A few thoughts on resurrection, from the weekend

Resurrection sound like a dramatic word, but in practice the glimpses are subtle. God does not overwhelm our senses. Even Mary was slow to recognize reality. How much more so am I. Birungi Suizen did not die on Easter weekend. He was as close as it is possible to come by Good Friday, gasping, intermittently conscious. But Sunday morning he was sitting on his mom’s lap eating a soupy fish sauce, with a snarly little protest when she stopped feeding him to talk to me. Resurrection? He still has far to go, but I’ve rarely seen a little flame of life so stubbornly flickering, so close to being snuffed but smoldering back to light. Matte’s ribs seem to carry a few more millimeters of flesh. The three 1-kg preemies, one of whom stopped breathing repeatedly when he first came in, are snuggling along on their mothers’ incubating breasts, today clocking 1.45, 1.3, and 1.6 kg. Boxes of UNICEF food arrived over the weekend, the real-deal malnutrition milk supplements instead of the ad-hoc formulas we’ve been concocting. I saw staff today covering for each other, pitching in outside their areas of duty to help. Yes, resurrection changes, slow maybe, murky, but there if you squint hard and really look. Highlights of the weekend for me: celebrating passover as a team, reclining, asking the questions, breaking the unleavened bread and drinking the cups of wine, washing feet and celebrating the community of the redeemed, the rescued. Gathering on Friday afternoon, after services, in the side room of the community center on simple benches, praying through John 14-17, a powerful time drawing very diverse people together to lift up the troubles of Bundibugyo. Watching The Passion, which is full of Scripture but hard to fathom, best seen soberly in the company of trusted friends and then followed by prayerful meditation on Is 53, into the night. Sunrise on Easter, drizzle, considering canceling our little sunrise service but over-ruled by my kids, heading down to Massos passing the camouflaged forms of armed soldiers just waking in the dawn, like the first Easter, soldiers. Easter service, a visiting worship leader dancing and clapping the crowd into a joyous swaying celebration. Finally the afternoon feast, family-like, resting together, secure, including three of my orphan students brought into the fold of our family for a day. All of these moments infused with the quiet glory of the resurrection.

Two Gardens, One Question

In the garden of Gethsemane, when Judas led the  temple guards to capture Jesus in the dark, He asked them, “Whom are you seeking?” (John 18:4).  When they answered Jesus of Nazareth, he simply stated “I am”, the Old Testament name of God, the one reference point for all the universe.  Blasphemy, unless it was true.  This is the turning point of the story, the beginning of the long road through torture and death.  A question, a choice, a probe of the heart, the motives.

Three days later, in the gardens around the tomb, Jesus asks Mary “Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15).  She also pleads for the physical body of Jesus, willing to carry him, not to mock trials and beating but to safety and embalming.  This time Jesus does not declare His identity, he simply says “Mary.”  In His voice, his commanding tenderness, His calling out to her, she recognizes Him.  

Jesus does not ride triumphantly through the streets after His resurrection, He comes quietly, in closed rooms, along the road, in the early morning garden.  He does not lecture on His origins or His work, instead He asks:  Whom are you seeking?  

On Glory and Devastation

Somehow God’s promise to put the world to rights is not achieved by blasting evil out of the way, but by his people bearing its weight so that the force of evil does its worst in the chosen people themselves. Alongside the vision of glory we also find the vision of devastation. NT Wright, lecture series on Evil Good Friday is a day of devastation, and a day of glory, and a day to ponder the paradox that the extremes of both intersect on the cross. Many times this week I’ve been reminded of my own heart’s desire to blast evil out of the way, to smash it with a lead pipe, to impose a triumphant order on this mucky world. That is what the disciples expected of Jesus. But that was not God’s plan. Being called to the slower path of bearing the weight of malnutrition and poverty and and hate and loss . . . Seeing it, touching it, sometimes experiencing it . . . That is the way of the cross. That is the way that evil truly meets defeat. That is the way seen only by eyes of faith, Good Friday eyes that squint ahead to believe that Resurrection morning will come. Join us in praying for Bundibugyo, and for our own hearts. In “downloads (pdf)” there are two prayer guides. One is based on John 14-17; we will be using it this afternoon with a broad spectrum of community people (teachers, church members, health center workers all invited) to apply the final words of Jesus to praying for His Kingdom to come in this place. The second is based on Isaiah 53; we will use it this evening as a team to meditate on the suffering of Jesus.

