In praise of the sun...

We have had THREE DAYS IN A ROW of hot sunshine. Temps in the high 70s and even 80. The sky has been blue, there has been a warm wind, - and I feel so normal. I had to pull out my summer clothes (ie, Uganda clothes!) from the basket where they had been well hidden for the last seven months. I remember saying in Uganda how we never got to change our wardrobes as we wore the same things all year round. Here, clothes get completely forgotten about in the course of a season, and yesterday I was caught by surprise as I found t-shirts and sleeveless tops I had forgotten I had bought. Mostly second-hand in Owino Gold... But nice summery light clothes! The last time I wore the t-shirt I am wearing now was when we went chimp-trekking in Kibale Forest...

The warmth on the skin and light in the eyes makes me feel so different, yet so normal - this feels like the real me, in my sunglasses, with my arms getting brown.

But how can the weather make so much difference? How can it affect my state of mind SO much? Isn't that a bad thing? Is there anything in the Bible about that? And, how will I face next autumn and winter now I know how much better I feel in spring and summer? I am actually dreading the onset of autumn already! I am seriously considering getting one of those sun-lamps.

Sun I need you!

One Equal Light

It was my godmother's funeral today. I haven't been to many, but one in Zambia I remember as an awfully dark day. But today was bright and sunny. I was dreading the crematorium part but the chapel was filled with light. Before the lunch we stood outside in glorious sunshine. The church where the thanksgiving service took place later on had a massively wide stained glass window above the altar, so that the stone walls and the arrangements of purple and white flowers glowed in the rays of coloured light.

The main thing that allowed this light to shine and brighten the day was that she was peaceful and confident about where she was going.

This poem was printed in the programme:

Bring us, O Lord God,

at our last awakening,

into the house and gate of heaven,

to enter that gate and dwell in that house, 

where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,

but one equal light;

no noise nor silence, but one equal music;

no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;

no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity;

in the habitations of Thy glory and dominion,

world without end.

John Donne.

The Fun of Words...

Words are so fun. I am apparently a bit mixed-up in that I enjoy art and also word games - which normally don't go together I am told. Oh well. So this little article caught Dan and my attention in The Week and I know it will appeal to some of my friends in particular... It quotes from Robert Colville in the Daily Telegraph:

"Yesterday... my colleague introduced me to the hierarchy of adjectives. This is the unspoken rule that descriptions tend to go opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose: for example, "a lovely little 1970s Bakelite radio", or a "hideous new green crinoline dress." Put any of the words in the wrong order and the meaning breaks down. Thus Ken Livingstone (infamous British has-been politician) can be a "ghastly old socialist relic", but, "socialist ghastly old relic" sounds off."

Interesting - let's try describing ... Frodo - "an adorable playful little furry black dog" ... Dan - "my wonderful, kind, fun, fairly tall middle-aged American husband." Yes I think it works, but you should add in quality between opinion and size, don't you agree? How about UCU - "outstanding, growing, still young Christian university training young professionals in Uganda." Yep.

Running free

Owning a dog is so much more rewarding than I expected it to be, especially the walks. We have been a bit careful because Frodo, whilst very gentle and good, has not learned yet to obey many commands... He does now "sit" when we tell him to, and he "stops" and "waits," but we were not sure if he would "come," and we were afraid of losing him... We have been letting him run free in the large garden at Redcliffe because we can close both the gates there. But nowhere else. But I was so looking forward to letting him off the leash on a walk, so that he could run ahead and explore a bit and follow those oh so exciting smells that drive him crazy. But until he knew us well enough and until we trusted him to want to come back, we didn't feel safe letting him off.

But a few days ago I took him to a big field on the edge of a wood, and took courage and set him free. He LOVED it! He ran ahead, ran back, ran around me in circles, followed his nose, rolled in the grass (that is, in something in the grass...) But he kept waiting for me when he got ahead, and if he lost sight of me, he would come tearing back around the corner to find me.

It made me think in a way of God's desire for that relationship with us as his people. Not that we are like his pets as such...  but, what fun it is to have a dog running free and happy alongside me when I am walking, keeping within sight of me and even waiting for me. So much nicer than having him on the leash, knowing he wants to go faster or further but restraining him in case he runs and never comes back. I am sure this is why God gave us free will, so that he could enjoy the Walk with us this much more. To enjoy that mutual love and companionship.

