As I sit here in my own kitchen it is hard to put into words how we are all feeling. There has been so much to process and very little time to process it all.
As we look at Facebook and see people posting "We leave for Uganda tomorrow!" or questions about embassy and exit interviews it all seems a bit impossible. Is that really all behind us now? I am answering questions for other moms about what to pack and where to stay. Am I really the experienced mom on the other side of it all now? It seems so hard to believe.
Bill says there are moments when he feels like he made it all up and maybe Uganda was just a dream. However, when you look across the counter and see the world's biggest smile looking back at you, you know it wasn't a dream.
The experience is a little different for me. It is amazing how one week can change an entire experience. I spend my free time now praying for the mothers that are still there doing it on their own. It is something you may not understand unless you have done it yourself, but I will never be the same and I only had to make it through one week! Watching how well Isaac is adjusting to home reminds me that those 8 weeks we were together as a family in Uganda were invaluable. It was a huge risk for us to take that time off of work and take Cara out of school, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. That cocooned time to bond as a family has set us up for success in every way. If our entire 9 weeks had been like the last week, I am certain that Isaac and I would be in a much different place. Don't get me wrong, there is no "right way" to go through this process, we were obedient to what we felt like was best for our family and it is clear now that it was (at least for us).
In this blog I have shared openly about our faith as a family and how knowing what God has called us to has been the very thing to keep us going when our circumstances were less than ideal. If you are familiar with the Bible you know that not every story ends with a rainbow and even the one that does went through a lot to get there.
I guess, I want to share my experience because I want to be clear that just because we follow in faith, it doesn't mean that everything is easy. I also want to be careful not to complain, so please know that I share these details not so that you will feel bad for me, and not to boast in any way. I also know that we are living out exactly what we hoped for and we knew in advance that this would be harder than we could imagine. However, if I'm not real about the hard then this blog is just fluff and I should stop. My hope is that somehow, if someone is struggling, my story might help them hang on a little longer.
I already wrote about saying goodbye to Cara and Bill and how the pain of the goodbye was magnified by the fact that we had no clear timeline about when we would see them again. I am sure that most of what I experienced over the next week was magnified by my emotions but it felt like as soon as they left, Uganda changed.
It was hotter. Even our driver, Raymond, said on the last day that he had never felt it that hot in Uganda. At one point I ran outside without shoes to put something away and the bricks were so hot I had to turn around and go back inside (I had been outside without shoes plenty of times over the past 8 weeks, but suddenly the bricks were too hot to walk on). Thankfully the hottest moments of the day aligned with nap time.
The mosquitoes came. At one point my dad was considering flying out to stay with me (if we thought the delay would be more than 2 weeks) and I remember saying to him "Don't worry about all the vaccinations, there are barely any mosquitoes." It felt like, in that last week, someone sent out a memo to bring on the mosquitoes. As soon as the sun went down they would arrive, it reminded me of summer nights down at the shore as a child, only worse. It got so bad that if I wasn't in my single bed, hiding behind my mosquito net, I would get dozens of bites per hour. So I spent every night, sitting in the dark, stuck under my mosquito net and staring at the ceiling from 7pm-7am. There are times when I would have found this relaxing, but when you're already halfway to crazy and claustrophobia is a real thing, it starts to feel like you're trapped. The last night I could no longer take it and I stood outside on the porch and cried as the mosquitoes bit away. I just needed to look at the moon, breathe the fresh air and remember that the world was bigger than my tiny bed.
Sickness came. Within hours of Bill and Cara leaving (I think even before their flight actually took off) I spiked a fever. My throat began to get sore and by the next morning it hurt to speak. One night when I was feeling particularly stuck Bill asked me to use up the rest of our phone minutes and call him. I had been hanging onto the phone minutes as a lifeline. I need to know that if I was desperate, I could make a call and hear a familiar voice. But Bill, in his wisdom, knew that time had already come. My voice hurt too much to speak and I was afraid talking would wake up Isaac anyway, so I laid in silence and listened to Bill on the other end of the phone as he prayed for me. The tears just ran down my cheeks. It is hard to rally as a mother when everything aches.
The power went out. This actually wasn't that big of a deal except it meant the fans could not run. It made the hot nights hotter.
My eyes went dry. I'm not sure if it was from crying so much or the fact that I had scratched my cornea the week before (perhaps a combination) but my eyes would tear all day and then go dry at night. It made it feel like sandpaper when I tried to close my eyes. It's hard to sleep when you can't close your eyes. Eventually though, exhaustion outweighs pain and sleep comes.
