Our kids delighted in palindromes. They wore inexpensive digital watches (still do) and would watch for times and dates that were the same backwards as forwards. So today I particularly miss the excitement that would have abounded on the second of February in the year 2020 here. Nevertheless, the new year is off to a rocking start in other ways.
First, we completed a 2 1/2 day Teacher Retreat and Workshop for the CSB staff. It has been a tradition to go off-site for a couple of nights prior to the onslaught of the new school year's responsibilities, to build community, solidify vision, equip educational methods, share ideas, shore up plans. . . and have fun! This year's retreat was held in Fort Portal, and I believe all those goals were realized. We could not be more delighted to be bringing Patrick McClure into the CSB work as Director of Development. The McClure family landed a few months ago, and after some language-learning and house-settling and education-for-kids-sorting he is now coming alongside Scott in the day to day partnership with have with Christ School. Unlike us, Patrick is an actual educator and administrator with a solid background of experience in the USA. He had everyone standing, sharing, throwing footballs and brainstorming lists, lots of very participatory sessions that not only communicated content but modeled HOW to communicate content.
We hired a handful of new staff whom we were trying to also orient to the CSB vision and mission. We are grateful for the long-term staff, in particular teachers Desmond, Salube, Peter and Kiiza who have served for a decade or more. Equally important, we now have many staff who were former students! One of our new hires came to CSB as a sponsored OVC in Senior 1, and stayed to graduation from Senior 6. Now he's back as a University-educated teacher. Another struggled through a very small and poor peripheral school in the district for 4 years but was admitted on a scholarship to CSB for S5 and 6. He did so well he earned a government scholarship to University. And now he's back to pass that blessing on to others. This is the dream of what would happen here, that our graduates would be servant-hearted leaders who would return to transform Bundibugyo. It is slow, these stories have decade-long arcs, but we are seeing it happen.
My topic was "conflict", because whenever you put 25 teachers living and working in a boarding school day after day, there will be conflict! Many of us do not grow up learning healthy ways of "iron sharpening iron", of bringing good out of difference, but we hope that the role plays, diagrams, Bible verses, discussions . . will stick and change patterns of behaviour.
We returned from the retreat directly to court for yet another instalment of our land case, in which the elderly man who sold part of his property twenty years ago to the mission in order for us to plant trees (a generally good thing) and provide food and income for the school (another bonus) . . . because he needed the money at the time for his own kids' school fees . . . is now claiming both that he didn't mean to sell it, only lease it for three years, and that when he signed a document fifteen years later confirming our ownership during a time when we were trying to document our properties, it was invalid because of his poor eyesight. It is very frustrating to sit in court all day listening to people not tell the truth, but I suppose that's happening everywhere. We still have another session or two before the judge decides, so that could take us through a good portion of 2020.
From there it was back to the usual for the rest of the week. The clinical officer training college in Fort Portal decided to assign us a couple of dozen students for a month, so Dr. Marc and I each found ourselves with a little crowd of very green medical students to teach. Malaria still abounds, and this dry season has still been punctuated by heavy rain storms. The wards are full of children with anemia from sickle cell disease too, and premature babies, and infectious coughs and abscesses, and puzzling jaundice or rare bone disease. As January came to a close we have been trying to have our monthly phone conferences with the dozen or so leaders we mentor, catch up on hundreds of emails, produce reports, raise funds, weigh in on some leadership dilemmas, and care for our team here. Scott is supervising the next section of perimeter wall for the safety of Christ School students, thanks to a donation at the end of 2019, and looking at what the priority infrastructure improvements for 2020 should be. One day he took a few hours to totally re-design our hot water solar system (involving lots of work up a ladder with pipes and tools), and now we have blazing hot water for washing dishes and bathing. Yeah.
In Uganda, January is a transitional month, the end of the longer school holiday (Dec/Jan) and the beginning of a new year of work. As we enter fully into this year, I have to admit we feel stretched and pounded by the needs around us and our own desire to push into the Kingdom work. This morning our sermon came from Matthew 22, the wedding feast, which is usually told as a cautionary tale of not refusing the invitation for salvation. But in this cultural context, the preacher said that God the father was calling together a committee to prepare for the wedding of his son to US, because the Father's heart is set on the happiness of our souls. In fact, the father sees the poverty of our souls and has provided the entire budget for the feast already. I confess that my M.O. this week has been hurry, protecting time, a sense of inadequacy, too much to do . . . not an invitation to soul happiness. Yet we have some pretty dramatic evidence that what the preacher said is true. A few large donors have boosted us into 2020 with hope of abundant provision, and hundreds of normal donors remind us that we have a prayerful community standing with us in the fray. Both are equally important signs of God's love.
Enjoy the palindrome today, and be alert for the banquet of 2020.
