Wresting rest, crises of the hour

Sunday, day of rest.  Rest implies passivity, but here we have to actively wrest rest from the onslaught of circumstances.  This morning we awoke to find our dinner had disappeared—two catfish we purchased yesterday and were trying to keep in a basin of water for dinner today . . Gone.  Later we found one which had flipped and crawled about 40 yards, still alive.  The other was gone forever.  Dinner ration cut in half, no grocery option.  Then a boy appeared at the door asking for help—his brother had hit him in the eye with a stone, leaving pain and swelling.  Before handing out tylenol Scott pried open his eyelid to find the eye had ruptured.  Saline, dressings, transport costs, referral letter to the regional hospital in Fort Portal, all before breakfast.  Meanwhile Larissa had been notified of an impending C section and went down to help, where it turned out that the young mother had an unrecognized twin pregnancy with one baby long dead, the other severely depressed, infected, struggling to breathe, and in spite of over half an hour of resuscitation efforts the baby died.  On my way to pray with Larissa over this grief I met Stephanie who was mobilizing veterinary help for the chicks—at least 20 were lethargic, dozing, not eating, sick, about to die—count this evening is 16 dead.  Also saw Pamela just off a phone call where she learned that her aunt had died.  Second aunt in two months to pass away, always difficult news when here too far away to join in the family grieving.  Back to church, thankful for the wisdom of the leaders who are helping us this weekend deal with a young man who is trying to take a missionary to court for what he perceives is an attempt to block him from receiving sponsorship for university studies (having already been sponsored completely for six years of secondary school), a distressing situation.  Then home to a message of crisis at CSB.  No water in the tanks means that students go to the river to wash clothes, bathe, and gather drinking water.  Not a healthy practice, and disruptive to the school.  Scott checked the lines and tanks, no flow at all.  So that’s a problem for the water engineers Michael has trained.  Earlier in the week our whole team had come to the end of our propane, used for cooking, so that we were resorting to charcoal, though thankfully Bob in Fort Portal was able to get us a handful of tanks.  Diesel fuel is also scarce in the country due to pipeline problems.  Sometimes just the normal background of life (water to drink or bathe in, fuel to cook with or drive, solar power for lights) comes prominently into the foreground as inevitable glitches in supply throw life into chaos.  Two team members sick.  And so the day went on, ending in a column of swarming winged seasonal insects whose larvae rise from the ground after heavy rain, a grey cloud against the sunset, turn off all lights (they fly towards light) and keep the door closed.  Crises accumulating hour by hour . . .