Of course, letting Frodo off means he probably will run away from time to time... Sometimes his love for us gets momentarily forgotten, subsumed by a sudden curiosity, a new, too-tempting smell, a rabbit, a duck... Today in the park, Frodo was suddenly a ball of black fur bombing away from us towards a group of training football players - but he veered off to where their piles of kit lay and I caught up with him as he was rambling around from pile to pile sniffing the men's shoes and jumpers! What I do know is that I will always catch up with him, because I will always chase him as far and as fast as it takes until I find him and get him back. If necessary I'd call the police, even the helicopters! So I also know God gives us freedom and lets us run, but if we are his, he will never lose us to ourselves, or let us completely run away forever, he will never give up on the relationship he has with us. Unlike us getting a dog though, he does not pick us out and dump us into his kingdom and family - that is our choice.

This is a Tibetan terrier but it is not a picture of Frodo (it has more white on the front than Frodo) - but it gives you an idea of how beautiful Frodo looks when he is running towards me. He looks exuberant, and I feel exuberant, to see his fluffy chest hurtling towards me, his front legs bounding forward, his ears flying back in the wind. Even more than this dog Frodo looks as though he is smiling when he bounds towards me. So beautiful. Don't you think God feels this way when we run back to him?

Leftovers --- yummy!

Reading an article in the esteemed Saturday Mail... so this MUST be true...! Apparently the average family in Britain dumps food worth 680 pounds per year (= about 2.5 million USh). Britain as a nation throws away enough food annually to fill Wembley Stadium nine times over per year, or, 7.2 millions tons of food, worth 12 billion pounds. Apparently 5 million potatoes get thrown away every day. How they counted them I have no idea... But according to this paper, most of the food thrown away is fruit and veg, bread and other perishables which have gone off.

The point of the article is to announce that a new food packaging has been invented and is being used by some supermarkets already, made of natural substances, which allows moisture to escape and so prevents the food going mouldy, so that it stays fresh and edible for longer. It is made by a firm called EVAP. It does sound great. Bring it on!

My thought was, "How can we waste so much food?!!"

I don't throw away much at all, and my fridge is usually cluttered with little pots of leftovers which Dan usually eats (!) Not sure if that is good... but if the leftovers could go towards another proper meal, it would a) save us money b) use less resources c) waste less - which is good in itself isn't it?

So I thought I would put down here a couple of things I do with leftovers, and if anyone has any good recipes/ideas for using leftovers constructively, other than just microwaving them later, please tell me.

Uneaten bread crusts and any ends of loaf which have gone stale I put in the freezer, and use them for breadcrumbs another time, usually to put into meatloaf or hamburgers. Or for "stuffing" (dressing). I have recently revived a chocolate bread and butter pudding recipe which is really great as well for using slightly stale bread. And is yummy!

Leftover mashed potatoes can be refried as a patty in a frying pan, and if there is any leftover cooked green vegetable at the same time, you can chop it up, and mix it into the mashed potatoes before frying - that makes an old British favourite called "Bubble and Squeak" and is actually really delicious!
Promise!

I use leftover rice by cooking it in a frying pan with a beaten egg and any veggies, as fried rice.

Any bits of vegetables left in the bottom section of the fridge can be cooked up together in stock and blended for soup - known as "Bottom of the River" soup by a friend's mum.

Leftover baked or boiled potatoes get cut up into chunks and used in Spanish omelette which we all love. Leftover sausages/ frankfurters get sliced and put on pizza.

I would love to hear any other good ideas for using leftovers... Saving the planet one leftover potato at a time!

An interesting fact...

Today Abigail Alex and I went back to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge. We watched three beautiful otters playing; we fell in love with a moorhen chick; we went to "Africa"...

... and felt we had stepped through a door into Uganda when we entered the Tropical House...

Because we will probably go there lots of times, (family membership...!), I announced to the children on the way in that I wanted to learn one really interesting fact today. And I did, and this was it:

In the amphibians section is one tank with a repulsive, large, white toad floating upright and motionless in the middle. Abby thought it was dead at first. But when it suddenly moved, its webbed white feet revealed themselves to have sharp black claws - you've guessed it, it was an African Clawed Toad!

