Half the Moon and All the Love

We're on a two-week Westward trip to spend time with Scott's parents in Half Moon Bay, visiting a few supporters as well.  First stop was Denver, and here we are with friends from college.  Once upon a time we led Inter-Varsity together at UVA.

Next stop Colorado Springs, where our favorite Air Force cadet was able to get 24 hours off.  When Myhres gather, wood-fired pizza follows.

A privilege we treasure (a rare one), taking some of our kids' friends out for lunch.  Officer's Christian Fellowship group after church. 

Sunday afternoon hike around the Garden of the Gods.  

We were thankful to be welcomed by Caleb's literal God-send host family, and by another family who have become soul-friends and supporters over the years and let us crash in on a home concert Sunday evening. And then on to CA, where we arrived just as our brother-in-law Kevin was leaving to speak at a conference and visit his family in Norway.

The highlights of our days here, walks along the coast with Scott's parents, who at 83 and 84 still love to get some exercise and fresh air.  

We usually walk down again for sunset, which Scott can post some much better pictures of . . . 

Though we are just over the hills from San Francisco and Palo Alto, this is a fantastic environment with coastal bluffs, wildflowers, wind and sea.  One morning I saw two coyotes.  Last night we saw dolphins jumping out of the surf just beyond the breakers.

Most days fill with small projects, phone calls/meetings with Serge, watching NCAA basketball with Scott's dad, preparing meals and spending time trying to be an encouraging presence.  But Friday Scott and I took off for a 27 mile bicycle ride climbing 3000 feet up the coastal range, through redwood forests.  Note I stopped taking photos when I was nearly keeling over from the climb, so the happiness is not fully representative.  The route made me thankful for all those people who have preserved California's environment.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 20th, we will speak briefly at the 8:30 and 10:00 am services at HMB's Community United Methodist Church.  If you're in the area we'd love to say thank you.

Staying in touch

Today two swans honked hoarsely as they floated down the river.  A balmy damp Spring front has settled into our valley, and the quiet woods now flutter with cardinals and robins.  Two swallows have started a mudded nest in the eaves of the barn.  My bulbs are poking up here and there where they survived the raids of the groundhog, but unbeknownst to me an entire hillside of daffodils sprung up from owners long past.  Only four of hundreds are blooming, and I don't want to miss their full glory.

But, alas, our little season of settledness draws to a close.  Today we will hit the road again, for almost 3 weeks.  Much of that time will be in California with Scott's parents.  If you are in the Half Moon Bay area we'll hope to see you at the Community United Methodist Church's service on the 20th, or one of their mid-week dinners.  We'll be in Charlotte for Easter with my family, celebrating my mom's 80th birthday a little early.

We are extremely grateful for the last 6 weeks of being mostly stationary.  For lent, for reading, for snow, for Spring, for runs and walks, for meetings and prayer and emails from home.  But the truth of sabbatical is that it is also our visiting time, and our hearts are spread amongst parents and kids and supporters and friends in far places.  So here we go, again.

We continue to send out prayer letters once or twice a month with more specifics, using a service called "mailchimp".  If you thought you were on our list but never seem to see them, check your "promotions folder" or your "spam folder".  If it's still not there, shoot me an email.  We very much value your prayers, and want to stay in touch.

As we go, a few Area updates:
UGANDA:  our team reports that the district is returning to normal after several days of post-election violence that left nearly a dozen people horrifically murdered.  Pray for peace.  And the court case we asked you to pray about (fighting back against an attempt to confiscate our legally purchased garden land for the school) was postponed until April 12.  More time to pray!
KENYA:  pray for transitions, and all the wear and tear that takes on hearts.  Two families have kids graduating from high school followed by home ministry assignments,  one family has just arrived and is studying language.
S SUDAN:  pray for our exiled team in Arua to have vision and God's direction for their uncertain future, to establish friendships with their fellow Moru exiles, to be protected in health.  And keep praying for Joseph to be found alive and intact (Bishop Bismarck's son).
BURUNDI:  pray against the spiritual backlash of attack against our teams there (a flash flood that endangered a few lives, a back problem that is laying leadership low), pray for wisdom to work productively with our church partners in a situation that is politically tenuous.  Pray for encouragement.

