Dear Uganda...a letter to a land I love

Dear Uganda,

THANK YOU.

Thank you beyond words.

As in the phrase of the Mocha Club, "I need Africa more than Africa needs me."

You have changed me.

You have hosted miracles for me.

You have given me the most delightful, chocolate-skinned boy I have ever known.

We do not want to leave you...

                                                                 but the time is right, and for now we must.

I love your green leaves on the banana plants.

I love your well cared for roads.

I love your temperate weather.

I love your music!

I love your chapati.

I love your peanut sauce over steamed plantains.

I love your bottled Cokes!

I love your joy.

I love your stories.

I love your creative hair dos!

I love your welcoming nature.

"You are most welcome!" you say as I enter into a home or store.

I love your children.

I love your orphans.

I am so sorry for the pain you have. I want to stop it. I want to heal you.

I am sorry I come up short.

But I can pray with you, hope with you and work together with you to see God's redemption done in you.

I love your partnership with groups like Sixty Feet. I love that you know and trust them.

I love that you rule in the favor of legal guardianship so we may be blessed with this son of ours from your land.

Thank you. My heart is bound up in you.

Thank you more than all these words can say.

I will miss you.

And I will be back.