On crushing the serpent

As we move into the Easter weekend, we move into the spiritual battle that peaked on Good Friday but still continues.  As a mission we sense a call to pray specifically against some of the cultural forces that oppress people here in Bundibugyo.  I will give one example of corruption, since it occurred this week:

One of my former students went to obtain a driving permit so that he could legally use a mission motorcycle to help us with nutrition outreaches, and after many offices, fees, lines, bank transfers, and a day of effort he landed in an office in which he was issued yet more forms and told that the cost for the approval of these forms would be 50,000/= (about $30, a week’s wages for a mid-level professional).  He asked if he would receive a receipt for this, upon which the person behind the desk laughed at this absurdity and began to explain the way the world works to this young man whom he no doubt perceived as hopelessly naive.  My student then clarified that this money would essentially be a bribe, and gave the form back, refusing to participate.  In the end he was only able to get a provisional learning permit without paying the bribe, but I have to say his indignation over the entire affair gives me a glimmer of hope that the rising generation of CSB students will not accept business-as-usual when it comes to blatant corruption.  If only more people would take such a stand!

Culturally acceptable patterns of oppression can be vague and nebulous, hard to recognize, easy to justify away.  But God knows we are concrete and visual creatures, when He wants to present truth He often works through a story or a physical demonstration (compare the amount of the Bible devoted to history and parable rather than theological treatise, or notice the way prophets like Jeremiah used props like plumb lines, or consider the visceral nature of the passover meal and communion).  Good Friday commemorates the ultimate victory of Good over Evil in the paradox of the death of Jesus.  In Genesis this is foretold as the crushing of the serpent’s head while the promised One’s heel is bruised.  

This visual image of the evil one as a snake is very vivid to me today, because we had a snake in our house last night.  Everyone but me was in bed.  I had been at my desk and walked out into our sitting/dining room (the main area of our house) to turn off the lights.  As I walked in, a dark slithering form inched across the rug, right in the middle of the four chairs where our kids had been reading books before bed.  It was not so large, about 3 feet long and fairly slender, and not so fast due to the coolness of the night.  I called Scott and Luke to come with weapons, and Scott took the lead pipe we keep under our mattress and killed it with a few solid blows.  It released a putrid stench, and it’s blood smeared our floor.  We’ve had a few very small (juvenile) snakes in the house a long time ago, and cobras in the yard, but the sight of this fully grown snake penetrating the safety of home, well, it was unsettling, as if evil incarnate had come to fight back.

But this morning I sensed a good lesson in this image.  The snake was no match for Scott.  Yes, people suffer and die from snake bites, but invariably those occur when the person comes upon the snake in the bush of an overgrown garden, or when the snake slips into a home seeking warmth at night and goes unnoticed.  Unseen snakes are dangerous.  But in one on one open combat, a human can prevail.  The Evil One tries to slip unnoticed, causing harm by stealth, but will be defeated when seen and recognized.  

Defeated, but the bruising will also take a toll.  Please join us in prayer this weekend.  I will try to post some prayer guides by tomorrow.  If we could only crush corruption, apathy, infidelity, passive-aggressiveness, tribalism, fear, defilement of school girls, and other insidious evils with a lead pipe!  Instead we must pray and persevere, we must bandage our bruised heels and march on.

