Getting ready to return to Uganda. 5 more days until Mindy and I board the plane.
The IVO GO Teams went in shifts this year--Team 1 has already headed back and Team 2 just arrived. Part of the group I will be meeting--the Hintz family as represented by Sara, Louis, and Caleb--is on Team 2. They've already been to Sanyu this morning.
As a matter of fact, my brothers, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith. I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it, because you still live as the people of this world live...
..For on that Day fire will reveal everyone's work; the fire will test it and show its real quality. If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward. But if anyone's work is burnt up, then he will lose it; but he himself will be saved, as if he had escaped through the fire. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, 13-15
Definitely need to use baby-talk here, but it's nice to know that even if I fail hard, it doesn't matter because I am saved anyway.
That was probably the hardest lesson of the last decade--that it doesn't matter how bad a Christian I am, that I've never had the emotional connection to Jesus Christ that I hear people talk about...I'm saved anyway because I sincerely invited Jesus into my heart on that Youth Retreat in high school.
It's one of those things that haunting self-doubt combined with my preference for brutal honesty made it hard to grapple with.
...Mindy just texted me that her cat pissed all over the clothes she had laid out to pack. *facepalm*
I've sent all my stuff into Arrow, the new foster agency I'm working with (Bair is closing its Houston office and offered to transfer my file to Arrow) except the pictures of my house. I even found a dentist that takes STAR Health Medicaid with just one (!) phone call. Wow.
Cut my hair this morning for the trip. It feels lighter and is doing the cockatoo curls already. Somewhere in Austin, Lady D has the sudden urge to yell at me and doesn't know why (she hates it when I cut my own hair).
I'm anxious to find out what has happened to Margaret and Olivia (two little girls at Sanyu Babies Home in Kampala) in the 11 months since I've seen them and to see Joy (older girl at Redeemer House) again.
