations before the parade.

Note the clever periodic-table introducing his "element", the five-person unit that is the smallest working group within the Thunderbird Squadron (27).  The poster was Caleb's creation.


Scott took pictures of the airshow and parade.  Not your average college visit, that's for sure. At least a dozen cadets parachuted onto the field, followed by acrobatic gliders rolling and turning and looping in the sky above us.  Four F16 fighter jets roared over in formation just as the parade started, the 4000+ cadets marching in squadron by squadron with flags and a band.  There were cannons fired, the National Anthem, honors mentioned.  Even one of the trained real-bird falcon mascots flew in a demonstration.

From there we hike up to the dining hall, a massive crisp sunny clean square room that holds all 4000 cadets and feeds them within 25 minutes.  Today parents were invited to eat lunch, which is surprisingly good.  Then we are off to class, sitting through a lecture in military history on the Prussians and Napolean, then we are reviewing Arabic vocabulary in the language lab (happily remembered some things more than 25 years later . . ).  The best class is Chemistry for sheer enthusiasm and clarity of instruction, with multiple demonstrations and illustrations, an outline, just a superb teacher and a small group of kids rather than the massive intro courses at some schools.  Caleb is truly blessed (and so are we) to be accessing this education.

After checking out with his superior officers, we are able to leave the base, greet his sponsor family,  and take Caleb back to the Grahams for a wonderful home made dinner.

Caleb also has great room mates, like Luke, really faith-restoring to see the quality of the young men in this generation.


Caleb is doing well.  He works hard, and trains hard, and while there is a lot about the Academy that is stressful and unpleasant, he pushes on through.  We are thankful for his quiet strength and dependable effort, and delight to see his humor still shining through.  Love this kid.

Future Generations

This phrase comes up in Psalms, and is the name of an NGO founded by one of our Hopkins professors. It is on my mind after visiting Luke at Yale. Yale is such a loaded word. I usually don't mention where my kids go to college unless asked. Either people are unreasonably intimidated by that name, or skeptical and prejudiced against it. In reality, though, Yale is a great place simply because of the great kids who are there. Luke is living in a suite with five other guys, mostly the same group randomly assigned together as incoming freshmen. I remember meeting each of them and their parents a couple years ago when we were all nervous and new. So it was great fun to come back and go out to dinner with them, sit and talk in the suite, haul furniture together, make coffee. One young man spent the summer writing code for a new iphone app to analyze urine dip-stick medical tests. Another did physics research using nano-technology in Munich, Germany. Another was back home in Costa Rica playing football, another rowing crew, another enrolled himself in a cooking school in China. All this sounds intellectual and eccentric. But when you sit down with these guys, they are without exception just down-to-earth, nice guys. Smiling. Finding their way in the world. Endearing. Sincere. Polite. Personable.

It's a great place to work and study and strive and grow for many reasons, but the calibre of kids Luke has found himself in community with is one of the most important.

Dear Blog I Have Neglected Thee

Somewhere in the dislocation of life this summer, we dropped off the blog habit.  I've tried to think about why this happened.  I wasn't in Africa, so I felt I had less to say. I was also off-line most of the summer.  Scott was managing alone, and feeding the kids was more of a priority than writing.  Luke went back to visit Uganda so we begged him for a guest column, unsuccessfully.  Mostly I think this silence simply reflects the season.  From late June to early August, I spent forty days in solitude, quiet, inward and upward but little outward.  Blogging is my usual way to process life, and for this period I was instead processing with God alone.

I found that reading through stacks and stacks of old letters, praying and thinking and walking, offered the space for grief and healing that had been squeezed out in the two years since we left Uganda, squeezed out by medicine and the ongoing noise of normal family life and other good things.  I needed time to reflect, and am extremely grateful that thanks to many people's sacrifice this was granted.  In the process I wrote several hundred pages of what might be a first draft of a book.  It needs a lot of work.

Now we are only a day away from the end of August, and turning a corner into the next season of life.  Yesterday we left Luke in New Haven, having helped him move into his dorm suite.  Since we've been absent for two years he really doesn't need that help, but it gave us pleasure to buy IKEA pillows and fresh sheets, to take him and his buddies to dinner, to discuss the merits of biochemistry and swahili classes.  As I write this we're on a flight to Denver en route to Caleb's parents' weekend at the USAFA.  In a week we'll be on a flight back to Kenya, thinking about patients and call schedules and soccer games and hospitality. 

I am very thankful for this summer.  For the bond of traveling with Caleb into this adventure of military service, for memorable meals on the coast in Amsterdam and on the porch in West Virginia, for the thrill of his letters arriving and his spirits strengthening, for the firm hug and proud tour on acceptance day.  I'm thankful for time in August with my mom and sister and family, for movies with my buddy Micah, for seeing my niece and nephews in their home, for talking and dreaming with them.  For brief, precious hours with some of the people we served with in Uganda, those bonds never ceasing, those loyal friends willing to meet off a highway here or there:  Michelle, Ashley, JD (with Joe, Louisa, Nate, and Savannah!), Heather, Joanna, Sarah and Nathan.  For a week in Norway with Scott's sister and family, getting in touch with the Myhre cultural heritage, unlimited wild berries, August snow,  steep fjords, museums and hikes.  For a chance to reconnect with Jack and Julia in this long time away from Africa.  For Scott returning to America with me for the college visits.  For our supportive church, for meals with friends, borrowed cars, generosity beyond measure, especially from my mom.  Because there is always a cost to be paid, and the shared time with Caleb was only granted by missing a huge chunk of my other kids' lives.  They are troopers.

