Running Over

I’m overwhelmed today~ I can’t decipher through my feelings. Is it that my dear cousin is getting married in a couple days, or that as I read over birthday cards from family and think of my husband I realize how loved I am?

Or is it that I’m overwhelmed by God’s gift of life and love, family, innocent babies to adore… and I’m so joyful… yet I’m overwhelmed with the realization that it is all so temporary… it’s all preparation for eternity- which will come too fast and yet can’t come fast enough.

Am I suddenly overwhelmed this morning by Dad’s warm and spontaneous hugs in the morning, my niece’s multiple hugs and kisses, my husband’s longing for me to be with him, standing beside my cousin as she enters into a lifelong covenant, realizing the steadfastness of family with my dear granddaddy, spending cherished time with my sister and mom, the sweet appreciation of my aunt… longing to be beside my husband and getting prepared for another transition back to Africa… or is it that my heart is overflowing with praise and gratitude to Jesus for being the King of my life, for the truth that love is not just a feeling or a chemical in the brain, but that He loved us first, that the depth of His love for us is unfathomable and that He gifts us with an overwhelming fraction of His love to experience in this life with others… and that in this life there are huge sorrows and things that I don’t understand but that those things are in control and in the hands of a good God…

My cup is full and running over! My prayer is that it may carry me into this next season and spill out into others’ lives.

Christmas Break!

I have always wanted to be a writer who gets  paid to see the world, meet interesting people, and report on things that people don’t know or get to see firsthand as well as experience new and relatively dangerous things. The first problem with this is that I am not a great writer- ask my mom who edited a lot of my college papers! But just the other day I came across this blog that inspired me to give this a shot. It was not the blogger encouraging me to do it but the fact that I found myself reading through her archives of blogs all the way back to 2007 and I was genuinely interested in what was happening. I have always been the person that thinks no one really cares to read stories, opinions and whatever else that person puts on their blog. Do people really care to read this stuff? For the sake of not getting your hopes up I will hold off on giving the address of the blog that inspired me.

Christmas Leave:

Finally, December 10^th arrived and I was on a jet plane heading to the good ol’ US of A. I had spent that last couple weeks planning out what we would do for my three weeks home, based solely off the locations of restaurants that I wanted to eat at within close proximity of family and friends. I arrived at DFW Airport extremely tired from lack of sleep mostly caused by my itching body, but still glad to be with my bride. We spent the next three weeks traveling, eating, drinking Starbucks, eating more, visiting family and friends. We traveled 2,200 miles in a little less than a week and through 2 states and 10-20 inches of snow, 65 people and 5 dogs. And I thought leave was going to be restful!

In the midst of all the craziness, though, I quite enjoyed my time at home, eating, being with my wife, family and friends. It was all very encouraging. I love the time I spend with my wife. We have our moments of laughter, arguments, tears or hurt, joy and completely random tears (not my random tears;). It’s a wonderful life that we have and an even more wonderful journey that we are on together. During our time apart we did our best to communicate through email and SMS messages or text messaging for the 1^st world peeps.  We managed to study 1 Corinthians together, discuss topics from “His Brain Her Brain” without killing each otherJ. Distance really does make the heart grow fonder. Family can be overwhelming especially if you are only home for a short time. But my family was fun, enthusiastic and mostly gave me the right-of-way with what to do, eat or see. The only exception was my mother-in-law who does not allow anyone to watch TV which meant for the first time in weeks that I missed English football games. But I still love her dearlyJ.

The three weeks home went by in the blink of an eye. I enjoyed my last week with my dear sweet bride, resting, shopping for last minute stuff and just overall hanging out.  Saying good-bye is always hard. This is especially true for me. When I used to first say good-bye to MA at airports, I would get teary-eyed and we would spend hours sitting with each other in front of security and always being the last to board the plane. Now I am an expert. I have her drop me off at departures and take off running. This way I don’t have time to get teary-eyed or even worse, to cry.  I saw the beginning of 2012 on a plane full of people whom I did not know at a time I was not sure where I was or what time zone I was in. The only thing I know for sure is that somehow 2011 turned into 2012 by the time I reached London. The flight has quite a bit of distance to cover to get back to Uganda. First to London then to Entebbe which is two eight and a half hour flights including a three hour layover.

Once I was back, Uganda felt like home except for the heat, dirt, loads of traffic, crowded streets and a lot fewer choices for everything. Oh yeah and less power, internet, and phone service. So… maybe not the same at-home-like feeling. Thank God for the normal things such as friends, Settlers of Catan, and Premier League Football to help me adjust to being back. To start off, I will spend two weeks in Kampala working out issues and attending a manager’s training. Then I will head back to Moroto, which is even hotter and dryer, where I will patiently wait for my bride to join me in February. And I guess I will have some work to do as well, finishing food distributions from 2011 and planning for 2012.

Seth 

First Ever Blog

RECAP:
Almost everyone knows the start to our story in Uganda since May of 2011. But here is a quick synopsis. I took a position with Samaritan’s Purse in Uganda the first of May, MariAnne graduated from seminary the second week of May, and I moved to Uganda the third week of May while MA stayed behind to pack up the house and finish work. MariAnne joined me in Uganda the third week of June without knowing what it would hold for her. She came willingly as the wife without any expectation of employment or what she would be able to do. All she really knew was that she loved me, that we had spent the last couple years letting her finish her Masters degree in Christian Counseling, and that the job in Uganda was a job I really wanted to do. Good enough for her!
End of 2011:
Well four months later we decided it was time for her to head home to get some quality time with her family in as well as to squelch my desire to (lovingly) strangle her to death. You see, the first few months proved to be tougher than originally thought for MA but I will let her tell her side of the story if she desires. The biggest adjustment to being in Uganda so far has been my business and MariAnne’s lack of business. It has been a hard adjustment for MariAnne to leave her super duper busy life of completing grad school, working 35 hours a week counseling refugees and building a counseling program from scratch for World Relief. Who could blame her for being stir crazy at the end of a long day with no electricity, no internet and nowhere to go and all along her husband is working from 7 am till 7 pm Monday through Saturday, and at the end of the day all he can do is sit on the couch and stare into space. Needless to say, no sooner had MariAnne gotten on the plane than I began to miss her immensely. Over the next six weeks loneliness would be a constant theme.
Finishing 2011 was not made easier by the fact that MariAnne was so far removed. Things kind of blew up in the month of November. Work was slow, it should have been busy, the rain went away which meant it was hot and dusty and I was unhappy, we got bed bugs, which meant I had a billion bites and was relegated to sleeping in my tent in the living room, and all the small  things at work started becoming big things and to top it all off our landlord went crazy. This was all compounded by the fact that I did not have my best friend to talk to at the end of the day or to suffer with me in my misery (bedbug bites).
Finally December 8^th arrived and I started the long journey to Kampala. Nine hours later we arrived hot, exhausted and smelling like diesel fuel. Quickly we made the executive decision to abandon showers for the time being and head straight to dinner. You might be thinking how someone could eat like this, but to those of us who live on beans and rice for six to eight weeks at a time, food is priority in life upon arrival in Kampala. After filling our bellies I finally head home to shower and catch some rest. The next day is followed by the only Christmas shopping available at the local craft market and mall. I briefly celebrate Christmas with other ex-pat staff and head off to the airport in a taxi. Home is so close I can almost smell it…?... or wait, that’s actually the water treatment plant-It’s awful! Finally, an hour and a half past the given departure time, I board a crowded stuffy plane for London- civilization awaits!J 

Seth