Team Five Morris

I am 32 years old and just beginning to realize that the firmness of youth is rapidly disappearing.  Of course those of you lucky enough to see me in a swim suit are probably wondering if my youthful firmness was a figment of my imagination.  Anyway, when I was stirring a pot of soup and my underarms started flapping in the breeze I decided that I better start exercising before I need to have short term teams bring me catalogues from Lane Bryant.  I love the idea of exercise...I really do.  (Fine...I'm lying.)  I like the cute running outfits and the ipod arm bands that tell the world, "Yes, I am fit and healthy".  But exercising is something I have battled against all my life.  I used to joke that I had to stop exercising because my sweats would catch on fire when I ran from the friction.  All this to say...I'm lazy and usually pretty content in my laziness. 

However, when my arms did their rebellious jiggly little dance I said "Enough is enough".  Dan and the kids are all in Taekwondo and Dan has lost weight and is feeling good.  I hate to be the only chubby one in the family so I have started walking a few times a week.  Ok, I just lied.  On a missionary blog.  I repent.  I am only walking once a week but I have big plans to up it to a gruelling two days a week soon.  But I have to walk up a ridiculous hill that nearly did me in the first day.  And on top of it, Kampala is not known for the air quality.  So really my measly one day a week is really like a full week of exercise all things considered. 

So today I'm trotting along at a good pace (an old man may have passed me at one point but he seemed really spry).  I'm rockin' out to my ipod (without the cool hip arm band) and a boda boda pulls along side me and asks if I want a ride.  (Boda Bodas are motorcycle taxis).  I shook my head and waved him off.  Can't he see I'm EXERCISING?  I keep walking and the hill is looming before me.  My breath is labored to say the least.  A young man walks beside me and gestures for me to take my head phones off.  I roll my eyes and keep walking but ask him what he wants.  "Some money for transport please?" he says.  Come on!  I'm walking here...with no bag or purse and only my ipod and he expects me to A: chit chat, B: be carrying money in my skin folds?, and C: give him said money?  I try to hide my irritation as I slip my headphones back on and keep walking.  As I crest the mother of all hills another boda boda hoots at me and asks if I need a ride.  At this point I am beginning to get a complex.  Is it that obvious that I am not an athlete and that this hill is nearly killing me?  I thought I was hiding it better than that.  Resisting the urge to break into a run just to show my athletic abilities I shoo him away as well.  This happens another two or three times and I trudge home defeated. 

I guess I really have no point to this other than to say, I'm getting old, I'm getting fat and I need encouragement to exercise.  The Ugandan all carb diet doesn't seem to agree with my body.  My friend here is a runner (show off) and asked if I wanted to do the Kampala marathon in November.  I laughed and said my only fitness goal is to NOT be obese but it's been bugging me ever since.  With most of my family members veterans of numerous marathons it does have a certain appeal.  Who knows, maybe those boda bodas will have to drive really fast to catch me next time!  Maybe I'll be that girl running up the monster hill with my very own ipod armband and firm lovely arms.  Or maybe I'll just stay happy in my laziness. 

In a few short hours we will open the doors of Sojourn Ministries for the first time and welcome our neighbors to the first church service.  This has been a long slow road but one filled with so many stones of remembrance along the way.  I don't want to glorify our "past lives" before we were drawn blissfully to Christ but in each of us there is a story of redemption.  Almost 13 years ago Daniel and I met and got married a few years later.  We were young, selfish, living totally for our flesh and pretending that we loved God.  We spent the first two years of marriage fighting for control of eachother and nearly gave up.  A few years later God called us to himself and gave us new hearts and new desires.  The last 5 years have been hard and the growth in Christ has often been painful.  But looking back now and seeing what we were and WHO loved us and redeemed us and brought us to this place and this moment causes me to feel such gratitude.  When the Bible says "with God nothing is impossible" I know it's talking partly about Dan and me.  God has always chosen to use the "chief of sinners" and the "foolish things of the world" to shame the wise.  I know Dan and I qualify as both of those things. 

