This blog post comes from Wengen (near Interlaken)...a mountainside hamlet of chalets tucked into a craggy alpine valley, with nothing in view but snow-covered peaks, fir-green pines, blazing geranium porch-boxes . . . Truly stunning.
We successfully hooked up with the rest of the family in the airport as they arrived, and somehow managed to steer 13 of us (age range 4 to 75 years) and about 2 dozen suitcases, backpacks, coats, carry-ons through the punctual Swiss train system. Connecting to four different trains within four hours for the total journey without losing a kid or even a bag was a minor miracle. The last leg was on a tiny three-car train that carried us up to our village (at 4100 ft.), then a ten minute walk to our chalet. The cousins have been delighted to tumble and laugh and run and play together again, which is a relief to see when they’ve been apart for so long. The order of the day seems to be hikes, with every direction being nothing but spectacular post-card scenery, cowbells tinkling, and the mountain face changing as clouds pass over and the sunlight fades from white to yellow to pink.
The only drawback so far is that after almost 14 years I came down with my first case of malaria, in Switzerland of all places. Who would have thought. It was brewing en route and I pretty much collapsed as soon as we made it to our chalet. Thankfully we had a test and some treatment. I’m emerging, but the experience has given me new respect for the disease. I felt like a plug had been opened in my foot and my energy was completely drained out of my body, wearing a fleece and under four layers of down comforter and still chilling. Not something I want to repeat. I’m still getting daily injections (we used all the Artenam tablets on a colleague at our retreat in Jinja).
But as Luke likes to say, no matter the weather, our moods, disputes, even illness...we are in Switzerland with family. God is good.
Switzerland makes an impression even before we land, dipping below the thick cloud cover on our final descent: orderly, neat rows of roofs, a winding river punctuated by isolated patches of trees. The airport feels monstrously large after Entebbe, miles of corridor, spotless bathrooms, punctual buses deliver us to a nearby hotel where we are to wait for Scott’s family to arrive tomorrow. We venture out for breakfast, disrupting traffic as we wait on the road side and yet cars magically stop for us as soon as our toes touch the yellow striped crosswalk. Heady with the power to stop traffic (this after days in Kampala, dodging death, running and weaving to cross streets . . . .) we briefly consider just spending the day crossing streets for entertainment, but the bakery across the street lures us on with a human-size croissant statue out front. Inside dozens of people are taking a morning break, confidently pointing to pastries and counting out their francs. The clerk addresses us in German—oh, we are invisible immigrants at last, not obvious bajungu! We choose rolls with crusty crackling crusts, flaky buttery croissants, and a pastry that is covered with berries (black, straw, and ras) so vivid and luscious that it does not look real. Cappuccino please! Ahhhhh. The price is a bit concerning, more than we’d spend for DAYS of food in Bundibugyo. Yet luxuries like chocolate bars are by contrast cheap. We stroll up and down the street to such foreign and memorable sights as fresh grapes in the market (!), neat cafes, shiny little two-seater Europe-sized cars. Back to the hotel for HOT WATER showers with INCREDIBLE FLOW, I feel like I’m being pressure washed like the side of a dusty house. Quietness. Forget the Alps, we could probably be very entertained within these two blocks of normal Swiss life.
I wonder how African immigrants adjust, do they miss the life of bustle, color, noise, the richness of smells and human contact pushing and jostling? I think even I would eventually. But for today the contrast is refreshing.
2007 is a big year in our family: Scott and I already celebrated our 20th anniversary. But since we were married the year that both sets of parents reached their 30th anniversaries, that means that 2007 is a major Jubilee. Scott’s parents are hosting us as well as his sister’s family for a week in Switzerland to honor their 50th wedding anniversary. Yes, you can suspend all pity for the next week, we are headed to a chalet accessible only by train in a mountain valley near Interlaken. I do feel a twinge of guilt, but then again many of the images of the presence of Jesus involve parties and wine, celebration and feasting. . . . So we leave behind our team and work and fly off tonight to a long awaited week of reunion and beauty. I only wish we could have enjoyed this milestone with my parents as well.
We headed out to the airport this morning with Stu and Ruth Ann Batstone, big hugs and much thanks, even from our kids, as if we had been family or friends all our lives. Their visit was a tremendous help to us and a good time of bonding, therefore the goodbyes were a taste of the continual cycle of loss when we leave family and friends. Sigh. But as soon as we sent them waving into the security checkpoint for departures, we went downstairs to arrivals to await the entrance of our two newest team mates, teachers Sarah Reber and Ashley Wood. Though we had met Sarah briefly once we wondered if we would pick them out right away—but it was no trouble since they wheeled carts balanced with oversized cardboard bike boxes. Those have to be our women! We ran up for hugs. After unloading at the ARA and breakfast we dragged them right off to Kampala’s craziness, rubble and bodas and jostle and sweat. Scott introduced them to the bank so they could cash checks, and then took them to the grocery store at the mall. Our afternoon strategy is sun to re-set the body clock, and a cold pool to stay awake! They are lots of fun already. So goodbye and hello in the same day, trying to remember how disorienting and foreign it is to land here for the first time, the next two years an unknown and no doubt stretching long ahead.
