Traveling

After many days, many flights, and much anticipation, I have finally landed in Mundri, my new home. It was wonderful to see the Massos, Kim, Christine, and Larissa waving as my plane landed in Mundri. The team here has been so welcoming, inviting me right into life and making me feel cared for and included. I’ve been unpacking, trying to figure out e-mail and internet, walking and biking around, and realizing how much I have to learn. Please pray for my transition to draw me closer to Jesus and my teammates, for God to quickly provide a language helper, and for the Spirit to be at work in my heart and in the lives of the people of Mundri.

Bodas

Originally uploaded by bethanygrace2

Kampala always surprises me. I forget the noise, and the busyness, and amount of time it takes to get one thing done. When I leave Kampala, I remember the tasty restaurants, and the prevalence of English speakers, and the availability of a movie theater and hot showers. But for some reason, I always forget how busy and hectic it is, and how that sometime makes me cranky.

I spent the last couple of days in Kampala, trying to set up a bank account and apply for a work permit, and spending time with my friend Pat. The work permit was an interesting experience, as I rode all over town on motorcycle taxis called boda-bodas. I went to immigration, interpol, the police training school, back to interpol, back to immigration, to a meeting with the NGO secretary within immigration, and back to the regular immigration office where I finally handed in all my paperwork. So, hopefully all the running around will mean I have a work permit approved when I go back to the office in January.

After all of that, it was the middle of rush hour, and I decided to stay in town and watch a movie rather than sit in traffic trying to get to the guesthouse where I was staying. Pat was on her way back to Bundibugyo, and the next day I was heading to Mundri and away from movie theaters for several months, so the movie theater seemed like the best way to spend my last night in the big city.

In the car after the movie, the power went out in Kampala. This is not uncommon, but can cause difficulty if it means a traffic light goes out. There were some traffic jams, which frustrated my taxi driver, but the slowness gave me a moment to pause and notice Kampala in a new way.

With the lights out, hundreds of dukas and shops were lit with small candles and kerosene lanterns. People bought vegetables and meat on their way home, and kids laughed and danced around in the lamp light. For a moment, after a long day of focusing on what I thought I needed to do, I was able to see the beauty of Kampala. So many families, so many stories within the light of those lanterns.

Earlier, while I waited to speak with the NGO secretary, the man in front of me said he was like a stone. That while others would get annoyed, and want to rush and not be still; he was steady and solid like a stone and able to wait without getting flustered. I kind of laughed at this because it seemed directed at my obvious impatience.

We listened to a sermon in Bundibugyo this week that mentioned I Peter 2:5, which says that we as Christians are living stones being built into a spiritual house. So, maybe my days in Kampala were making me a little more stone-like, more able to wait and be patient in the face of annoying paperwork and lots of running around. I hope I can more readily see the light and beauty of wherever I am, rather than getting caught up in impatience about the task at hand. And, I hope to have more of a vision for the building work that God is doing in my life and in the world.

They are all taller than me now

Originally uploaded by bethanygrace2

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on it he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all he does, he prospers.” Psalm 1:1&2.

As soon as I hopped out of the MAF airplane and onto the Bundibugyo airstrip, I was greeted with smiles, hugs, and the shocking realization that Jack Myhre is now taller than me. Every recent visit to Uganda has been marked by Jack comparing our heights, and this time, I was somehow the shorter one.

Being a teacher is a funny thing. You get to spend a year, or two if you’re lucky, intensely working with a group of students and rejoicing when you see growth and change in the things they know. Moving through chapter books, mastering long division, memorizing states and capitals: this was the sort of growth I measured and looked for when I taught elementary school.

But, the hard thing about teaching is that you don’t always get to see bigger changes in the lives of your students because you’re with them such a short time. I wonder sometimes about kids I’ve taught. What choices will they make? How will the potential I see shining in them manifest itself as they grow up?

So, even though I laugh to see Jack (at the ripe old age of 11) being taller than me, I still count it a privilege to see his growth. Moving back to Africa is allowing me to see growth and change in the lives of these sweet kids who were why I first came to Africa 6 years ago. To see them serving their families, caring for their friends, walking a tight-rope of cross-cultural relationships, and doing it all with lots of laughter is amazing to me. Of course, its hard to see their growth expose them to the difficulties of a broken a world. I wish all of their concerns were as simple as mastering long-division or reading chapter books.

