Leaving the Land of Thorns

In our last blog, we wrote about an opportunity we were exploring to move locations within Uganda and work with a coffeehouse in Lira (about 5 hours from Kotido) for the remainder of our time here. Since that post, we visited the coffeehouse (more appropriately termed the cafe) and spent a day and a half with the American couple who runs it. Quickly following that trip, it became apparent to both of us that we were not supposed to move. God was simply not leading us to Lira. We both felt somewhat relieved, as we were not excited about the idea of leaving our team - our family - so much sooner than expected. Little did we know God had another thing in mind.

Soon after we made the decision not to move to Lira, we felt God leading us to pray about when we should conclude our time here in Kotido. Originally, we felt like God was leading us to be here for six months to a year, without a strong sense of the exact time-frame. Over time, however, we began to assume that we would be here for one year. As we prayed about the timing God has for us, we realized that our assumption was incorrect. God showed both of us that our time was going to be up in March, not in May as we had expected.

So we purchased our tickets (barely a month and a half before our flight date) and we will be arriving in the Denver airport on March 13th. This fact is still difficult for both of us to believe. It's hard to imagine the cold March weather that we will be jumping into while it's still around 85 or 90 degrees inside our house at night when we go to bed. We will be the only Coloradans with a tan! Our team has been very supportive of us leaving, having prayed through this decision with us. However, this does not make it any easier to think of leaving them here to continue on in the dry heat and oftentimes exhausting culture while we get to return to electricity, running water, and refrigeration. We get to return to ice cream (Andrew's excited about the Blue Bell) and whole grains and salads (that'd be me Kerri) and so so much stuff. Perfectly paved roads, perfectly manicured lawns, perfectly controlled climates (with heaters and AC), perfectly cold drinks, perfectly clean water, perfectly safe surroundings. I know that we've only been gone 8 months, but it doesn't take long to forget what it's like to have so many resources at your disposal, so many luxuries at your fingertips. I can still picture the streets of Boulder in my head, with their fancy cars and huge, expensive houses and it's hard to remember that people really live that way. It's so easy to forget here. And it will be just as easy to forget there. It always is.

So we are coming back. For how long, we don't know. Where we will live, we don't know. All we know is God has said that we are done here, so we are leaving this land of thorns and sun and begging and friends and family and beauty and we are moving on, trusting that God has a plan we will discover in time.