Life in the city: throbbing, dusty, colorful, congested. We’re in Kampala for a few days of errands. A typical list might look like:
- Go to the bank. All transactions in Uganda are cash. The highest bill is worth about $30 and rare, mostly we deal with bills valued 50 cents to $5. So spending thousands of dollars on construction, or nutrition, or training seminars . . . Means getting loads of cash.
- Buy medicine—we routinely supplement the government’s meager supplies of everything from gloves to antibiotics.
- Buy groceries—besides tomatoes, eggs, potatoes, and flour . . . Almost all our food is purchased out here. So we load up on two to three months of everything from staples like pasta, butter, cereal, and baking powder to luxuries like frozen meat and fresh oranges and apples.
- Shop ahead for the next several months of team birthdays, gifts for visits, school supplies like paper or notebooks. We have one FANASTIC book store in Kampala where we could spend hours. . . And usually treat ourselves to a few new good reads.
- Meetings—though we live and work in Bundibugyo, any other major organization we partner with bases itself in Kampala. So whenever we are in Kampala a day here and a day there disappears to meetings with Ministry of Health, or Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, or UNICEF, or . . . .
- Fix the car—whatever quirks and issues have jostled to the surface over the last few months. This time it was the turn signals.
- Medical care—anything that requires labs, vaccines, or specialists . . The resources are ever improving in Kampala. I spent most of the last two days trying to connect with an ENT doctor (I would get to the hospital, they’d say he had an emergency, come back in an hour, etc.) . Finally today I had a hearing test and thorough exam with a very spiff operating microscope. Evidently in spite of my continuing symptoms of fullness, mild occasional pain, echo, decreased hearing in my left ear since I perforated my ear drum with a bad infection in early May, there is nothing visible or measurable wrong with me now. Scott is vindicated, who also has been examining my ear and declaring it to look healed and normal. It was a day’s investment but I’ll continue to have patience and hope for full healing.
- Reservations—no purchasing plane tickets on the internet or by credit card over the phone . . . You have to go to the office of the airline.
- Paperwork—we almost always have some sort of passport or immigration issue to attend to. This time I’m renewing my expired passport (another decade gone by!), and we had to get Luke’s pass renewed, and renew our National Park passes for another year. Tomorrow Scott will be picking up finger prints and criminal records for team mates who are renewing their work permits. Think lines, delays, bureaucracy.
- Miscellaneous: everything from spare parts for the airstrip lawn mower to searching for a meter “yardstick” for school.
A super-efficient American might be able to knock all that off in a good long ten hour day with a Target, a phone, appointments on schedule, and a good car. Here in Uganda we can spend all week and still leave things undone. Traffic is horrendous as the city has burgeoned with unplanned growth and swarms of cars, potholed roads and non-functioning lights. Lines are long. One can easily be sent from office to office, or told to come back. Essential parts are missing. Every errand can generate two more. We find ourselves frazzled and grimy and often grumpy by the end of the day. But then the reward: restaurants! Going out to eat, something we can not do in Bundibugyo. The day is redeemed by candlelight as we sample Thai or Indian or Belgian food, relaxing as a family, thankful for abundance.
The week in Jinja was all we hoped for. Physically we had great rest, away from the constant press of needs and sorrow that weighs us down in Bundibugyo. We had clean beds and quiet nights, three meals a day prepared by someone else without any struggle on our part, gardens for sitting and praying and meditating, sunshine to invigorate our soppy souls, a pool for splashing and playing and connecting with the kids, spectacular sunrises and slow evenings that slipped into darkness by Lake Victoria. Socially we had a good stretch of days to be with our family and our team, singing and praying, listening and learning, and having riotous silly fun in a summer-camp kind of way in the evenings. Spiritually we had challenging teaching about faith, pointing us to the grace of God, leading us through the reality of forgiveness and the impact of grief. One morning we all sat in a circle around the room and put to words the sadness and anxieties and difficulties we anticipate in the transitions ahead (9 of 16 adults on the Bundibugyo team finishing terms and leaving in the next year . . . ), and then talked about hope and how we could see God drawing us into intimacy with Him through these losses. My personal analogy was that we feel as team leaders like the parents of adolescents who are gaining independence and moving on (those who are leaving to go into other work or ministries) yet suddenly have found ourselves unexpectedly pregnant (getting ready to receive and nurture 5 new team mates in the next few months too!). The last half of the week was focused on approaching God as our Father in conversational prayer, using solitude, silence, and Scripture to enter into true communion with Him.