A Witness to Death

Stewart died this morning, the 7 year old son of our health center’s in-charge medical assistant Biguye. I’ve worked closely with Biguye for many, many years, and grown to respect his judgment and perseverance.  When he beckoned me in the rain Friday morning to his apartment on the hospital grounds as I arrived for work, I was surprised to see his young son lying on the couch, jaundiced, breathing hard, with an IV drip going into his arm.  Stewart had sickle cell disease, which is extremely prevalent here.  He had always been on the small side, and weak, but rarely acutely ill, and only had a history of one transfusion prior to this illness.  All weekend we conferred together, listening to his failing heart struggle more and more, praying, trying everything available to assist his fight.  A staff child, like a team child, draws on  my heart in a personal way, and I found myself going back a couple of times a day, hoping to see a change for the better.  But no.   By Sunday he was not responding sensibly to questions.  By this morning he was not responding at all.  I watched his growing restlessness and could only imagine the distress he was experiencing.  Many children die, many in my presence, but not usually when I know the parents well, and have to watch the inexorable progression of the demise over days.  It was painful.

After he died, the staff quickly cleared the room of furniture and laid his body on a mattress on the floor, wrapped in a sheet.  They functioned like one big family, crying, discussing arrangements for the burial, spreading the news, collecting money.  I think we all thought of our own children, of their vulnerability, of Biguye’s pain.  He’s a stoic man who has seen much of life, and he made a few short speeches thanking all of us for the help.  But I know his heart is breaking too.  

When someone dies, the onlookers shake their heads and say “it is God’s will”.  But it isn’t, not really.  God let his own son die because the death of 7 year old Ugandan children is NOT OK.  It is not the way the world is supposed to be.  And changing  this world requires suffering and sacrifice, the ultimate suffering and sacrifice paid by God Himself.  It is a mysterious truth that His people continue to pay.  And it seems this year that working at Nyahuka Health Center, confronting death on it’s own territory ever day, is exacting a high toll from our staff.  Jonah paid with his life and Biguye with his son.

Thanks...

Three months ago we cried out in the midst of our desperation during the Ebola epidemic for your help. The response was overwhelmingly gracious, and we are very grateful. We don’t want to fail to account to you for what happens with your gifts, so here is a brief update.

Africa Response Fund
WHM just sent out a letter thanking those who contributed to the Africa Response Fund. We are taking the button off our blog today, as a symbol of thanks for the way you responded. The gifts of nearly 300 people totalled over one hundred thousand dollars. Fifteen percent went to the immediate expenses of the team for flights, the superb help of the Herrons, and renting a large evacuation house for two months; fifteen percent went to the WHM Sending Center in Philadelphia for their expenses in supporting us; and seventy percent now has been carried over into two new funds:

1. The Jonah Kule Family Care Fund
2. The Dr. Jonah Kule Memorial Leadership Development Fund
   

The Family Care Fund will cater for the school fees for Jonah’s six children over the next 20 years, and build his widow a decent house. The Leadership Development Fund will sponsor a local person’s medical school tuition; we have targeted the medical assistant who worked in the epicenter of Ebola because his clinical competence and character of service most embody the legacy of Dr. Jonah.

We estimate that the family fund has enough for the next decade, but we will let you know if the children need more help in the future. It is possible that God will move more resources into the second fund for sponsoring more students in the future, but for now we are content to start with this one.

Goats and BundiNutrition
Right before Ebola broke, we put up a blog button for the give-a-goat Christmas tree ornament project, as a way to support BundiNutrition’s purchase of dairy goats for HIV-positive families. In spite of the distraction of a life-threatening epidemic, you gave enough for two full truck-loads of goats! The first shipment of 50 goats will arrive in April. BundiNutrition projects and needs are ongoing as we purchase not just goats but milk, oil, sugar and beans for feeding inpatients, peanuts and seeds for local production of nutritious outpatient food, and new chicks to replenish the egg project, and salaries and transportation for extension workers who train people to care for the animals and follow-up families back at home. Again we thank you. We are starting 2008 strong, and our costs (about $3000/month) are half covered. We hope many of our monthly nutrition donors will continue to give in 2008 to make up the other half of our needs ($1500 per month). The BundiNutrition designation number is 12371, and the links to that remain on the sidebar.

