Some faces from the past. And, did they really use to travel like that?!!

We are putting together a book of old pictures of Bishop Tucker, hopefully in time for the centenary event this year. Rev John Hunter sent us this one, and I thought a lot of you might enjoy seeing it. John Hunter was a principal of the college from 1962-65, and he visited again in 1993 which is when this photo was taken. So I can name a few of the staff from 1993 but not all of them. The ones I know, l - r, are,
-----, ----- , Eliphaz Maari, ----, Elisha Mbonigaba, ----, -----, Lusania Kasamba,  John Magumba. John Hunter was here with his son Christopher. Any filling in of names appreciated...

This shows John Hunter's mother, who had lived in Uganda long before her son, travelling from Kampala to Toro circa 1909, in what they called "landies". Incredible. The road on the other hand, doesn't look much different...

Meeting Mrs Burkitt

This week has been a helterskelter of meeting up with old friends and new.

This week we have seen our former student friends Andrew and Carien, on a visit from the Netherlands, who taught us Carcassonne and Settlers!!! Yay! Also our friend Andy Sexton stayed with us, whose family we are very close to from Uganda days. Yay! I also spent 24 hours in Devon with my parents. We also had a Trustees meeting for UCU UK Partners and met with Tudor Griffiths, a former misionary in Mukono, from the 1970s. We also had our second ever meeting of our brand-new home group, with our new friends, former Wycliffe Ethiopia missionaries Simon and Lynn Caudwell, and another lady from our church.

On Tuesday, we drove to a small Cotswold village to meet a lady who had lived in Uganda for twenty years from 1943 to 63, Mrs Burkitt, wife of the surgeon Denis Burkitt, who worked first in Lira and then at Mulago for those twenty years.

It was a real privilege and so interesting to meet her, and to hear her stories of Uganda back in those days, taking out her young children via a six week boat voyage. Amazingly, she had masses of black and white photos, really clear and quite large, albums full - so we saw her and Denis on the shores of Lake Victoria, at the Nile Dam when it was first opened, shots of Makerere when it was a single grand building surrounded by trees and bush, a thatched bush hospital in Hoima, the Paraa ferry, and so on and so on. They were very good friends with the Taylors, which is how we got in touch with this lady.

It was like a trip into the past for us, to a green, beautiful, orderly, groomed Kampala, Mulago and Jinja, before the chaos, by the look of these photos at least, before the traffic, tarmac, potholes and pollution, before the rubbish piles at the roadsides, before the Maribou Storks. It looked so clean, tropical, and well-kept.

You might know that Denis Burkitt became very well-known for the medical discoveries he made during his work and then research in Uganda. He discovered what became called Burkitt's Lymphoma. He also discovered the importance of a high fibre diet, linking it to the prevention of colon cancer: so a book about his life was entitled "The Fibre Man." I remember my mother hearing about it on the radio and getting all excited about us eating brown rice, wholemeal flour and brown sugar, when I was very young. Although I didn't like the heavy food that resulted!

So, it was a wonderful morning, and an honour to meet Olive.  I hope we will get to visit her again and see more of the pictures and hear more stories. What struck me most, as it did when I read John Taylor's prayer letters, was that, although life was simpler maybe and Uganda less developed - no electricity, no internet, no supermarkets, no phones - still many issues of living far from home, living with househelp, learning culture, cross-cultural relationships and expectations, eating local foods, finding out how to spend days off, spending a lot of time reading, and eating with friends, were just the same as we are familiar with. Of course things have changed, and our global village may be shrinking but, missionaries are still strangers in a strange land, "bazungu," and I don't think that will ever go away.

Crossing cultures - how is your blue line?

This diagram was part of the Thrive (Preparation for Missions) Lecture today, on Culture and Culture-Shock/Stress.

I delegated the lecture (yay!) to ECM missionary Jim Memory, who has worked in Spain for some years and still divides his time between Redcliffe College, and Spain.