Standing on the streets of Wabigalo, a world away from where I'm from and watching my husband straighten the chairs and dust the pulpit and finally open the door...I have no words to express my love for a God who would use us in this way.  This is NOT our building, our ministry, our people...it is all God's.  None of this is achieved by our own power.  I cannot know what plans God has for this church other than to draw more of his people to Himself and to glorify Himself.  I don't know if we'll have more than the original 9 members (five of those being our family).  But I look forward to the next few years.  I look forward to seeing how God will delight us, surprise us, use us and challenge us. 

Of this I'm sure: "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." 1 Cor. 4:5.  Join us in celebrating lives given purpose.  Thank God with us for His plans that we rarely understand at first glance but get to watch unfold in delightful ways.  And please continue to stand with us in prayer.  This is only the beginning of Sojourn...

"My savior, he can move the mountains.  My God is mighty to save...."

I've always sworn I wouldn't sugar-coat my missionary blog to make us seem adventurous and exotic.  So in the spirit of honesty, I've been a bit down.  We have a date in mind for our return to the states for a month next summer.  Ever since I set the dates I have been fantasizing about all the things I will do.  I have set up people and places and RESTAURANTS to epic proportions in my imagination.  I do this all the time.  And it usually ends in disappointment that my imagination is capable of way more perfection than real life. 

It's not that my friends won't still love me when I see them for the first time in two and a half years but will they love me enough?  Will I feel satisfied by how much they've missed me or will I resent the fact that they were able to carry on normal lives in my absence?  Because for anyone reading this who really knows me, my biggest downfall is needing to be way more important than I should be.  (Come on, I know you are chuckling right now agreeing with me) 

And what about my faboulous hometown?  Will the mountains of Montana be able to delight me in person as much as they do in my mind's eye on a hot stinky day in dirty Kampala?  I often weep at pictures of Montana and it's beauty when I'm confronted with the lack of beauty in my neighborhood.  But will I see Montana as the promise land or rather ordinary and mundane? 

Food.  I shouldn't even get started on this.  My first four months in Africa I mourned the loss of yummy food almost more than missing friends.  (Sorry guys)  But in the last year and a half I have learned not only how to cook normal things but even how to survive as an occasional vegetarian.  But I admit, when I read posts on Facebook about what my friends have had for breakfast (Amy.  Curse your evil taunting waffles...)or remember favorite dinners at my mom and dad's house I get all nostalgic.  I associate food with so many memories that I fear when I actually have these things available to me they won't be as good as I remembered.  Or will I freak out with all the extravagance and excess?  I have a friend here who said her first trip home she fell apart in the refrigerated section of the grocery store because she was so overwhelmed with all the choices of yogurt.

Will anyone even know me anymore?  Will I still be the same neurotic Loring or will I be a bitter, judgemental, world weary missionary? 

The days seem long until I acutally have to test all this out in person.  As I write this it will be about a year until I touch the soil of the motherland again.  But I don't want to worry this to death.  I don't want to count down the days while building up the experience more and more until I am certain that nothing will meet my high expectations.  LORD let me be patient and satisfied in my life here.  Let me not look to people, places or things to comfort me but rather to your perfect provision.  Remind me that nothing can bring fulfillment like you can. 

And dearest friends, family, mountains and glorious food...be patient with me.  I'll see you in a year!

