A taste of true home

Yesterday I felt that the week was going to prove to be just too much, that saying goodbye to the Massos and all the emotional intensity of our family-coping would be insurmountable.  I sent a quick email for prayer, an acknowledgment that we were at the end of our abilities and we needed a Divine intervention.  It seemed a bit odd as a missionary to ask for prayer for a party.  But then people thought Jesus was not serious enough either.  So we asked for prayer that the farewell dinner we gave last night would be an Isaiah 25 type feast of fine food and beverage, or as Capon puts it "May we all sit long enough for reserve to give way to ribaldry and for gallantry to grow upon us.  May there be singing at our table before the night is done, and old, broad jokes to fling at the stars and tell them we are men.  . . The road to Heaven does not run from the world but through it . . Eat well then.  Between our love and His Priesthood, He makes all things new.  Our Last Home will be home indeed." 

And it was such a night.  All 18 of us dressed up, sat at a long candle-lit table, and though there were a few tears from us old-timers, the general tone of the evening was thankfulness for our shared lives and a hopeful longing for the final Feast of the Lamb.  There were toasts, poems, songs, games, pictures and stories.  Each team member honored the Massos in some creative way, and we were all entertained by each others' efforts.  We have walked the most intense years of our lives together and that will not be replaced, but it was a night to be grateful for that past and to be willing by faith to walk on into the future.  

Two more answered prayers.  One, Julia's team has been allowed to come have a party for her Birthday and Acacia's goodbye after all.  So in a couple of hours the next party starts, 21 teenage Ugandan girls.  Then tomorrow, on her real birthday, she'll have the team and a handful of younger Ugandan girl-friends with whom she has grown up.  Yes, we can still use prayer for stamina for three parties in three nights, and for the Spirit of graciousness, gallantry, and gazing to Heaven to continue.  Second, Jack has stabilized a bit, from prayer and rest and Scott getting back from Kampala, whatever the cause it has been a relief to go through a day without major tears.  

And today a small glimpse of the redemption of our suffering.  Most of my patients are babies and toddlers, a few are elementary-school age, but once you survive to be 10 most kids don't land in the hospital very often.  Today a 12 year old girl was lying on a mattress on the floor, with a diagnosis of "cerebral malaria" because she had come in the night before acting distraught and incoherent.  She had no fever, and when we checked no malaria parasites either.  Something about her weary and wary expression reminded me of Jack.  So I got a trusted nurse, Olupa, and we probed further.  At first she had little to say, but slowly the story emerged that she had grown up in the care of her grandmother, after her parents divorced.  But her mom recently remarried and had decided to bring her daughter to her new home.  She claimed her mother was beating her, she missed her grandmother, and though she denied anything further it would not be surprising for step-father abuse issues to be part of the picture.  We were able to call in the mother and grandmother and discuss this and all agreed the girl could go back to live with her grandmother.  If I had not just lived through an emotionally wrenching week with my own child, I'm not sure I would have recognized the cry for help and taken the time to intervene.

And so we long for our last home, home indeed, and in the meantime savor tastes and struggle to pull others along.