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