These are the ones I’ll miss the most.

I’m not sure why, but I have come to enjoy my time with these wonderful ladies more and more these days. It amazes me how well you can come to know someone, all while speaking different languages. Today I tried to imagine what life will be like without seeing these women regularly. I can’t.

Although only a few of these women speak English and (ashamedly) my Luo is still at such an elementary level, we have come to know each other. We laugh often. We speak about the future. We talk about business, family, school fees, cooking, church, conflicts, celebrations, saving money, losing money, getting cheated, trusting God, and the list continues. When there are no English-speaking members to translate the details, we stop, look at each other, laugh in unison, and try again.

I’m constantly astounded by these ladies. I try to appreciate the way God made me and the culture I was born into, but I often feel so small and weak compared to these women. They don’t get to go to school as long as their brothers do, if at all. They have lived through 20 years of war and a couple years of peace now. They are the ones who dig, who feed the children, who cook the meals, who pay the bills . . . you name it. I visited one of our children’s homes the other day and found her mother in the “kitchen” hut, slaving away over a smoking fire, stirring dinner, while feeding one of her babies in her left arm at the same time—all while kneeling.

Sarah’s husband died and his family stole all of her belongings. She was left with nothing. Ruth’s nephew took her bank card and emptied her bank account. And all of them speak quite transparently about their immediate anger and then just as quickly, their need to forgive and trust God.

Auma Josephine told me today that when I go home, I still need to call her and see how she’s doing. For those of you who will see a lot of me this summer, I hope you ask me if I’ve called her. Don’t forget to keep me from forgetting.

For those of you who are still amazed by this process of paper beads, I’d love to show you in detail how they do it when I get home. They’ve trained me well. We’ve been rolling a lot of beads lately and cutting paper on our new paper cutter. We’ve also been meeting every Tuesday and saving our money together. We talked today about how I’ll have to come back in December or January if I want to see my money again; that’s when they open the village bank. I might start praying for just that.

Thank you again to all of you who support me in such wonderful ways. I look forward to seeing you again soon and being able to thank you with stories that you made possible during my time here. Our God is so creative, so humorous, so loving. I can’t wait to share with you more of how I saw Him during my time here in Gulu.

Til next time.