The diagram speaks for itself, but, it is useful to see where you are on the line... Jim pointed out that it is the classical Cultural Adaptation diagram, often used - but, it is a bit simplistic. For one thing, you may or may not have a honeymoon phase when you arrive, or arrive home, depending on your expectations and how much they are met initially. Also, the expectation seems to be according to this, that when you reach the Adaptation stage, your emotional well-being goes along in a straight line. Well obviously it doesn't, and all kinds of things can change it. For some people, they are more happy than they have ever been once they have adapted well to the new culture - so their blue line would be running along way above its original level, while others may run along at a slightly depressed level even though adapted fairly well. For me, the stage my children were at and my capacity/energy/time to be involved in teaching and the community affected my blue line a lot. I would say from the time I arrived in Uganda, my blue line went gradually downwards... not too badly, but to some extent.

On Culture Shock, Jim said he prefers the term Culture Stress to Culture Shock, in that it is a steady and continuing factor not just the one-off at the start. I did get about two days of what I would actually call culture shock, when I first arrived in Zambia in 1992: we were in a small, crowded car driving to my rural mission station, with one older missionary who was driving us, two brand-new short-termers (one of whom was me), one Zambian lady with a newborn who cried A LOT, and two years worth of luggage... I was overwhelmed and mind-boggled by all that I was seeing out of the car windows, the dirt road, the bush, people walking walking walking everywhere, four grown men sitting in the shell of a rusted-out car, just sitting there, women with bundles on their heads, little bright vegetable stalls by the roadside, goats, chickens, ramshackle wooden booths, mud huts... and I felt scared stiff. When we stopped to buy some boiled eggs for lunch in a scruffy shop, I couldn't get out of the car. I couldn't eat anything either, and I didn't want to greet any of these African people. I wanted to just hide in the car. A good night's sleep and a second day of exposure made me feel better about it and when we arrived in our future home, I was OK.

I had a massive long honeymoon period, and the slowly wearing culture stress for me came really only in Uganda when I became so tired, and conflicted about mothering versus mission involvement, feeling guilty about some of my decisions...  actually there were of course many factors, which I won't list out here! But I was explaining to a student over lunch afterwards, that the cultural differences were normally very manageable for me, I had adapted very well I think, but, it was when I became over-tired and stressed about one/any thing, the other factors such as lack of privacy at home suddenly hit all the harder and became big issues. They get you when you are down! For me, the driving, heat, power cuts, and money issues were some of those triggers.

If I were doing a study on sustainability on the mission field, I would look into this and try to figure out how I could have overcome these things. To me then, the things (heat and power cuts etc) seemed immutable, and my choices (eg to drive the children to Kampala) seemed like the only choosable ones, and so, the downward blue line, was I suppose inevitable. For me I don't have to solve that now, I just have to finish recovering! And think how I would advise others going in future. It is not simple, is it.

What goes into a chicken pie?

Yesterday as I was making a chicken pie for supper, the time went by more than usually fast - because my mind was occupied thinking about the people who made a contribution to that pie. Took me on quite a journey...

It started with blending the pastry in a mixing bowl given to me in Zimbabwe - where I went to set up home with the contents of a three ft by two ft trunk... hence my first flat was extremely bare... A good friend from All Nations Christian College was working with her parents and siblings in Zimbabwe, running a lovely orphanage in a farming area outside Harare. Through Cheryl, I got to know her family, and her sister Gerrilyn was getting married to a pastor called Winston, so as she was starting over, she gave me some of her cooking equipment including these bowls, two floor rugs, some curtains and a sofa set. She basically saved me from living on a bare wooden floor! Although the sofa set got left behind in Zimbabwe, everything else is still in my possession, and I use those mixing bowls virtually every day, fifteen years later, and think of Gerrilyn every time. She and her husband now pastor a church in the US.

Rolled out the pastry on a glass board given to us for Christmas once by fellow-Uganda missionary Thom Froese, picked out for us at Game in Kampala... very handy and also used often... and I also appreciate Thom every time I look at the sepia photos of Paris on them...

Cooking the filling, I was thinking about Robyn, who gave me the recipe and promised me that her whole family even both daughters love this pie and eat every scrap... Robyn was a friend I made through the children's school, Ambrosoli, in Kampala - she is South African, we used to talk about books together a lot, and she then went and immigrated to Tasmania - really! - as her husband is a forester and works there now. We keep in touch a little bit, and it's true, I do love her pie.

