Ugandan nights are dark, full of touchable stars and the smoky smells of wood fires.  Tonight, this last night before our departure, the darkness parted for a glorious hour in an open air chapel, lit solely by the dim light of a single fluorescent bulb and the exuberant voices of 95 Ugandan children given special permission to miss bedtime so we could worship one final time together.

If you’ve never danced under a dark Ugandan sky with a child from Canaan, you’ve missed one of God’s greatest and most startling blessings.

As believers in the United States, we are rightly challenged to live in such a way that our lives are set apart from our not-yet-believing friends and neighbors.  For most of us, the greatest evidence of our “set-apartness” is our choice of activity Sunday morning.  We blissfully float in a pool of common grace so wide and deep – and so all pervasive that we often fail to recognize the personal and costly mercy of God in our lives.

Here in southeastern Uganda, in village after village, we’ve witnessed the long-term ravages of war, hunger, desperate poverty, disease, violence and ignorance.  Common grace looks different amid mud huts, overflowing AIDs wards in children’s hospitals, torn clothes and bare feet.  In God’s mysterious wisdom (and you can imagine the questions I’ve taken to Pastor Crane during these two weeks!), He’s chosen to continue to sustain a quality of life in the United States nearly incomprehensible in most of the world.

And so, when the magnificent and personal grace of God, poured out on an individual or a community, shines in Uganda, the light nearly blinds these much too complacent American eyes.

Canaan Children’s Home shines with this light – a place where children are raised in modest surroundings, but with a certainty that they are loved, safe, valuable – that they will be fed, clothed, educated – that they will be taught to love and fear God and to know the power of His reconciling, redeeming love in both their deepest wounds and their highest hopes.

These past two weeks, our team traveled to villages near and far, teaching in schools, leading after school Bible clubs and training pastors.  We estimate that over 10,000 children heard our presentations, stories of the life of Christ, His great love and how we can love one another.  We praise God for allowing us these opportunities to share and we ask that you join us in praying for a beautiful harvest from these efforts.

But even with 10,000 hungry and expectant young faces swimming before our tired eyes, the strongest and most lasting impression will be this night – the night we danced with abandon under the stars with our brightly shining young brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sara Kennedy