Many people prayed for this time, and from the little I’ve heard from others it was significant in the hearts of other team mates too. We were greatly impacted by the ministry of the Batstones and Donovan Graham, visits like theirs are quite rare in terms of coming along side us in Bundibugyo and then pouring themselves out for us in leading the retreat. I’m sure that the prayers of many paved the way for powerful work of the Spirit. And the kids (21 of them!) were happy too, having a program put together by four Ugandan pastoral/youth workers from a large church in Kampala. We are grateful for God’s abundant provision of wise counsel and peaceful rest.
(from our prayer update)
The summer ends for us in Bundibugyo tomorrow, and the last week has been full. Thanks so much for your prayers for us. We have seen God’s power and mercy even in the last few days as CSB teachers have been challenged and encouraged by Donovan Graham’s teaching, and as our team has walked with Pat through the dying days of her dear friend who succumbed yesterday to AIDS ( see below). Today we tie up loose ends and clean out our propane fridges and pack up our cars as we prepare to leave en masse tomorrow. Due to incessant rain and soggy airstrip we are unable to fly some of the people out, so we have to squeeze into available vehicles.
PLEASE PRAY for the next week. Jesus set a pattern of withdrawing from the crowds to pray, and to teach His disciples. We need both in the next week: rest, relief, restoration, prayer, and solid community building time away from the pressures of daily life. Pray for Donovan Graham and Stu and Ruth Ann Batstone to lead us in “repentance and rest” as we study Scripture, eat food that someone else cooks, take walks, bask in some sunshine (we hope!) and swim with our kids. Our team is facing a year of many transitions with half of the long-term “core” families and almost all the short term singles moving on from Bundibugyo. Though others will be coming, the transitions are in the forefront of our minds and hearts as we go into this annual time of retreat together.
Thank you for your prayers, which are just as needed in times of retreat as they are on the front lines of Bundibugyo. We are grateful for you.
Love,
Jennifer for the team
Pat’s dear young friend M. died today, just after midnight. She was 26 years old, a widowed mother of two little girls. Pat (and we!) met her in 1993 when we first came, and she was a 12 year old girl going to church. Something about her touched Pat’s heart, and they developed an almost mother/daughter relationship over the years. She grew up, she married a soldier, and then he died and left her with two children and a virus. She died of AIDS, but also of fear, of prejudice, of secrecy. She died of the injustice that makes a girl overly desperate for a relationship, she died of the injustice that means a person as sick as she was was being cared for on the floor of a minimally equipped health unit instead of in a state-of-the-art ICU.
But she did not die alone. Over the past few weeks she finally allowed her friends like Pat to delve back into her life, to get her the diagnosis long suspected, to take her to the clinic. Her self-sufficiency and willfulness melted away before the relentless pursuit of this disease. Once a healthy plump girl, spunky and lively, musical and laughing, she shrunk into a weak jaundiced figure with a shuffling walk, and finally needed help even to turn over in bed. And she had help, lots of it. Pat spent hours and nights with her, bringing her into her home for care, taking her to the hospital. Her young twenty-something girl friends tirelessly sat by her side. Her older mother wore herself out.
Over the last few days M. was increasingly uncomfortable, restless, breathing more quickly. Her CD4 result came back: 79, terribly dangerously low. She stopped eating and drinking, pulled out her IV lines. By yesterday morning even her mother was ready to give up, so they brought her home, laid her on Pat’s lap on a mattress on the floor of her simple mud-brick room. In the confusion and busy-ness of this summer and this week in particular we weren’t sure this was right, this was the end. Two other AIDS patients of mine came into the hospital as wasted and near death as M., but recovered. So we respected her family’s decision to bring her home (M herself was no longer coherent) but Scott and I went to visit, and Scott put in a home IV for fluids and antibiotics and even gave her pain medicine. We sat with her, and Pat, and her friends, and prayed. About 10 Pat called to say that she had pulled the IV out again, but we would wait until morning to restart it since she was no longer dehydrated. But then just after midnight, we got another phone call to say she had died.
AIDS represents so much of what is wrong with our broken world, but in spite of it all in Africa sometimes we can see the beautiful picture of a community responding to pain. Yes, some of the crowd of people that came to visit M. before and after her death were merely curious or looking for gossip. But most were sincerely moved by her suffering, and here that is expressed by physical presence. By the time the sun was well up this morning over a hundred people were warming themselves over the coals of the compound’s fire against the damp morning air, sitting shoulder to shoulder on benches. Later I counted 26 people (adults) sitting in the 6 x 8 foot room with her body, our legs tangled, our hips pressing together. Dozens of women sang hymns most of the day. At least five different pastors came to pray and give sermons to the growing crowd. By late afternoon there were at least 500 people. It was long, and crowded, but that is Africa, everyone must have their say, and the more people that are there the better.