Once the pie was out and looking pretty good, I must say (!), I couldn't help thinking about Florence, our helper in Uganda... this was one of the recipes I taught her to make, and, she used to make it perfectly every time. It was such a blessing and so blissful, to say to Florence in the morning, "Could you make us one of those chicken pies today?" - and to get home in the afternoon to find it ready and waiting for supper... Heavenly. I think of Florence almost every day - I don't miss her help as much as I did in the beginning, but, some days I would almost pay for her ticket just to have her here with her steady, unflappable, gently smiling manner, ready to do anything, at her own pace, but, she would get it done. I loved Florence! She would sympathise with me when I was flustered, tell me I needed a rest if I looked tired, tell me things were not my fault, tell me I had been working hard, agree with me that life is difficult, tell me my children were so good, and basically, she was on my side at every point.

So my mind travelled as I cooked, from Zimbabwe to the US to Uganda to Tasmania and back to Uganda again. And, the pie was pretty good. I can pass on the recipe to anyone who wants it - it is easy I promise!

Uganda Partners

A few days ago the Uganda Partners UK, for whom Dan has been working one day a week this past year, met again at Graham and Fiona Carrs' home near Oxford, and I was voted in as a trustee! So exciting! But one of the first proposals was that every trustee should aim to raise two thousand pounds and my heart sank... - you mean I have to do fund-raising?? But fortunately that idea got nixed pretty quickly - phew! Well of course the idea is to do some fund-raising... and I really will... but a hard and fast goal like that was just a bit scary (pathetic I know.)

The first newsletter to be emailed out to our database of supporters has been written by Dan (blood sweat and tears...), and after it has been circulated around the trustees, I will post a copy on here.
There is also a website for the Uganda Partners UK, and this is the link to it:

http://www.ugandapartners-uk.org

It looks great, but it is not quite finished yet I believe. But you can check it out if you are interested.

This is the current group of trustees, minus Tudor Griffiths who could not make it to this meeting.
The other new member is Julius Mucunguzi, a Ugandan who now lives in the UK and is the Communications Officer for the Commonwealth Secretariat, and a great guy. We are so happy to have him and his expertise on board.

l to r, Julius Mucunguzi, Roger Marsden, Chris Dobson, Graham Carr, Me, Dan

One plan already being worked on is to have a parallel centenary celebration event in Oxford on June 1st next year.

Whilst I feel more and more settled here in Gloucester, it also feels good to have a real connection with UCU and to feel we are still involved even in a small way. Recently I have reconnected with a couple of university friends, and got to know someone who was in Zambia at the neighbouring mission station to ours at the same time as me, and with my same mission (AEF), so we knew all kinds of friends in common - so I feel as though the threads from my former lives keep multiplying. I suppose the key is not to feel pulled in different directions by those threads, but to enjoy the sense of being in a tapestry which is still being sewn, growing and becoming fuller and richer, as it all interweaves over and over.

Flashback

This morning we went to the lovely church we have finally all agreed upon - this has been a long story... - and in the middle of the service I was suddenly back in Uganda, transported by a song.

We normally sing up-to-the-minute songs at our church, songs I have mostly never heard before since our Uganda fare was so South Africa based, or else traditional hymns. But today we had a baptism and so a couple of better-known songs had been chosen. The band started us off on "Oh Lord My God, when I in awesome wonder...." and suddenly I was back in Uganda, in Nkoyoyo Hall, standing in a long row of Ugandan students, lecturers and my family - usually with the Fountains somewhere nearby - if I looked to the back past hundreds of singing swaying students I would see Brian Dennison and the kids up in the higher rows at the back - usually a smattering of American USP students somewhere - often a few other muzungu visitors - but mostly hundreds of African students, staff, nurses, children, Mukono people, singing at the tops of their voices, some arms up in the air, some eyes closed, a group up on the stage in long lines smiling and dancing, making dust rise from the floor with their shifting feet, one student singing over-loud, enthusiastically and pretty often off-key into the mike... The overall emotions evident all around were love for Jesus, love of singing, love of movement, and love of being together. My own mind would enjoy those feelings and enter into them, I was almost always glad I was there, but I would also be aware of the heat, aware that we were singing for a very long time, and knowing that a long sermon was to come...

Church in Uganda was one place where I could feel homesick for my familiar church in Exeter, where we had comfortable seats and carpet, sang songs once or twice through only, had tweny-five minute, orderly, exegetical sermons, and where you knew the service wouldn't suddenly extend to two and a half hours for some function or extra special number... But church in Uganda was also where I sometimes specially felt excited to be living in Africa, when the students rushed onto the stage to dance with abandon to a song from their part of Uganda, or when students did hilarious sketches acted brilliantly (not always...), and when John Senyonyi or Fred Baalwa preached so brilliantly it made me proud to be there hearing them.

