Total orphan

In Uganda, when you lose a parent, you become an orphan. When you lose the other parent, you become a total orphan. I lost my dad in 1996, so I’ve been an orphan for some time, but when I lost my mom on Palm Sunday, I became a total orphan. For someone who has been metaphorically alone all my life (in Uganda, only children are referred to as “born alone”) and living 8,000 miles from home for the last nearly four years, I’m a bit surprised to see how hard the concept of being alone, really being alone, hits me.

I have quite a lot of adopted family in Uganda, even across tribes; I have extended family still in Virginia, and other extended family scattered across the Carolinas, but when someone at New Wineskins asked me if I still had family in Virginia, it gave me pause.  No, I don’t have immediate family here anymore: I’m alone.  That realization nearly undid me.

I had been looking forward to the SAMS retreat in advance of New Wineskins for some time, as I’ve been operating from an emotional deficit since the semester began in January.  While I knew I’d enjoy New Wineskins, it was the SAMS retreat, being with my people, and being on the receiving end of ministry, that I craved.

My SAMS tribe did not disappoint.  They are also my family, and being among them was very much a homecoming.  I have a number of itinerant friends, and allows them to understand parts of my life, though there is no substitute for people who have chosen to minister in another culture who GET all that I live and sometimes have difficulty quantifying.  This familial bond is balm to me.  I didn’t talk much during the sharing times of the retreat (and I had warned my small group leader in advance), but I did laugh a lot, which was the perfect medicine for my heart that hasn’t been able to do a lot of processing yet.