Three hours of pampering at a spa: manicure, pedicure, facial, Swedish massage and lunch.  I bought Becky’s birthday present before I left for Uganda.

Three hours = 6 months of child sponsorship.

Three hours = 6 months of nutritional counseling and skills training for a mother, food and clothes and education for a child, medicine, books and teachers, care from Christian workers, and letters packed with love and cheers from a sponsor.

Three hours = six months of hope for one child.

Becky works hard.  She’s doing our taxes all by herself, taking care of three kids on her own while I’m out of town most weekends (and for eight days while I was in Africa).  She manages our lives, mine, hers, the kids, perfectly.  She is the loudest cheerleader in my life.  The best kisser on the planet.  Accountant, nurse, best friend, counselor, gardener, decorator, party thrower, worshipful listener, prayer, janitor, repair man, socializer of three children into the Judeo-Christian ethic, pony tail maker and bad dream chaser. I love her completely.  And she deserves a break, a little rub down, a lunch she doesn’t have to make. 

It’s money well spent.

I keep telling myself that.  Sometimes I even believe it.  I knew this would happen.  This isn’t the first time the third world has crawled through my eyeballs, jiggled the wires in my brain, and melted holes in my heart.  I knew this would happen.

That’s why I bought Becky’s birthday present before I left for Uganda.

Somewhere between Uganda and America is enough.  I wish someone published a map to that place; it’s hard to find some days.  Birthdays, for instance.

I’m jet lagged and feeling more than a little alien here in the suburbs but I love you, Becky.  For loving jet lagged alien me, if nothing else. Happy birthday.

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