'A small life, small steps, arcing towards good through all election outcomes

 Last week we visited a team whose trajectory has been slow and steady, small and sure. No dramatic earth-shattering victories that broadcast we are on the winning team. But dozens of friendships that lend a reflective pause to refugees whose roots are in desert hostilities and whose present includes a crowded urban landscape. Small opportunities for people to feel heard and seen, to know that there is a God who cares. Similar to Hagar (in origin and in experience) who learned the same things in Genesis 16 and 21. 

This work is the work of incremental mending (seems to be a 2024 theme), of a handful of people taking small steps in the direction of healing and blessing for the world. On one team that might be teaching a skill or inviting people into therapy groups, on another it might be rigging oxygen for preems or innovating surgical instruments, and on another giving coaches a vision for mentoring kids in love and truth. None of this work forces change, because real change needs freedom and choice, needs justice in levelling some playing fields to access survival, then solid encouragement to forge a new path, to choose life.

In this world we will have trouble (John 16:33). Jesus was a realist. We have trouble every hour. As he walked into a trap that would take his life as his most trusted friends scattered, Jesus didn't call down fire from heaven or open everyone's eyes to the angels or separate the sheep and the goats for clarity (much as we think we want that). He chose a path of the electric chair, the lynching tree, the public execution, the cross . . . not the throne. Yet he finished his sentence telling his friends to take heart, because in by dying he was overcoming death. The word '"overcome" stems from the greek "nike", victory, a goddess of war and conquering . . . yet the word is used by Jesus in John and Revelation to paint a picture of overcoming that includes perseverance through hardship, returning to the first love, reordering our values, walking into suffering. The grief is real. The anchor of hope will hold, but we feel the extreme strain.

All a long preamble of preaching to ourselves that God calls us into a life that is faithful in the small steps we can take day by day, in how we live and who we help and how we talk and give. The arc is rather too gradual, with wandering steps and slow. As we wrap our minds around a political outcome in America with rhetoric that seems quite far from Jesus' teaching, we are once again with the 11 disciples, unsettled and discouraged but holding on, that we are called to overcome fear and exclusion and greed and derision with good. With love. With empathy and presence for those who are our neighbours who have been directly threatened. With our small lives taking small steps that lift our eyes towards the beauty and truth that Jesus has overcome the world.

Silent September on to Organisational October, Service and Celebration and Clean Water!

 September silence began with a Serge Ministry Team semi-annual meeting, where leaders from each geographic and a few cross-cutting topical areas meet with our US-based Executive Leadership Team to analyse current needs and opportunities and create rolling three-year strategies. Since some of our international work involves the risk of being disallowed from that person's country of work if associated with a faith-based NGO like Serge, we all avoid public pictures or current updates and practice silence . . . then after that week, we did a remote hike for a week as a real rest from work, then headed to California to care for Scott's mom, then back to NC/WV to be with my family for a wedding and "apple butter" making time together, stopping on the way to see Luke and Abby's first post-training "real" job and home. By the second week of October we were flying back to Uganda, a few days for key meet-ups in Kampala and then back to Bundibugyo almost a week ago. 

A bit of silent wilderness in September, above . . but to get there the path was indistinct and cloud-obscured (below) which seemed to picture this season for us perfectly. We are plodding in attempted service, and the cloud of God's presence on the mountain occasionally opens to glorious vistas but more typically calls us to keep going in the mist.

Back to Bundi

Reflecting on the month, the themes of service and celebration were entwined throughout. We served our Area and our mission as we spent hours in intricate discussions and analysis and prayer . . . AND we celebrated friendships whose depth plumbs work partnership and personal care for each other. We served our family by moving a beloved mother into a safer sociable senior apartment or by assisting with hosting and projects   . . . AND we celebrated the delight of a new marriage with dancing and toasts, or the traditions of Fall mountains with apples and stories. We served our decades-long colleagues and neighbours from Bundi by visits and counsel and meeting financial needs  . . . AND we celebrated another return to the home where the most significant joys of our lives have occurred.  A life of only service sounds like drudgery in a world so brimming with beauty, a life of only celebration sounds unrealistic in a world that hurts. As is usually the case, we don't blend the two for a lukewarm steady state. We step right into the places of need and right into the places of wonder. Both-and. 

