Home

3 weeks after setting off for our third visit to East Africa, we are now home.  Uganda has become another home for us, and as it is with anyone who has more than one place they love to be, we were sad to leave but happy to be back in San Diego.

This years trip was incredible.  I spoke to over 1000 people in 10 different settings.  Ali taught 20 hours of photography at a vocational school.  We held several meetings with the staff and social workers in an ongoing effort to strengthen our child sponsorship program.  We took over 300 photos of children in our program and helped each of them make Christmas cards for their sponsors.  We gave money from our church to help build their church.  We handed out donated clothes.  We worked hard.  We rested.  We had fun.  We experienced heartache.  We are already planning for next year.

Each time we come home, I wonder what it is we have left behind.  What difference did our being there make?  Will it last?

One evening we were driving back to where we were staying from a long day of speaking at a conference.  It was just the driver and myself in the small van.  The streets were bad, full of potholes.  And they were narrow.  School had just let out all over the village so the streets were filled with uniformed children walking home.  As we sped down the dirt roadway, swerving frequently to miss the holes we hit a girl.  

That's right, we actually hit someone.  And the driver refused to stop...he didn't believe me that we hit her.  But we did, and my side mirror was the evidence for it was now folded tight against the car.  I rolled down the window and pushed back the mirror.  I looked back to see the damage that we had caused, but the dust was too thick.  I was angry with the driver, we should have stopped.  For much of that evening I wondered.  How was this young girl?  Did we break her arm?  Did we just hit her swinging bag?  Was she okay?  Was she injured?  Would she be able to get help?  And I'll never know.  

I've never hit anyone before, and I hope it never happens again.  But people do come in and out of my life often, and rarely do I get to experience the influence, the impact or the "damage"  I might have.  As we flew out of Africa, I prayed that our being there made a lasting, positive influence in the life of those we interacted with.  Money, clothes, sweets, card games, conversations, laughter, special gifts, hugs, soccer games and just being there...caring.  It is my hope that when the dust settles from our whirlwind trip, we can look back and know that our lives have touched others, some for eternity, some for brief moments of joy and all in a positive way.

The challenge is, that this hope doesn't end when we get home.  Life is this way for all of us.  We bump into people, we cross paths with others every day, all of us do.  And we can either run them over or lift them up.  And so I will continue to look over my shoulder to see what is left behind from the many interactions that I have everyday, and I hope you'll join me.  Because its not just people in Africa that need it.  We all do.  And hopefully our paths cross soon.