Faces of Hunger and Healing

From rounds today:

Kabajungu Margaret, the little girl who was dying of an intra-abdominal lymphoma last year, against all odds and through much struggle, cured.  Back for follow-up, shyly smiling, a reminder that sometimes it is worth taking a risk.

Mariam, discharged today:  she was admitted in early June shortly after her mother died of AIDS.  In spite of being HIV-free herself, and receiving gallons of UNICEF milk, she poked along with daily fevers and listless crying, until we realized that she was probably infected by TB.  After a few weeks of therapy her weight has increased by 50%, she’s smiling like a charmer, chubby-cheeked and home in the care of her grandmother to finish her six month course of tablets.

Biira:  It took five weeks to turn her around, and I had often said (in despair) that my life would be complete if I ever got her to smile.  She was an edematous lump, refusing to drink milk, never moving much, depressed and dwindling.  TB therapy also proved to be her turning point.  Monday she broke into a huge grin.  It was like witnessing the breath of life entering the clay of humanity.  She has come alive.

But others still have far to go, sipping their formula, clinging to their too-soon-pregnant teenage moms or their weary bereaved grandmothers.  I hope in another month the pictures at the bottom will be transformed like those first three.  Faith means living between the acknowledgment of our scabby hungry weakness and the promise of milk-rich health.  Hanging on between hunger and healing.

Thoughts about Vacationing in Uganda

Uganda, the pearl of Africa, tropical beauty, open-faced friendliness, relative stability, fantastic scenery and spectacular wildlife.  And we actually live here.  So why vacation anywhere else?  As we get ready for a visit from my mom in August, I’m trying to make reservations for a few days of in-country travel, and it has been an eye-opening experience.  We are not the only ones who have noticed that this is a great country.  There has been a subtle but steady growth and shift in the tourist industry that I’m realizing is not all for the best.  Like the rest of the world, vacations in Uganda are polarizing between the very cheap and the outrageously expensive, with nothing in between.  We are looking for privacy and beauty, and those two things are becoming almost unreachable. The very cheap:  backpacker hostels and campgrounds, or local lodges, frequented by Europeans, Americans, and Australians between 18 and 30 years of age, people who want to feel like they are really roughing it.  A few roaches, loud music, an active bar and internet connection, rarely-cleaned communal bathrooms, add to the sense of adventure.  Entire truck-loads of tourists can pull in and pitch camp within the hour.  These places are not all bad, but since we LIVE with roaches, noisy neighbors, mud and grime . . . We really look for a little peace and solitude on vacation, a little order and soothing visual peace.   But the privacy and beauty have been bought out by an increasing number of very small, very exclusive, very expensive luxury lodges.  These places are not owned by Ugandans.  They usually have only a dozen (or less) cottages or tents, with private porches, amazing views, perfect plumbing, tasteful décor, and good food.  The owners charge rates that exceed, FOR ONE PERSON STAYING ONE NIGHT, the ANNUAL INCOME of a typical Ugandan.  I think this is because their volume is low, and the absent owners themselves are living in relatively expensive places, so their profit margin has to be through the roof.  One place I contacted recently had increased from $96 per room in 2003 to $420 PER PERSON PER NIGHT in 2008.  Booming economies in the west, more mature travelers (more of the 35 to 70 crowd), writing off expenses to NGO’s or corporations?  I’m not sure, but it seems that there are new venues every month, usually on land contiguous with a national park, or overlooking scenery of great interest.  Does Uganda benefit?  Yes, but is the ratio just?  Not sure. So where does that leave us?  Two choices.  One is camping in the national parks:  the beauty and solitude are there, but it is a LOT of work (bring your own everything), occasionally frightening, and so not always restful.  So we’re glad for the second option, the Kingfisher Lodges.  These two small resorts are built in a simple but lovely style, have a pool, the food is fair, and the price is reasonable. They are income-generating projects of a former missionary technical school teacher turned entrepreneur, who thus far has kept his rates within reason.   We are grateful.  One is a five to six hour drive from here, and the other is about 9 to 10 hours.  They are frequented by Ugandans too, which means there is a market for family-friendly medium-range, clean, simple, beautiful lodges, if any more entrepreneurs are out there.

