It’s so hot in Gulu that I feel I might actually be losing brain functionality. Dry season. In Africa. Winds like the Santa Ana’s sweep through the town scattering dust into people’s eyes. Nothing like a hot Thanksgiving in November to make you feel normal. It’s dry and it’s dusty, but it doesn’t hinder our […]
It’s amazing what a single month can do to change a person’s life. A month ago they did not smile. Now, everywhere the sound of laughter and children showing off their teeth. The same children who a month ago would cry in their mother’s lap. Now they play. Like normal kids. Like our kids. They
I don’t think we realize how much we need hope until it is offered to us, wide and spacious as an open field at dawn. It is then that we realize how desperate we were for it. And slowly we understand that somewhere it was taken from us and our hearts got hard. Because they
(Baby holding my finger) (girls hard at work) (girls in their bedroom) (what we took them from) (the road to Awer) (Beatrice, one of our girls sewing at Mama Shekinah’s house) (Florence, one of our formerly abducted girls who now lives with us) (Pauline, cooking in our house) (Kelli Brazzel, one of our volunteers doing
Very rarely do dreams actually come true. So when they happen we have to be careful to stop for a moment, breathe in, and give thanks for the miracle of our lives aligning with our purpose. This has been a journey of deep hope and deep disappointments. A
“The city will be rebuilt on her ruins.” Jeremiah 30:18 (Pamela, age 16, raped, with daughter Maria–they live in our house) Here, they do not cry. But I watch an Acholi girl cry. I think in the end, what scares her most, what scares all of them, all of us, most, is being alone. I
“Home is where one starts from…. In my end is my beginning.” -T. S. Eliot- The love of God is such that when we lay something down He is faithful to give us something better than we thought possible. For the past week my prayer has been God—your will…(but if I can put a special
“Through our struggles, the dream is rooted more deeply in us.” -Nelson Mandela— Sometimes I wonder how Joshua must have felt to have journeyed through the desert to reach the promised land, only to find it inhabited by someone else. How did he feel when Moses told him “Be strong and courageous for you will
“Now is the time of the furnaces, and only light should be seen.” -Jose Marti Uganda sits in the heart of Africa. And this place, Gulu, means “heaven.” These last few days I have seen God’s destiny for Uganda begin to be fulfilled. Those of us who have
I awake to a bright dawn in Mbale (ok maybe not as early as dawn) and then I spend a few lovely hours being with God reading and journaling. I am incredibly spoiled. I am loving this brief time of rest after the intensity of Mozambique and before the craziness of Gulu. I wonder
It is raining here in Uganda. I did not know how much I missed that fresh summer storm smell dripping from the banana leaves, bringing with it the promise of new life. I did not know that is, until I smelled it again, or smelled the chapatti Harriet was making in the kitchen. And I
“Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover?” Song of Songs 8:5 I had an image. An image of a woman naked in the desert, bruised and bleeding. Like Elisa, whose body had been used, who had been chained in a chicken coop, like her, this woman was hardened and ashamed.
