But, I needed the coffee this evening. Flavours, one of our favorite haunts in Jinja, has a serene garden with the coolest couches on the porch. It’s the perfect place to curl up with a cup of English coffee and a husband and a book. (Third confession: We never read our books. We always end up talking, with our books in hand.) It’s the perfect place to unwind after a hard day.

And, yes, today was a hard day. 

Sometimes you leave the orphanage happy and dirty and tired. Other times you leave it tired and dirty and happy.

And other times you leave on the brink of tears.

Today was a teary day, the kind where you leave with your emotions tumbled inside and upside down and your soul bone-tired. 

One thing after another happened, reminding us how  much pain is in the children’s hearts, how their stories are shaped in loss. Their little minds and hearts cannot process it all. Often the pain and loss comes out in tantrums, fights, screams and tormenting actions.  It’s tear-jerking to look into their confused and angry eyes, knowing the longing for security and love is screaming inside as they act like little hooligans. (And, really, isn’t that true of all of us when we throw tantrums in our adult ways?)

Today we needed a boat-load of wisdom and tanker-load of grace; we needed that tough, gentle Jesus love for the little kiddos. 

And I needed that cup of coffee at Flavours this evening and a peaceful, still garden to sip it in.

The children rarely experience new things.

Their world is small.

If you heard them in the packed van on the way to the playground, you’d have picked up on that very quickly. Every child glued to the window, screaming with delight over cars and cows and sidewalks and bridges and trees and birds. If a child teaches us to see the world with new eyes and delight in small things, it’s doubly so with these little orphans. Bumping down a busy African road is like going to a birthday party with balloons and gooey chocolate cake to them. I think the children were almost worn out from excitement from the drive.  But when we arrived at the playground, don’t worry, they found their energy again.

We loved seeing the children be challenged and explore a big playground. It was so good for them to problem solve, process and discover in this safe environment.

Of course, the jumping and swinging sometimes ended in a heap. Our first aid kit came in handy several times. The child who received the band aid was the envy of the group.

We lined up for a snack of biscuits, water and lollipops. Here some of the boys attempted to be quiet while in line.

I love watching the children pray:  eyes squinched tight, hands together and an earnest, concentrated look on the face.

We ended the day tired, sore and dirty from hard play. The children slept long and hard for their naps when we got back. A big thanks to Amazima Ministries for allowing us to use their playground.  It was a day the little ones will not forget for a long time.

There is a pull on my skirt, a little hand reaching for mine. I look down and see him. He is saying, “Mama, we want chalk.” More children gather around. Chalk. They want chalk. And chalk they get.

It’s a hive of little bees when the chalk comes out. They buzz around with their chalk drawing on anything and anyone.  I have never seen chalk become so messy. By the time we are finished, everyone is covered with chalk from head to toe.

I love how delighted the children are with simple pleasures of life: chalk, reading a book, playing an imaginary game with leaves and sticks, building something out of nothing. They spin with delight over a lollipop and dance for a biscuit. A push on the swing or a tight hug makes them giddy with happiness.  An airplane in the sky or a chicken along the road make it a red-letter day.

Out of necessity these children are experts at building something out nothing, creating treasures out of stones and miracles out of simple gestures of love. Their ingenuity, their thankfulness and their ability to create something wonderful out of nothing challenges me to be aware of the myriad of gifts surrounding me today.

The children teach me so much every day about celebrating life, even when it is broken and sullied.

I look at the world through their eyes and it is gleaming with gifts and miracles. Isn’t it ironic that these children who have so little are teaching me what it means to be thankful?  A child piled in expensive toys still cries for more, while the child with only a stick is content for hours. What is the difference?

Everything is sprinkled with fairy-dust and the world is a magical place when we are thankful for little things and see Something in nothing.

They cannot say Delmar and Lauren. Our names metamorphosize to Dello and Lola. We love being Uncle Dello and Mama Lola but sometimes we need a break. This Friday we had a special treat. Out of the blue we were offered a  free ride to a resort perched on the Nile.  We talked it over and decided to say no to the offer. And then we talked it over some more and changed our minds. We are so glad we changed our minds and said yes. ( Can we all say serendipitous at the same time!?)