We can only pray that God abundantly blesses you as you invest in His Kingdom. As you put your treasure here we know your hearts are with us.

Strong Women

Some women this week have reminded me of the prominence of women in the Easter story.  I’ve been a single mom for only 8 days while Scott is at a conference, but it feels like months.  This morning I got up to make donuts for my kids as a Sunday treat, then was called to see a staff’s very ill child at the hospital, then two neighbors who were ill, all before church.  But when I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, as if I have too much to manage, I look around and realize that Africa is full of strong women, patiently plodding on.  Melen carries a quiet dignity, her smile comes more easily now that her baby boy has been safely delivered.  Her world is one of women, Jonah’s sisters and her girls, running a nursery school and managing a family, with little help from any men.  Nurse Agnes also raises her children and works at the health center while her husband is in school 10 hours away; she’s not even from Bundibugyo so she has no extended family to support her.  Olupa leaves her baby with a relative while she comes to work.  I sat this morning with the two wives of my elderly and slowly dying neighbor, they supported him from each side as he vomited, undaunted by the inevitability of his decreasing strength.  These women clean up the messes, prepare the food, hold the sick, listen to problems, show up for work, go to the gardens.  As in the days of Jesus, when the men run away, they will be the ones washing the body for burial, mourning at the graveside.  Even though they have been treated like property for centuries, the women of Bundibugyo are made in the image of God, and His glory remains in their souls.  Even if education is a struggle, and brothers or fathers quibble to make a profit of goats off their marriages, or husbands beat them to show who is boss, these women can not help but express the creativity and competence that God created in them.  So they sing and dance in the choir, and sew colorful fabrics into attractive dresses.  They scrape together small roadside stands to sell some matches or roasted bananas.  They are not all saints, but they do hold the fabric of life here together.  I’m humbled when I think of most of their lives, and my complaining is at least muted by their reality.  God’s best plan is for men and women to complement each other, and I’m ready for Scott to get back today!!!  But until he does, I take courage from the strong women around me.

Palm Sunday--on triumph and suffering

Scott has been at an Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation meeting for a week, one of about three foreigners in a sea of Ugandan district doctors and administrators, evaluating their programs and planning for the next year of effort to stop the transmission of AIDS.  It is messy.  I would like the same thing the people of Israel wanted on Palm Sunday:  a messianic power-show of defeating evil once for all, a definitive correction of the world’s ills.  For us that might mean a lovely clean hospital where we are in control and everyone shows up for work and drugs are in plentiful supply and we see cures left and right and everyone can come and see how it should be done . . . But that is not the way God chose to work.  We’re listening to a lecture series as a team, and NT Wright reminds us that God’s answer to evil is to get dirty, to come down, to involve Himself in the story, to transform from the ground rather than impose order from on high.  In a way that has encouraged me to slog on, to plead with passive-aggressive staff to do their work, to make phone calls about drug supplies, to confront, to pray, to hold on.  To go to meetings where we don’t quite fit in, to patiently work on establishing trust with the government, to press on in spite of imperfect programs.

Last week Kisembo preached:  it is easier to fight for Jesus than to die for Jesus.  I think that is so true.  This week as we remember the events of Jesus’ life and death, let us pray to enter the same way He did.  A King coming in peace, moving relentlessly towards the place of suffering, purposefully, soberly.  

