Moving on

Hey Everyone - check out my new blog which I am going to be updating now!

http://zandkbyington.wordpress.com

"Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that is 'finding his place in it,' while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of really being at home on Earth, which is just what we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old." -- Screwtape letters

Pictures!

I wanted to update you all with some pictures from our time here! We are now in the last week - so its a time of sadness as we prepare to leave and a time of expectation as we prepare for the next season. Thank you for your prayers and support as we have served here.

Monkey!!

Katie's Class at Heritage International School

 One of the first aid students "performing" CPR

 The Heritage boys soccer team

 The incinerator that dad and I built at the baby home

 Chickens!! Yes, they are alive :-)

Us at the source of the Nile in Jinja

Riots

On Friday, returning from Aggies Baby Home, it looked as if the country had gone crazy. Years of pent-up anger and frustration unleashed on the streets of Kampala - and on themselves. The cycle of violence continues. We passed burning roadblocks, huge stones rolled in the middle of the road, and empty tear gas canisters which littered the ground. It was the left-overs of what people around the world are terming another "day of rage" -
              - like Egypt
              - like Tunisia
              - like Libya
              - like Syria

Seeing these things reminded me of what an embattled, broken world we live in - a world desperate for shalom - for His inbreaking kingdom.

and so we pray for peace - we pray for His Easter newness.

Newness

"On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that, citizens; on this side, orphans; on that, children; on this side, captives; on that, free men." ~ Henry Beecher

        It's been almost 2 weeks since I've written! There has been no lack of things to write about! Katie's parents came and visited for a week, two of my first aid classes graduated, the Heritage International School boys soccer team that I coach made it to the championship and Katie is now the full-time teacher in her 3rd grade classroom.

        We had a wonderful time with Katie's parents! We spent most of our time at New Hope Orphanage and Aggies Baby Home. Dad I I worked on building an incinerator for the diapers while Katie and mom showed some love to the babies. We fed the children banana's and bread and are continuing to treat around 100 children for fungal infections on their head. Each time we serve among those children it increases in me a longing for God's permanent newness - His ultimate redemption. Walter Brueggemann writes in his book Peace, 

"Newness is about to burst into our lives and, indeed, into the world. But the newness comes not without a price, and the price is death to all present arrangements, death to fear and to small hopes, death to old visions and memories. And those who are ready for death to all that the world calls ‘life’ are the ones to whom life can come." 

And this is what we pray for each morning. His Easter newness.

        Katie and I were talking about the orphans yesterday and she mentioned the verse from Hosea 14 - "In You the orphan finds mercy." She said, "I hope each one of those children has been chosen so that they can receive the love and comfort of God since they have no other family." This stuck with me. The president of World Vision said, "I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation...I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?" May we be found faithful with what God has given us.

        There is a divisive force in humanity and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. To some the truth of Christ is the aroma of life - to others they sense it as the stench of death. Paul asks in 2 Corinthians, "Who is sufficient for these things?" I understand his question in an entirely deeper way now. We all have felt the urging of the Spirit to tell someone about Jesus. I felt this as I was finishing my last English class of the term - and only because of His grace, I told them. While speaking, I sensed how much love hurts for the lost. I sensed how in the proclaiming of the gospel there is an unavoidable grief and sadness for those who don't accept. John Piper illustrates it it this way - 

"Imagine walking through a crowded shopping mall. As you walk through some few people - maybe 7 or 8 out of a hundred begin to follow you out of the mall and everyone one else just drops dead. Wouldn't that be overwhelming? Wouldn't that be too much to bear? That is why Paul asks 'Who is sufficient for these things?'"

        I have often wondered if there is some image, some picture or story I could blog about to make you understand how broken and lost our world is. What picture could i drive into your head so that it would haunt your dreams at night so that you literally could not sit still until you found a way to share Jesus with someone who is going to hell. Only the Spirit can move us in such a way.

Are we open to His leading? Are we faithful?

"You are the God who makes all things new.

We gladly raise our voices and move our lips

to acknowledge, celebrate, and proclaim

Your staggering newness.

As we do so, we hold in our hearts

deep awareness of all the places where your newness

is not visible, and

has not come.

Draw us from the wretchedness we know

to his scarred, bloody wretchedness

that is your odd entry of newness into our life. Amen."

~ Walter Brueggemann

 The Kabaka Dance, the dance for the king

 The kids are happy to have bread!

Some of the babies at the home

Marked

Katie and I really enjoyed our holiday on Tuesday - it was "International Womens Day" here in Uganda and her and I were off from teaching. We went to Owino Market - a HUGE place with over 500,000 venders. They sell everything from clothes to rice to fruit to shoes, we bought our veggies for the week and found gooseberries there! We had Katogo for lunch - a Ugandan dish cooked in a banana leaf. At night we celebrated Shrove Tuesday with the Heritage teachers by having a pancake dinner. 

I realized again this week what a blessing it is to be married to Katie and to be here together.

I also realized recently that I work all day with people that are going to hell. Each handshake and smile and conversation only served to confirm that reality. The weight of this hit me near the end of the day. Sitting on the grass, laughing with Patrick and preparing to play soccer with the Somali refugees I looked up to see them lined up. Eight image-bearers turned bronze by the fading sunlight. As they spread their shirts on the ground to prepare for evening prayers a loud cry comes across the sky - the call to prayer from the boziga mosque. I watched them kneel and go down for their prayers and couldn't help think of Jesus looking at the crowds feeling compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9). I wonder what Jesus felt when it says he was "deeply moved" - did he see the crowd in light of redemptive history? 

I cried a lot the other night - the reality of being chosen, marked and set aside while others are not. A deep sense of unworthiness has pervaded me these last few days - and I cannot forget those that do not sense the nearness of His hand - the faithfulness of His love each morning. And so in these Lenten days we pray and wait and are filled with longing for others to know of His Easter presence.

“The mystery of iniquity is at work in the world during this interim time, and it is not always clear how its malignant work is being checked, overridden, or woven into the glorious purposes of God. We need to remember, though, that while Judas betrayed Christ, and woe to him for doing so, it was God’s plan that Christ was thus betrayed. Evil by its very nature opposes the purposes of God, but God, in his sovereignty, can make even this evil serve his purposes.” 

~ David Wells

A reality

I am teaching several classes at Center of Hope. I have many refugee women from Sudan in my classes. None of them have finished elementary school. It brought into the reality the statistic that more women in Sudan die from childbirth than finish elementary school.