Thanks!

On Winning

Winning, in a word, has been the campaign that seems to be appealing to America most.  And rather than bashing the person who keeps repeating it over and over, it seems to be a wake-up call to examine our national ethos, our values.  This is a democracy, after all.  If we elect someone who is a misogynist isolationist bully, then we have to come to terms with that tendency in our own hearts.

I like to win.  Yesterday our two favorite teams both lost.  Duke had a huge lead in the quarterfinals of the ACC basketball tournament that painfully slipped out of their grasp, and in spite of a valiant effort that took them into overtime they were eliminated.  And last Saturday, they lost to UNC at Cameron.  Bleh.  Man U lost to Liverpool.  The Myhres were not happy.

But where is the line between healthy competition, running the race, striving to do our best, feeling the pleasure of God in the gifts we've been given . . . and needing to impose ourselves by force, to have our views dominate and our people at the top? How do we preserve a spirited romp on the playing field, a passionate and fun culture of blue paint and hoarse cheering, while rejecting a dangerous drift into winning-is-all?

First, remembering that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."  Muslims are not our enemies.  Our enemies are fear, hate, greed, oppression, all the things that drive ISIS and are being stirred up to drive our country as well.  So when a candidate is asked about targeting the families of terrorists, against the Geneva conventions, and answers that our laws need to be "expanded", we should ask ourselves, is this what we want?

Second, if we keep in mind that we are in a struggle against things bigger and darker than our suspect neighbors, we will choose the right weapons, beginning with truth, moving with good news that God is big enough to love all of us.  That no human is irredeemable.  That prayer is our first and last resort.

Don't get me wrong, I have a son in the military and I believe that the restraint of evil requires physical strength too.  Police and military are part of life on a broken planet, just like doctors are.  But we who engage in that restraint of evil must do so with a loyalty first and foremost to goodness and love. We must not sell our souls to ensure our victory.  We must not stoop to becoming the bully.

Last week Scott and I were interviewed for the Global Entry system the US has set up for frequent travelers.  We had filled out extensive applications, submitted records and passports, gone to great lengths (and long drives) to fulfill our appointment, paid a large fee.  The uniformed officer behind the desk, however, treated us like suspect criminals.  He asked us repeatedly if we had ever been accused of a crime.  He was belligerent and made no effort to be polite.  When he got to the question of our address, and I tried to explain our situation (permanent address in VA where our official residency is, but most of the last 22 years in East Africa where we work), he blustered that we didn't understand the concept of address and we should have included a Kenyan one (there was no option for two) and now our applications would likely be delayed if they were approved at all.  He was on a power trip, with no interest in us.  It was a tiny taste of authority gone bad. We were, after all, fully within our rights and actually PAYING him to do his job.  He however, perceived that his role gave him the right to bully us.

One small window into a culture of power.  Is this who we want to become?  Swaggering, posturing, self-promoting self-protective people who must force our way over everyone else?  Pray for our country to use this election as a time of looking into the mirror, and realizing that there are values more important than winning.

Golden Birthdays, and prayers for boys

International Women's Day (March 8) is a doubly special day for us, because it is the birthday of Jonah Muhindo, the son born posthumously to Dr. Jonah Kule after he died of Ebola.  Little Jonah has 5 big sisters, the eldest of whom will be entering final exams for graduating from University, and the second of whom is applying to study law, and the third of whom is finishing a nursing degree.  This is a family of strong women, and we salute the courage of Dr. Jonah's wife, our friend Mellen, as she perseveres in raising her children and running a much-needed primary school.  Yes, they have suffered, but 8 years ago tomorrow I remember rushing to the hospital with Mellen and witnessing a small taste of redemption.  Turning 8 on the 8th is a "Golden Birthday" in a year of milestone birthdays in our family (Jack 18, Caleb 21, Grammy 80).  Pray for this young man to grow into the character of his earthy and heavenly fathers, to be curious and genuine and hard-working and diplomatic.  (This darling photo is from his baptism, in the same outfit some of our boys were baptized in, way back when ..  sorry I couldn't come up with an 8-year-old photo!).