We left this (a political rally on the streets of Jinja):

And stepped into this…

Wild monkeys ran the trees, up and down and upside down. They offered lots of free entertainment.

We walked down the the beach.  With our feet dangling in the Nile River, we enjoyed the quietness.

A true moment of rest.

We decided to take a portrait. Delmar stole a kiss.

Don’t worry, I got him back.

Friday was an answer to prayer. It rejuvenated our spirits to plunge back in the fray and become Uncle Dello and Mama Lola again.  

Thank you, God. You always know just what we need. 

Delmar wiped spilled food and pee from the floor. We both had on plastic gloves. I tackled a particularly messy wooden chair, owned by a child wild with his rice and soup. As I scrubbed it, I looked at Delmar, “Why exactly did we decide to stay here longer?” Delmar rinsed out his rag in the smelly, yellow water and boyishly grinned at me. I grinned back.

Yes, we are staying longer. Four months isn’t long enough, so we extended our trip to half a year. We will be home in May. In a way, it’s an easy decision. Our work here is not done. We feel it in our bones. We are grateful to love on these people for just a bit longer. Uganda and its people have stolen our hearts hook, line and sinker.

Pray for us as we are now not even half way done with our trip. Sometimes we see some sad stuff, and sometimes it is emotionally taxing. The needs and pain are never ending around us. Loss is everywhere. We get tired. Pray God will give us strength and love to keep serving the beautiful, broken people called has God us to right now.

Thanks for being our friend and, in a way, journeying with us here in Uganda. We feel your love and support.

How do you celebrate a child in a world that has abandoned them? 

It’s a question we ask ourselves daily. It’s something we pray God will help us do everyday.

On Saturday, we did it this way.

We had a Celebrating You Party. Lollipops were sucked and faces were painted. Happy smiles and bright eyes flashed and giggles floated in the dry, hot African morning.

I love sitting the child down, letting him feel the paint go over his face. I love how he melts in the undivided attention for just a few minutes. In a world where the child is given no choices, I love allowing him to choose his colors.

The squirmiest child sits still as the paint swirls on his cheek. He drinks in the celebration. As I show the reflection of him in the mirror, the tiger boy staring back at himself, he giggles and makes faces. In a world where children grow up too early, I love allowing him to be an innocent child for a few minutes.

As I tip his chin, gently hold his cheek, paint blue on his nose– I pray for his future. I pray someone will come and claim him as their very own. I pray he will experience love and celebration by a real mom and a real dad–and a real God.

I paint only his face.

God is painting his story.

It seems to me that a lot of greys and blacks have been used on his canvas. I pray for an explosion of  grace, swirled in happy colors, in his young life, very soon. He is waiting.

And then realization softly comes to me. I can add a happy color to his canvas of grey: if only swirl, a dot of celebration.

A smile, a tiger face, a lollipop, a tight hug, a story, a cup of cold water, a toss of a ball, a dish of food, a loving word: it is the color of celebration.

A bright, powerful color. God’s favorite color. 

Le’ts paint the world wildly with the color, starting with the person next to us and  then pouring it onto the 147 million orphans.

They are within our brush-stroke, if we just reach our hand out and feel. 

We puttered through the choppy waters, sloshing slowly through the little waves. Our guide patted the boat affectionately saying, “It’s a sturdy boat that will not sink.” He said it as he began taking water out of the boat’s bottom with a blue plastic container.  We tried not to stare and settled into the hard benches for a long day on the second largest lake of the world.

We were told once upon a time the island people hid whenever they saw a boat nearing their shores. The island town began with political refugees fleeing for their lives in the 1980′s. Times have changed and there was no hiding or fear today.

The island smelled of poverty and fish.

Many of the children never saw car, never set foot off the island. This is their world.

What will their lives be like in twenty years?

Delmar plays football with one of the island boys. ( Sidenote: I love exploring the world with my husband. )

The beauty and despair of the almost-forgotten-island with its almost-forgotten people haunts me tonight.