Politics in Bundibugyo

Our district is not settled.  Health workers tell us daily that their salaries are not being paid.  They believe that top elected officials somehow stopped payment at the bank, in order to create chaos and discontent, a ripe situation for mass action against the central-government-appointed administrator who is investigating the finances of the district.  It does make sense in a Bundibugyo-logic sort of way.  If a locally elected official has been siphoning funds for years, and then someone comes with the authority from the central government to ask questions and put their nose into the records, what better way for the local politicians to protect themselves than to create mayhem and focus it on the investigator, trying to get him thrown out!  The man at the crux of the conflict is the main central-government appointed official who supported Dr. Jonah.  He may not be completely clean of corruption, but sentiment in the health system is that he is the lesser of the evils, and being persecuted by those locally-elected officials who are more corrupt.  On Monday mass protest was averted when the official who was threatened called in riot police with tear gas, and the agitators dispersed their meeting peacefully.  So life goes on.  But for those of us who have been praying for a shake-up of business-as-usual, for uncovering of corruption, for accountability, this may be the beginning of real change.  Jesus said, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  That sounds like good advice for living in Bundibugyo where we work with the serpent-hearted while trying to keep our own hearts dove-like.

Number 21, and other numbers more complex

21:  Here is Julia with her CSB girls’ team, sporting the jerseys donated by Miss Ashley’s Covenant College coach.  Ashley gave Julia number 21, her old number, which meant a lot to her.  We are thankful for the little slice of time when Julia can be part of a group of girls as their peer and friend, we’re thankful for the physical exercise and skills, and we’re thankful for the role model that her coach provides in a life surrounded by much that is foreign and harsh.

i, the square root of negative 1 . . . :  Miss Sarah has been coming up to our house every afternoon to share the one copy of the pre-calculus book from which she teaches Luke, striving to get him ready for entering RVA, teaching him a bit about choral music and even getting him to read some pretty dense British literature.  In short, she’s filled a role this year that no one else was quite capable of, and we are amazed and thankful that God put her there at just the right time.

Counting Up

Some moments of beauty, unexpected and undeserved, this week, all the more sweet as they stand in contrast to the rest of life.  There is wisdom in the admonition to count our blessings, it is a way of balancing reality, of turning from a short-circuited drained out electrical system plunging us into darkness, away from a girl Julia’s age with a brain abscess gasping out her last breaths, away from 35 patients on a ward built for 23, away from the terrible tally of 12 deaths in 14 days.  Counting up, forcing a balance in awareness.  So let me start with 7, a Biblical number of completeness . . . .Watch out, this will be LONG, because a lot happens in a week.

Number 7 ---Students.  Today the CSB girls’ football (soccer) team challenged the teachers and missionaries to a match.  Only the school secretary (none of the seven female teachers) was willing to risk the humiliation of playing full field in broad daylight on a market day, so we recruited a few of the older non-team student girls to get our requisite 11-woman team.  We missionaries lost 1 to 0, not bad for our racing hearts and sluggish feet.  I really enjoyed being out on the field with girls from my old cell group, and others I had played with often over the years, laughing and running.  Also a boost to see Julia and Acacia on the student team, pulled into the group.  I was reminded of how much I like the spunkiness and energy of these girls.  Also this week we received one of the most mature and thoughtful letters ever from one of our students, just talking about what was happening in his heart.  An encouraging reminder that boys grow up, that they mature, that the Spirit is at work.

Number  6---Ebola-free, still.  The child whose death raised concerns week before last did not have Ebola or Marburg, all his tests were negative.  This is particularly great news in view of the death this past week of a Dutch tourist who contracted Marburg while visiting caves in the Queen Elizabeth National Park where we just went camping.  I never quite saw the tourist appeal in the advertised “bat-cave” hike . . . But I suspect it has now dropped off all itineraries.  So our relief is tempered by sadness for this woman and her family.  Yet maybe her death will be a clue that unravels the mystery of the reservoir . . .

