Bringing in the New Year at Nyahuka Health Center

Today we spent largely at the end-of-2006-beginning-of-2007 first annual Nyahuka Health Center Staff Party. This event was Jonah’s idea, and since it fell on this particular day we asked our visiting board member Dr. Randy Bond and his son Ian to accompany us. Like most parties, it started hours later than scheduled (we were savvy enough to call ahead, but naïve enough to believe it when we were told “come now, the party is in full swing” . . . Only to find we were the only guests who had arrived!). Like most parties, it involved formalities of seating arrangements, agenda, prayers, speeches, acknowledgements. We were seated right up front at lace-covered table with artificial flowers, facing the staff who sat on benches, and we were assigned a speech each. Even Dr. Randy, who did not appear on the agenda, did not escape, as Jonah insisted he address us.

But unlike most parties this one turned out to be an unexpected gift of encouragement. First, at Jonah’s request we allowed them to use the new nearly-finished pediatric ward for the event, a pristine, freshly painted, spacious building with probably the nicest tile floor west of the Rwenzoris. The setting leant an air of celebration and accomplishment. Second, Jonah’s presence was a source of universal thankfulness and rejoicing. He began his introductions by calling the whole staff his “partners”, and he gave glory to God. Third, almost every person who spoke (about a half-dozen staff representing various departments) thanked us as a mission for the support we give to the health center, for medicines, for sponsoring students, for bringing Jonah, for the new building, for caring about them. One person in particular made me feel that the hours spent daily in the drudge of wading through patients and needs, the battles in prayer for justice, the long slow progress of being part of their lives, meant something to the staff.

So when it came to my turn to speak, I got emotional. Because sitting there I had a little view of my life, and how these people who had come together to wear their nicest Christmas clothes and listen to blaring pop music and munch charred meat and cabbage, these people have become my friends. Dr. Bond our visitor, I thought, has saved so many more lives, he’s an academic pediatrician at one of America’s top institutions, and has a position he uses for great good. When I’m around that I wonder what other directions our life could have taken. But today I felt content that in this obscure corner of the globe, among these people whom nobody outside of a thirty-mile radius even knows exist, we’ve simply come and lived and served and persevered by God’s grace. Nothing so great, just years of struggle, and the improbable but real sense that we have been in the struggle together. For at least today I felt the depth of the privilege of having lived these years here. The glow of that fellowship will evaporate in the press of patients tomorrow I’m sure, but I’m thankful for the mercy of God in giving us a glimpse of it today.