If I had to summarize the last few months in two words, they would be, “unexpected travel”. Numerous trips popped up and within a week or less of the decision we found ourselves on the road. Back in August we traveled to Kampala to renew Zion’s passport, get Chrisopher’s background check for his work permit renewal (again), get immunizations and thankfully also connect with a few friends in the area. In September, we found ourselves once again facing an impossible deadline though we did everything within our power to meet it. Our immigration passes were expiring and the renewals were still “in progress”. We could gamble on our sweet smiles and powers of persuasion at the immigration office content to test the greyness of the system while we waited, or we could pop across the border to Kenya. We chose Kenya. First, we had to decide which border to cross. Christopher took a day trip with Travis Emmett to the closest border in Amudat, only recently opened. Unfortunately, Kenya doesn’t have officials on the other side so although we could leave Uganda we wouldn’t be able to legally enter Kenya. Instead, we headed toward the border south of Mbale at Malaba. The trip provided its own thorny situations and Christopher employed all his patient negotiation skills, as every side of the border will interpret dates in its favor. We took public taxis since crossing the border with a vehicle adds another level of bureaucracy and stress. They were sometimes hot, crammed with people (and chickens, goods imported from Kenya, two keyboards, a drum set, and two electric guitars), and one took longer to leave as it waited for passengers than it spent transporting us. In the end, we did achieve our goal, got decent milkshakes, experienced a tuk-tuk ride and discovered a quaint hotel in Bungoma, Kenya that felt like a refuge. Within days, Christopher’s work permit came through and he traveled to Mbale to get the official stamp. With this in hand and other good news from afar, we finally decided that we could meet up with my family in Turkey/Greece – in a week! Between this decision and leaving, Tina DeJong returned from furlough. All my attempts at giving her a soft entry were frustrated as we shifted gears to cover responsibilities while we were away. My dependent’s pass came through two days before our travel, so I left a day early to pick it up since the next day was a Ugandan national holiday and all government offices would be closed. We were told Olive’s pass would be ready too, but that turned out to be overly optimistic. Our flight changed, we still weren’t exactly sure where we’d meet my parents. The trip itself developed day by day. Our return flights were overnight with little chance of sleep, except Olive who defied meal service, bright lights and quick layovers. We got picked up at the airport at 4:30am and headed straight to Karamoja anxious to get home. Within 30 minutes the car had a flat tire. We lost a fraction of the early start benefit in skipping Kampala traffic, but still made it home in record time our heads bobbing with snatched sleep and only semi-conscious of the reckless speed of our driver. In the two weeks following Christopher has already been down country twice for meetings and supply runs.
Life continued between the unexpected travel headlines. Olive turned 4. In September our team went to Jinja for a retreat. It was sweet time getting to know each other and in the word. The speaker and his son came to visit Karamoja afterward and witnessed a full lunar eclipse with us. I stole a non-school night to keep the older girls up late watching a lit-up sheet and catching any moths that came into view to augment our study of lepidopteras. We’ve plugged along with our school year and only have one week left – practically a miracle with all the interruptions!! I spent a morning harvesting g-nuts with a young woman and dear, though unreliable, friend where she opened up about many happenings in her heart. For a few months, I taught the ladies’ bible study at church including about worship as the right response to knowing who God is. Leah, Zion, Olive, a few local friends, and I went to cultural day in Nakapiripirit town where the Karimojong gather from the entire region and enjoy dancing, singing, seeing and being seen. I worked with our auditor to produce a financial audit for the NGO and 2026 budgeting is in full swing. In the last week, Tina helped us to dissect a bat and identify a roadkill grayish eagle owl (more flying creatures for science!). There have been record patient numbers at our clinic (AYPC) averaging 115 per day not including mothers for prenatal care, delivery or newborns for immunizations. Last week saw an all-time high of 148 patients in one day! Christopher is constantly strategizing for the future of the clinic and wading through the details to get there. Lokiru Timothy was taken under care in the RCEA. Political campaigns and primary elections in anticipation of the January vote are underway. President Museveni landed his helicopter just outside the clinic in route to a campaign rally in Naturum – Christopher got a free shirt!
You may be thinking that I’ve simply given you a list of excuses for not sending out an update. You may be right. You may also resonate with this season. Not with the exact events or context, but with the sense of circumstances piling on top of each other. Not necessarily big or intimidating but definitely beyond your control. You look back and wonder where the year went. Here and gone again, not landing long enough to catch your breath. Thoughts aswirl, only space for the immediate. The thorns and thistles of life growing thicker and taller threatening to choke out the light in a slow insidious way. The temptation to shrink back into their dark shadows, which feel eerily familiar and justified, to take your eyes off the sun. “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Heb 10:39). There is no faith without Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, the sustainer of life, our champion and our advocate. Endurance and perseverance are not taken for granted or simply assumed, but rather earned through a supplicative surrender to the creator of the universe who knows us down to the division of our souls and spirits. Intimacy in infinity. He is in you and for you while he upholds the very fabric of existence. There is no savior sympathy for the self-reliant. But for the weak and needy there is justified confidence in the strength of our deliverer sufficient for every today and tomorrow.
The Lord has given us rest from some of the harrying trials and we hope to be more present in the coming season. Yet I do not want this season to go to waste, where I held and longed for the faith in a gospel story that arcs through eternity, that is sometimes hidden like a rainbow in the clouds, but no less glorious or true for doing so. A season that reminded me of the joy of being Christ’s slave and the freedom in surrender. It highlighted what the world calls foolishness, but the Christ-follower knows is the means of future glory.
Do not throw away your confidence, my friends. You know where the rainbow ends.