*I realize that by starting this

out with a quote from The Hobbit I am aligning myself with “Trekkies” and Star Wars geeks.  The truth is I am fantasy nerd, a Trekkie and a total Star Wars geek.  So label me if you will but read on…

I first read The Hobbit when I was 8 or 9 and loved it.  Now my 9 year old son is struggling through it and so I picked it up again recently and couldn’t put it down.  This particular passage spoke to me in an odd sort of way. “So cheer up Bilbo and don’t look so glum…This is your expedition after all. Think of the treasure at the end, and forget the forest and the dragon, at any rate until tomorrow morning.”  (Spoken by Gandalf)

 You might not understand the implications of it at first but from where God has me right now in my life, this was a poignant reminder about where my hope lies.  Bilbo (for those of you who aren’t familiar with this rotund little fellow) is a hobbit who likes nothing more than the comfort and safety of his warm hobbit hole.  He eats well and keeps his larder stocked at all times with good treats.  He has comfy chairs and a beautiful garden and a familiar little pipe that he enjoys.  Basically, he is safe and secure in his dependable world.  Kind of like where I was a few years ago.  I owned my own home, my kids were at a nice Christian school, I was a member of a nice church that I enjoyed serving in and the bills were always paid. 

Bilbo is offered the chance to go on a daring, life threatening adventure with a group of dwarves with the promise of a great treasure at the end.  Long story short, he gives up his comfortable little hobbit hole and ventures out into the vast Wild.  Much like Bilbo, one day I was startled by an invitation to an adventure.   Our invitation was not delivered by a wise old wizard but by a very wise and insistent God.  Dan and I both felt the call to missions at the same time.  In our excitement it was easy to overlook the dangers at first.  Imagining what it would be like to live in Africa seemed so romantic and exotic and we couldn’t wait.  But truth be told the journey anywhere can wear you out. 

We found ourselves in Uganda three years after our initial heart tug to missions.  Once we landed on the red soils of Uganda I began to see the adventure more clearly.  It wasn’t nearly as exotic or romantic as I had made it out to be in my “perfect-missionary-life-fantasy”.  It was HARD.  After almost a year and  a half here life is pretty normal for us.  The early hard times seem to have passed and we feel like Uganda is home for now.  However, often in the daily grind we can struggle more than in the difficult transitions. 

“Do we really have to go through it?” Groaned the hobbit.
“Yes, you do!” said the wizard, “if you want to get to the other side.  You must either go through or give up your quest.  And I am not going to allow you to back out now, Mr. Baggins.  I am ashamed of you for thinking of it…” (Gandalf speaking to Bilbo after Bilbo complains about going into Mirkwood Forest which was an unpleasant and dangerous place)

After reading this exchange between Bilbo and Gandalf I felt like I could relate to Bilbo’s complaint.  Often I grow so weary of the daily life here in Uganda.  The constant battle to fit into a place that is impossible to blend into!  The seemingly uphill trudge against false teachings, superstitions and preconceived notions.  I sometimes feel like Bilbo.  “God do I really have to go through this?  Isn’t there an easier way?”.  And God responds, totally justified, “Yes, you must finish the race.  There is no way you can give up and I won’t let you…”. 

So what I actually see in these passages are parallels with Scripture.  I know J.R.R. Tolkien said this wasn’t an allegory and I’m not arguing that point, but for me these passages reminded me of some well worn Scripture that brought encouragement.   

“So cheer up Bilbo and don’t look so glum”… When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.  Psalm 94:19.

“This is your expedition after all.  Think of the treasure at the end…”…Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.  James 1:12
“Forget the forest and the dragon, at any rate until tomorrow morning.”…Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  Matthew 6:34

Okay, maybe it’s a stretch to compare The Hobbit to The Bible, maybe even silly.  But it is often in funny surprising ways that God reminds me why I am here in Uganda.  It’s not for the adventure or the glamour of a missionary life.  It is for the joy of serving a loving, wise, holy God.  It is for the joy of seeing the Gospel challenge, change, and grow people of any culture.   The TREASURE is the hope of eternal life with Christ. 

And lastly, a good reminder that my trials and misadventures are not pointless, my salvation is not mere luck, and if I could just see past myself I’d see God smiling a bit indulgently at my slow witted understanding of His ways:

“You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?  You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!” (Gandalf speaking)

  I thank God for gifting J.R.R. Tolkien with such beautiful stories but even more so I thank God for being the Author of every story, including mine.