Three Weeks Since...

It's been three weeks since I got back on American soil after spending three months in one of my favorite places in the world. Three weeks since my clothes have been covered with Ugandan clay from the touch of tiny hands all over the edges of my skirt. Three weeks since I’ve had to spend an hour to log into my email. Three weeks since I’ve eaten the best bananas on earth. Three weeks since I crammed into a public taxi van to go to the grocery store. Three weeks since I’ve held four children in my lap at one time. Three weeks since I have been called by my African name “Namubiru.” Three weeks since I’ve taken a basin bath by candle light. Three weeks since I have cheered on my favorite Christopher House Ministries football team (which now I have to refer to as soccer). And three weeks since I’ve hauled jerry cans of water from the well to the kitchen.

Now when I wake up in the morning I hear the hum of the air conditioner instead of birds chirping or children playing in the early hours of the morning just outside my window. And from the first moments of the day I know I’m not in Uganda anymore. I’d be lying if I said that my heart didn’t quietly ache for Christopher House, for the kids, and for my life and work in Uganda. But still, returning to North Carolina for my last year at Duke Divinity School offers its own whirlwind of elation and richness of struggle. This semester I am participating in a course of Clinical Pastoral Education at Duke University Medical Center. Basically, I will be learning the ministry of a chaplain. I have been assigned as the chaplain of the Pediatric Unit. While I have barely spent a week on the floor, I am quickly falling in love with these people and find myself so honored to briefly collide with their lives during moments of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, death and new life.

So it’s true. My location has changed, but God continues to put children in my path for me to love. And as I love on them I continue to learn from them and pray that God would continue to teach me and prepare me for the many locations that I will encounter on this journey of ministry and life.

P.S. I am beginning now to pray and plan for my return to Uganda in June of 2009. I am committing two years initially to serve at Christopher House Ministries and The International School of Missions. At CHM I will be working with the Creative Drama Department, creating programming and discipleship for the youth at the center, and helping to coordinate volunteers. At the International School of Missions I will be serving as a lecturer of Basic Theology. The school is a training center for Ugandan pastors, and they are in desperate need of more teachers. Pray with me as I begin this long and exhausting journey of planning and searching for financial support. For all the ways you love and support me already, thank you. Now, let the fun begin…

This is Alisha on Location in Durham, North Carolina

Bath time Disasters

Don't you just hate it when you go to take a basin bath late at night, and you take your phone because it has a flashlight in it (and that's clearly genius--thanks Nokia!), and you've just soaped up when your phone falls, the battery goes flying across the floor and you're standing there soapy and slightly panicked by the huge spider you saw climbing on the wall as your flashlight cascaded to the floor? I hate it too!

Well, these last days are filled with cooking dinners, drinking coffee with friends, preparing for the new school term drama class, gathering supplies and creating lesson plans, and saying goodbyes. I'm sure I'll write once I get back on American soil.

Until then,
I'm probably eating a samosa and chatting with friends,
And if I have a free hand I'm most likely pinching a cute kid,
This is Alisha on Location

They'll Know We're Christians by Our Love

Here's my second reflection paper that I wanted to share with all of you who have been keeping up with my journey. This paper focuses on one person--Shelly Grivette. Shelly is one of the directors at Christopher House. She has spent five years in Uganda, and our friendship began when I first came to Uganda in 2005. This summer Shelly has served as my supervisor, and I decided to spend some time reflecting on her work and ministry. I wrote this paper at the end of July.

It doesn’t take long to see Shelly’s strength. She’s just tough. For the three years I have known her, it is her strength that has always amazed me. But when she least expects it, Shelly shares glimpses of the richest compassion and the most beautiful pieces of her life’s pain. It’s always the highest honor to see these parts of her life as a woman in ministry. In the last few years Shelly has been a dear friend, a guide in this strange country, a voice of wisdom, a person with which to exchange dreams and ideas, but this summer she has been my field education supervisor. And as I watch her work and minister here, I see a model of ministry that inspires me.

This past week when I returned from a few days of rest in Zanzibar, I found Shelly at the airport with a bright grin. “We have a small visitor,” she said as she unlocked the van and lifted my suitcase into the back seat. For several months Shelly has been taking baby formula to malnourished babies in the neighborhood, but when one of the babies was abandoned by his parents, and too sick to be cared for by his extended family, Shelly offered to take him for the week and make sure he got to the clinic. And when I got back to the apartment, there was Moses, our small visitor sleeping soundly. By the end of the week, the baby who was barely able to keep his eyes open began laughing and crawling and making the sweetest baby noises. Returning him to his family on Sunday was not an easy task for Shelly, but she never hesitated to stop her plans or put the demands of her work on hold for a few days for the care of this child. Whatever the cost—medical fees, gas money, baby clothes, and the pain of letting him go—she spared nothing to lavish love on him. And when giving Moses back to his family brought up the painful memories of the loss of her own son, Christopher, she began to cry. And in her tears I saw love, a kind of love that is pure and yes, sometimes painful. It’s the kind of love I hope to have for people I minister to and with.

When a house fire took the life of a toddler in our neighborhood and burned most of the clothes and personal belongings of nine of our kids at Christopher House, Shelly was the first to talk solutions. “What can we do? How can we surround this family with support? Let’s do something.” She brought the kids over to the center to lie down after an exhausting day of grief. And for a few hours they rested. She made them sandwiches and juice. She held them as they cried, prayed over them, and cried with them. Then, she gathered her money, went out and bought them some clothes. Shelly is quick to respond to the needs of others. She knew she could not bring that child back. She was limited in what she could offer this family, but that didn’t hinder her efforts to do what she could to help. It is this beautiful balance of care and awareness of her limitations as a minister that I hope to model. Things will sometimes be too broken to fix, but offering presence, prayer and comfort is sometimes the most powerful gift to those in pain.

In Shelly’s life and work I don’t see perfection, but I do see a person open and willing to be used by God in powerful ways to lavish love and care on people in this broken and confusing world. It’s that openness that I pray for as I prepare my own life for ministry. May I always be willing to sacrifice for the call Christ has made on my life. May I always be willing to reveal my own struggles, pain, and humanity before others as I strive to love people the way Christ first loved us.

For all your love, prayers and support, THANK YOU!
This is Alisha on Location (for a few more days at least)