The war has definitely settled down a lot and seems to be making a turn. The major shrapnel now consists of IDP camps and children’s return to their villages (both child soldiers and night travelers). Unknown to us, turns out Santa’s father is actually the Bishop of Kitgum, so playing a massive role in “Peace Talks” taking place in and around Uganda. He stayed-up late telling us stories about visits with Tony Blair and Desmond Tutu. It’s crazy though, the man still lives in a hut and has no concept, it seems, of how renowned his role is on a global scale.

The next morning ten of us crammed in a car and rode two-hours to Santa’s village. It was more impoverished than anything I’ve ever seen, and Santa was happy to be home. This village had never seen white people, so didn’t even know to beg from us. They just stared. It was horrific. Every person was severely malnourished. Every hut was infested with maggots, rats and feces. The babies had flies in their eyes, but didn’t flinch. We stayed in the village for the day, resting in huts and visiting nearby lands where family members are buried. We cooked for much of the afternoon and enjoyed a hut-based dinner. Our original plan was to sleep there, but Anna started coming down with Malaria symptoms and we wanted to at least be in range of a hospital, so headed back to Camp. I now realize this was God’s provision.

We rose with the sun, milked the cows and enjoyed a nice breakfast together. Before leaving, six bishops arrived from around Uganda. Bishop Benjamin was facilitating a ceremony from them, providing new motorcycles granted by the Anglican World Council. These men are all in their sixties and often in charge of distant villages that have no road access. That said, these tools will be a huge (and hysterical!) blessing to many sick and needy people. I’m not sure I’ve seen a funnier site than six Ugandan Priests, in full garb, sitting clueless on a shiny, red motorcycle with matching helmets that said “Studd” (yes, with two d’s).

There wasn’t a direct road to Sorotie, so we needed to travel to Lira and then catch a bus from there. Roads here are rural as can be, and for the most part, connect to neighboring towns with only one, one-way, dirt road. You can see, then, why passing or being passed is so scary. And you’re constantly dipping into slopes for cows, walkers with logs on their heads, bikes with three children and a baby, or a range of other options. Our connection from Kitgum lacked any bus, or taxi transport, so our only way out was on top of a truck. It was sized between a semi and minivan and with twenty of us scrunched on top. I was leaning against Mama Grace with my legs hanging off the side. I taught her “Lean On Me,” which at least got us a good laugh. Laughing turned sour though when we hit a muddy ditch, got stuck and slowly tipped over. I was on the edge, so it was relatively easy to jump off—for others it wasn’t so. After about thirty minutes we were back on the road. Soon after, a van passed that tipped us pretty far and pretty fast. So much so that a man fell off. As I looked back and saw him rolling and screaming in the road, I thought we’d lost him. It was one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen. And to ice it, the Africans on the roof weren’t taken back. This was their norm. We were about 150 miles from any town or hint of medical care, so the man was lifted back in, bleeding freely from a huge gash on his head and dislocated at his right leg and wrist. The next three hours were spent asking God to setting my stomach and help me understand what in the world was going on. Literally. I remembered at this point our goal for coming. “Was this love,” I asked God? “Was this what it took to ‘really’ peer first-hand into another’s life? And if so, was this worth it?” I didn’t want to love anymore. It was too hard to too beyond my comprehension.

From Lira, we took a four-hour van to Sorotie. It was the worst road I’ve ever been on. Thank God, I felt safe, due to a probably 10mph average, but there wasn’t more than a ten second span where we weren’t swerving to miss (partially at least) a pothole. We busted tires at two points, but these were the least of my sweaty, frustrated, uncomfortable concern. I had a man with a chicken sitting on my lap for about two hours. I was numb to reality. The bus dropped us off on the side of a small dirt road. Four boda-bodas picked us up (which if you remember, days before scared me; now they felt like a stretch hummer limousine) and rode us inward to the bush about ten miles. Turned-out our drivers were Mama Grace’s “first and third born,” which we didn’t know until the road ended and they escorted us further by foot. Culturally, there are about a hundred things I witnessed this weekend that floored and confused me—this being one. Though she hadn’t seen her family in three years, there were no embraces, or catching-up, and yet it's obvious in other ways how proud she is of her family and children. God is redefining my understandings of what pride, love and sacrifice look like. Right now I have no idea. Well, I have a western idea, but that’s really different from the remainder (and most) of the world. These words define something a lot less scripted than what I thought. Love, for instance, seems far more than a feeling, but more than just a choice. It doesn’t always agree and doesn’t ever evade. And it somehow responds without necessarily receiving and receives without necessarily responding. The weightiness of love is incomprehensible to me today.