The sky ran blue and spilled into Lake Victoria’s coolness. We sailed the coolness all day in a wooden boat. Our last stop was a leper colony. We docked on its shores with a loud thud and awkwardly hopped onto land.

We met old men and women, disfigured with a lost look in their eye. One man had been here since 1949; he came a twelve year old boy. He never left the colony.

They gratefully received us, almost as children. They held out their hands to be touched. Human contact, flesh on flesh, a  basic human need, longing to be filled. I knew that they were no longer contagious, thanks to modern medicine, but I still flinched as the first one reached towards me. I berated myself inside and grasped her arm in love.

No one warmly caresses them, holds their hands in warmth, or cuddles close to discuss the day. Most have no hand to hold. And even if they did, many could not feel.

We gave candy.  The man had no fingers and could not untwist the wrapper.  Here is Delmar opening the wrapper. The man smiled as he sucked on the sweetness.

What is leprosy? Loosely it is bacteria tearing into the nervous system. The bacteria destroys the nerve endings;  advanced leper patients have a total loss of physical pain. Leper patients have been known to wake up with their fingers eaten by rats because they could not feel the chewing in the night.

As I look at the men and women, lives destroyed because of numbness, I bow my head and think of that many times I despised pain. I stub my toe and yowl. I cut myself and wince. My shoulder tightens and it hurts. I wish it wouldn’t hurt. I want something and don’t get it, my heart is broken. A dream is crashed. A hope is disappointed. A loved one falls. I wish it wouldn’t hurt. 

I see pain as the enemy. I try everything to keep the pain at bay:  distraction, activity, ignoring, running. Anything to make the pain stop, to make the heart ease its ache. If I feel pain, something is wrong.

But, pain is a gift. Do I dare say it: pain is a best friend? It alerts me that something is wrong. It shows me there is healing that must take place. It reminds me I am human. It sounds the siren that I need a doctor, that I need a God. 

Leprosy is a picture of what it looks like when we numb our hearts to pain. When we don’t go deep, don’t go there, don’t face that because it hurts too much.  We close ourselves to the siren alarm and slowly bleed to death.

And the leprosy begins to slither into the heart, winds itself into the nerve endings with a death grip — and wipe out the whole person. Because… If you cannot feel pain, you cannot feel joy. 

Just as my leper friend could not feel a rat gnawing on her hand, she cannot feel my tender caress on her arm. When you are numb to pain, you are numb to joy.

Leprosy can be dormant for a long time before it begins to manifest. You look perfect but inside you are beginning to unravel. The disease slowly takes over.

The same with leprosy of the heart. 

It may look like the person numbed out to her feelings is the most together, the most spiritual, the most with it.  She isn’t ruffled, she doesn’t cry– nothing seems to bother her. She smiles, big and wide, always. Everything is always okay, there are never any problems.  She is, well, perfect. A good girl everyone loves.

But inside she is blank and bleeding, numbed out to who she really is and what life is really about.

I was taught in many ways to be that kind of girl. To not embrace pain too tightly, to not feel too deeply, to get over things easily and quickly, to numb out so that I could look perfect.  Why? Because pain is messy and no one likes messes, right? And, the obvious, pain hurts.

I had leprosy. It took years of awakening my heart to really know what it means to embrace pain as a friend, to learn how to process my feelings and past and pain, to dare to truly be known and to know others around me. To be okay with me, my feelings, my ups and my downs. 

Leprosy is wedded to loneliness. When I refuse to embrace my pain, to listen to the siren and go for healing, I become less of a person–  less of who God created me to be. I become disfigured and my deformities drive me further into hiding. Everyone wants to know and be known; lepers down the ages didn’t have that privilege. They were hidden, banished, shunned. As a leper of the heart, it is the same–except it’s me who hides, banishes and shuns my own self. I take the privilege away from myself.

Embracing pain is messy; tears do make the mascara run and the eyes red; mourning does hurt; facing the past does knock the wind out of you– but on the other side is life and wholeness. Pain begins healing. 