  

My mom (above) in her home, and Scott's (below) in the courtyard just outside her new patio. Thankful they encourage us to keep serving, and we lament the cost of our absence to both of them.

Yesterday those two threads braided in a supervisory visit to the Mabere Water Project, the gravity-flow clean water scheme that Josh worked tirelessly to create over the last few years. The bulk of the work was done by May when we last hiked up, before Josh left. But over the summer, floods and a landslide damaged the intake, and slowed down the last steps of installing taps and meters. Our mission engineer Tembo has been working the last few months to tie up many of the loose ends, and since we have pretty much used up all the funding, we were hopeful that the project would be functional even if not quite finished. Service, for sure, in the many steep and strenuous miles we've climbed only a handful of times but Josh, Tembo and team had repeatedly scaled with bags of cement, massive wrenches, rolls of pipe. I felt every minute of my years and every deficit of my brain trying to balance and breathe on the narrow uneven paths. Generally these days, when people are unreached by a basic life service like clean water, there is a reason. It's hard to get there. And yet celebration, too. While we watched, Tembo opened the gate valve that lets water flow into the four rock-and-sand filtration tanks and then into the main holding tank, from which it flows down hill to 9 small tanks and 13 taps, to serve 1500 people, homes and schools. It worked. Yes, we had a thunderstorm break out in fury as we started back down, and lost footing in the mud several times, and it's taken hours to clean up and recover. But service and celebration in Mabere joined, as Psalm 85 so poetically puts it, righteousness and peace have kissed. A few crucial community responsibility and maintenance steps should lead to the final completion by December.

The repaired source, the ready-to-fill tanks, at about 6-7 thousand feet up the Rwenzoris

Today, heavy on the service and not much celebration yet. We are gathering documents for a meeting tomorrow, a bit of an organised protest of a sudden levy of massive tax burden on our school and mission. Though we have been recognised as a charitable non-profit here in Uganda for decades, Uganda needs revenue, and is squeezing left and right. We were reflecting that between thorough financial audits, reporting to our local government and the NGO board, a month-long interminably obscure re-certification of decades of documents with the bank, and now an out-of-the-blue attempt by the Uganda Revenue Authority to demand tens of thousands of dollars of tax from what was spent years ago to build things at school . .  . we've spent nearly a quarter of our lives this year in administrative bureaucratic tangles. It's the hard result of being betrayed by our former administrator, and being left by almost all our team. We are weary, and we've only been home 6 days. If you read to the end, pray for a miracle of logic and justice to shine at the meeting tomorrow.

Looking forward to being able to celebrate that!

And for anyone who has read this blog for many years, today Ruth Ann Batstone celebrates a life of service to Jesus and the world in Heaven. She has been a stalwart friend, wise counsellor, joyful host, dedicated truth-teller, prayerful labourer in our lives and so so so many others in Serge. Yesterday she died in the arms of her husband, surrounded by her children, a solemn passage from years of debilitating lung disease into an realm beyond time and oxygen, the embrace of God. We feel the weight of missing her, along with the gratefulness of having been on this journey together.

one of Ruth Ann's many inputs to our life, see original here.

    BONUS: MORE FAMILY PHOTOS related to the celebratory visits at the end of Sep and beginning of October . . .

The Myhre clan as we went to the wedding!

Noah and Emily are married!

Very festive rehearsal dinner, with my niece, sister, and mom below

The day after the wedding we went to WV where we peeled five bushels of apples and cooked them in a copper kettle all day for apple butter

Luke and Abby's new home, which they have already opened to Caleb staying a few months.

The beauty of the California coast with Scott's sister above, and Aspens on our way back East below.

