Welcoming 2007

We have welcomed 2007 in style, Ugandan style. Last night the team gathered at the Pierce home with a handful of Christ School teachers, a few young friends like Ndyezika, and the ever-lively Bihwa family, a party unto themselves. There was food and a campfire and singing and drumming and dancing. Ndyezika and I almost fell on the ground laughing as Scott Ickes and Josh Dickenson followed Bihwa’s energetic Muleddu dancing with a dance of their own around the fire that they made up to commemorate Bundibugyo life with moves symbolizing hoeing, carrying water, greeting friends in the market, and riding a picky-picky. At midnight we hooped and hollered and beat drums and then dispersed to beds, to rest up for an even bigger party today.

Ten years ago, we spent New Year’s Day 1997 with Jonah and his family. He and his wife Melen had just moved onto property that we had leant him money to buy, a small mud house with a tin roof nestled up against a steep hillside farm that was just beginning to be profitable. We had worked together for several years by then and become friends. That New Year’s Day stands out in our memories: we spent the entire day out at his homestead, just sitting and talking and cooking together, unhurried fellowship. It stands out because about six months later the ADF rebels invaded. Jonah and Melen fled from that home, we scattered. It was later burnt by the rebels, and Jonah lost much. Bullet holes are still visible in the repaired walls. As he said today, during those dark days of 1997 we could not have known that ten years later we’d be back, at peace, still working together, still great friends. The decade has added four more children between us, seen Jonah through medical school, internship, and the rocky return to Bundibugyo, seen us through further MPH studies, team expansion, many ministries and projects. So it was with a great sense of thankfulness and joy that we decided to commemorate the Ebeneezer of the decade completed by celebrating the day together again.

Jonah asked us to come up in the morning and spend the day, and that we did. We dragged Scott Ickes along at the last minute (the kids’ pulled him in when he came up to ask a question). We sat on mats in the shade teaching kids to play UNO. We toured around the farm, seeing stands of matoke and cassava, cocoa and groundnuts and beans, scattering chickens, huffing up to the boundary mango tree to look back down on the valley. Jonah the doctor is at heart Jonah the farmer, with plans for more livestock and different patches of crops. Julia got smiles from the Jonah daughters (he has five now!) playing jump rope and tossing a ball. But the highlights of the day were two.

First, the goat. The whole idea was for Jonah to slaughter a goat for us, a way of saying thanks, of acknowledging us as part of his life. He chose a young kid from the very line that he has maintained since he was in primary school. Scotticus and our kids were fascinated by the whole process, and Scott (Myhre) used the dissection to teach lots of anatomy as the animal was skinned and then opened and cut up. The goat was all-day entertainment. Scotticus even helped chop some of it up into cook-able pieces. We ate the first part fried as a “lunch snack” and the rest stewed for the main meal. From bloody carcass to steaming dinner our kids thought it was fascinating and tasty. I marvel at the way God uses sacrifice and the meal of fellowship to symbolize His coming to us. Seeing it happen today made that very real.

The second highlight was taking Jonah and his older three girls to Ngite Falls in the late morning, after we had been hanging out together for a couple of hours. Though this home is less than a kilometer away from the Falls. . . He had never climbed up there! I got one of the girls to get in the water with me and let the spray hit her head, which is an intimidating experience for anyone, especially marginal swimmers. Jonah marveled at the spectacular beauty, and thanked us for being the ones that bring new experiences and adventure into his kids’ lives.

So today was another gift. The losses of the last decade have been significant. Jonah’s father was killed by rebels in the late 90’s; mine died this past year of ALS. There were many points of uncertainty, and as Sam says in the Lord of the Rings, many opportunities to turn back, only we didn’t, which is the bulk of what makes the story. Living out our relationship with each other through the changes, experiencing God’s mercy together over the long haul. We laughed a little about our plans to do this again in 2017 . . .