Hopping Across the Atlantic- Feb 10

**Edit- for those of you that keep up with blog, I am sorry that I haven't (with the posting)! tyne**
HOPPING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC…
We’re packing to head home today…laughing at ourselves as we sort through spring and summer clothes to head home to the lingering days of winter in Cincinnati and Texas, hoping that at least Texas will be showing signs of spring so we can wear something without 3 layers for warmth. We’re returning to 8 and 9 hours earlier as the world spins, home to sons and grandchildren, mothers and siblings, home to lots of hugs on arrival, stories over tables filled with wonderful food we haven’t eaten for months, and so many forgotten conveniences that we hope we remember how to use them all.
As excited as we are to lay eyes on loved ones, we can’t help but wonder what our response will be to our departure as we step on a Brussels Airlines to leave Entebbe for our 3 weeks in the states. Just stepping on the plane with our bags full of gifts and travel items defines us as one of the fortunate, the wealthy of the world, those who are educated and mobile. We are headed to a land where choices are many, truth is the order of the day, and despite difficult economic times, hope reigns. We are leaving a land where choices are limited, sometimes to only one path in life, where truth is a precious commodity and frequently difficult to find, and where economic times are always difficult for 90% of the people.
We will be feasting on tender beef and plump chicken, boiled shrimp, crab dip, enchiladas and juicy hamburgers piled high with lettuce and tomatoes that don’t bring disease. We are leaving a land where most feed on tough beef and stringy chicken only once a year, eat a repetitive diet of matooke, millet, cassava and beans, and struggle during the dry season to be sure their family has enough to eat. We will actually turn on a tap in the sink and drink the water…here the locals boil all water, never knowing if it carries disease or not.
We will visit our grandson’s pre-school, a bustling place filled with every teaching aid necessary to nurture the mind, well-trained teachers who are paid fairly and have 6 to 12 students in a class who are bright-eyed and well-fed, eager to learn and prepared by educated parents to follow in their footsteps. We are leaving a land where most parents have not studied beyond Primary 4 or 5 and struggle to understand the value of educating their children, students sleep on the floor and frequently come without food for breakfast or lunch, and are taught by teachers who get paid so little to ride herd over 60 students at a time, we wonder why they love their jobs.
We are headed to the land of opportunity and leaving the land of 150 years behind. We will work with physicians to get more malaria medication and have blood tests done, leaving behind a country still plagued by HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria and insect and water-born diseases which claim young lives on a regular basis. We will come back to Uganda healthy and prepared for the next round of mosquito bites…prepared to go into the huts of the Ahadi Kids and Grandmas where germs are bred and sanitation is lacking.
After 6 months in Fort Portal, we know what we are leaving and what we are headed to…but what are we taking with us of Africa? How will our eyes be refocused to the plenty that we see, or the clean streets we walk on, the energetic and ambitious people we encounter? How will our ears adjust to the interesting conversation based in educated and well-read minds? Will our noses twitch with the overload of wonderful scents of clean air, baking bread, perfume counters in the malls and fresh laundry softened and scented with Downy? Will we automatically wonder about the wisdom of touching others as we do here, always worried about disease and health issues as germs are daily spread from person to person who cannot get themselves clean in a bucket of cold water? Who will we be in the midst of a life in America that has gone on at its normal pace while we have taken ourselves half way around the world to walk differently? What will God say to us while we are away from this strange, but always becoming more familiar life in Uganda…surrounded by what we can only call “normal”?
We are leaving after 6 weeks of riding on the high seas of wonderful visits from friends – the US mission team, friends from Kampala, and our dear friends from home, Brian and Sue Gordon. We have been treated to a safari in the Serengeti which defies description in light of understanding God’s magnificent creation and the balance of nature all around us here in Africa. Christ Aid Academy has just opened for 2009, enthusiastic and grateful parents have gathered to focus on understanding the importance of education, 150 students have been treated to new school shoes, color is everywhere, glittering and shining due to generous donors at home, textbooks will soon arrive, purchased by students in Corey Baden’s school in Taiwan…we are leaving in the midst of much energy and hope for the future. We are laughing with our construction crew as they build the pit latrine, finding more and more villagers in Kicuna to work with us and bring shillings to their pockets, and expanding friendships and familiar territories. We will probably even shed a tear at telling Gladys and Stewart “au revoir” for 3 weeks! We are grateful to be leaving with joy in our hearts as we look back at the past 6 months.
But we are also leaving with great frustration and challenges before us on our return …and we wonder as we turn around the first week of March to head back this way if we will be prepared to handle the next 6 months of culture stress. Will we hit the wall of inefficiency here on March 5th and forget how to navigate? Will we come back speaking English and forgetting all the Rutooro we’ve learned? Will we find things in disarray at the school, or will our trust in the staff and construction crew be well-founded? And most of all, who will we be after we’ve been blessed with 3 weeks of loving family, good friends, fabulous food, and simply the good ole’ US of A? So we suppose this is another adventure…that in between land of “not really home” and “away from not really home”…we pray God’s hand is over all, that He teaches us well while we are both “away and home”, and that our joy from being home fills us up to be overflowing to those we greet on our return.