A mending life

All fabric frays. Life has a thousand ways to pick loose threads, to stretch and strain and stain and wear down the quilt of our lives. 

once upon a time I made my kids quilts. This one had a subsequent frayed life. . .

and was fixed by Julia but I can't find the pic

Today in Bundibugyo: someone we've known for decades with his x-rays limps in asking for help with his joint pain, young people concerned about their mother's deteriorating health ask for money to send her for treatment, a neighbor brings his pregnant wife saying she's hungry and needs to buy sheets, another friend shares good news of kids' school performance but is deeply concerned for a spiritually and mentally troubled wife, another messages about a decades-long friend diagnosed with cancer, another friend looks morose about a son who was hit by a motorcycle, two young brothers arrive to report their house is leaking from the incessant unseasonable rain. All these are people we know who will struggle to sort out next steps because their finances are very limited and the resources available often cause as much harm as good. Meanwhile we have meetings and write up reports and follow up issues that seem important about our legality in Uganda, about teams in our Area and their own needs. All before heading to an end-of-term CSB staff meeting where we celebrate so much good but also hear about a student who threatened to poison another student who reported his rule-breaking behaviour, other conflicts, chronic lack of text books, difficulty with the changing curriculum, latrines filled with garbage as the influx of plastic and cheap manufactured good races ahead of a village-turning-to-city's capacity to manage waste. The unseasonable incessant rain requires new drainage plans. Later another neighbor with a baking business wants to use an oven just as a couple of families we invited for dinner arrive. Her oven broke, and our water intake valve for the school broke today. At least the power stayed on most of the day.

None of the above constitutes a life-altering traumatic rip that shreds the proverbial fabric beyond repair. 'Tis the season of political speeches in America and one governor recounting a season of sorrows concluded "none of that's remarkable, it's life". Some people have capital-T traumas (and we've had some ourselves) where life and death are on the line and before and after are irrevocably separated. But the normal days that make up normal years are like this one, full of wear and tear. A constant series of not-what-we-hoped for griefs for our own hearts and those we love. Frays and tatters in need of mending.

Mending is a small grace. Stitches that are not particularly strong or perfect or artistically remarkable, but serviceable patching to return to the whole.

That's life. We keep inching towards making earth like heaven. This week the New England Journal of Medicine (the most famous medical journal) published a trial done in Niger (189th out of 193 countries listed by human development index). Giving 1-5 year olds a single dose of a common antibiotic, azithromycin (zithromax) twice a year reduces their risk of dying by 14%. It's not easy to survive this continent, and a 14% boost is not a sure thing but a significant help. Vaccines, nutrition, stronger families, stable security, malaria prevention. . . and a twice yearly spoonful of antibiotic syrup. These are the day-to-day mends that make up life. Not glamorous, but essential.

My two favourite menders fixing a wedding dress this summer, the perfect concluding image of repair and joy

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BONUS photos  . . . 

And some mending is done by listening and visiting. Some by prayer and teaching. Some by cleaning and hammering. Some by patient perseverance. Still praying for progress with our Ugandan paperwork. It's endless.

Ann  with two couples she has blessed, and who bless us all. Team almost gone but thankful for these!

Term 2 ended with no fires or riots or major ripping apart of the school, but lots of frays to analyse and repair

 

One afternoon this week Scott was trying you-tube fixes on broken stuff

And another project, replacing broken wooden doors at school with new metal ones

Still smiling at the end of long days . . . Pat's daughter Lydia in town 

Olympics, heaven, and the paradox of unity and diversity

 The Olympics gave us a taste of "on earth as it is in heaven",  in ways the community of those who have been loved and redeemed by relationship with Jesus should do. This is the point of an excellent book I just finished by Jamaal Williams and Timothy Jones, In Church as it is in Heaven. Their story of a multiethic city church in Kentucky demonstrates that our unity as humans, as believers, is a gift to us that reflects God's uncontainable glory (way bigger than any one culture, language, race) and blesses the world as we employ our unique talents to the world's needs.  As a church we have not always been a picture of heaven, so we can learn from the Olympics.

