The Gaza Strip...

Wednesday May 4, 2016

We have been back in Uganda for two full days, but have yet to lay eyes on Chayah’s children.  The school term finishes this week and each of them are taking their final exams.  In the meantime, though we are staying on task, noses to the red dirt in the next steps of building on Chayah’s property.

We spent a good deal of time there today getting caught up on the different projects.  Topping the list as the most interesting, is very possibly the ongoing fence saga, and a small sliver of land we like to think of as our very own “Gaza Strip”.  A raucous crowd of neighbors carrying machetes, yelling very real sounding threats, stopped our fence builders in their tracks last week.  Meeting were scheduled with the police and attorneys.  Claims of land titles and rights and crops were exchanged and negotiations quickly became a raging battle.  Once they played out “our Dad is stronger than your Dad” kinds of games, well the favor fell on us once again and you might just say that the enemy ran for his life and has not been back.  

Our God can do things easily and quietly or allow some drama and noise for the sake of a good story.   Of course, He wins in the heavenlies, but sometimes He allows us the pleasure of a little victory on the ground, too.

We spent the afternoon at the bank, finding the lost.  There was a chunk-o-change that went missing in early February and it seems that it took a personal visit and about 90 minutes with the bank manager to finally locate the missing funds.  Oh Uganda…how I love your version of high-finance.

The walls on either side of the entrance to Chayah’s property are being finished and it was time to choose a gate design.  A physical introduction to the ministry site, gates that swing wide open to a plot of land, rich in fertile soil and praise to God. 

Janet fought against a cloak of disappointment and discouragement after getting the news that her newly planted crops were weeks away from a good plowing under…its almost time for grading of the property and buried utility lines.  She rallied as we sat on the porch and talked about the future, how it is unknown, but only to us.  About the importance of passing on faith and vision, one generation to another.

She has been so excited about this huge plot of fertile soil that she has been hoeing and planting and weeding like crazy.  It is the rainy season and she reads it and digs in like all good gardeners it’s just that the whole scraping off the top layer of soil and cutting and leveling hillsides, was just outside her land development experience and the harvest date is months away.  Bless her…she has invested so much.

There will be many, many seasons and types of harvest here.  Both gardens and souls will be cultivated on this land and we pray for fruit of the very richest sort.  Most will not come without pain or weeds that attempt to choke out the growth.  There will be battles and threats and weapons wielded against our own.  There will be some painful cutting away of territory, making for a better place according to the Master plan, of this we are sure.