I spent some time on Saturday planting trees with Jack and Julia. I don’t actually know anything about planting trees, so unfortunately I don’t think they’re going to do very well. As we dug and planted and watered, I thought about how God talks about faith. How He says that when we delight in the law of the Lord, we prosper and yield fruit and don’t wither. We become like trees. And just like trees, sometimes it’s easier to see the growth in one when you’ve been away from it for awhile than when you look at it every day.

So, I’m glad to be back in Africa, and to see growth in so many places, but especially in the lives of these kids. It gives me hope for change in my own heart, and a desire to be more rooted down in the law of the Lord so that I will bear fruit and not wither in Sudan. I guess it is right, now that they are taller than me, that they should also be encouraging my growth. I look forward to seeing more change in their lives, and in my own.

Greeting Joyce

Originally uploaded by bethanygrace2

I landed back in Uganda a little less than a week ago, and in the strange way of time moving through my jetlagged brain, I feel as though I have been here much longer than a week. I spent Wednesday in Kampala, trying unsuccessfully to set up a bank account and doing other errand-like activities.

Thursday brought me back to Bundibugyo, and I had a wonderful weekend connecting with old friends, meeting new friends, tripping over once-familiar Lubwisi phrases, and delighting in the beauty of the mountains and lots of green. Of course, the children have grown, people have moved into different houses, there are new buildings, and there are even power lines here now.

And yet, much in Bundibugyo feels surprisingly familiar, so it has been a little respite before moving into the unknown of Sudan. I am thankful for the reminder that God maintains friendships, and that He can give us tastes of home even in the middle of transitions. And I am thankful for the Myhres, Pat, Heidi, and the rest of the WHM team who make me feel like family even over a short stay.

I will spend the next couple of days in Kampala, and then I fly to Southern Sudan on Thursday. I look forward to a now unfamiliar place beginning to feel like home, and I long for the sustaining, steadfast love of the Lord to be the rock under my feet as I finally land in Mundri.

How do you walk your way through goodbyes? I find myself stumbling over them. I want normalcy in life, for things to feel as if they are a little permanent. This can make things difficult when I am in the midst of a major move and pretty much nothing seems settled. During this year of preparing for Southern Sudan, little has felt normal or routine. And the last few weeks especially have flown by in a flurry of people, packing, and traveling around.

I have gotten a few sweetly ordinary moments in the last few days. Tonight, after a lovely day full of many of my favorite people and things, I came home to finish packing for tomorrow’s flight to Uganda. I sat with my roommates here, and savored a night that felt like so many others I’ve spent in this house, full of conversation, laughter, music, and hot apple cider.

Goodbyes are so hard. Even though I am more than excited to be going back to Africa, I am sad for the distance this leaving causes between me and those I care about. And I wonder what I am leaving behind as I go. What will friendships look like over such a great distance? How will I stay connected to my family from so far away?

I was glad to have one more Sunday at my church here in Philadelphia. Our last song today was one of my favorite hymns, O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go. One stanza says, “ O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I climb the rainbow in the rain, And feel the promise is not vain, That morn shall tearless be.” I, like many others who love this hymn, resonate with the image of climbing the rainbow in the rain as we cling to the promises of God in the middle of the tears of life.

I doubt that my literal tomorrow will tearless be. But, I feel ready to leave for Sudan tomorrow because I believe that there is a coming morning that will dawn tearless. I feel ready to say goodbye to the life God has so richly given me here because I believe He goes with me to Sudan and more because I trust Him to care for my family and friends as I go. And, I get the added benefit of leaving what I dearly love here but getting to go to people and places I dearly love in Africa.

So now, with my roommates asleep and tomorrow already starting, I am savoring the last few minutes of my last night here. Next time I write these goodbyes will be over, and I will be settling back into like in Africa. But for now, I would appreciate your prayers for my leaving to be filled with faith in the One who promises a coming day of no more tears, no more goodbyes, and no more leaving.

Today is the birthday of Edward Estlin Cummings. It also marks 2 weeks until my feet land back in East Africa. It’s easy to try to look too far ahead in the mad rush of packing and planning, but I want to enjoy what is right here in front of me.