For those days in Paris, we celebrated the excellence of people of all sizes and gifts and colours, from five continents, 206 countries and the refugee team. We listened to anthems and raised flags and marvelled at the art, costumes, parades, music. We were on the edge of our seats as a runner came from behind to win, or as a gymnast flew through the air in perfect rotations, or as a javelin was thrown an unbelievable distance, or the table tennis serve was too fast to even see, or the climbing walls were ascended with the most fragile holds. We looked up St Lucia on the map, or researched the difference between Korean and Japanese martial arts. Over and over we exclaimed with wonder at the human capacity, body and soul. 

Peruth Chemutai of Uganda with Silver in the 3000m steeplechase. . we also had a men's gold in the 10000m from Cheptegai

Because not all the highlights were the gold medals. Some of my favourite moments were the ways the (mostly) women cheered and encouraged each other, seeing silver medalists genuinely cheer for the gold from another team (Simone and Jordan bowing to the Brazilian). Or also the USA marathon men who were nowhere near the front, staying at the finish line to congratulate everyone who came in after them, or the relay team that did NOT win getting grilled by the press and refusing to blame each other, standing stalwart in "we did our best and this wasn't our day". 

The Olympics highlight diversity by everyone being assigned to one of those 206 countries, but unity by everyone having an even playing field to compete on. Sort of. Many Africans compete off continent, either they or their parents moved to a place like Europe, looking for safety or better facilities or financial support for their family, or maybe they were forced overseas long ago by human trafficking . . . in the women's marathon, 9 of the top 10 finishers were African, but 4 of those 9 ran for off-continent countries. 

 

The Sudanese-Canadian about to pass most of the pack to get silver, behind the Kenyan . . .

The church could learn from the Olympics--how can we hold the paradox of celebrating each person's unique background, genetics, artistry, story, as one sliver of the prism of colour that makes up our God of light? And at the same time find the connection that we need as a community, to work together to make the world liveable for all?  How can we enter new cultures without turning them all into bland amalgamations? We've spent our life trying to honour this little pocket of Uganda's language and culture, music and traditions and food and dress and style, while also equipping our CSB students with the English skills and math/science background to move into the world. Both-And. No easy answers. 

American Pizza night with the CSB Leadership team . . . sharing cultures, learning from each other

About two hours after this photo and yet more prayer, the bank finally unfroze our accounts for a week so we could pay our staff and pay for food for our students . . . Still struggling to fit into the Ugandan ever-evolving administrative complexity, with integrity. A hard road to walk. Pray that we sort out a longer term solution this week.

Why we keep trying: these hundreds could be the next Gold Medalists of compassionate development

The book referenced . . . 

Jails and Jesus: a long story of a crazy couple days

In June, we returned from a trip to a Serge meeting and to support Scott's mom, to find our house had been broken into by someone hack-sawing through barred windows. Being our 4th recent violent incursion, we felt the vulnerability of being a target, and the weary grief of things taken, and the intrusive exposure of finding drawers and shelves rifled through and tossed to the floor . . . but also the sobering reality that theft is part of daily life for the average family in this place, and we have way more margin than most other people to rebound from loss. Plus, we are thankful no one has been home, been hurt, when these things have happened. We keep our money in a safe, we travel with our laptop computers and phones, and the metal doors are double locked with deadbolts so a window thief can only extract through the small hole he cuts, limiting the damage. Nevertheless, amongst a number of smaller personal items taken, this time the most sad loss was Scott's camera.

Scott is an amateur photographer, it's his art and his service to provide really nice photos for our organisation and our family over the years. To limit mold that damages lenses in this jungle, he had NOT put his camera in the small safe, and to be able to have only carry-ons and move easily, we had not brought it with us that time. It was a very, very sad loss.

Weeks went by, he designed reinforcing extra bars to repair the damaged window, added stronger bolts to shutters. He resigned himself to not being able to buy a new camera, since this one was quite expensive. We didn't initially report to the police, because we figured the trail was long gone cold since it happened when we were away. Just chalked it all up to the cost of living. 

