On Palm Sunday, no one in Jerusalem could have possibly known what was coming. They were waving palms to welcome a savior with an incredibly limited view of what kind of savior he was. Palm Sunday is a reminder that God is so much more sovereign than we can imagine.
This week in Uganda was my Easter week. God has been surprising me, “Surprise” being my word of the year this year. I wrestled with the word “unexpected,” but that seems to show a lack of faith. It’s not that I don’t expect God to move. I have a habit of seeing His hand in everything. In truth, it’s that sometimes the WAY He moves, and the fervor with which He acts surprises me.
I went into this week believing we were going to be able to work everything out in Uganda— that our children’s home would be back on track when we left. That’s what I asked God for, and what I thought this week would be. While we were there, though, that dream had to die. The Ugandan government is shutting down children’s homes because they are trying to stop adoptions that are not above board. It’s a great cause, but on the ground, for the kids who truly have nowhere else to go, it’s a devastating situation. We spent days poring over documents, trying to find ways to make this work. We met potential staff members and talked to directors of other homes. We went back over and over again to our vision and our calling. Mostly, we looked, every night, into the faces of children whose futures depended on the decisions we made. In the end, we chose those children. When we finally loosened our grip, we could see God’s plan, which, actually, is the plan He gave us a long time ago— family empowerment. God wants the lonely and the orphaned in families. He’s asking us to help make that happen for our kids. It doesn’t look like what we thought. God has shown us a new way— a way that I believe will be a million times better, but involves laying down what we originally believed, and trusting Him with what’s next -- just like during the original Easter week.
