A Metaphorical Earthquake

A short blip by Ben:
Last weekend, Holly and I stayed up late working on a proposal. The 100+ page document had all of us at the head office working late hours. After going to bed at 1:00 am Sunday, I was woken up by a deep grone and shaking bed 2 hours later. I have never been in an earthquake, so in my sleepiness, I nudged Holly and told her to stop shaking the bed. When she didn't wake up, I realized that we were in an earthquake. The earthquake became a metaphor for my life last week. I felt unsettled.
Yesterday, the ground was pounded with hail for hours. It was particularly strange as Uganda is currently in the middle of the dry season.
Maybe these incredible natural occurances are trying to remind me of the huge forces at work in the world; that my "work" should be put into a larger perspective.

Soft Wood for Widows

Ben spent a week in Soroti training his crew on Childhood Development & Family Counselling and this week we were back in the same venue for Strategic Planning for CPA. The road between Lira and Soroti is horrendous, so I thought, rather than Ben coming back to Lira inbetween I'd go meet him there. We took a spontaneous trip south of Soroti near Mbale to a beautiful place called Sipi Falls and spent a day exploring three of the most beautiful waterfalls and a couple of caves. It's been too long for these two Coloradans since we went hiking and we were happy to put our feet back into our boots. It was good to relax together at the lodge overlooking cliffs, a deep valley and within earshot of one of the falls.

The waterfalls and caves were spectacular but so was everything else we walked past. The trees and flowers were equally stunning up close. This tree, we were told, is only for widows. No one else is allowed to cut it down for firewood. The wood is soft, and so they say it's easier for a woman who has no husband to do it for her to access firewood. It's always encouraging to learn ways that cultures and traditions have built in protection of vulnerable groups.