I haven't often time-warped back to Mukono so it caught me unawares this morning, but I liked it!

Happy St Bartholomew's Day, by the way.

Chinua Achebe

Hope Amazon doesn't mind...and, you can't look inside....
but there I've given them some much-needed advertising I guess...

Abby Bartels sent me a book for my birthday, "The Education of a British-Protected Child" by Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer of the famous "Things Fall Apart" and much more. This book is a collection of talks and pieces he has written on Nigeria, Africa, and colonialism. It is so interesting and well written, a very easy read but full of insights. I love his voice as much as anything; it is like sitting down with a John Senyonyi or an Eliphaz Maari - wise, critical but not hostile, humble, and both exasperated by and hopeful for Africa.

But, the book is making me feel a bit depressed for Africa at the same time, as I read about incidents from Achebe's childhood and early adulthood. And how the search for an African identity is still in process and is still needed. I didn't use to understand why so many of my colleagues' PhDs were on the lines of "In search of an African identity, an African theology, etc." As if it hadn't been found already. But reading this book has made me understand a bit more. Achebe describes how over the four hundred years since Europeans arrived in Africa, they have written and spoken stereotypes, in order to justify or rationalise  their treatment of Africa. In the second half of the last century, with independence, new images of Africa are arising, but there is still a lot of the old as well. And it takes a long time to emerge out of that, like a person who has been told for years and years that they are second-best, or not very clever, or ugly, or won't succeed.

Another new understanding for me came in a paragraph introducing his family:

"All my life I have had to take account of the million differences - some little, others quite big - between the Nigerian culture into which I was born, and the domineering Western style that infiltrated and then invaded it. Nowhere is the difference more stark and startling than in the ability to ask a parent: "How many children do you have?" The right answer should be a rebuke: "Children are not livestock!" Or better still, silence, and carry on as if the question was never asked." (p68)

I have asked that question so so many times, because I thought it was polite in Africa to be interested in a person's family! I remember being tickled once when the reply came: "...um, about eight." But I took this vague answer to be purposeful, rising from the feeling that if someone knew too much they could do some kind of harm to that family, rather than from an actual uncertainty of how many children they had. But now I wonder if the person actually objected to the question. I suppose thinking about it, one ought to ask "How is your family?" but perhaps not, "How many children are in your family?" Or maybe this is more sensitive in Nigeria than elsewhere. Eighteen years in Africa and still so much to learn!


Chinua Achebe's book Things Fall Apart was seminal and is read by nearly every African child in school, and I read it before going out to Zimbabwe, but now I want to read it again. Now I feel excited about African Literature all over again. Thanks Abby!

One Year On...

It is just over a year since we left Uganda. Can't believe it has been that long already. For me the first half of the year went by soooo slooowly. Everything seemed to be difficult and challenging; it seemed like I was climbing an interminable mountain of tasks and church visits. But in about March, when the church visits were over, we started choosing how to spend weekends, we stopped travelling about, and when life settled into more of a routine, then life quickened and became manageable, work became less scary and more under control, and things suddenly started to rush along. I began to feel as though I was building a new life, making new friends, actually enjoying things. It partly coincided with my embarking on my chocolate cure... And largely was just a matter of time, as relationships and involvements do grow slowly.

So suddenly I find myself struggling to believe we have been here a year.

Looking back on my experiences, I would probably give these tips to anyone starting out on the returnee lark...

Give yourself plenty of time, as in, don't rush into any commitments or job if possible, and allow yourself to have breaks, weekends to yourselves as a family, or with your family or familiar friends, every other weekend at least. It is tiring and you need downtime...
Don't expect to feel at home for ages. Don't feel sad if you don't yet feel at home.
Treat yourself to the things you have been missing... I didn't let myself indulge in either much chocolate or much alcohol until about February. I don't know why really - partly because I was doing the shopping, and I was trying to keep within a very small budget.
Don't pretend you know what is going on, but ask all the questions (eg what was that TV show, what does that word mean, how do I pay for a parking ticket...), - keep asking for help.

That is just a few things.

