Festive Disease

Yesterday the Community Center buzzed with crowds of HIV-affected women, babies, and assorted relatives, 240 families in all. It was our quarterly Kwejuna Project distribution, a day that always involves so much planning and work and chaos and money. It is a day that I always anticipate being a burden of tragic stories and needy people. But it is a day that consistently surprises me with the atmosphere of a party. Women greet each other, and pass babies. Kids run around with their cups of porridge. WHM workers shoulder bags of beans and cartons of oil, health center staff and community volunteers listen intently to sort out details in interviews. People are weighed and measured, tested and recorded. Family Planning injections are offered. It is an effort that calls upon the resources of nearly our entire team, and then some. A couple from New York sponsors the 5 tons of beans and rivers of cooking oil and hills of salt that are given out to supplement the calories of these families as they fight their disease. This quarter we invited a Church of Uganda pastor from up the road, and a few of his colleagues, to man the prayer room, where they laid hands on any woman who wanted prayer. Reverend Kiiza then spoke to the group about Jesus' words to the winds and the waves: Peace, Be Still. Good words reminding us that God has power over natural forces, even those of disease, and that we can rest in the storm. It was the first time we had partnered with a different local church, and it went well. One of my students, no doubt sent by God, offered to help me out and the two of us spent a solid six hours screening the HIV status of every child, making sure they were enrolled for appropriate care. EGPAF visitors came by, and our district HIV focal person. As exhausting as it is, I'm thankful to be a small part of this picture of the Kingdom, bringing resources to the neediest in a spirit of prayer and love, partnering both locally and nationally, empowering many others to participate, a snapshot of what our mission should look like. Confronting disease, festively.