It is after midnight and I lay her in yet another new bed in another new place. Strangers-turned-friends have opened their home up to us, the wanderers, during this quick trip throughout the United States.

As I lay her head on what seems the twentieth different pillow in three weeks it occurs to me that once again she will wake up in a place that is not where she fell asleep. And as soon as I realize this I realize something else: she will wake up happy as long as I do not get out of bed first. I know this to be true after over 2 years of mothering this precious soul. If she can wake up and see my face their next to hers on the pillow, she will not mind the new place.

I am overwhelmed at that kind of trust.

I want that kind of trust.

The last three weeks have been a whirlwind that my publishing team calls “promoting the book.” For me it has been a sanctifying and stretching time of testifying over and over and over again His faithfulness in our lives. A time of noticing the little surprises that He puts in front of me every single day.

I am the Israelites, forgetting so quickly. Just so not wanting to be in this foreign place away from my children, not wanting to be looked at or praised or criticized, I am tempted to grumble, even to worry, even to forget. But I can’t because in front of thousands, it is my turn to testify. And in testifying, I remember. I remember the miracles and I remember all the long way that He has carried us. And as I remember, He continues to surprise and carry still. I share our story. And each time, with each word, I know it a little deeper: God IS who He says He is.

Trustworthy.

And slowly but surely I am learning to trust my Father in the way that my three year old trusts me. Learning to just allow Him to carry me, take me where He wants me and know that I will still wake up in His arms, and in His arms it is safe. Even when I wake up in unfamiliar territory.

In an effort to really sink in deep into His safe and loving arms, I am unplugging. The last three weeks have been a time of being “on”, sharing our story with many and praying and believing that they will be encouraged and God will receive all the glory. And so now it is time to be quiet. Time to listen instead of speaking. Time to trust fully in Him instead of worrying about silly comments on silly articles. Time to turn “off” – both my mind and my computer.

I will be back in Uganda with my girls on Wednesday and we will spend this month enjoying each other, enjoying our Father, and trusting Him to do whatever He wishes with this book and this testimony. He has done big things and we have wonderful stories and I cannot wait to share them with you in November.

He is behind and before. We trust Him. To Him be the glory.

Rummaging through our box of paperwork, I find it and it hits me unexpected.

Her birth certificate, the one her birth mom stuffed in her bag as she sent her off to a “better life” at her uncle’s when she was only five. And at the top is a blue stamp that reads Siripi Rhino Camp.

Camp. The word hits me like a punch to the gut and I fight the urge to vomit. In Uganda, the word camp does not mean summer fun or starlit skies. In Uganda the word camp means war, displacement, hunger, hurt, trauma.

I can’t really wrap my mind around the fact that my beloved daughter spent the first years of her life in a place that is so beyond my comprehension.

Camp, this word that I want for no one in this world and hate for my daughter, this is all we have of the first years of her life. She remembers almost nothing from before her uncles’ house, and life leaves me with this word to ponder.

I want her to be a baby so I can strap her on me and hold her there and she will feel secure and safe and protected. I want to be the person who taught her to write her name and how much fun it is to make mud pies, and I want to be the person who laughed with her when she lost her first tooth. I want to know where the scars came from that she can’t remember the stories about, and I want to be the person who wiped her tears when she fell.

But I know that is not how God intended it.

He did not choose me for those moments, He chose me for these. I entered motherhood through a different door, and I get a different kind of stretch marks.

I believe that this is how He has loved us and I do not pretend to know why. But I know that He who did not spare His own Son will also graciously give us all things we need, and so I cling to believing this is for good.

I believe that He held her all the years that I didn’t. I believe that He stood beside her in the line for porridge that the UN workers passed out, and I believe that He clasped her hand as she made the long journey from Arua to Masaka without her first momma, and I believe that she leaned her head into His shoulder as she fell asleep on hard dirt floor to the sound of her uncle’s drunken fury. I believe that He carried her all the way here to this new family and I believe that His hand is on her still.

And maybe the missing pieces just allow me to trust Him more.

So I kneel beside her bed and I whisper His name over her and when I look at her face, I see His. I am thankful that He did choose me for now, these moments.

He is a good Father. And I can trust in that.

Today I look around and my breath catches in my throat.

Surely I should take off my shoes. Or fall to my knees. Or raise up my hands. Surely this moment is holy.

