A week ago this morning, foaming walls of water crashed from the Rwenzoris down into rivers on both sides of the range. People in Busunga, on our DRC border, awoke in the night to the sound of water and chaos, and grabbed their kids to move to higher ground. By daylight we joined thousands of others to go and see what we could do to help. By the end of the day, our administrator John had already enlisted Christ School graduates to canvas the affected area home by home, enrolling those who had lost the most. We learned a lot from our work with the December flood response. This time it took some extra steps for permission to travel and procure relief supplies because of COVID lockdowns, and to organize a bit of protective social distance into the distribution. But letters were granted, a truck arranged and filled. Monday night we were lugging mattresses and bags of rice in the dark into our long-closed community center, stacking items in the darkness. Tuesday clean-up and preparation, and Wednesday (yesterday) the joy of giving it all away.
We are called to be the community of care that makes suffering possible to absorb, an apt phrase from Hauerwas quoted by Eric McLaughlin. Here is a bit of what that community looks like. First, the neighbours, the general population that hears "flood" and thinks "go towards the crisis." That caught our attention, so we went too. You have to bear witness, to be present. Nothing replaces actually walking into the mud and water, actually seeing the rushing power, talking to those who lost their livelihoods. Second, the team including our handful of Ugandan staff like John, with can-do organization and ideas. Third, the broader network of Christ School alumni, young people with whom we had 4-6 years of mentoring, who have developed hearts of service and are willing to wade in with us and work. Fourth, the great cloud of witnesses in the literal icloud, the global community of the prayerful, who in the midst of their own pandemic see pictures of devastation far away and want to help. Because of first-responder generosity, we took the immediate six thousand dollars that came in and borrowed nine thousand from our other funds and approved the aid package. Six days post flood we were able to give each of 125 families a new mattress, bed sheets, blanket, plates, cups, cooking oil, beans, rice, and even a bit of cash to hire a motorcycle to drive it the 8 km back to their home.
If you would like to join those first-responders, please help us make up the rest. I contacted the initial 21 donors last night, and found several widows on limited incomes, students, a person working two minimum-wage part-time jobs who decided to donate their government-stimulus check because unlike many others, they had remained employed as an essential worker. We're not talking about people giving out of excess of comfort, we're talking about real sacrifice. The community of care, layering through multiple crises, stretching around the world. Missionaries living proximate to see and connect and act, local people with the willingness and skills to get things done, donors with hearts to participate. And then the recipients, who get to see love in action. We all need each other.
The sudden devastating force of unstoppable water that upended hundreds of lives last week is just a visible form of the same kind of frightening danger that spread around the world this year as a coronavirus too subtle to see. This morning, 4.3 million known cases and almost 300,000 deaths; when all is said and done the official toll numbers probably will represent only a fraction of the true picture. We can feel paralyzed by the enormity of the situation. Yet two things remain true: God is still bringing the Kingdom to come, good to be done, here on earth. And God's people are the primary means by which this happens, as grandmothers stay isolated in spite of loneliness and nurses work long risky shifts and all of us pitch in our resources to help our neighbours near and far.
I've been reading quite a bit in Psalms, and this week both 29, 32, 69 and 93 all mentioned floods. I would imagine that the topography and climate of gullies and hills and storms would mean the force and destruction of uncontrollable water was something people would have experienced, and an apt metaphor for the powerlessness we feel in the face of forces beyond our control. The point of the picture: these are not beyond God's control.
We are called to be the community of care that makes suffering possible to absorb, an apt phrase from Hauerwas quoted by Eric McLaughlin. Here is a bit of what that community looks like. First, the neighbours, the general population that hears "flood" and thinks "go towards the crisis." That caught our attention, so we went too. You have to bear witness, to be present. Nothing replaces actually walking into the mud and water, actually seeing the rushing power, talking to those who lost their livelihoods. Second, the team including our handful of Ugandan staff like John, with can-do organization and ideas. Third, the broader network of Christ School alumni, young people with whom we had 4-6 years of mentoring, who have developed hearts of service and are willing to wade in with us and work. Fourth, the great cloud of witnesses in the literal icloud, the global community of the prayerful, who in the midst of their own pandemic see pictures of devastation far away and want to help. Because of first-responder generosity, we took the immediate six thousand dollars that came in and borrowed nine thousand from our other funds and approved the aid package. Six days post flood we were able to give each of 125 families a new mattress, bed sheets, blanket, plates, cups, cooking oil, beans, rice, and even a bit of cash to hire a motorcycle to drive it the 8 km back to their home.
If you would like to join those first-responders, please help us make up the rest. I contacted the initial 21 donors last night, and found several widows on limited incomes, students, a person working two minimum-wage part-time jobs who decided to donate their government-stimulus check because unlike many others, they had remained employed as an essential worker. We're not talking about people giving out of excess of comfort, we're talking about real sacrifice. The community of care, layering through multiple crises, stretching around the world. Missionaries living proximate to see and connect and act, local people with the willingness and skills to get things done, donors with hearts to participate. And then the recipients, who get to see love in action. We all need each other.
The sudden devastating force of unstoppable water that upended hundreds of lives last week is just a visible form of the same kind of frightening danger that spread around the world this year as a coronavirus too subtle to see. This morning, 4.3 million known cases and almost 300,000 deaths; when all is said and done the official toll numbers probably will represent only a fraction of the true picture. We can feel paralyzed by the enormity of the situation. Yet two things remain true: God is still bringing the Kingdom to come, good to be done, here on earth. And God's people are the primary means by which this happens, as grandmothers stay isolated in spite of loneliness and nurses work long risky shifts and all of us pitch in our resources to help our neighbours near and far.
I've been reading quite a bit in Psalms, and this week both 29, 32, 69 and 93 all mentioned floods. I would imagine that the topography and climate of gullies and hills and storms would mean the force and destruction of uncontrollable water was something people would have experienced, and an apt metaphor for the powerlessness we feel in the face of forces beyond our control. The point of the picture: these are not beyond God's control.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The LORD is over the many waters.
The voice of the LORD is powerful;
The voice of the LORD is full of majesty. . .
The LORD sat enthroned about the Flood,
And the LORD sits as King forever.
The LORD will give strength to His people;
The LORD will bless His people with peace. . .
The floods have lifted up, O LORD,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.
The LORD on high is mightier
Than the noise of many waters,
Than the mighty waves of the sea.'
Let us, by faith, affirm that the mighty roar of waters cannot dethrone our God, nor can the destructive seep of the coronavirus around our planet. We have help in high places. In fact we are staking our lives upon it.
(Watch the short video of the distribution here to lift your spirits today: link here)
1 comment:
There is a Czech praise song based on Psalm 93. The chorus (roughly translated) is:
"The waters lift up
O Lord
The waters lift up
their voice
Even I lift up
O Lord
Even I lift up
my voice,"
We sang it in our church when we had floods in Prague.
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