Mission

Robert, Nancy, and I arrived in Kampala last night. Getting our luggage took a while, but customs was hassle free, and the driver from the Namirembe Guest House was waiting for us. The drive from Entebbe to Kampala took half an hour or a bit more -- long enough to get a bit of the flavor of this part of Uganda even though it was dark. Lots of people were out in the small shops lining the road, and the buildings are more brick or cement than I expected. It's tropical-lush here, cool (60s at night, 70s by day) but humid. The guest house is typical, I guess, of African church guest houses.

On the plane to Brussels, trying to sleep in order to adjust to the loss of 9 hours but struggling because at home it was only 8 p.m., I was thinking about what we're doing on this trip. We call it a mission trip and ourselves missioners or the mission team. I'm a little uncomfortable with those words because of the history of missionaries in Africa, not to mention the fact that our mission isn't evangelistic in the conventional sense. But we are on a mission, and I've been struggling to articulate for myself what the mission is -- a "mission statement," if you will. For me, ultimately, it's about seeing the God of creation in a new way, it's about the "yours are the hands" prayer of St. Theresa, it's about Matthew 25, it's about more fully experiencing the body of Christ. It's about being open to God through God's people in Lui, and it's about the faith and trust borne of being in the hands of friends and strangers, being less powerful on my own than I ever am at home and therefore realizing ultimately in whose hands I am.