I asked Abby and Alex what things they are still missing and what things they are enjoying about living here, one year on.

Abby is still missing the campus life, the freedom to roam and play over such a big green open area. And she said she is missing the lovely swimming - the few pools we have gone to here are so crowded in comparison to the Colline or Kingfisher. She is also missing the food that she liked in Uganda, in particular, the sausages there! English sausages are all too spicy or peppery. And the Paramount gouda that the rest of us tired of - no cheese in England is that perfect blandness for her...! But, she loves her school and the friends she has made here, and seeing her grandparents and cousins so much more often.

Alex is also missing the freedom of campus and all the playing outdoors barefoot. He misses his friends on campus. But, he loves the fact that there is so much to do here, as in places to go for day trips and outings, and the sports he is able to do here - hockey club and cricket club. He loves the ease of getting things he wants... (he has just spent all his saved-up pocket money on a stunt scooter - ordered on Amazon and it arrived in two days.)

I am enjoying the countryside and almost daily walking, the constant change of the trees and the appearing of new flowers; still loving the smooth roads, the convenience of life in general (atms everywhere, post offices everywhere, a corner shop to buy milk just a two minute walk away,) the electricity being on all the time, internet working all the time; seeing my family often; variety of diet; being able to drink sherry or a gin and tonic while I am cooking, and anytime (don't worry, I am not drinking very much at all!); being a normal anonymous person everywhere I go. The things I still miss about Uganda, as well as friends, are: the sunshine, the light and warmth in the air; being able to throw on a t-shirt every day without thinking about it; the warmth of daily encounters with Florence, students, colleagues and neighbours; the birds; the beauty.

So it is still a mixture, and it probably always will be. Looking back, it hasn't been an easy year, but, we have been through an unavoidable valley and we are coming into the new land.

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. 

Still washing zip lock bags...

Yesterday evening I laughed at myself as I realised I was busy washing up a zip lock bag to reuse for probably the hundredth time. In fact it was one that I had brought back from Uganda in the container! I did only bring the ones that were in pretty good shape, not the cloudy, sticky ones...

But even though I chuckled, I can't see any reason to stop reusing them. One thing I did put my foot down about, years ago, was the habit of my very first housemate in the missionary life, a 60-something American lady called Doris, who insisted that we wash clingfilm (plastic foodwrap) to reuse it. This is almost impossible - when you put it in the sink it goes into a tight thin stuck-together string, and then you have to tease it out into a square again, somehow scrub it, and then stick it up on the tiles to dry. When it has dried it never has its same useful stretchy tension anyway. What a pain! I vowed that after I stopped living with Doris I would never do that again, ever.

I am wondering what other "missionary" habits I have not yet lost. I keep teabags on a little dish in case I might reuse them - although often they end up just being thrown away. I tear the many letters from the children's schools into quarters and use the backs for my shopping lists. I keep every plastic tub and ice cream box to use as storage containers. I still clip the picture side off cards we receive, and recycle them to write notes to people on, or to make new birthday cards with. Recycling was invented by missionaries, after all.

On a different note, one habit I think I might never lose is when out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of a shadow moving or a bit of dust blowing. I still always look quickly again, poised, in case it is a cockroach. But here, thank goodness, it never is. (The ones that came over in our container didn't survive, it seems!)

John V Taylor's Prayer Letters c 1946

A few days after our lunch with the Woodds, a thick brown envelope arrived in the post, with a bundle of letters and two photos in it - all dating from 1946 - 53! Joanna had very kindly sent us some copies of her father John Taylor's missionary letters, written as a CMS missionary to his supporters.

So many oh so familiar prayer requests, observations, descriptions... Even the way every letter opens: "I am very sorry this letter is late..." "A long time has passed since my last letter..."

Although obviously much has changed in Mukono in the last sixty years, and all the more so in the last ten, some issues just don't seem to go away... Here are just some all too familiar issues that Taylor asked for prayer for:

- Thanks for conversions, but sorrow that they are followed by dissent and suspicion among different Christian groups on and off campus.

- Finances: income for the college didn't go up for several years, although living costs went up by 60 %...

- Shortage of housing - five missionaries were on campus but there were only four available houses, and a sixth family was on the way...

- Malaria was prevalent among the students (he puts this down to the opening up of brick fields around the Mukono area).

