Make new friends, but keep ye old,
One is silver and the other gold.
This was a chorus we used to sing as children, and it
appropriately introduces the last 2 days.
The dedication of the New Testament became a central rallying point to
draw some of the old-guard back to Bundibugyo. Dan, Paul & Lynn, Pat and
Rich were all on the team when we arrived in 1993, and the Tabb family joined
when the Bensons had to leave, with the Massos soon after. Edward Isingoma and Christine have served at
various times, most recently as Head Teacher at CSB, and now returned to their
church and school work in Hoima. With four Myhres, that made 20 of us former
Bundibugyo team types who spent the extended weekend in Bundibugyo for the
party, then met together at Kingfisher West just outside Queen Elizabeth
National Park. We realized that the focus
in-district appropriately needed to be on the Luwisi translation, our Ugandan
friends, the current team. And we were
no small hassle to accommodate. So we
planned a brief time together afterwards just to renew our friendships and
relax. Meals and conversations,
splashing in the pool, watching the sunset, and a circle of prayer in which we
praised God for all the ebenezers of reaching this point and prayed for each
other and the many friends who could not come.
There is something about the fires of trial that forges
community. A few of us were friends in
college and that was the nucleus of the team that set out to establish a
Kingdom outpost in a place of suffering, specifically seeking out this language
to encode and translate and preserve.
But most of the missionary community adds and subtracts and morphs with
people who might be quite diverse, and not natural acquaintances. Yet we learn to lean on each other, to
understand each other, to pull for each other, and in that commitment and over
those years we form some bonds that are not easily replaced or replicated.
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