A number of family members also spoke, but Pat was the only woman and the only “friend” invited to say something. She begged people not to live in fear, and very boldly declared that M.’s rapid decline was not the result of witchcraft, that God knew the number of her days. When Pat emphasized how she longed for people to know the freedom from fear that comes through Jesus she got down on her knees in the muddy courtyard. I heard people gasp, cluck their tongues. They were listening. A little window of life and hope on a day of sadness.
It was nearly 5 pm by the time the crowd moved towards the graveside, in this case (after long negotiations through the morning hours) M. was buried on her own land, land that Pat had helped her obtain after her husband died, which was a ten minute walk from her mother’s home. We stood around the gaping grave, administering first aid to hyperventilating and fainting friends. After a few more prayers and songs the thunk of dirt clods on the thin plywood top of the coffin, the sound of finality, dust to dust, mud to mud.
The picture of AIDS today is raw, unadorned, sagging skin and yellow eyes, labored breath and weeping friends, wide-eyed orphaned children clinging to relatives. But that is not the whole picture—hundreds of people in solidarity, singing praises in spite of suffering, testifying to the unseen reality of eternal life in the midst of muddy death, caring for each other, this is also part of the picture of AIDS. Like a swingset in the graveyard, like a bloom in the desert .. . Love is going to break through (Chris Rice).
Yesterday can only be described as : full. After the usual morning chaos of getting everyone up, ready, breakfasts and lunches to go . . . I headed to the hospital to try and see all 37 inpatients and organize those who needed food for Stephanie to serve, before coming back up to the community center for the Kwejuna Project food distribution. We asked the Batstones to come and pray for the women in small groups. It turned out that we had a record day: 164 women! We used to think anything over a hundred was nearly impossible . . . My favorite part of those days is when mothers come from the HIV testing room with negative results on their toddlers, and we can rejoice together. My least favorite part was asking one woman about her child as we registered her, and she got tears in her eyes when she had to tell me the baby had died last month. That’s how it is, a sense of rescue tempered by the grief of loss. Ruth Ann and Stu were troopers, taking over 20 prayer sessions. They found the women and even some of the older kids willing to share their problems, their aches and pains, their anxiety about the future. I find that in that situation as a fix-it doctor and a can-do American, it is challenging to believe in the reality of the spiritual transaction of prayer being of value in a desperate person’s life. Meanwhile as Ruth Ann stayed on to speak and Pamela to organize the actual distribution of oil, beans, salt, and a small transport stipend (I told her that each month the challenge of the crowd increases, but she manages to stay amazingly organized and able to serve), I came back home to check on kids post-school and make a massive amount of bread for the next couple of days. As that dough was rising we had a previously scheduled check-up for a team member who has been sick before going down in the afternoon to meet with the Barts and Pierces about some issues related to housing and transition at CSB. We had just about finished that meeting when someone came with an urgent message that a baby had been dropped and “something was coming out of his head”. Envisioning brains spilling through a skull we rushed back up to the community center to find a 3 month old twin who had slipped out of his mother’s hands in the transfer of babies with her other kid . . . But only a little lump of swelling, nothing serious. Good. At that point it was almost 5 and Scott had to go to Bundibugyo town to pick up someone trying to get here to advise us about solar power for the new ward, so I stopped by to check on the Gray family with three sick boys. All had the same nasty GI bug that swept through other sectors of the team last week, but were beginning to improve. We paused to pray for a reconciliation meeting Rick was holding with a couple whom we had nearly given up on, a real answer to prayer. While we were doing that Karen rushed in to say come quickly, Michael is hurt, and it turned out he had a corneal abrasion from an accident with some pliers . . . He’ll be OK, but it did look pretty impressive when I bandaged his eye. As they left I was delighted to notice that some mysterious angels had cleaned up my kitchen while I was gone in meetings, something that does not often happen to me, so I’m ready to keep our guests forever. The evening was complicated by Scott as chairman of the board at CSB trying to deal with the solar power consultant and attend a good-bye party for the deputy headmaster Katajeera who is returning to school for two years for a Master’s degree. Thankfully Scotticus the cook had chosen yesterday to invite Luke and Caleb to do a cooking lesson, so they contributed half the dinner, and by 8 we were all enjoying a fantastic meal with Donovan Graham and hearing about how much FUN he had leading a seminar that morning for Christ School teachers, on the concept of seeing students as beings created in the image of God, and how that impacts style and content in the classroom!
So, a full day, but one in which I sensed God moving in CSB teachers, in Donovan’s excitement, in Pamela’s hard work, in the massive response of women, in the heartfelt prayers extending love to them from the Batstones, in the preservation of Michael’s vision, in common ground in meetings, in hope of reconciliation in this Ugandan couple’s marriage, and even in the very Biblical joy of a good feast at the end of a long day. Prayer meets reality on days like this.