Number  5---Once a team mate, always a team mate.  Larissa is back, using her holiday in her master’s program in midwifery to plunge back into Bundibugyo health care (or lack thereof).  We are also hosting Scotticus’ fiancee Jane this week, a person we only knew last year in her letters and interesting return addresses as a woman of humor and generosity, and who has now materialized as his bride-to-be.  On Wednesday the Pierces hosted a mock “Introductions” ceremony as a way for us as a team, and a few of Scotticus’ Ugandan friends, to commemorate the marriage.  We will miss his ceremony in August, as well as Becky Carr’s (former teacher) this coming week.  But the return of our friends solidifies the assurance that once we serve here together, the bonds never break.

Number 4 ---Resilient Grandmothers.  Our motherless baby program is designed to rescue babies who would starve for lack of nutritional alternative when their mother dies:  we give a month’s worth of milk while the family organizes a surrogate breast feeder.  We believe in promoting breast feeding, . . .and usually it works.  But over the last two months we’ve had one persistent old lady who has tried and failed to relactate, perhaps because she’s technically a great-grandmother, and comes back every week asking for more boxed milk.  And every week I try to draw a hard line, try to stick to policy, but end up giving seven more days worth with a stern admonition to bring another family member.  Finally she brought a grandson, a brother of the tiny baby’s dead father, and he listened to our program and decided his wife (a young woman with a 1 year old child) could take the baby in.  But then when all this was translated to the grandmother, she shook her head.  She was holding that baby tight, and not about to let go.  Clearly she did not trust her grand-daughter-in-law to care for this child, and clearly she had closely bonded with the tiny remnant of her dead grandson and his wife.  She begged us to give her medicine that would make her milk come.  Pat and I looked at each other.  Should we stick with our rules, which we have set for good reasons?  Or should we throw them out the window and say, what is the cost of a few more months of milk compared to the risk of a broken heart?  We decided the bond between this woman and child was more important than our policies.  We gave more milk.

Number  3---Goats.  They are a bit smelly, stubborn, flighty, small-brained and strong-willed, tugging at their ropes and friskily kicking.  But these bundles of fur mean life for the baby mentioned above, and for many others.  The Matiti project dairy goats, the second wave of animals purchased by the Christmas Ornaments, arrived his week.  They were joined by a dozen or so males which the mission farm in Masaka decided to donate due to the escalating costs of animal feed for them, and their interest in the project after their visit with Karen in May.  So once again we as a mission had the privilege of a goat party, a day where the HIV-infected and bereaved turn their mourning into dancing, or at least a brisk goat-chasing trot, as they hear and see God’s love for their family in a gospel message, enjoy lunch together, and then receive a milk-producing goat.

Number  2---Peanut Butter (and collaboration).  I was raised on it, and now it turns out that ground peanuts mixed with milk, oil, sugar and vitamins, a thick sweet paste called Plumpynut, has become an increasingly accepted form of treating malnutrition.  Problem is, it is a bit expensive to access the commercially prepared product.  So Stephanie came up with the BBB (Lubwisi acronym for good food) program using hand-grinders, locally grown ground nuts, soy beans, and moringa leaves, the vitamin-rich leaves of a common tree.  We have now enrolled four cycles of 25 kids each at two outpatient smaller health centers, where moderately malnourished kids come weekly for a couple of months for growth monitoring, education, and this food supplement.  Part of being a responsible missionary is doing responsible science.  So for the last month, Scott Ickes has been interviewing caretakers, health center workers, observing food preparation in the homes, and generally applying his skills to evaluate the program.  Yesterday he presented his preliminary findings. The program is popular and helpful, kids are gaining weight, but we can do better.  He discovered that most families to not use the paste as a ready-to-eat food, but dilute it with water as they cook it again in a sauce.  This means the targeted child gets fewer of the calories.  I think the most interesting part of the presentation was that he invited the handful of Ugandans we work with, two college-students on break, one recent grad, and the two agricultural extension officers.  While we were aspiring to approximate the international standard of Plumpynut, they pushed us back to stick with a food composed of all local ingredients.  As we brainstormed we used information from two of our nurses as well, and have a new way to try to deliver the product and teach moms to use it, that may give better results.  It was an afternoon of collaboration, of the kind of synergy that academics, missionaries, university students, and community members can generate.