Well, the innocuous sign below it read something like this: "The African Clawed Toad was kept as a laboratory animal in the 1960's. It was used for testing for pregnancy. When a woman's urine was injected into it, if she was pregnant the toad would produce eggs within 24 hours."

!!!

Cow-parsley and buttercups...

We have just endured about ten rainy days in a row - talk about April showers. April inundations more like. The reports said it was the wettest April in England since records began - but I feel as though I have heard that so many times before... But yesterday afternoon it cleared up and today was beautiful, sunny, clear blue skies, and England felt so clean and the air felt fresh, so that breathing it in was like taking long drinks of water.

Frodo gives me the perfect excuse to put off the housework and other jobs and go out walking in the lanes and fields around Gloucester. This daily amble in the countryside in the company of a friendly animal is reminding me so much of my childhood when I used to ride my pony off into the woods after school every day. In my teenage years I spent hours with Saxon and later Lucky, riding through the woods or on the moors, sometimes with another friend but often on my own. I remember soaking in nature, and talking away to myself in my head, day-dreaming, singing if I was sure no-one was around, talking aloud to the pony who twitched his ears forward and back and nodded his large head agreeably. I was never bored, never lonely. I loved those hours and hours of being outdoors in the peace and in nature.

I think I had forgotten in the interim how much I relished that solitude and freedom, and trees and fields and streams and toadstools and foxes and moss-covered rocks and ferns and flowers and clouds and sky. As a student and then in my working life in England and then Africa, I was hardly ever alone really - my work and home was always in community, and I have always had quite a lot going on socially even though I wouldn't say I had particularly many friends (- although always enough). I remember when we were drawing pictures of ourselves in early days at UCU in Louise's expat women's fellowship, drawing a picture of a hornbill in a tree and saying, "I like to get away into nature" - but I hardly ever actually did it. Although when at one point in the middle of our time I got over-busy in Mukono, I did try to go up monkey hill once a week and sit on a rock and watch birds and have a prayer time.

Walking with Frodo over the last two weeks has re-opened my eyes to the sheer pleasure of rambling past the cow-parsley and buttercup filled hedges, hearing birds singing, seeing rabbits bounce away into the grass, talking to the dog, communicating with God, just "being," surrounded by nature. I love this world God made. I think I'm going to turn into a crazy old lady, - and I might do it soon!

Thoughts on mission...

On Friday morning I was part of a panel of returned mission partners speaking to about fifteen Redcliffe College students who are on a short course called PIM - "Professionals in Mission." So they were a slightly older group than the full time students, some of them GPs and one a teacher, about to go off to work long term in Asia, Africa and two in Britain.

Redcliffe College - where Dan will start working soon!

                                                                (www.redcliffe.org)

We had been asked to talk about our experiences to help prepare the students for the culture shock, changes, and adjustments that await them when they finally, (in the near future now), arrive in their new homes.

Specifically we were asked what was the biggest change we had to come to terms with, what good advice we had been given before going, what were the most difficult challenges in relation to our gender, and for our children.

All three of us on the panel had a fair bit to say...

At one point one of the Dutch students said, "If there are so many difficulties, why do you even bother going?" One of us then explained that we had been asked to talk about what changes had been difficult for us, not what had been easy! And we then all talked about all the positives that there were as well...!

But I did smile ruefully at that question, because I know at some points while in Africa I had wondered "Why do people come?" "Why am I here?" and "Wouldn't it have been better for the first missionaries not to have come at all?" And at some points "I really don't think teams of short-termers should come!" And also, "Why do people far away keep giving money to people and causes here they know nothing about?" It is possible to become disillusioned about mission and about aid work, probably mostly when you are too hot and tired and have been stuck in a traffic jam and been called muzungu for the tenth time that day, and told "You give me my money" by a group of kids... It is possible also to feel defeated by the amount of need all around - not so much on campus (although many students struggled) as driving past the informal settlements and markets to Kampala, the people at the roadsides in mud shacks, so poor, with holey brown-stained clothes and no shoes. (If any of my Ugandan friends are reading this, please don't feel offended - I also get tired and fed up with my husband and children from time to time!)

