A good year (and a prayer request)

When we first arrived in Uganda, John and I decided we needed to at least stay three years. Particularly with John in Member Care, we knew relationships took an investment of time—and how much more so cross-culturally?

Thankfully, we were right. I wish I could describe to you the difference in our lives here even since returning from the U.S. to an African sunrise in early January this year. The calendar seems to be nearly peeling itself off the wall. Even now, I seek for words to express the richness of our lives—all the spontaneous guests for dinner, the friends clinking the lock at our gate to signal their arrival, the cups of ice water sipped in the breeze on our back porch, the crazy mzungu kids in bare feet tearing around the compound with Nerf weapons. Between that, the classes I get to teach, and our other opportunities, John and I have both remarked about a gratitude and humility over God moving us deeper into our sweet spot. This, it feels like, is why we are here. This—I hope you hear when you read—is the result of the support, encouragement, and general arm-upholding that you give us.

Some of you know of our recent dilemma. While we were back in the U.S. on our brief home assignment, the Ugandan government approved our work permit!

But, they wrote, it would be the last.

There are various avenues of approaching Immigration to resolve this issue, none of them guaranteed. As we lift our eyes to what’s ahead, I told John that our decisions feel a little like Blackjack—you just don’t know what card the House will turn over.

Our ultimate comfort: We know the House. It’s not the Ugandan government that cups our future in its wide palm. As I was driving the other day, I was thinking perhaps God would say to me, You’ll be in Africa not one day shorter, or longer, than I want you there.

This comforts me. Because as challenging as our first year was, and as many tears that have been wrung out of my face in the last two years, my heart is here.

Yet over and over God has reiterated that His plan for my family will be perfect, wherever we go. Speaking to a good friend over furlough, I remarked that I felt made for Africa. Wisely, she responded that God had made me for Africa now—and for who knows what in 2015?

Pray for us, friends, as we seek God’s will for our family. We’re asking for His favor on John’s work permit. Pray too that He will continue to generously, abundantly answer our prayer that He establish the work of our hands—in the collective sense (that means you, too, as you send us here!). This is His show, and we can’t believe we get to be a part of it.