- Resistance to new ideas... and dependance on the staff to solve all the students' problems...

Some things have improved for missionaries since those days though: for example, John Taylor writes that he and his wife were both sick with fever and jaundice for much of one term, in and out of hospital, and then he went down with blackwater fever, which he self treated by drinking quantities of soda bicarb.

Some other nice touches:

He writes about students and staff walking out into local villages to do outreach, sleeping on the mud floors of primary schools, playing football matches with the villagers followed by an evangelistic message, and even a blood donor scheme being run from "our great Mengo Hospital," collecting blood from the students on a fortnightly basis. Apparently the students were extremely reluctant to give their blood at first, after being challenged to do it in a sermon entitled "God and our bodies"given by the missionary doctor from Mengo. But Taylor describes how after a Monday of reflection, including a two hour discussion in the pastoralia class, and what he calls "the silent bombardment of the Spirit," 55 students agreed to give blood by the end of the day.

He describes the first buildings of the (now) Ordinands' Village as "four lovely little cottages and kitchens."

One amusing note: the African contractor who drew the plans for the new "Demonstration Hall" comprising of a domestic science room, a classroom and an office (I suppose this is Thelma Hall), wrote on the plan that this was to be the "Demons Training Hall". Simply too good to be true...!!

John Taylor comments on how strong the sense of unity and community was, in spite of, and he says partly strengthened by, the lack of resources, which brought students and staff together: the students were working together to grow food in the college gardens and even build the furniture for the college. Hmm I don't see our students growing their own food these days...

Well in some ways it sounds like a golden age for the college. Taylor sounds like a prayerful, thoughtful spiritual leader who was fatherly whilst making every effort not to be paternalistic, but more like a brother to the students and staff. But it also sounds as though the same misunderstandings, disappointments, frustrations and crossed wires occurred. I wish there were more details in the letter about things like their diet, and the pastimes of the missionaries when they were not at work, but, maybe there weren't many such times.

Reading these letters, I feel as though I have been in a time machine and gone back sixty years. It sounds as though Mukono was a special place back then,  - and I believe it still is now, a place where God is at work training and building up leaders for the church and for East Africa. John Taylor frequently refers to our Lord the Spirit working away in people's lives, the Spirit who is responsible for all the progress made and for all the good things that happened - and I know the same Spirit is there with all of you working in Mukono today. Hold onto that always.

Palms...

Back in England for Palm Sunday... Once again I feel underwhelmed by the palm crosses we are given in church here.

I know they are palm leaves picked in the Holy Land, dried and specially folded for us... and at least they are not the three inch ones that we had for a couple of years, but a decent size...

But, I much preferred in Uganda when we picked real four foot long palm leaves in our garden on our way to church, or were given them in church. I loved how the whole congregation was a green sea of waving branches during the Palm Sunday service.

To me, it brought one so much closer to the original scene, of Jesus being welcomed and waved gladly into Jerusalem by the Passover crowds.










The hoisting and vigorous swishing of hundreds of palm branches during each hymn just impelled one to grin and sing joyfully - how could you be solemn while all that was going on. It was so fun.

A fuzzy picture but it gives the impression I remember, ... and some familiar faces...

The joy and sweetness of the Palm Sunday worship is so poignant because the original welcoming crowds changed their minds by the end of the week and shouted for Jesus' death. So I just can't help wondering while singing "Ride on, ride on in Majesty" every year, whether by the end of the week I would also have been shouting, "Crucify him." Honestly, I am not a very brave person, so I fear that I might have joined in to save my own skin. But I hope not, because I feel as though my faith in Jesus and my gratitude to him is deeper than that.

Two images I enjoy of the first Palm Sunday:

I love icons, but don't really know much about them - I would love to learn about their symbolism one day. I know that that is Zacchaeus in the tree, and there are people laying down their cloaks in front of Jesus - but no real palm leaves in evidence - I guess the Russian artist didn't know what they looked like?