But even on those days, I still loved all the beauty of Africa, and the quality, love, warmth and Christian character of loads of our students and colleagues. When I felt a bit tired of the whole thing, this is what I held onto, as well as these things I was convinced of: 1. Uganda is developing, and is amazing in so many ways; 2. we were called to be there, helping UCU and having input into people's lives; 3. I believe that Christians ought to help out in many different ways, where help is needed and where one's talents lie: so if you feel burdened about orphans, help orphans; if you feel burdened about maternal health and you have expertise in that area, help with that area. God gives us these passions, these interests and these abilities in order for us to use them for his purposes, and so we should: I felt called to teach in Africa and to help equip students for ministry; 4. Lastly, I believe that educating young Ugandan (or other) Christians so that they can take professional leadership in Uganda (or elsewhere) is one of the best things for missionaries to be doing. That is in line with the interest and the skills God has given me. But it is, actually, one of the very best things missionaries can be doing!

But, sometimes it felt as though mission is all too patronising still, our ideas and insistences too western.
And also, the longer I lived in Africa, the more I realised how deep culture goes and how people, we, will be thinking and acting out of our culture in ways that we may never realise or fathom - me as a Brit, all the other missionaries as Americans, and Ugandans as not only Ugandans but as Batooro, Baganda, Bakiga... That is why training Ugandans to lead and teach in Uganda is a great idea... Seems like a no-brainer.

In spite of my mixture of emotions and reactions to mission and sometimes missionaries, I do still believe in mission. (Good thing!) I know God can use anyone. But my view is that it is all about your motivation, and therefore the attitude you have when you go: you have to go because you feel called; you have to have a testimony, because that is really all you can offer; you have to love people, because that is what the people who receive you notice the most, more than any skill you offer; you have to go as a Learner, and a Helper, because that is the kind of person you would want to show up in your church or community, right?; you have to be flexible, to be willing to do anything that is needed to help, not to come with a set task, or time-frame, in mind.

All that's needed is humility, patience (did I mention that yet?), love, flexibility, grace... No wonder I got a bit discouraged at times!  So OK you don't have to be a saint, because, you can't. You also have to be yourself, and you have to be real. So you need someone you can offload onto, and you need to have breaks, and downtime. And chocolate.

And there you have it: Rosie's theory of missions.

Rays of Ugandan sunshine...

Two weeks running we have had two lovely visits from Uganda,  - and next month we are looking forward to another one. (Yay Gwyn!)

Last Monday evening our Canadian friend Heather Lennox was en route from Uganda to London, Ontario, and caught a bus from Heathrow to Oxford to meet us for dinner - Oxford being a good mid-way point to meet, but still involving quite a bit of travelling for both parties (sorry Heather!) But it was definitely worth it. We had to talk really fast to cover as much as we could, and we did pretty well. She brought some notes and gifts from friends in Uganda, and two bags of groundnuts which was a special request for Alex who adores them. We don't know when we'll see Heather again... but we really hope we will. She is a great person and a lovely friend. It reminded me again of the catch 22 of living the ex-pat life - you make wonderful friendships and then go and live on opposite sides of the world from so many of them. But with skype and email at least these friendships are more meaningfully sustainable than they used to be.

And today we had some Ugandan visitors, Bishop Cranmer Mugisha and his wife Mama Hope. Cranmer was one of our very first students at UCU. The first term we lectured there was the January 2004 semester, and Cranmer was in a small group of students I taught NT Greek. At that time the number of classes and students at UCU was exploding, and classes outnumbered the classrooms - so I taught this group outside under a tree, carrying a large whiteboard and wooden stand out onto the grass. Felt like a real Africa missionary. (It was pretty hilarious because the whiteboard had been used by a teacher, presumably in some health class, who had mistakenly written with permanent marker, so all our Greek lessons were adorned with the words "pubic lice" across the bottom of the board. We all studiously ignored them.) 

Anyway, Cranmer was made Bishop of Muhabura about five years ago. He and his wife are here for six weeks visiting various friends and churches, and happened to be coming to Gloucester, so we were able to host them here for the afternoon. It was so lovely to see them. Bp Cranmer is one of those warm people whom you are just glad to know. We enjoyed hearing the latest news from the church, and having a taste of Uganda, and having a Mama sitting on our sofa again.