Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day and to my surprise, even in Uganda.  I don't know a more committed mom than this beauty and her heart has grown to love all of Chayah's children so well.  Janet Limitho, we adore you.

Today began with checking email and as social media has already gotten wind of, the three that left last night,  boarded a plane headed for devastation.   The enemy intended some real harm to several hundred passengers when an engine exploded in flames about 25 minutes into the flight.  Smoke was coming in through the vents and another fire broke out in the cabin.  The pilot and flight attendants were silent, but God's people had been praying for them and so He scooped them up in the palm of his hand and set that plane back on the runway at Entebbe.  They were given a hotel room, rebooked on another flight and are in the air as I write this.  The courage it must have taken to walk on board again...  But God.   Janet and I spent a good number of times today replaying the event and the pastor asked me to share about God's mercy in this morning's service.  As is their style, they immediately rang out praises, shouts of "hallelujah" and clapping for this amazing demonstration of God's love and protection.   This  audible gratitude could probably only be topped by the reaction of the passengers on the plane when it was safely on the ground.  

All money saving rules are off for international cell phone calls when planes catch fire, and I'm sure we did our share of raising the value of AT & T today.
And of course in quick time, I did exactly the thing I hate to do.  When I heard there were some problems with rebooking I was  immediately frustrated and began fretting about that inconvenience.   Never mind that three precious lives had just been saved...you know I was already on the next thing to complain about... if I could somehow learn a lesson every once in a while, it would be refreshing to all of us!

So today at Chayah:  When I got to the house, the skirts were being ironed, the tie-dyed tops were next and everyone was hanging around waiting for the name to be called to get dressed.  Janet sent Chris our driver on his way to a family function and decided to take over the wheel of the van herself.  She has been driving, but not out of the "neighborhood", so not on any paved streets with other traffic, motorcycles and pedestrians.   Twenty three of us loaded into the 7 passenger van, and we've discovered they need to go in in a very specific order to a very specific place, or everybody doesn't fit.  Never mind a weight limit, axle strength combined with potholes in the roads or the sauna inside.  Nobody complains, nobody.  Now it was Mother's Day, so I don't really want to give anything but glowing reports about our Mom, but let's just say she'll never get a speeding ticket and we surely could have walked as least as fast as she drives.  But I have learned she is very cautious about things...remember the swimming pool challenge?  We drove about 2 miles and stopped to clarify directions 3 times.  But the destination was worth it.  Four Abundant Life churches met all together today for a kind of family service, corporate worship, lunch and games.  And the choirs from each church were going to compete.  But there is the whole time thing in Uganda...so the day wore on and nobody really seemed too concerned about the clock, so when the day was over, I can tell you that the skirts were done and pretty cute, but nobody performed.  I was disappointed, and I expected the kids to protest at least a little, but not a word.  It makes me think we could learn a thing or two about our tight schedules and agendas.  

The Chayah praise group "Shalom" did do a song/dance in church, and another while we waited for lunch to arrive, you know about oh, 3ish.  We enjoyed every single other bit of the church service and afternoon entertainment including tug of war between "older men" and "young men".    It really felt like a family day as we enjoyed ourselves at a park like place overlooking the Nile.  

Regina started feeling sick and her fever shot up mid day.  She slept most of the afternoon on a piece of fabric on the grass.  We took her straight to the clinic where she tested positive for Malaria, at a high level.  That poor thing is still battling the ear infection, though it is improved, and today had two shots, one to reduce her fever the other to begin battling the Malaria.   She'll be back now every morning and evening for 5 days for injections.   Our next staff member might just need to be a nurse that can really devote her days to caring for the ones that are sick; its always several and Malaria symptoms come on so fast.

We made it back to the house about 5:30 and the kids settled in on the back porch to play cards... they learned "go fish" today and got a kick out of just saying it.  I greeted the new chickens today and an insensitive Janet talked about their life expectancy right in front of them.  Gratefully, they have more days at Chayah than I have left, so I'll be hearing how it went rather than reporting on it.  

Tomorrow I move to a bed at Chayah.  Me, two cooks who are sweet as can be, but don't understand one thing I try to say.  14 of the children and I share that same communication gap so if you could pray for us not to blow up the place while Janet has a couple of days off, I'd appreciate it so much.   I feel completely unprepared, but that doesn't stop God so I'm just going to jump in with both feet and pray everyone does ok.   I'm wondering if this is going to be like having a substitute teacher where they pull all kinds of shenanigans or just take notes for late night giggles about my attempts at mothering, Uganda style.    The most sure thing is that you will get a report, and if you're lucky I might even tell the whole truth!