One of our other partners, Bishop Bismarck and his wife Rina from Mundri, South Sudan, would also appreciate prayers for their boy.  In the latest round of interminable violence and displacement and hunger, Bishop moved his family from S Sudan to Kampala, Uganda, to wait for safety much as we moved our team to Arua.  While Bishop Bismarck was back in Mundri this past week advocating and holding to account and encouraging, his son Joseph (age 22) went to a cafe Tuesday evening in Kampala and never came home.  Bismarck has flown to Uganda to search for his son, just like Jesus looking for that last lost sheep.  If you've seen movies like Nairobi Half-Life you know that there are a myriad of evil things that can happen to a young person on the streets of a big African city.  Please pray that Joseph would be found.  This family lays down their lives for the flock of God's children in a hard place, and it pains us that they would bear another sorrow.  Here is the picture they posted:

Two families who have thrown their all upon God's Kingdom.  And like most of their Biblical predecessors, their road has been marked by austerity, wilderness, grief as well as family, community, success, and joy.  Would you take a minute tonight to pray for their sons?  That Jonah would grow and thrive and carry on the legacy of his dad.  That Joseph would be found, that whatever others meant for evil God would use to bring about good.

As an international woman myself, I feel that praying for these sons (and my own sons) is well within the spirit of the holiday.  

3/3=18

That's some very advanced math I know, but the translation is that tomorrow on March 3rd our baby turns 18.  Jack Thomas Myhre, named as a combination of our mission's founder Jack Miller and my dad John Thomas Aylestock.  He has Jack M's oratory and spiritual depth and willingness to think outside the lines, and Grampy's passion for sports and solid goodness and tinkering with cars and sense of humor and commitment to family.  He began his fetal life in Bundibugyo in the days when war erupted and ended up as a refugee in Kenya at birth, then grew up between those two countries.  And now, tonight, we suddenly find ourselves at the end of a remarkable childhood to have survived, and looking ahead to only God knows what.

Scott and I are oldest kids, so we didn't really know how the youngest gets to be a nearly-adult member of the household with his parents when everyone else leaves, and how great that is.  In the last year of high school, all those football and rugby and basketball games, all those class events, all those Sunday School breakfasts and pizza cookouts filled our hearts.  Then at least being in the same country for his beginning of college has been another gift.

18 has two sides, a celebration of the way that this boy who was all tornado and intensity and creative individuality and tough striving has become the kind of young adult you WANT to spend the day with, the young man whose insights spark and whose strength vectors in the right direction.  But the others side is this:  as of tomorrow, we no longer are parenting children.  That's the way life should be, and the gain far outweighs the nostalgia that pricks at the heart.  But it's a loss too, each year and each kid, leaving behind an era that was beautiful even in it's heartaches.

Yes, that's life, pressing on we acknowledge the ache of what is left behind, but we believe by faith the best is yet to come.

Adult in name now too

Tomorrow, 28th of February, marks the official threshold of adulthood for Caleb as he turns 21.  His wonderful sponsor family invited him for dinner and cake tonight, for which we are grateful as we miss yet another milestone.  This kid has been a functional adult in many ways for years, leaving home for boarding school at age 14 (2 years after the photo above), choosing the demanding path of a military academy, working his way back from a severe knee injury, dedicating himself to sacrificial service.  But tomorrow marks a cultural touchpoint in our culture, and we salute him.

Once upon a time, he was that smiling little boy, fascinated by airplanes and with a propensity for the wildness that results in broken bones.  Not that much has changed I guess.

Playing football, during basic training

After running an obstacle course, basic training

Parent's Day a couple years ago

With room mate, courtesy of room mate's mom

In Morocco last Fall

With a group of senior (Cadet First Class) friends, courtesy of facebook

Thankful today for this young man, strong in spirit, marching to the drum of serving others and willing to go against the flow, with a loving courageous loyal heart, staking his life on his faith.  Praying these years of entering adulthood will first of all be survivable . . . and bring him solid community as he enters military duties, a satisfaction that he's using his gifts for good purpose, and an ever deeper walk with Jesus.

