Going for supervision

In their final year of their studies, our students have two
pastoral placements:  Sunday placement,
where they are placed in churches in Mukono, Kampala, and Namirembe Dioceses,
and block placement, where they are placed in churches for three months prior to
their final semester.  When I was a
student, my Sunday placement was at the Cathedral next to UCU, and my block
placement was at Christ our Lord, in Lake Ridge.  In both cases, the students are supervised by
staff who drop by to observe them and see how they are doing.  I’m inferring that I caused a bit of a
kerfuffle because no one supervised me while I was on block placement.  Clearly, UCU wasn’t going to send anyone to the US to supervise me; I didn’t know I was supposed to find my own
supervisor!

Block placement runs from October through December, and
since there’s really no point in supervising the students in October, as
they’ve just begun at the parish.  I take
my annual leave in October/November, so I am falling into a pattern of doing my
visitations in early December.  We try to
sort our discipleship groups geographically so that we will supervise the
students who we disciple.

I’ve been assuming that I would return to Soroti this year
to supervise my students, and I was quite looking forward to it, as I’ve had
those students in my discipleship group for two years, and know them well.  I was very much looking forward to meeting
little Luke, who was born in June, and for whom our group had prayed.

When I returned from the US, I learned that I’m not going to
Soroti; I’m visiting students who are near-ish to Kampala.  To say that I’m disappointed is a great understatement.  Apparently, some of the students had to be
shuffled.  It happened while I was gone,
so I don’t fully understand.  I had tried
to lobby to have this settled before I left; I’ll try harder next year.  I really want to be in Soroti to see my
students be ordained.