A post for Kevin

CSB’s football team won their second match of the season, against Kakuka, 7 to 0 on Saturday.  They came out strong with beautiful passing and team work.  It was amazing how quickly and deftly they scored.  Mid-game was a mire of careless booting the ball, but in the later second half they revived their style.  Some of those boys have been coached for five years or more by Kevin and Alex, and it shows.  Besides good coaching, consistent practice and a real field to play on, our team  also had shoes, a clear advantage, I actually wonder if we shouldn’t try to have a stash of shoes for our opponents just to make a better game . . . Scores were made by Birungi (2), Kasoke (2), Richard (2), and Abdul (1).  Richard also had two great assists on Kasoke’s and Birungi’s scores.  Luke is practicing with the team even though he can’t play, just to benefit from Alex’s discipline and exercise; but I also sponsor five boys actually on the team (two starters who are among the strongest players, and three boys who at least get to sit on the bench in uniform and feel a part of things . . . ) and it gives me joy to watch them play and succeed.  So much of their life hovers at the margin.  Most of them are thrilled with grades that eek them past failure.  The kind of clarity that shines in a 7 to 0 score comes rarely to their psyche.  So my mother’s heart basked in their joy yesterday, and I wanted Kevin to know that his legacy lives on.

Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold

This is the JB Phillips translation of Romans 12:1, quoted by Marva Dawn in her book Truly the Community.  She talks about how each person has a unique aspect of the glory of God to embody and reflect, and a true community allows individuals to safely explore and express who they are.  Instead of cultural rules that stamp out deviation and constrict diversity by molding character from the outside, we should encourage that transformation, the emergence of who we were truly created to be, from the inside out.  I’ve been watching a physical picture of that in Birungi Suizen.  His sharp bony face and curled body had a certain reptilian quality when he came in.  Over the last week, he’s reminded me of chameleons, who molt as they grow, shedding one skin as a new one replaces it from the inside.  His scabby oozing outer layer peeled off and from underneath grew a healthier version.  He’s gained over a kilo, which for him is a 20% increase in body weight.  He’s getting feistier, more alert, hungry.  He’s talking.  As the medicine and milk went deep into his body, he was slowly transformed from the inside out, and the real Birungi is now emerging.  This kind of transformation takes time, a lot of time, and feeding, and care.  But when it does happen, it is worth the effort.  (Matte stood up Friday, still a bag of bones but less in pain, a hint of energy returning; when we backed off on the sedation for Ngonzi Christopher his tetanus-induced dyspnea worsened so he’s getting more valium, but hanging in there, thanks for praying for them too).  As frustrating as it is to deal with malnutrition and all it’s complicated mess of family dysfunction and poverty and oppression and evil . . . The reward sometimes comes, watching resurrection in a slow time-lapse of day to day glimpses.

And I want to see that in the other two main spheres of my life, family and team.  A good family and a good team are that TRUE COMMUNITY where the squeezing conformity of the world is released, and God’s glory can be nurtured and revealed in each person.  It is also a privilege, a slow but sure one, to watch my kids and team mates emerge and transform.  Yesterday the Pierces moved into the “headmaster’s house”, the home the Bartkoviches had occupied for many years.  Before they moved, they hired a work crew to do major renovations, knocking down walls, changing doorway patterns, subtracting some cabinets and adding others, painting everything an invigorating green.  I like the result, but more importantly the freedom to make those changes allows them to move into a position as themselves, not squeezed into the mold of those who went before.   Naomi danced around the mess of boxes and books and dust and sticky not-yet-dry varnish in delight, telling me this is really HER house, in a chattering out-of-the-shell way that amazed me.  She felt the new look reflected her choices, expressed the Pierce uniqueness, and that gave her joy.  (And I found out as we organized in her room that we are kindred spirits in not liking our sheets tucked in our beds when we sleep).  

As missionaries we are in double jeopardy of the squeeze, or maybe triple:  we have our culture-of-origin ideas about what is right that sometimes seem more important than they should as we flounder in the strangeness of a foreign land.  We have the strong squeeze of the host culture, often a place where the rules punish deviation harshly as  a survival mechanism for marginalized people to maintain identity.  And we have the added burden of being public spectacles and objects of curiosity whose lives and choices can be mistaken for representing God’s ways.  How we need the humor and joy and freedom of community, the team a place where each person can emerge in God’s image, not America’s, or Bundibugyo’s, or World Harvest Mission’s.  That takes inner feeding, time, and courage as leaders.  I pray for that.