Not because of anything spectacular. This morning is going the same way every morning goes. Still in my pajamas, hair disheveled, placing porridge dishes in the sink before grabbing another cup of coffee, I look around.

Regina moves into place beside me to help scrub the dishes. All four of her once-malnourished children play in the yard in front of us, strong and healthy. We both look out the window at them and look at each other and smile and don’t say a word.

As we look back out the window, Makerere walks by, not limping, raking the leaves in our back yard. He looks up and he smiles and I think of whole months when he didn’t smile and whole months when he just couldn’t leave his alcohol addiction and whole months when I could see his leg bone.

And it fills up my heart and I know it with my whole body and it tumbles out of my mouth in a barely audible whisper, “God has been good to us.”

Some days, babies die and children don’t obey. Some days, friends won’t leave their addictions or take the ARVs that could save their lives or listen when I try to share the gospel. Some days the hurt of the world muddles my vision and I forget to remember that every moment is holy and I could live here on my knees with shoes off and hands raised if I would just choose to see it.

Tomorrow or next week or in ten minutes I will forget. A devastated friend will sit on the couch and I will struggle to find words that encourage. I will cry as I peel carrots over the open, already-stained pages of Psalms. But right now I breathe deep and bend knees and raise hands high. And I say it to you and I say it to me: God has been good to us.

And to Him, the Good Father, I say thank You.

“I thought that if she was just going to die anyway, I should let her die quickly. Then I wouldn’t have to love her, and it wouldn’t have to hurt. Anyway, if she lives, she’ll just grow up to be like this. Who wants to live like this?”

5 months ago my friend Regina, a Karimojong woman who picks fallen branches off our street to sell as firewood and occasionally stopped in for water, came to me desperate. She and her 4 small children had been evicted from their house because for the fourth time in four months she had been unable to pay their rent. As I looked at the three youngest, all on the brink of starving to death, I will admit I judged her. I had been providing the family with food for a while now, how did the children still look like this? But as she breathed the words above I understood. If one’s hope is not in Christ, she simply believes that life is hard and then you die. If this is the case then of course, of course, run from the hard. If you know the pain of losing a child and you know that you will, eventually lose this one too, then obviously your only choice is to run. Immediately, my judgment turned to sorrow.

I don’t think I have to tell you what happened next. Regina, Girl, Capata, Salimu, and baby Katie moved in. They needed a place to go, they needed some hearty meals, and Regina needed someone to teach her how to love her children. Someone to teach her about the Savior.

“I am entrusting you with much,” He whispered.

4 months ago Makerere, the resident “crazy man” of Masese showed up at my gate with his leg burnt to the bone. Believing that his leg was salvageable even after several doctors alleged otherwise, I continued to bandage it daily. The only problem? As soon as Makerere went home each day he again fell pray to the addiction that has haunted him for years. Drunk and stumbling around the slum, his leg would get dirty and he would forget to eat. There was no way it would heal if he kept this up. His house had been burnt down, the reason for his leg wound, and all Makerere really wanted was to die. We begged him to move into the small house in our backyard. (This little house serves as a place for men or families to stay while we minister to them so that both my family and our guests can maintain a semblance of “normal” life while living in community.)

Friends advised against it. “You can’t move the crazy guy into your back yard. You can’t let the crazy guy sit at your table.” But the vote from the kids was unanimous. Yes you can. We packed his remaining belongings (a lantern, an extra shirt, and half of a chair) into our van and made him part of the family.

“I am entrusting you with much,” God whispered.

Last week a grandmother approached me at worship in Buziika and handed me a 6 pound 7 month old. I wasn’t really sure he was breathing. His mother is dead, his father is gone, and this grandmother is just not really sure what to do with him. Figuring he would need at least a month of high fat milk dropped into his little mouth every twenty minutes before he was ready to live in Buziika and be bottle fed by Grandma, we again made the decision to grow. The two of them hopped in the van to come home with us while Grandma learns to take care of sweet baby Juma. In conversation on the way home it was apparent that Grandma had some confused ideas about Jesus and witchcraft. I sighed as I realized that taking care of babies wasn’t all we would be teaching her.

“I am entrusting you with much,” He whispered.

