I haven’t journalled much these last two weeks. The first week was too busy with all the birthday celebrations. The second week was too lonely with Peter gone. Those are my excuses, lame as they are. I’ll try to fill in the missing pieces.
Jason recovered from his latest bout of malaria. His remaining loose tooth is still hanging in there, literally. He says he is waiting for Peter to come home to pull it out. Jason has pulled out each one of his teeth so I expect he will do the same when he is ready.
We celebrated birthdays on almost a daily basis last week. Peter’s birthday on Monday was a bit of a drag but we still gave him our family presents that day. Adrian, Jenny, Bob and Douglas joined us for dinner on Tuesday night to celebrate both Peter and Brendan’s birthdays.
Remembering back to his four year old birthday in Prague where we enacted various birthday traditions, Brendan decided he wanted to do that again. So Jenny and Adrian gave him “the bumps,” the men lifted Brendan in the air on a chair, and then he went through the paddywack tunnel. Brendan enjoyed that immensely.
Brendan gets the British bumps from Adrian and Jenny
Lifted up eight times!
We had never done a sleepover before, and it was new to some of the boys as well, but we wanted to do something memorable with Peter being gone. Brendan seemed to enjoy himself and there wasn’t any of the angst we experienced at the end of his last birthday. With Peter gone, I called upon Adrian to help me out. He stayed with the boys while I went to fetch the pizza. He continued to help by eating some of the leftovers that had accumulated in my fridge with Peter unavailable to consume them. I was thankful for the company as well as the support.
So with the birthday celebrations over and done with, I could focus on other things . . . like our lack of water. I should say, rather, our unpredictable and sporadic water issues. Of course, this had to happen when Peter was away and I am clueless about how it all works. Peter had shown me how to fix the problem but it didn’t work when I tried. Before Peter boarded the plane in Lusaka, he sent me the number of Mr. Tubi, the one who put in the system. Mr. Tubi has been over nearly every day this week but still it doesn’t work properly. I am back to boiling water for baths and dishes, in addition to our drinking water. Even our cold water wasn’t working half the time, especially when I needed to wash the boys’ uniforms or Emanuel was around to water the garden in Peter’s absence. Eeeeesh. Yesterday, we even had the double whammy of no water OR electricity. I was proud of my boys who didn’t make a fuss that they couldn’t watch a video on my computer since the battery was dead. They just played outside instead, not seeming to miss it at all.
Then there is the issue of our garden hose that was nicked recently. The boys who regularly play in our yard know the kids who stole our garden hose and can show us where they live on the other side of the wall. These boys, of course, don’t want to show their faces to the theives because there could be repercussions. That confrontation will have to wait until Peter returns. Those same boys showed up on top of our wall again, yelling at my boys. Emanuel happened to be in the garden one of those times and he told them that we had a gun and would shoot them if they came on the wall again. Jason was quick to reply, “But that is a lie, Mr. Emanuel.” Not to mention that we are pacifists. Emanuel thought that would be a deterrent but the next day the boys were back again, gun or no gun.
In the day or two after Peter left for Southern Sudan, I battled fears about something happening to him. I was reading “The Shack” by William Young and found it refreshing, despite my initial apprehension. There was much in the book that gave me cause for reflection but one part in particular stood out that day. It was regarding imagining the future with fear, something I was engaging in more than I wanted to at the time. The main character is chastised by the words of Mack, who is Jesus: “You try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear.” Then a bit later Mack gives the reason why we often live in fear: “Because you don’t believe. You don’t know that we love you. The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe that I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you.” As I digested this truth, I felt a release from the fears that had haunted me. I chose to rest in God’s goodness and love. Even if something horrible did happen, God would sustain me and love me through it.
All week, I feel like I have been bombarded with endless things to fear, but each time I have had to make choices about where to put my hope. Our friends, and fellow MCCers in Uganda, were involved in an accident where a little girl was killed. Our friends are traumatized and understandably saddened by the whole situation. With so many children walking along the road, I too often fear one of them not paying attention and walking into the road and being hit. Given the road conditions in most of Africa, accidents like this happen all the time. Then there is the fear of a new hemorrhagic virus that was detected in Lusaka. The patient was evacuated to South Africa who died there, as did her paramedic and the nurse attending her. Lechwe School has cancelled all sporting events and activities and has requested that each child bring their own soap and towel to school. There isn’t a lot of information on the transmission of this virus, but they don’t think it is airborne. Then there is the dire news we hear every day on the BBC about the troubled financial systems of the world. I find it interesting that I had to work harder at battling fears about our future and money than I did about our health. Perhaps because I feel like I could possibly control money more than random viruses. I am trying to remember to live in the present, in the goodness of love of God. Not always easy, but vital.
It has been a long week. We’ve all missed Peter in our own ways. Brendan said he missed Peter’s smile and laugh. Jason missed playing legos with his daddy and doing penalty kicks in the front yard. I miss Peter’s company in the evenings especially, but also at meals. I also miss him bathing the kids, doing dishes, watering the garden, fixing things that are broken, putting the kids to bed, and the list goes on and on. I’m blessed to have a husband who actively contributes to our family life. And when he is gone, we all feel it. Peter is scheduled to return home tonight. But I just got a text from him saying that his flight has been delayed two hours. We’ll have to see if he will still be able to catch a bus home from Lusaka this afternoon or whether he will have to formulate Plan B. I’m sure he is more than ready to come home as well. We’ve all missed each other.
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