The second-to-last truth

Tomorrow, February 27th, marks the one-year anniversary of a dark day for teams on our field.  We lost two first-degree relatives on that day, a sister and a mother of two of our missionaries.  The sister, in her 20s, engaged to be married, vibrant, was driving home from a final visit with her soon-to-depart missionary family.  We'll never know what sent her car flying into the forest.  The mother ended her long struggle with ALS, leaving kids in their 30's and a pastor husband.  We'll never understand why that disease singled out someone so needed in her medical practice, church community, family.  These two deaths coming on the same day reminds us all too sharply that we are broken people, and even as we are sent to the fraying edges of the world we acknowledge that all is not well where we started either.  That we who go to comfort those who mourn also mourn ourselves, we are not immune.  That this resurrection we preach is not a theoretical construct but a matter of life and death, literally, of giving we who are left behind the hope that enables us to keep on breathing when we are nearly in despair.

As a tribute to these two women, who have joined the great multitude of witnesses, saints,  (like my dad) waiting for us and watching, and to their families and to my two sorrowing friends, here is a Buechner quote of the week:

By faith we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth.  Madness and lostness are the results of terrible blindness and tragic willfulness, which whole nations are involved in no less than you and I are involved in them. Faith is they eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things—by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see—that the world is God’s creation even so.  It is he who made us and not we ourselves, made us out of his peace to live in peace, out of his light to dwell in light, out of his love to be above all things loved and loving.  This is the last truth about the world.

So what are you actually doing?

A glimpse of a unique season for us.  Winter farm days mean wood fires, watching chickadees and juncos and titmouses peck at our birdfeeder.  Listening to the slate-green snow-melt river rush by through the leafless trees.  Sitting on the front porch, or in the kitchen, reading.

Books are perhaps the primary delight of this season of living by a library.  Buechner and Gawande are current favorites.  And I have a stack of novels.

Occasionally, there is the chance to host Luke and a medical-school-mate.

Sundays at our local church, where we receive the grace of unquestioning friendly inclusion.  I even got asked to play the piano a couple of times, which I bombed as I didn't even know the hymns, but everyone thanked me so graciously anyway.

 Long walks and jogs and bike rides through the countryside, now that the snow is melting.

Medical appointments, the long-delayed dental work and that sort of thing.

Farm projects, like clearing brush or fixing a gutter or roof.

Phone/skype/video meetings.  Lots of them.  The world hasn't stopped just because we are on sabbatical, so we still pray for our teams, call them, mentor and listen and hope.  Uganda came through elections without too much disaster.  Burundi has made progress in appointing a Board for the Kibuye hospital, and we're praying for that to enable our evacuated Watts family to settle their work plan.  Our South Sudan team is settling into exile in Arua, studying the Moru language and making connections with the Sudanese community.  In Kenya, we pray for the new families learning language, for ongoing medical miracles, for the hard work of building community. Some weeks we spend an hour a day on this, some weeks it can be several hours a day.

And Swahili study.  Yes, we are trying to put in time every day listening and repeating, reviewing things we never really learned well.

Because later this year we hope to return to Naivasha, Kenya, where we will be posted to the Naivasha District Hospital,  a busy government hospital to provide OB and Neonatal care to the women who work for poverty-level wages in the vast export flower farms.  It will be an opportunity to teach medical officer interns once again, and to support a very needy place.  We still be supported as always through Serge, and continue as Area Directors.  Our organization embraces the player-coach model, so as we coach our 7 teams, this will be our player work.

So this month of February slips by, from snow to sprouting bulbs.  We are surprisingly content with the simplicity of this season.  Perhaps because we know we'll be back to stress-packed days of non-stop need, this long inhale is sweet.

Trumping Jesus, or thoughts about leadership on a Sunday

First, disclaimers.  I know someone is going to tell me that missionaries shouldn't get political dirt on their hands by taking sides.  However, the way I read the Bible, the prophets called into question the political leaders pretty frequently (see previous post).

Second, even though many of us are stunned and saddened by the South Carolina result, we should remember that 2/3 of even those that identify as republican and politically active enough to care about primaries still voted AGAINST Trump.

And third, this post isn't about Trump.  It's about us.

