last update?

I did not get to talk to Randy today, so I'll let you know when I hear from him again.  [Okay, they just called - they will leave RG in a couple of hours and head to the airport for their flight at 10:20 p.m.  Mostly heard Josiah's sweet stories about all the animals he saw yesterday at the game park.  He said it was awesome!]  Here are two major things to be praying about as they return:  1) travel - all aspects of it - safety and grace for the long hours, 2) "re-entry" when they return.  They have seen some mind/heart boggling things that they will be continuing to process on their return.  Also pray that they will all be able to re-enter "normal" life as school, jobs, family, etc. will all be waiting here and it will be "business-as-usual."  I don't think I'm communicating that very well, but maybe some of you know what I'm talking about.  They have also just seen poverty on a scale that they've never witnessed before and returning to this culture can present difficulties.  Pray for grace on marriages!  :)  Also, on a practical level, pray that jet-lag is minimal and everyone readjusts easily to the time change!

If you're up for a bit of a long read, I have a quote from the book The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns (president of World Vision).  I started reading it today and I'm only in the prologue and already crying.  Here are a few tidbits:

"His name was Richard, the same as mine.  I sat inside his meager thatch hut, listening to his story, told through the tears of an orphan whose parents had died of AIDS.  At thirteen, Richard was trying to raise his two younger brothers by himself in this small shack with no running water, electricity, or even beds to sleep in.  There were no adults in their lives - no one to care for them, feed them, love them, or teach them how to become men.  There was no one to hug them either, or to tuck them in at night.  Other than his siblings, Richard was alone, as no child should be.  I try to picture my own children abandoned in this kind of deprivation, fending for themselves without parents to protect them, and I cannot.

I didn't want to be there.  I wasn't supposed to be there, so far out of my comfort zone - not in that place where orphaned children live by themselves in their agony.  There, poverty, disease, and squalor had eyes and faces that stared back, and I had to see and smell and touch the pain of the poor.  That particular district, Rakai, is believed to be ground zero for the Ugandan AIDS pandemic.  There, the deadly virus has stalked its victims in the dark for decades.  Sweat trickled down my face as I sat awkwardly with Richard and his brothers while a film crew captured every tear - mine and theirs.

I much preferred living in my bubble, the one that, until that moment, had safely contained my life, family, and career.  It kept difficult things like this out, insulating me from anything too raw or upsetting.  When such things intruded, as they rarely did, a channel could be changed, a newspaper page turned, or a check written to keep the poor at at safe distance.  But not in Rakai.  There, "such things" had faces and names - even my name, Richard."

UGH!  I cried as I read this and the rest of the prologue which is his testimony of how he went from being the CEO of Lenox (china) to being the president of World Vision.  He was living a very affluent lifestyle and then Christ opened his eyes to the truth.  Seeing the poor changed everything.  I was thinking tonight about how it does change everything (and I haven't even seen the poor in Africa).  But during my first encounter with the poor outside of this country (in Romania), I was saved.  I went to church  my whole life and was very religious, but I saw Jesus for the first time when I saw the orphans in Romania.  It's when I decided to follow Him.  And now, it's still changing everything and I haven't even begun to touch the surface.  All I know is, that person that he described in the last paragraph was me.  I loved my little bubble and it's where I had lived my whole life.  When the bubble starts to break, it is painful, but it is SO worth it!  Tonight I went down to the apartments next to our house because our friend who was dramatically saved from crack addiction was turning 44 and they had thrown her a big party.  She's been clean for 16 months now and still glows with joy.  I took Luke with me and just told him to stay close to me as there were probably 30 kids running around and many of the adults were drunk.  One older drunk lady kept hugging on me and Luke and the poor kid was miserable and a little scared.  Our saved friend said, as she sipped her cranberry juice, that she was really sad that they had brought all the liquor, but what could she do.  I love her - she is living in such a dark place and still standing firm.  Anyway, as Luke and I walked back home, I told him that that was uncomfortable for me too, but those are the people Jesus hung out with a LOT!  And I'm not sorry that my son gets to catch small glimpses of that now.  I pray that he never has a big "bubble" that has to be broken.  Jesus is so comfortable with the poor and the "sinners".  I pray that He will just get bigger and bigger in us so that we will be too!  What's funny to me is that our neighborhood is going to seem like the Ritz Carlton to those who return from Uganda!  We really are filthy rich in this country!  I'm excited because a pastor from Africa is speaking at our church on Sunday - what a rich blessing as this team returns!  I should really go to bed now - it's just my first night without someone crying when my house is finally quiet!  :)