We left the leper colony, crawled into our wooden boat and began our two hours of sloshing on the waves back to Jinja. The touch of the leper still lingered on our hands. I hope it always stays there to remind me that pain is a gift. 

We began to dream of going overseas and experiencing the orphan’s world firsthand.

This is us with the committee who made the banquet a success. 

In spring 2011 we moved to a house up the road from Camp Andrews. The house was a welcome change: further from camp with more elbow room.  We enjoyed hosting parties at our house and kept our evenings full with entertaining.

Summer 2011 brought summer camp and exploding activity. Delmar began leading urban wilderness trips throughout the summer. Days were full of kids and staff and camp life. Lauren had many plans and aspirations for the summer:  they all crashed when she was diagnosed with mono in late May. Her summer came to a grinding halt.  Mono kept her down until September.

This is the great crew whom we had the privilege of working with at Camp Andrews. 

This is Delmar hard at work with his newly developed bike program at Camp Andrews. Every child deserves a chance at learning to ride a bike, and here it becomes a reality for many of those children. 

The dream of going overseas to volunteer at an orphanage began to take a more definite shape. We applied to volunteer at Welcome Home Children’s Home in Jinja, Uganda for four and a half months starting in early November 2011. Uganda became the backdrop of our lives.

In autumn 2011 days started to get cooler and summer camp ended. Delmar’s 18 month internship at Camp Andrews came to a close.

Our dates for the last month were spent at the Travel Health Center and getting shots together.

On our first year anniversary, October 30, we stood in front of church and had a send-off prayer. It was the best way to celebrate our anniversary.

On November 2 we traveled to Uganda. Our time here has been better than our dreams. God is continuing to build a foundation of James 1:27 in our lives.

We are celebrating Christmas and New Year this year by ourselves but with warm thoughts to you all back home.  We end this year with our hearts full with love for God, for life, for each other.

We look back to our first year of marriage in 2011 as a year of learning to become one.

We love being a team together in life and anticipate discovering together what God has for us in 2012 and beyond.

Thank you for being a friend.

We wish you a happy 2012, full of loving those next to you extravagantly.

This is us enjoying one of our favorite spots in Jinja. We often come here during our lunch break when the children at the home are settled down for naps. We read, eat an omelette, share an iced latte and take a moment to breathe.

Below is a picture of Delmar relaxing on our off day at another cafe down the street called Flavours. We visit Flavours on special occasions and enjoy the fun vibe. It’s a place where we breathe long and slow.

I’ve been told a million times (if not a billion) in my life how I need to learn how to relax more. I’m a task-oriented person who likes to be busy and see projects done. While I have made a intentional effort in life to savour the moments and celebrate life, it still sometimes feels like pulling teeth for me to actually stop and breathe. Delmar, on the other hand, is a perfect balance between work and rest. He works hard and rests hard. I am learning so much from him.

I’m learning to breathe from him, long and slow.

I’m learning to retreat and regroup– with no guilt, no but-think-of-everything-i-could-be-doing-right-now.

Because taking care of myself is crucial in me being able to take care of others.

Jesus words make me twitch a smile and know that God has been dealing with people like me for a very long time. What a relief to know that God doesn’t expect me to a superwoman and burn out like a rocket. I’m beginning to respond more readily, more eagerly to his invitation of rest.

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31

It has something to do with my personality, something to do with a warped perspective I bought into for way too many years how the perfect Christian burns out for God, something to do with loving to be busy: but all of those somethings have caused me to hold my breath tight and work like a crazed dog, especially when I’m at a place like this where needs clamor loud.

But who wants to be with a person blue in the face from holding her breath, blood-shot eyed from working too hard, and cranky because she doesn’t take the time to eat? Not many people, I can assure you.

So every Friday we tuck away and withdraw so that we will be better workers on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and throughout the week.

It’s been a long journey of my twenties to know the balance between saving and savouring the world. The battle is still being fought. But, I do love more and more the quiet days of regrouping

and good books by the pool side on days off

and long, deep, slow breaths of rest

and a patient husband who has the knack of knowing when the wife needs to retreat and take a break

and I’m hearing more and more clearly Jesus’ loving invitation to rest and take a break.