Because I think the most disturbing thing going on in this season of rancor, accusation, posturing, consideration, shifting alliances, awakening opinions, is, at least for someone who is often outside, what it reveals about us as a nation.  Why do we like a brash candidate, who is overconfident, a braggart, who promises we will all be winners with him?  Why do we want to be inside a wall? To punish our neighbors economically to build it?  Why do we want to trust someone because his main qualification is that he's rich?  As I've thought about these questions and listened to what is being said, it seems to me that we want to define ourselves by being better than everyone else.  We want to be stronger, wealthier, more intimidating, more secure.  We want to be independent from, not interdependent with, with the rest of the globe.  If our values can be summed up into one word, winning, then that clarifies a lot of the moral grey areas.  It justifies our own lust for dominance and for comfort.  In a year when we are pummeled by perceived terrorist risks, when we are strapped by financial anxiety, when we are confronted by racial tensions we'd rather pretend don't exist, and by strident voices deconstructing things like gender, well, a know-it-all no-holds-barred I'll-make-you-win attitude becomes appealing.

Appealing, but to the basest instincts of our nature.

Jesus dealt with the same crowd instincts.  The people of Israel, like the people of America, saw themselves as special.  Chosen.  Blessed.  Only their situation didn't quite fit their expectations of what God had promised them.  So when the crowds began to sense that Jesus was the Messiah, they began to salivate over presumed perks that would soon come their way.  They would be winners!  They would defeat their enemies.  They would be rich.

Only Jesus didn't quite go along with the program.  He saw Israel's special role as not primarily being blessed, but being a conduit of blessing to all the nations.  He refused to equate His Kingdom with any worldly one.  Instead he said difficult things, like how he did not come to be served but to serve, and to lay down his life.  He didn't seem to be creating a Christian Nation, but a movement of people who would embrace his values of being peacemakers, of comforting the suffering, of healing the sick and preaching the good news, to all the earth.  He didn't abolish politics or militaries, but he admonished those involved to be honest, to serve their constituents, to remember the poor.  He didn't promise to make any of us better than our neighbors, but enjoined us to use our gifts to bless each other.

So where does that leave us today?  As Americans we can choose from any platform or system that restrains evil and promotes good.  As a pluralistic society we will have to make some compromises along that way.  But let's think twice, or a hundred times, and pray, about why we are voting for whom we choose.  Is it to be winners?  Or are there other values we might bring to the table, like justice, or love?  

I'll end with two slightly random thoughts.  First,  a shout-out to a TV series we found in our library here (choices are pretty limited) and are totally enjoying.  Foyle's War is a Masterpiece-Theatre type British drama set on the English coast during WW2, and each episode pits the perceptive and principled police detective against all the wrongs in society.  He repeatedly chooses to do the right thing even at personal cost.  That's leadership, and I'm not sure where we're seeing that today.

Second, being successful in business can happen for many reasons.  It may mean a person is a competent manager.  Or it may mean a person had a great inheritance, hired skilled advisors.  Or it may mean someone cut corners, cheated, exploited workers, and destroyed the environment.  Being successful in marriage might be a more robust measure of competence to lead a country.

Honoring prophetic voices

This article, published on a Sudanese radio news site, details an interview with Bishop Bismarck, our partner in Mundri.  In it he challenges the warring factions to "put down your guns, sit down and dialogue over your issues.  There is no point of subjecting the rest of the population to suffering." Strong words from the man who brokered the last regional peace accord, signed in the church there in Mundri.  Since then more attacks, food aid diverted, children reportedly starving.  It takes courage to speak out against the government forces who seem to be bent upon power and extermination of opposition, even at the expense of civilian lives.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Archbishop Janani Luwum of the Church of Uganda, in 1977.  He hand-delivered a letter of protest to Idi Amin objecting to the excesses of violence and repression in that government, and paid with his life.

These men are, or were, leaders in their country's primary protestant denominations.  They are examples of men of God looking at the injustice perpetrated by those in power, and choosing to stand with the suffering.

Those days are not just in the history books; they continue this week.

Please pray for the people of Mundri, Western Equitoria, South Sudan.  They are hungry.  Their homes have been burnt.  They are without access to medical care.  Join Bishop Bismarck in advocating for them.  Pray for Bismarck's safety as his voice is heard.  Pray for a willingness on all sides to respect the needs of the civilians.

Please also pray again tonight for the people of Uganda.  Much has improved there in the last almost-40 years since Luwum was murdered by Amin.  But armed military-looking police are patrolling the capital and tomorrow's elections could spark violence.