It is hard to believe we have been home from Uganda for the same length of time we spent there earlier in the summer: it's been four weeks since we arrived home from our four week trip.  This afternoon I will have my first show since performing our last show in Africa. Each day, our 28 day immersion experience in Ugandan culture becomes more of a memory; one more experience in this crazy, unique life God has called us to. Meanwhile, we are back to shopping at supermarkets, watching TV, and getting ready to go back to our jobs as teachers after Labor Day.

Yet I know our experiences in Uganda should and can be more than just cool stories and another experience on our ministry resume.  This was the trip where we lived among the people. This was the trip where we got involved in people's lives as friends. This was the trip where God spoke volumes to my heart, as well, I'm sure, as the hearts of my wife and daughter.  So what is the lasting impact for me of four weeks in Uganda?

I asked myself that question yesterday when Sue and I were cooling off at our local beach, and I realized that was a fair question, but not the best question. The question carries an implication that, for spiritual growth to happen, it needs to be linked to a big event, or at least it helps.  Yet I have long held that retreats and "spiritual emphasis weeks" don't produce near the fruit of a steady, day by day walk with the Lord. The scriptures tell us that Elijah, Elisha, David and of course Peter all had major spiritual high moments, only to come crashing down almost immediately afterwards.  But it seems that the disciples matured most when Traveling, eating and worshiping together in their normal day to day lives. I suppose a better, or at least equally valid question, then, is "What is the lasting impact of my day at the beach with my wife?" Or the lasting impact of writing lesson plans, or rambling on in this blog. If God is omnipresent, then, He can and will move just as surely through the mundane as the exotic.  

Nevertheless, our time in Uganda was significant to all three of us, and there are experiences and lessons from Africa we need to hold on to. First among these, perhaps, are the friendships we made. Living in community for a month drew us very close to our neighbors in Kampala.  TS Eliot said, "There is no life that is not in community, and no community not lived in praise of God."  While this quote seems a little too absolute (Did Howard Hughes live in community at the end? Are cults communities living in praise of God?) Eliot's sentiments certainly applied to us while we were in the slum.  And this community that we left behind is still a part of us as we pray for them, and actually keep in touch with many through social media. (It's a crazy world when people don't have access to clean water but have the Internet.)

Secondly, there are the lessons we couldn't have truly learned if we hadn't been there.  As I discussed in a blog I wrote while in Uganda, I became more convinced than ever in the existence of God as I observed the poverty, squalor, joy and hope our neighbors lived with every day.  Also, God spoke volumes to my heart as we played with the orphans at Agape House. We, scripture teaches, are all spiritual orphans in need of adoption into the Father's household. It was also amazing to see the impact of our time at Agape on Rose, our 16 year old. She experienced loving a way she never has before. She was so selfless and committed to those kids, and it would be hard for her, I suppose, to experience something similar here in the states. 

So here we are, back in Maine for four weeks, the same length of time we were in Africa. We are preparing for a new school year and beginning to perform locally again. We're back in our home church. I hope our time overseas continues to have the lasting impact God intended it to have, and I also hope I am able to hear what God, who is just as surely in Bridgton, Maine as He is in Kampala, Uganda, would,speak to me in the daily normalcy of life at home.