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Mother's Day

There is no Mother's Day widely celebrated in Uganda, so this day came and went without ceremony, Hallmark cards, church recognition, sales to entice customers in stores, or special greetings.

But Josh remembered! So that's all that counts!

He made breakfast (woohoo!) and woke Ana up to make me a card (which meant that Ana's face was NOT the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes this morning but rather I awoke on my own after sleeping in a full 10 minutes - YES!). We went to church 45 minutes late (feels so terrible, but the service was just getting started!), the kids did slightly better than usual sitting through the service and Josh did the bulk of that work. The sermon by the guest speaker was terribly unBiblical BUT the pastor (our friend Peter) corrected the errors afterwards for the congregation in the most gracious but straight forward manner we have EVER heard!

We took a little drive to debrief that sermon and the "comments" by Pastor Peter and then went to a local hotel for lunch. We asked for a table under the mango tree in the yard so that the children could play while we waited for our food. Just before the food arrived we realized that we were out of money because the gate man had asked us for "an advance" to help with funeral costs for his daughter-in-law (or some relation like that) on our way to church that morning. Always an adventure in the Rattin family!

We figured out the money situation, ate a yummy meal, the kids took good naps when we got home while Josh and I drank Kenyan-style chai tea on our front patio with a gentle rain cooling the afternoon. In the evening, Josh ran out to the store to get ice-cream (we had seen it there yesterday so were pretty sure there would be some) and we made ice-cream sundaes and wrestled the kids into bed...

A pretty typical day, but something about Josh remembering the day and making extra effort to save me some work made everything a little more tasty and relaxing... made me go ahead and ask him to get ice-cream... made me ready to tackle tomorrow with new resolve to spend more time in God's word, to get my eyes fixed on CHRIST instead of myself and the daily struggle of training and sheparding these precious children.

Happy Mother's Day, dear mothers. I pray that your eyes might be fixed on eternity on this day. That God would bless you with a focus on what really matters in life. That as you are celebrated and honored, as you are saved from a little of your daily work, that you would be able to take a moment to be renewed by Christ and find your worth in GOD.

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