If there are any readers who have not given up on us, let this serve as a notice by faith that we are back.  If you'll still have us . . . 

Acceptance Day

Today Caleb went from "Basic Cadet" in boot camp to "Cadet 4th Class", officially accepted at the USAFA. 

This was a day of pomp and precision, honor and commitment.  The entire USAFA turned out to march in parade, complete with flags and band, two A10 "Warthogs" flying over with perfect timing at the exact moment they were to appear, and even cannon fire.

I arrived early to get just the right space in the stands where Caleb's squadron would be.  Met nice dedicated parents of other young men who flew in to do the same.

The placement was perfect, but the cadets faced the field, so I mostly saw Caleb from behind . .

That's his elbow, in case you didn't recognize it, middle column, second row in, just in front of young lady with bun.

There was a speech by a member of the class of 1966 (their predecessors by 50 years), some vows, all very patriotic and impressive.  They promise not to lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate amongst them those who do, to live honorably, and do their duty. 

All that was very inspiring, but not nearly as inspiring as actually walking ONTO that field and getting a big hug from my boy.  I am so so so so thankful for everyone who is suffering to allow me to be here this summer.  I can't say enough how important it has felt to my heart to be here to write letters and pray from the same state and time zone, to be cheering on at in-processing and acceptance.  THANK YOU SCOTT MYHRE and everyone else.

This is another missionary-kid--he didn't go to RVA but his siblings did, so it was nice of him to come find us.  Caleb MacLachlan, thanks.

This is Caleb with his roommate from basic training, who is sent here by the military from Senegal.  I kind of like the way Africa just rises up to find you no matter where you go.  They enjoyed playing football (soccer) together.

From the parade ground we were allowed to walk into the cadet academic area, which is normally off limits to mere mortal civilians like me.  This is the "Core Values" ramp and arch.  Integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all you do. 

 From there we headed for the dorm.

Today the 4th class cadets could walk normally with parents--as soon as we left, they have to spend the rest of the year RUNNING everywhere they go ON THE WHITE MARBLE LINES in the terrazzo.  My image is that of a little vole or mouse hunted by a huge hawk, scurrying from safety zone to safety zone, reluctant to emerge in the open.  I'm actually serious that it is a big perk that Caleb's dorm is very close to the dining hall.  Less time outside=less chance for abuse.

The hall, this is one HUGE building.

The actual room, Caleb has the top bunk but he doesn't actually sleep on it, instead he sleeps on the floor, which saves him a few minutes of life in the mornings because the bed stays made.  His two new roommates he likes a lot.  One is an American football player from Texas.  I was blessed to hang out with his parents after we all said goodbye.

Two of his "cadre", the upper-class men and women who were their leaders during basic training, pinned shoulder boards on.  Caleb has one wavy stripe now.  Lowest on the totem pole until next year's class comes.  His squadron is 27 (of total 40, about 100-120 in each, just over 4000 total cadets), see the Thunderbird symbol.  This little detail is like the moment I walked into the Yale chapel and the organist was playing a hymn that was very significant to me and specially connected to Luke.  For Caleb, I really am happy he's a Thunderbird.  My dad was a huge Thunderbird CAR fan, had an early one, and later a restored one.  We had glasses with this symbol at my home. 

Then, oh joy, we had almost two hours to just talk and eat a picnic.  I drove us up to this overlook on campus.  Caleb was able to greet all siblings, Scott, and a good friend from RVA, on the phone.  I learned some fun things as he thought of what to say about the last two months.  The first week was the worst, and he's learning that transition is just HARD.  He actually really LIKED the second part, when other people were stressed about living outside in tents and being dirty, he was in his element. The obstacles courses, running, shooting, all of that was more fun for him.  The physical part he did well.  He ran the fastest 1.5 miles in his squadron of over 100 kids.  He was selected, he thought, to do the parachute jump (only the top kid in each squadron on the whole physical fitness test gets to do this) but at the last minute, after he had signed the papers and received instruction, he was told he was an alternate, losing the place to a girl who did better relative to the female standards (she's a recruited gymnast athlete).  Still I'm proud of him for working so hard to be fit.  He's probably the ONLY basic cadet who GAINED ten pounds.  Yes, they made him drink energy boosts three times a day, and he thought the food was good and abundant.  My African kids get to American college food and think it's fantastic.  So he put on a good bit of muscle.  He thinks he may be the youngest kid there.  He's homesick for us, and for Africa, but determined to persevere.  He thinks about who he is, and I like who he is and who he's becoming.

Then we carried school supplies, a printer, underwear, goodies and the GUITAR (allowed at the last minute) to his dorm room, and  had to say goodbye again.  I know that was hard for both of us.  It was so good to see and feel him in the flesh and hear a bit about his life.  I do think he has made some friends, and found things to laugh about.  I also know it is wearing to be constantly graded, constantly competitive, always at risk of being abused, never quite sure of what is next or how to act and react.  When I came out into the real world again, I realized what an elite group is there, every single person healthy and smart and strong and courageous.  It's definitely not the real world but we pray it is a training ground for those who would influence the world for good, rescue the weak, stand for honor.

Grief is always so tiring.  So off to rest and recover, but very very thankful.