Psalms on trucks today, a needed reminder of God's story

Then out of the blue, we got contacted by someone who knows someone who knows us . . . one of those chains that remind you why it's actually good to live in community, to know and be known. People in Nyahuka noticed a young man using a camera that looked expensive, that he was possibly trying to sell. . . and that someone had seen pictures of US on the camera's memory. Scott confirmed that the model and make was the same as his. We got lots of advice, were told we should bring the police to question the young man with the camera (if you want police action in Uganda, you have to provide the transport to enable them to move), so Scott went to the police station to make a report and was assigned two policemen, one with a weapon. Meanwhile the helpful friends in town kept sending messages about where to find the young man with the camera, as Scott and his police escorts wound their way through the crowded town in the truck, and tried to stay out of sight. 

Suddenly the news was that the young man had boarded a boda (motorcycle taxi) and left towards Bundibugyo town! The police told Scott to drive fast! They were told it was a boda that was smoking as it went, so maybe they could catch it. He sped up the road blowing his horn, past the mission, past the next group of homes, church, school, until they saw the smoking motorcyle and pulled dramatically in front to make him stop. The police men jumped out of our truck and grabbed the passenger with his two backpacks. The driver looked bewildered. 

Once the police had the young man in the car, Scott asked "Do you have my camera?" and then he knew. They drove back to the police station and took down the full story. The young man with the camera had bought it from a kid who used to play at our house, grew up with our kids, a kid we know well, one we have helped a hundred times, one whose family we see weekly if not daily, one who worked for us as a yard worker for a while, who used to take care of our dogs. One who has stolen before from others. Sadly, our thief.. . . who must have held the camera for a month or more, then approached this young man who does a YouTube "Nyahuka TV" program, with the story that the camera had been a gift from us that he now wanted to sell.

Doubly sad to be someone we know, but made sense too. He would know what we had, how to find it, how to cut bars without alarming the dog. And the young man arrested bought the camera believing the thief's story that Scott had given it to him. 

Once someone is arrested though, with stolen goods in his hands, the police are not ready to let him walk just because his story makes sense . . they needed the actual thief to be found. So they locked him up in a cell (a wooden shed INSIDE the brick police building) and told his family to find the thief and bring him in to corroborate the story. Which led to an overnight parade of distress as the thief's family and the arrested kid's family tried to find the thief, various people came to our house crying, the thief's family broke into his bedroom when he didn't come home and found various smaller items of ours to return thus confirming the story the arrested kid was telling . . and by midday today we agreed that we had the wrong person in custody, and that the thief was indefinitely AWOL. 

So back to the police station, to pay some fines, to finish our statements, to withdraw charges against the arrested kid, to get him released, to receive our camera back, and to walk away from asking for more. We don't want anyone to risk serious harm over a camera . . we do want some consequences for this repeated thief to change his ways. We actually drove the arrested kid and his brother home, and ended up on friendly terms as we helped him a bit, realising he was deceived as we were.( While we were getting him released, the other woman in the station with a case said that she wanted to thank Dr.  Scott because when her husband died leaving her with three children, we helped her buy tin roofing sheets for her house, nothing we remember but the weaving of community happens over years and comes back unexpectedly to remind us of what it means to share burdens).

    

Those are the two jail cells, no light, no access

Scott dutifully following all the police procedures to get the arrested young man released

We see God's mercy in getting the camera back, and in finding out the truth. We pray God's mercy will extend to the thief actually repenting, and being willing to do some work we design to help his family rather than hurting everyone by his stealing. And to be the second kid that grew up close to us and stole significant amounts from us this year (the other being our former accountant) adds to the heaviness. We believe we are slowly labouring for good to grow. But the harvest is hidden. Is slow. 

We serve a God of mercy and truth. Both. We've chosen to forgive, to not press charges, to not land people in prison, to protect them from the worst . . but we've also tried to call out wrong, to bring it to the light, to set these young people on a path that leads to life. 

Sometimes a weekend involves a high speed chase for stolen goods, multiple visits to a jail, and yet leaving all the endings in the hands of Jesus.

Soul-sapping injustice and injury, what is our hope?

 Yesterday's Psalm was 23, which we've all read to many times we tune out. But I dutifully did read it through and the phrase that struck me was "he restores my soul." Not the most obvious image of a shepherd. Grass and water to meet our needs,  straight paths to safety, even a staff to pull us from wandering, all make sense with the image. But soul restoration gets at the deep weariness of wilderness. 