Today Regina and all 4 of her children are incredibly healthy and happy. Though we will miss them terribly, it is time for them to move out, to stand on their own two feet. Regina has been doing some work around the house to build up some savings and with this money and a small loan from Amazima, will begin selling tomatoes and onions to make an income and support her family herself. She is a beautiful mother. She is a beautiful friend.

Makerere’s leg is almost completely healed. Only some pink granulation tissue and lots of smooth brown skin cover the area that was once festering with infection. Makerere is 3 months sober. He will stay here for a bit longer because he is afraid to relapse, but soon he will begin attending vocational school. This face that was once constantly sullen is now ever-joyful. Makerere smiles and sings songs he has learnt at church as he rakes our leaves or picks eggplant from our garden.

While Grandma and baby Juma are still fairly new, Grandma is learning and Juma is already growing. They are a sweet addition to our days.

This house I call home, it is where people flock for help. For a glass of water, for a welcoming smile, for a story of redemption, for a place to belong. “Come and listen,” we say. “Come and listen to what He’s done for us. For you.” These 8 will leave, but more will come. They always come. I don’t know why us and I don’t know why here. Our house is a wreck and dinner is late. We make a ruckus in the grocery store and we don’t get invited out much because surely we will bring a screaming baby or worse, crazy people. We are late to church and sometimes we get there and one doesn’t have shoes and one forgot to comb her hair. We are the messy ones. And we pray and we pray that we could spill out the grace God has so lavished on us.

13 pairs of eyes look at me as if I hold the world. I pray they learn from me half of what I learn from them. They are growing. Trauma from their pasts surfaces and we fight to cling to truth and joy. The days feel long but the years are so short. Time slips away and these little people transform into big people and I pray only that they are becoming people who know Him more.

“I have entrusted you with much,” He whispers.

The book releases in October. I know what this means: more eyes on us. I struggle with the thought of it. All I want is more eyes on Him. I am just a broken mess, grabbing for His feet, reaching out to touch His cloak, thankful for His mercy that washes over me. I am just a little girl, relieved to crawl into His lap and curl up there.

He has entrusted me with so much. And from those who much has been entrusted, much more will be demanded. We want only to represent Him well. So I have taken some time away to feel the weight of it all. 13 little girls, the families in the back yard, friends, family, people in Masese, people in Buziika, people in America looking at me. And satan whispers, “Run. Run and run and run. No book. No blog. No more homeless people in the guestroom. Lock your doors. Take these 13 and just shut yourselves in and stay away from all these eyes because you are not good enough to have so many eyes on you. Run.”

But I look out in the yard and I see only redemption. I see God making thorn bushes into pine trees. I see Him filling our holes with His blood. I see traumatized children that struggle sometimes but laugh mostly. I see them embracing these one-drunk, once-lifeless, once-starving people who are growing in a merciful, healing Father. I see lives changed and I see eternities changed. I see family where there once was only loneliness. And I don’t know why He chose me, this broken little girl, to witness all of it.

I look up. And His voice is so much louder than satan’s. “I have entrusted you with much and I have demanded of you much. But only with me will your life bear much. So run. Run and run and run into my arms. Run. Run and run and run into this world sharing this story that has Me at the center. This making of disciples, it is my business. And I am with you always and my burden is light. I spill through your brokenness and I will be glorified. I promise. I will be glorified.” And that is all I want.

I sat in the heaviness. And I weighed the risks of sharing our entire life, all of it, the joy and the sad, the beautiful and the ugly, with the whole crazy world. And I know. That if on the other side of that risk is the possibility that someone may see Jesus in our brokenness and know that there is grace and purpose in theirs too, then the whole crazy world is welcome. For a glass of water, for a welcoming smile, for a story of redemption, for a place to belong. For a glimpse of a Savior who uses even us, the messy ones. “Come and listen to what He’s done for us. For you.”

We look up. We are thankful for the mess. We are thankful for the much. We are thankful for a story to share, the story of His death and His story in our lives.

Would you pray with us? That as eyes turn to us, they would see only Him. That however, whatever, wherever He would be glorified. He will.

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come buy and eat...

Listen to me and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare..

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers, myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting sign which will not be destroyed.

Isaiah 55

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together

Colossians 1:17

“There is no event so common place but that God is present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize Him or not to recognize Him.” - Fredrick Buechner

laying low.

learning lots.

thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers and encouragement.

photos by Tina Weir