Number 1---You.  Anyone who read this far clearly cares about us, about Bundibugyo, about justice and healing and the Kingdom coming.  I am thankful for the wonder of reflecting on life in words, so that others can be drawn to pray and consider a different reality, the intangibles and the distant truths.  A college friend this week offered to raise money for nutrition, another friend from that era (the 1980’s!) connected us with a potential source of medical supplies.  We are grateful to be one small voice for your compassionate ears.

To Sudan and back again..

PSALM 13

How long, O LORD?

How long will you hide your face from me...?

How long shall I take counsel...having sorrow in my soul daily?

How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

The WHM-Sudan Team sprouted from the vine from the WHM-Bundibugyo Team so it's only natural that we would be involved in the development, formation, and advising of our fledgling Team Leaders, Michael and Karen Masso.  So, last week I (Scott) embarked on my third trip to Southern Sudan and my first to the town of Mundri where our new team will take root.  

From the air  Southern Sudan sprawls endlessly, now a lush lime which will fade to burnt umber in a matter of months.  (Michael's fondness of seasonal change will be rewarded in Sudan where the passage of time is easily marked by the color and height of the grass.)  The Mundri airstrip appears like a light chocolate cross from the sky, because the Mundri-Lui road cuts straight across the airstrip!

The Episcopal Church of Sudan (Diocese of Mundri) invited WHM to partner in the rebuilding, retraining, and  equipping ministries so critical to the healing and restoration of Southern Sudan as it recovers from decades of civil war.  Michael has done a phenomenal job of developing a productive partnership with the Bishop of Mundri.   The ECS staff picked us up from the airstrip, housed us, fed us, toured us, introduced us, and generally hung out under the shade of the big mango tree in the heat of the sultry afternoons.  Their told their stories stoically, but the facts were breath-taking.  The story which sticks so vividly in my mind was told by Peter (not his real name), a 50-something ECS pastor.  He recounted the bombing raids on Mundri which happened as recently as 2004.  They would hear the distant drone of the Antonov bombers, the whistle of the plummeting bombs, and then dive into their hand-dug trenches.  The domestic animals even learned to follow them into the trenches.  The thunderous earthquakes and flying soil followed.  He also described the low-flying helicopter gunships heralded by their low-pitch thumping which flew through Mundri mowing people down with their machine guns.  Forty women and children died from the helicopter guns in the last attack.  (While we were there a mine sweeping organization was combing the river banks for unexploded ordinance).

Not surprisingly these Mundri residents are bitter about the repeated deceptions and murderous betrayals by the northern government.  They said, "We cannot forgive..."

The other experience etched in my memory is of our visit to Lui Hospital, 20 km to the east of Mundri.  Built in 1920 by a missionary, Dr. Frasier, this hospital closely resembles the Bundibugyo District Hospital in size and services.  About 100 beds, 100 deliveries/month, one doctor....it felt so familiar.  Several differences became clear during our tour.  We found two children on the surgical ward with hands bandaged up like boxing mitts.  Two separate hand grenade accidents.  The kids found the weapons and played with them not knowing what they were.  Also, there is a separate African Sleeping Sickness ward, to serve those afflicted with this indolent, but deadly disease.  The most striking finding, however, was that the staff of Lui Hospital continuing to work long hours ... and yet they HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY SALARY IN TEN MONTHS.  When asked why they keep coming to work, they quietly responded one after another,  "We must serve our people."  Basically, they work for nothing.  The Government of Southern Sudan should be paying them, but has no money in the coffers to do so.  Unimaginable in Uganda.  Even for me.  How would I manage to continue with no salary for ten months.  Would I not slip into survival mode and stop going to the hospital?  Not the Sudanese.  Their sense of duty and service to community, country, and God runs very deep.

