normal

Normal is always changing. 

Normal has became being woken up at 6:30 every morning, Katie making coffee, making sure the kids got breakfast and their medicine, and Sam’s friends knocking on the gate screaming “SAMU!” ready to go to school. 

Normal is finding out that your star pupil in your nursery class, her mom’s a prostitute. 

Normal is morning pep talks and evening calming talks from our jja jja down at the market by our house. 

Normal is being asked for money every time you step out of your house and sometimes they even persistently knock at your gate. 

Normal is the once in awhile cookout with rare and cherished times with other missionary families. 

Normal is naked babies everywhere.

Normal is all our friends piling into our house on saturday nights to worship. 

Normal is going down into the slum and meeting one of your student’s brother, who is 3 years old and doesn’t have an anus, and has no reason to be alive, in need for a operation, but his mom is pressing on to keep her 3 kids fed and sheltered. 

Normal is counting back 7 hours anytime you want to talk to your mom or dad, and usually realizing that it’s entirely too early to call them. 

Normal is putting on your game face anytime there is money involved, and fighting for a fair price against the high white people price most people will give you. 

Normal is coming home to the neighborhood playing football in your front yard with your kids. 

Normal is weekly encouragement, laughter, and wisdom from Scott and Sarah. 

Normal is walking around talking to myself as I translate everything from english to luganda. 

Normal is a fear of illness that your friend suffering from typhoid and many other illnesses has, as she is with nothing to eat and nothing to drink in her home. 

Normal is making friends and family here that you become closer to than you can ever imagine and finding yourself terribly sad when God calls them to continue to follow, and you won’t see them everyday. 

Normal is being laughed at by anyone around if you do something out of the ordinary.

Normal is a school of 60 kids, each one of who has to hug you when you get there everyday.

Normal is Ivan singing, Bwanika squealing, and Sam knocking on our window. 

Normal is someone is always in trouble, there is always some emergency, and there is always something that doesn’t get done.

Normal is a mom and grandmother in a slum, who have 15 kids that they care after. 

Normal is the beaming smile of one of your students when you walk into their tiny home in the slum. 

Normal is beans and posho for dinner. 

Normal is losing power every night: dinner by candlelight, stubbing your toes, and the lights coming back on at 3am and waking you up. 

Normal is afternoons at the ARA where I can run on a treadmill, swim in a pool, and see our friends running around with their kids. 

Normals always changing. I’ve learned a lot about grace these past month as we’ve said goodbye to a lot of our friends who are moving on to where else God wants them. The people that walked beside us in some really hard times, some really desperate times, and some really A M A Z I N G times are God’s grace to me. Even though they may be in and out of my life from now on and I can’t go over to their house for a good american meal or to play the ukelele; they are grace. I may be saying goodbye to awesome friends and family, but not to grace. Grace doesn’t leave me. Grace doesn’t forsake me. God doesn’t stop lavishing grace on us. Normal is and should always be changing, because there will always be more and more grace being added.