Staff in front of the Admin block as we departed for the retreat
And last night back on campus as we did a prayer walk with CSB staff and team to prepare for the arrival of students today
First, we completed a 2 1/2 day Teacher Retreat and Workshop for the CSB staff. It has been a tradition to go off-site for a couple of nights prior to the onslaught of the new school year's responsibilities, to build community, solidify vision, equip educational methods, share ideas, shore up plans. . . and have fun! This year's retreat was held in Fort Portal, and I believe all those goals were realized. We could not be more delighted to be bringing Patrick McClure into the CSB work as Director of Development. The McClure family landed a few months ago, and after some language-learning and house-settling and education-for-kids-sorting he is now coming alongside Scott in the day to day partnership with have with Christ School. Unlike us, Patrick is an actual educator and administrator with a solid background of experience in the USA. He had everyone standing, sharing, throwing footballs and brainstorming lists, lots of very participatory sessions that not only communicated content but modeled HOW to communicate content.
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| Patrick's theme: Let us Rise and Build, from Nehemiah, note the trowels on which we wrote the characteristics of "giant" schools (successful schools) we were committed to work on building at CSB! |
We hired a handful of new staff whom we were trying to also orient to the CSB vision and mission. We are grateful for the long-term staff, in particular teachers Desmond, Salube, Peter and Kiiza who have served for a decade or more. Equally important, we now have many staff who were former students! One of our new hires came to CSB as a sponsored OVC in Senior 1, and stayed to graduation from Senior 6. Now he's back as a University-educated teacher. Another struggled through a very small and poor peripheral school in the district for 4 years but was admitted on a scholarship to CSB for S5 and 6. He did so well he earned a government scholarship to University. And now he's back to pass that blessing on to others. This is the dream of what would happen here, that our graduates would be servant-hearted leaders who would return to transform Bundibugyo. It is slow, these stories have decade-long arcs, but we are seeing it happen.
My topic was "conflict", because whenever you put 25 teachers living and working in a boarding school day after day, there will be conflict! Many of us do not grow up learning healthy ways of "iron sharpening iron", of bringing good out of difference, but we hope that the role plays, diagrams, Bible verses, discussions . . will stick and change patterns of behaviour.
The Magistrate's court above, and walking the disputed land below
We returned from the retreat directly to court for yet another instalment of our land case, in which the elderly man who sold part of his property twenty years ago to the mission in order for us to plant trees (a generally good thing) and provide food and income for the school (another bonus) . . . because he needed the money at the time for his own kids' school fees . . . is now claiming both that he didn't mean to sell it, only lease it for three years, and that when he signed a document fifteen years later confirming our ownership during a time when we were trying to document our properties, it was invalid because of his poor eyesight. It is very frustrating to sit in court all day listening to people not tell the truth, but I suppose that's happening everywhere. We still have another session or two before the judge decides, so that could take us through a good portion of 2020.
My students clustering around for bedside teaching
From there it was back to the usual for the rest of the week. The clinical officer training college in Fort Portal decided to assign us a couple of dozen students for a month, so Dr. Marc and I each found ourselves with a little crowd of very green medical students to teach. Malaria still abounds, and this dry season has still been punctuated by heavy rain storms. The wards are full of children with anemia from sickle cell disease too, and premature babies, and infectious coughs and abscesses, and puzzling jaundice or rare bone disease. As January came to a close we have been trying to have our monthly phone conferences with the dozen or so leaders we mentor, catch up on hundreds of emails, produce reports, raise funds, weigh in on some leadership dilemmas, and care for our team here. Scott is supervising the next section of perimeter wall for the safety of Christ School students, thanks to a donation at the end of 2019, and looking at what the priority infrastructure improvements for 2020 should be. One day he took a few hours to totally re-design our hot water solar system (involving lots of work up a ladder with pipes and tools), and now we have blazing hot water for washing dishes and bathing. Yeah.
Our nutrition program is helping this 4-month-old with cleft palate
Hospital-wide CME on Friday mornings, Dr. Ammon teaching
In Uganda, January is a transitional month, the end of the longer school holiday (Dec/Jan) and the beginning of a new year of work. As we enter fully into this year, I have to admit we feel stretched and pounded by the needs around us and our own desire to push into the Kingdom work. This morning our sermon came from Matthew 22, the wedding feast, which is usually told as a cautionary tale of not refusing the invitation for salvation. But in this cultural context, the preacher said that God the father was calling together a committee to prepare for the wedding of his son to US, because the Father's heart is set on the happiness of our souls. In fact, the father sees the poverty of our souls and has provided the entire budget for the feast already. I confess that my M.O. this week has been hurry, protecting time, a sense of inadequacy, too much to do . . . not an invitation to soul happiness. Yet we have some pretty dramatic evidence that what the preacher said is true. A few large donors have boosted us into 2020 with hope of abundant provision, and hundreds of normal donors remind us that we have a prayerful community standing with us in the fray. Both are equally important signs of God's love.
Next to me in church this am, one happy soul
Enjoy the palindrome today, and be alert for the banquet of 2020.
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