“Kweda, stop! I’m contemplating the universe!”
It had finally gotten dark, and Lauren, Janessa, Dara and I had gone outside to look at the stars. We spread our mats out on the yard and gazed up at more stars than I had seen in a long time. I watched meteors fall and saw the Southern Cross for the first time. And then the dogs found us. Soon we were in a mass of squirming bodies of children and dogs and I fled to the window ledge.
“Contemplating the universe” Janessa called it, but my thoughts that evening were very earthly. I was thinking about the children I had been working with at the kindergarden, about the goodness of waffle wednesdays, and the fact that I was looking at a whole different set of stars than I’d seen before. I was so very far from home.
And yet not. I gazed up on the stars, which Psalm 8 says God “set in place” and knew I was still in my father’s world. In that sense, even the interruption of the dogs was beautiful, part of a world ordered by a loving God and infused with the sacredness of daily life. Now that Christ had come, every moment, every silly incident, every priceless one-liner from Dara or Dade, every shooting star, every attack from overly friendly puppies…was holy.
I was laying on holy ground. Christ was here, and it was sacred.
It can get muddled at times. The daily life aspect in Uganda was not something I counted on. I thought it was going to be exotic, exciting, and full of adventure. I didn’t count on evenings spent reading or playing with the kids, or going to the market, or simply sitting in the living room talking. It has taken me some time to see how these, too, are part of missions. But tonight, laying under the stars, I began to see things a little more clearly. Maybe the stars helped me see my place in this huge universe. So tiny, yet so holy.
So sleeping and laughing and singing and eating and cleaning and teaching school and sitting through unitelligible sermons in Rinyuncoli…they’re all holy ground. It is my father’s world. Jesus has gone here before me. And the Holy Spirit is with me now. This makes everything sacred.
That night in Uganda was holy.
