The Familiar

With all of our traveling and adjustments this past year, I have found myself clinging to things that feel familiar. They have been like a breath of fresh air to me as everything else has seemed so new and different.

We arrived in Arua, Uganda on Saturday. We are here to see if this would be a good place to set up a temporary ministry site. Part of what drew us to come and explore Arua was that we heard they have a Moru church here and a good amount of Moru people who have fled from South Sudan. Since this is the people group we work with in Mundri, we thought this could be a great opportunity for us to continue to work on language in hopes of returning to Mundri again in the future.

We had the privilege of attending the Moru service yesterday and it was so... familiar. It felt like going back home to Mundri! It was familiar to greet everyone in Moru and see huge smiles cross their faces (which showed me they could actually understand my Moru.. always a win!). It was wonderful to hear songs sung in Moru that we used to hear every week in Mundri. It was a blessing to see young Moru children and be able to ask their names and understand the names when they responded (that one took me a while when we were in Mundri!).

Children preforming a song at the
Moru church service

What amazed me the most about the service was the joy. There was so much joy in the room! Now, you have to understand that everyone at the service calls South Sudan home. They are only in Arua because of war. After wondering why there were so many women in the service and so few men, we learned that most of the men stayed in South Sudan to work/ protect their homes and farms. They sent the women and children to Arua for safety. Most of them live off very little money and probably in houses that do not feel like "home". In the message, the preacher talked about their great suffering and how little they have. And yet, there was such great joy! The resiliency of the Moru people amazes me.

The familiarity of attending this service reminded me of how grateful I am that God allowed us to work with the Moru people. I always tell people that the only thing that draws me to want to go back to Mundri is the people. The place is difficult, at best. But the people, they make it completely worth it. Having the opportunity to be around Moru people again brought all of those realizations back to the surface. They are incredible. God has given them an amazing ability to bounce back from things that most people would buckle under. They know how to make due with very little- and be thankful for it!

So this week I'm thankful for the familiar. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be around Moru people again and see their joy and resiliency up-close. It's a joy to feel at home again and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again next Sunday.