Meeting John V Taylor's daughter

Yesterday Joanna and Charles Woodd came to lunch. This was very exciting, because, Joanna is the daughter of Bishop John V Taylor, who was Principal of Bishop Tucker College from 1943 to 1954. Joanna was 1 year old when her family moved to Mukono, and 13 when they left. She herself went to work in Kumi as a nurse later on, and has made a few trips back to Uganda since then, although her most recent visit to Mukono was about ten years ago. From her description it seems the family lived in what is now the Owors' house. She agreed with us that Mukono was an idyllic place to be as a young child, and she had very fond memories of racing about the grassy campus, in and out of other people's houses, and of the freedom and safety for children there. She told us that she went to school in Kampala, although she couldn't remember the name of the school, but they used to stay with an English family in town during the week, and only travel home for the weekends. Hmm, we did think about that from time to time... Mind you, she said Kampala was beautiful, uncrowded and leafy back then...

Joanna brought to show me a fascinating book made in 1950, about a Passion Play which her father put on with the Bishop Tucker students. It contains beautiful black and white photos of tableaux from the play. The students were in Biblical style costumes, and interspersed the drama with negro spirituals which, according to John Taylor's book, they sang beautifully. Just the expressions on their faces convey the solemnity, reverence and beauty of the play The play was acted out in the chancel of the old chapel, and was performed for the local community, which is described as the college, the three schools and the parish church all on the hill. Sadly no names are in the book, and carefully as I looked at the photos I did not recognise any faces - but I suppose these students from 1950 would have been at least 80 when we arrived in Mukono, so I shouldn't quite expect to!


I read two of John Taylor's books while I was in Uganda: The Go-Between God, which I loved, and The Primal Vision which I thought was fascinating. Apparently he wrote The Primal Vision not when he was principal of Bishop Tucker but when he made a return visit to Uganda some years later in 1963, specifically for research, when he was head of CMS in the UK.


Its full name being, "The Primal Vision: Christian presence amid African religion," it was one of the earliest attempts to describe African philosophy and religion, and to see how Christianity can be understood in Africa, and in fact how we can understand it better with the help of the African worldview. It was criticised at the time for being a bit too sympathetic to and positive about African religion, and leaning towards syncretism.

John V Taylor went on from heading CMS, to being Bishop of Winchester. He is described as being a "liberal evangelical rather than a conservative one" and was clearly greatly loved and respected wherever he worked.

We had a wonderful time chatting away with Joanna and Charles. They still do a lot to support Uganda, Charles being treasurer of an English organisation called the "Uganda Church Association", which sends out a yearly newsletter about goings-on in the Church of Uganda to a list of 230 interested people in England - many of them former Bishop Tucker missionaries, and many Ugandans who now live here. In the latest edition, for example, is an article written by Monica Ntege! Needless to say, we are delighted to have made this great connection, and hope to have more contact with UCA.

Joanna and Charles Woodd

We also discovered recently that John Taylor's grandson, Jonathan, (Joanna's nephew), is a lay assistant at our church in Exeter, St Leonards! He approached us at the mission weekend we spoke at in March. What a small small world...

Moonshadows

In Uganda, walking home at night from a fellowship or from a friend's house, my eyes would always seek out the moon. Sometimes lying like a slice of rind on its back, sometimes a huge round disc, casting a bright aurora, sometimes rising in front of our house and in other phases behind it, above the giant craggy trees back up there on the hill. I tried to photograph it several times, but they never really came out. Because there is hardly any artificial light in Uganda (a sore subject...), the night sky is so very black so that the moon and stars shine out in glory. But here in England, whilst not so intensely bright, the moon is also stunning, peaceful, unmoved, mysterious, comforting...

I love the moon. I love that it belongs to our earth and circles around it, over and over. It is like a benign presence, overseeing us night after night. I was open-mouthed, like a child at a magic show when we were in the Space museum in DC once and saw real rocks from the very moon itself, lying on black cloth. I would jump at the chance to go there - please may it be possible during our lifetime, and not for a million dollars!

 In Uganda I used to point out to whoever I was with, that in the southern hemisphere, the moon has a rabbit in it, a large one with its ears flying back. But here in England, in the northern hemisphere, it has a face. Today I will prove it once and for all, with two photos from Google:




Face...  

Rabbit...











Until today I hadn't realised that the man in the moon looks pretty shocked about something, but you can stretch it to look like a smile...

Anyway, Alex is doing space at the moment and has to make a moon diary, drawing it in all its phases this month. What a great project. Tonight is a full moon, sailing over the rooftops of Gloucester. I tried again to take a few photos and will put them here, but once again they are just a feeble attempt...

In this one, you can see the face, and he looks happy, I think.