Isaac began to fight. Our sweet little boy refused to be abandoned again and he took his pain and confusion out on me. It started with throwing things at me and refusing to nap. It peaked when he began to force himself to vomit as a way to illicit a response from me. He tried hunger strikes and spitting at me but eventually his hunger gave way to his frustration and he would eat. Through it all, I refused to change my parenting but there were moments I regret when I would yell louder than I am used to or when I used less patience than I care to admit. It felt like all our time together and all the experience I had gained at his mom faded away. Suddenly we were worse off than we had ever been and I now had to figure out how to reach him on my own. I wrote before about how I quickly realized the solution was more of me. Isaac needed all my attention, constant physical contact: sitting on my lap, holding my hand, having me push his stroller or feed him his food. This meant no checking the cell phone for messages of encouragement (or even the time). No time alone to take a breath. No time to lay down and let the sickness pass. It took all of me and I was doubting how much I had to give.
Finances became tight. An extra week in Uganda meant going beyond our already extended budget. I was out of money with our driver, so it meant we stayed put. There was another family staying at the same guest house and God used them in a big way to help Isaac and I. Gina and I got creative and found ways to beat the heat and pass the time with the boys. Hearing her stories kept my mind of my own problems and even brought encouragement. I wasn't wrong, this IS hard. We helped each other as much as we could. "Can you watch the boys while I go pee?" - Things as simple as that go a long way on a long day.
Stress increased. I knew our paperwork was in order. We harassed USCIS until they emailed us the final form I needed the day before my embassy appointment. I had everything but there was still the possibility that they could say no. They could request something else that would require me to stay longer. What if they requested something I didn't know how to get? It was an irrational fear but one that it took effort to keep at bay. I didn't sleep a wink the night before my appointment for fear I might oversleep and miss it altogether.
Technology was against us. Poor Bill spent countless hours trying to get facetime or skype to work so that Isaac and I could see him on the other side of the world. It took 4 days before we were able to get a connection that worked at a time when Isaac was awake.
I began to hate time zones. It was hard enough without Bill and Cara with me, but it was even harder operating on schedules 8 hours a part. One of us was always just about to fall asleep and it limited communication to just a few precious moments a day.
Those are probably enough details to help you see that I was struggling. The hardest was feeling helpless to get through to Isaac that everything would be okay. We were at odds and I couldn't stand it. I never wanted to be the mom that yells. If I could focus, I knew that I wasn't alone. God had not abandoned me to ruin and he was going to continue to carry me through as He had faithfully done every step of the way. However, in those last days it just became harder to focus. It is hard to admit that my circumstances got the best of me, but there are moments when that was absolutely true. Lack of sleep, high fevers, sore eyes, and homesickness made it hard to hang onto the hope I knew was there.
I teach my teenagers that you have to prepare for the storm before it hits. I have never been more thankful for the time I spend in God's word. It was an anchor for my soul when it felt easier just to drown. The only way sleep would come is when I would recite familiar passages out loud until I could feel the peace I knew was there. In the moments of doubt and despair I clung to the promises I KNEW were true even when they didn't feel that way.
As I sat and listened to my pastor preach the sermon this past Sunday I kept thinking, what if I hadn't had my faith? What if all I had to stand on was "it will be okay" ? I know some people can't understand faith in God. They think it is a crutch or a delusion. All I can say is that I have never needed God more than I did from January 28th to February 5th 2015. He is my rock, my fortress and my strong deliverer. My refuge and my strength. I have never been more sure of who He is because I know that even in my strongest moments I did not have what it takes to continue to love Isaac and levelheadedly get us out of Uganda. I was helpless to do anything but endure and even that felt impossible. All I could do was surrender. I could have surrendered to alcohol. I could have surrendered to over eating (if dessert was more of a thing in Uganda) or even self harm. I could have surrendered to child abuse or whatever else would help me feel powerful enough to overcome. I am thankful that I knew enough to know which choices were empty ones. I choose to surrender to Christ and that's how I got through.
It might be something you can't read about and understand. My only hope in sharing all this is that it might inspire someone else to turn to God now, before the storm of their life, and that somehow that choice will lead them on a path that helps them through their darkest hour because it isn't easy and I couldn't have done it without Him.
