Biding Time

I'm on a full train from London and am surrounded by people occupying themselves as they wait to reach their destination, the guy beside be watching DVDs on hips laptop, the girl across the aisle flipping through a fashion magazine as she listens to the latest radio hit on her brand new iPhone, and the man in the row opposite me finishing his novel only to flip back to the front and begin it again. They are all biding time, and that's what I've been doing for the past three weeks.

Exactly three weeks and two days separate my training from the time I will depart for Uganda. After the build up and excitement from meeting my team and learning everything from the history of the country to methods of water purification and how to remain healthy while traveling, I was left with these three weeks and two days to wait.

I've been biding my time with each of the girls that I will spend five and a half months with in Uganda, toting my suitcases with me along the way (my suitcases that have mysteriously gotten heavier with each journey, despite the fact that I haven't added a kilogram to them). I spent the first week with Lizzie in the countryside of Kent, a region just east of London. It was a rare week in an English September, with a cloudless sky everyday accompanied by 70 degree weather, and there was no better place to spend it than in Lizzie's garden. Right out of a Better Homes and Gardens centerfold, Lizzie's garden contained endless trellises, ponds filled with lily pads, fruit trees from which we picked our own apples and raspberry bushes which provides us with three punnets full of tart raspberries, though there weren't three punnets for long.

From there I headed to Peterborough, near Cambridge, to stay with Ruth. Ruth's father is a vicar and her family lives in a new parsonage across the street from their multi-denominational church. As the weather cooled down and the seasons changed from summer to fall (or as they would say here, "autumn"), I spent my time with Ruth indoors, watching some of my favorite American television shows along with some of Ruth's family's favorite British ones. On a sunny Saturday we were able to visit Cambridge, and although school wasn't yet in session, Ruth and I walked around campus as if we went to school there, entering a few buildings we probably shouldn't have, feeling like I was Rory Gilmore at Yale all the while.

With two weeks down and one week to go, my third week biding time has offered me a change of pace. Since I couldn't stay with Abby, the final girl who is going with me, due to lack of room, I have spent the week at her pastor's house. The Olivers are no strangers to America, as their eldest daughter, Lucy, has spent two years in Seatle interning at a church. It has been a welcome place to reorganize my things and to be encouraged about my trip to come. Along with the church in Watford, just north of London, the Olivers minister on a regular basis in Kenya and in Uganda, and they have passed on a wealth of information to me as I count down the days until it is time for me to minister as well.

Today is my last day at the Oliver's, and it is cold and rainy, as England often is. As I sit here shivering in my sandals and t-shirt, with just a light rain jacket, I know that my time here is finished and I am now prepared to begin my African journey, not just based on my warm-weather clothing, but also because I have waited around long enough. The wait was a perfect way to get to know each of my team members, but now it's over, and something much bigger is about to begin.