Our souls have been sapped this July. We knew that bringing the Area together for a retreat would meet resistance on some level, though probably never expected the venue to cancel, the country chosen for being our most stable to become our most fragile, several families in health or trauma crisis. God met us and we are deeply grateful. But that probably didn't set us up for returning as nearly the lone workers left in a remote place full of its own sorrows. And frankly, who would have guessed that the BANK would be the hardest part of the week?

Bringing justice in the form of water, nutrition, education, medical care, translation, truth, love, costs. It actually costs money as well as time and energy. 30+ years ago we had to do all our banking and administrative tasks in the capital, and we couldn't even drive there in a single day, so a lot HAS improved. (Does anyone remember photos of us counting out cash whose highest denomination was worth less than a dollar, to pay for buildings and salaries? Or our risk traveling on the nearly impassable mountain roads plagued by bandits? We are thankful that banks now exist out here.).  But one of the hidden costs of still living on the margins is that systems jump ahead aspirationally without capacity to meet their own requirements.  People assigned to less desirable posts are often trying to follow rules they have almost no understanding of, and tasks that should be straightforward can eat up hours, days, weeks. Though we're a mission with a long history and track record, we find ourselves having to jump through hoops designed to root out criminal intent and negligence. Long story short, the bank froze our accounts for Christ School and BundiNutrition with zero warning this week, and presented us (piece by piece) with two lists of 26 steps required to reopen them, mostly forms obtained from Kampala, signed by people in Bundibugyo, returned to Kampala for the sole "certifying" authority to put their stamp on, then returned to the bank branch in Bundibugyo. That's still 7 to 8 hours drive each way. 

We have spent hours daily this week searching old files, meeting people, downloading forms, sitting at the bank manager's desk. It's Saturday afternoon, and we have 12 of the 26 requirements done, our CSB accountant  is now fully involved, plus some help from a MAF administrator, and advice from former team. We were able to keep the nutrition program running this week and next on the repayment this month of money stolen last year. But if the bank decides NOT to let us access all the donor funds and parent tuition fees we've banked, then staff payroll on the 30th of July could be late for the first time in the school's history. Which feels very soul-sapping. 

As soon as we returned from the retreat, the soul-sapping of real people with real problems met us too, accidents and illnesses, sorrows and losses. The bank inefficiency and arbitrary unwritten policies are painful, but even worse are the non-bank local money-lenders. A friend had borrowed the equivalent of about $200 a year ago, and with the compounding interest he owed closer to a thousand less than a year later, with threats of jail. Injustice hurts real people, and we understand the Jesus who crashed those tables over in the temple courtyard.

One of the lines from our retreat that sticks with me is the "open wound of hope".  (Thanks Doug McKelvey). We have enough hopeful imagination to look ahead, to know that the muck of injustice is wrong. But that makes living with the current world hard. I had a surgeon in my prayer group, and I told him this open wound of hope can't be stitched up with fine plastic-surgery-sutures, cleanly quickly closed and forgotten. Instead it's a wound that has to be healed by "secondary intention", cleaned and packed with gauze, then the bandage ripped off to cause a little bleeding down to healthy tissue that slowly fills in. Lament is the name of that scrub. Acknowledging the suffering, calling out that it is wrong. Sticking with the care over months not minutes. Celebrating the beauty of a shiny lumpy scar tissue, like Jesus did on his hands and feet and side. 

This is how our soul is restored too. Psalm 119 prays "expand my heart". Not by a neat stitch, but by stretching and a serging of the frayed edges that result. Refilling the soul with hope.

visiting sick friends in the hospital, an "overflow" area we built many years ago for NHC still in good use!

Some days we need the trucks to preach

And most days we need to life our eyes to the hills and remember our help will come, even if the clouds obscure the view.

