Familiar

We have been here at Mukinge for about four months now.  The time has flown by! In many ways Mukinge now feels like home. Things are becoming more and more familiar.  I am recognizing people and learning their names: the kids that come raid our yard for fruit, shop owners, farmers who bring their veggies to my door to sell, the basket weaver, and people I pass on the road. I am getting used to little things that are different than at home.  I no longer jump (or worse) in the mornings when I see the spider that has made his home right outside the kitchen door and leaves a web right about eye level for me to walk through.  I no longer flinch at the gecko that has made his home right inside the kitchen door and stares me down each evening.  It is funny what we get used to pretty quickly. 

But there are some aspects of daily life here that will take more time to get used to.  Or maybe I should never get used to them.  My new friend asking for financial help because she doesn’t have enough money for food, mosquito nets, or school fees.   One young boy who is forever seared into my memory; he, like so many other little boys at the market, asked for money because he said he was hungry.  When I said I don’t have any money for him today, his eyes ever so slowly filled with the big tears that come when you are trying to hold them back.  I watched him as we drove away wondering if I had just said no to Jesus or wondering if he was just a great actor, or maybe both.  Or, the four-month-old baby I held at a nearby orphanage that has apparently put on a significant amount of weight and now weighs all of 4.3 kilos.  That’s about nine pounds.  Her little arms were skinny and wrinkly and she had no hair due to the malnutrition she had suffered.  She looked like she’d lived a harder life in four months than I have in my nearly 30 years.  In some way, I hope I never get used to these things.  I know I will to some degree, and will have to at some level.  But I hope I never come to accept this kind of poverty as “just the way things are”.  With God’s help, I do hope to learn how to respond more and more like Jesus would. 

On a lighter note, I wanted to share some of the pictures from our journey out here.  We packed the plane as full as possible, both in weight and size, and took off into the thunderstorms.  You could say I was slightly nervous, ok, white-knuckled at take-off.  But as soon as we were soaring over the African plains, I relaxed and enjoyed one of the most beautiful flights I have ever taken. 

Praises:

Safe arrival to Mukinge!

Settling in well

Wonderful coworkers/neighbors

Learning a lot at the hospital

Prayer Requests:

Our new friends

The patients at the hospital

The hospital staff

People of peace

Choosing a church home

Sure it will fit!

Here we go!

Flying around the thunderstorm...  beautiful.

I couldn't hear anything they were saying... you'll have to ask Stephen
what they were talking about. 

The clouds are the dust at His feet! Hebakuk

This is actually not bad. 

No words.

Home!  Yes, that grass clearing is the airstrip.  Yes, we hit an anthill.