Here is a poem by E.E. as a reminder to enjoy today and to see in fresh ways how our little place on the earth points us to what is infinite:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

U2

Last night: Me, Bono, The Edge, Adam, Larry, and 84,000 of our closest friends, hanging out in New Jersey. It was fantastic!

“When I was in college, living two states away from my family, I studied the map one weekend and found a different route home from the one we usually travelled. I drove back to Kentucky the new way, which did turn out to be faster. During my visit I made sure all my relatives heard about the navigational brilliance that saved me thirty-seven minutes.

‘Thirty-seven,’ my grandfather mused. ‘And here you just used up fifteen of them telling all about it. What’s your plan for the other twenty-two?’

Good question. I’m still stumped for an answer, whenever the religion of time-saving pushes me to zip through a meal or a chore, rushing everybody out the door to the next point on a schedule. All that hurry can blur the truth that life is a zero-sum equation. Every minute I save will get used on something else, possibly no more sublime than staring at the newel post trying to remember what I just ran upstairs for. On the other hand, attending to the task in front of me—even a quotidian chore—might make it into part of a good day, rather than just a rock in the road to someplace else.”

-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

It appears that the end of summer left me with little to say. Sorry for the silence of August. I can hardly believe that the long stretching days of summer are over and that Autumn is coming in (at least in Murfreesboro) with rumbling thunder and lots of falling rain. I feel as if September marked the beginning of a roller coaster ride of transitions, hoping that all these twists and turns will land me at last in Southern Sudan. And, like so many roller coasters, this one is proving better as it happens than it seemed in early September when I peered over the edge, anticipating the first drop. Nevertheless, there are moments when I am waiting for my heart to catch up with the rest of me in the middle of all of the rushing around.

This last week I’ve been driving through Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, connecting with friends as a part of this in-between time spent telling the stories of when and why I am moving back to Africa. After hours in the car, lots of coffee, and wonderful conversations around the kitchen tables of kind friends, I find myself happy to catch my breath and notice a new season before I travel again on Thursday.

So, here are a couple of Rilke poems to welcome Autumn, to acknowledge the restless wandering that can mirror the falling leaves , and to remember that  “there is Someone, whose hands infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.”

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your long shadows on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go free.

Command the last fruits to be full;
give them just two more southern days,
urge them on to completion and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, will never build one.
Who is alone now, will long remain so,
will stay awake, read, write long letters
and will wander restlessly up and down
the tree-lines streets, when the leaves are drifting.

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Wedding Toast

St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast,

The water-pots poured wine in such amount

That by his sober count

There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show

How whatsoever love elects to bless

Brims to a sweet excess

That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;

That this world’s fullness is not made but found.

Life hungers to abound

And pour its plenty out for such as you…

-Richard Wilbur

Recently, I spent the weekend in Chattanooga, witnessing the marriage of my dear friend Meghan to Jason Thompson. While there are obvious jokes about the number of times I’ve been a bridesmaid (8 times so far, but who’s counting?), it is still a privilege to stand up and watch two friends commit their lives to one another.

There is always something delightfully excessive about weddings-fancy dresses, fluffy cakes, life-long promises, ribbons and flowers and wine. Though it’s fun, I can get a little thrown off by the sheer extravagance of the celebration.

But for some reason, especially in this season of preparing for life in Sudan, I really relished a day that abounded with beauty and fullness. Maybe it was because I know chocolate-covered strawberries and beautiful hydrangeas will not be a part of my landscape in Mundri. Maybe I’m a little too romantic, and so enjoy pretty clothes and poetic words. But more than that, I think it was good to remember that, as Richard Wilbur says, “whatsoever love elects to bless/ Brims to a sweet excess/ That can without depletion overflow.”

Meghan and Jason’s wedding was a reminder of the generosity of God’s love. Their love for one another overflowed into our lives, and yet wasn’t depleted as it spilled over onto us. In fact, their love for one another seemed to grow as they shared their wedding day with friends and family.

As I wait for the resources to come in that will carry me to Southern Sudan, as Mundri waits for transformation and recovery from war, and as the whole earth groans with the expectation of things being made new; there is hope in the picture of a wedding’s abundance and the truth that Meghan and Jason’s wedding day offered a small taste of the extravagant celebration that is promised when Jesus returns.