East and Central Africa Retreat: Hope in the Midst of Grief

 Two weeks ago (see post below) we were in the storm, at night, tossed by waves and about to capsize, wondering how to get 180 people to a retreat in a country descending into protest-met-by-violent-suppression, wondering how to help our team leader from Congo who was dangerously ill with a severe post-influenza pneumonia needing medical evacuation, juggling some needs of other people we supervise going through trial and crisis, trying to support and connect with family at home after my nephew had a near-fatal motorcycle accident, all in the context of our newly pared-to-three Bundibugyo team bearing the weight of water and Christ School and nutrition and life. In that rocking chaos, we turned to Jesus with the same questions of the disciples long ago, are you awake? Do you care? And we asked you to pray.

You did, and Jesus was with us.

Serge East and Central Africa, July 2024 

The retreat was rich and full, Anna was discharged from the hospital yesterday, and my nephew is on his long road to recovery . . . we are grateful for all of that. But the image that came to me today is not a smooth lake with gentle sunshine, far from it. Rather, a boat in a current that is the Spirit moving us into the veiled future, still asking for faith, still gripping the sides, out of the storm but into the stream.

Our speaker Doug McKelvey, author of the Every Moment Holy series of liturgies for daily life, spoke of hope in the midst of grief. He acknowledged the weakness, incompletion, disappointment, struggle, and sorrow of our journey, and the resistance we meet when trying to bring God's good to a broken world. And he did so in his poetic, articulate and scriptural way. . . . all the while pointing us to truth, that this is ultimately not our story but God's, that through the scars He is redeeming all into beauty. That our limited resources are a bowl into which He pours the wine of transformation. That we are shaped not by our past mistakes, but by the future glory God is creating out of all of us. That we are loved.

The four mornings of teaching where hopeful and real. And accompanied by community worship, personal individual reflection time, team by team sharing, and then re-shuffling the deck to meet in small groups and pray. The four afternoons were free for community-building at the pool and ocean, and the evenings drew us back together to hear from leadership, have extended worship, see "family videos" our SEAM team has produced, and dream together towards the future. Our goal was to create a space where our colleagues met with God and with each other. That happened. What was unexpectedly beautiful for me was that God created a space in my own mom/leader heart of wonder and love, just seeing this group, hearing the stories, after the past years of injury and COVID isolations and barriers . . . being together was richer than ever.

So here we are post-retreat, back in Bundibugyo, back to countless email and zooms, back to loving from afar our Area and family in the States, back to holding up the good work started over more than 3 decades with less help and more administrative requirements. Back into a fast-moving current of working for the all-things-new good of the paradoxical kingdom of Jesus, where students from a marginal district win scholarships to university (our CSB kids took 7 of the 8 for our district!!) and we rent a huge bus to take all the seniors to see beyond Bundibugyo to Ugandan wonders of hydroelectricity generation, cattle breeding, cobalt mining, and the glorious animals of a national park. Back to a place that values prayers for the sheer miracle of living through the dangers of a dark night of malevolent evil, of daily reminders of sickness and poverty, loan sharks and injustice. 

Back into the hidden currents of grace, trusting that even if we pass through class 5 rapids, the end is good.

Bob and Nancy, our Executive Director for 2 decades, at home in Africa

Alyssa, Rachel, Eric, Jess and Ansley were the Retreat committee that pulled this off. Eric also led worship (below).

My "kids" for the week, as their mom recovered .. . fun perks of being Area Directors. 

The meals added to the sense of celebratory community.

Most days we were able to run into the waves in the afternoon!

This year executive directorship passes from Bob to Matt. Matt began his Serge service right here in Africa with us post-college. Sweet full circle to have him serving communion to an Area that was less than 30 people back then and now is 180.

We are Area Directors but also Team Leaders for Uganda . . this is our crew!

These two got their Serge shirts signed by any and everyone, which for me symbolized our life together. 

If anyone has modeled hope in the midst of grief, it's the Watts, thankful they could end their Serge service at this retreat and we bless them as they return to Canada to teach at Trinity Western University in Vancouver.

And we end with why we come back: students like Judith, applying faith to the dangers and disappointments of real life, and testifying to God's power in prayer.. . . here at CSB as well as at the beautiful Kenyan coast.

Snapped this last night for potential recruits on a voice-only call, back to real life of distant connections at the desk and ever grateful for the rich week of face-to-face.