This is how it begins...

Claire and I were driving home from a week of reflected skies and country roads and these words kept eating at my thoughts so I scribbled them down: "The metalic tongue licked up the miles, consuming the waves of blue and continents of clouds. Returning to a place I'd never been, a place inhabited by my dreams." A premonition passing through my mind like the window-down-breeze.

Later that night, I opened my inbox and found- without a completed application, without a fee, without the medical forms-- acceptance.
A door swung wide open.
I trembled, I leapt, I ran out of the room so that Claire expected the worst disaster or a letter from an unrequited love.
I laughed, I hugged her, I feared, I trembled again-- at the weight of meaning.
My stomach flips and butterflies escape to beat their wings in circles, somersaults, jumping beans.
and my heart wonders at You, at the whispered prayers, at the consuming thoughts, and the stillness to hear...
Then-- all seems to collide in a mass of color, a rushing river-- all Your leading, Your hand guiding me, the lessons of trust, the longing, the conversations-- have a name:

Uganda.
Land I know so little of, land a piece of my heart has already flown too. Time becomes long and short. I swallow:
the unreality. the reality.

"You are a missionary." Her gentle voice a mingle of joy and sorrow- oh how I long to pack them all up, wrap them lovingly in my suitcase and keep them in my pockets. You speak. this is it, the beginning.

Uganda.
Community development. My weakness. My trembling at the voice of Love. The Uncreated One beckons.
to take passage.
and I saw in his face-- the marks of one who has been, who has become a stranger, the loneliness, and the sorrow that has carved out deep joy- deep trust, how he knew the burden...
I tremble, I tremble... while I grasp Your hand.
"Here am I Lord, send me."
a heart that beats in weakness, sustained by You alone. "But David, strengthened himself in the LORD."