In the last two verses of Psalm 13, there is the abrupt transition from Self to Other.  "With a disturbing clarity", David acknowledges God's hesed (his "enemy-love", his mercy) and melts into worship.  We need to pray that as we work to with the people of Southern Sudan to rebuild their country, that we can help them by faith to "cross the line" over to reconciliation and worship.

Paradoxically, home

Coming home is a paradox in and of itself.  My heart is here, but my soul also feels the heaviness of this place.  In fact, as we packed up camp with the interns and prepared to drive back, we later found out that the rest of the team narrowly decided against a full-scale revolt in bagging their return from the Kingfisher (where they stayed while we camped) and extending the heavenly weekend by another day!  I understand that sense of unease, the lingering feeling that just one more day in the little paradise of flowers and order and escarpment breezes carved out by a German missionary would fortify the spirit for re-entering the miasma of Bundibugyo.

But in the end we all returned, the draw of home and the dread of facing problems again all jumbled together as we bounced over the rocky, rutted road.  And the return was both grueling and joyful.  Grueling in the physical and emotional toll (see below).  And unexpectedly joyful, because of Julia and Jack.  They get car sick and we were so crowded that we let them ride on the top of our crazy load of camping gear (tents, cooking equipment, clothes, etc for ten), groceries, cow feed and mosquito nets for HIV-infected families on the back of the truck.  And they decided to wave greetings to anyone along the road, smiling, getting them to wave back.  In Bundibugyo there are A LOT of people along the road.  So instead of “mujungu mujungu” cat-calls or obnoxious curiosity, we entered the district being smiled at and waved to by several hundred people.  They were of course responding to the kids, but from the front seat of the truck we could imagine that the grandmothers shifting loads of firewood to greet, or the dancing children coming home from their gardens, had specifically waited just to welcome us.  It was very pleasant, the sense of being drawn in and celebrated mitigating the anticipation of the problems we would soon face.

This is the place of paradox, moon-washed mountain views seen from the valley of shadow, culture-crossing friendships tainted by misunderstanding, children plumping up on treatment while others gasp their last breaths.  This time was no different, we were once again awash, as we knew we would be, with abundant views of creation splendor and crushing realization of the desperation of the Fall.  Scott struggled all day with the bike of Jack’s that I ran over before I left—unfixable it seems, until we can get new parts, plus the broken toilet and the broken lawnmower, the obscure Ugandan bank statements and the neediness of people who had missed his help for a week.  I plunged back into the health center where the third patient on rounds died right before our eyes, a little twin whom we had cared for with moderate malnutrition and probably sickle cell anemia, who needed a blood type that was not available and whose heart could not sustain him until the proper blood could be found.  Nine patients have died in just over a week, including three transferred from the district hospital with end-stage severe malnutrition who did not even survive one day of treatment.  In spite of all that, it is a relief to be home, to be together after all that edgy anxiety last week, to listen to a dust-dampening sprinkle on my own roof, to sit around our own table in candlelight and laugh.  Paradoxically, we are pilgrims and strangers who have the sense of coming home.

Job's Journey

Mid-summer, we take our interns to the game park.  This is a weekend for them to get away from Bundibugyo, to get perspective on what God is teaching them, to avert their eyes for a few days from the relentless suffering of Africa and be awash it the continent’s beauty.  When Job’s friends exhausted themselves trying to explain his problems in a cause-and-effect obedience-and-blessing universe, God finally steps in (chapters 38 to the end) and basically takes Job on a safari.   Can you hunt prey for the lion?  Can you mark when the deer gives birth?  Did you set the wild donkey free?  Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Does the hawk fly by your wisdom?

As an answer to Job’s distress,  God’s tour of the wild wonders of His creation seems to point to His power, His beauty, His creativity, His being GOD.

But this weekend, I saw another side to this lesson.  Over and over God takes Job on a journey of the animals and nature to point out:  Job can not control them.  Nature is unpredictable, untamable.  Camping in the wilderness we experience this first hand.   We drove through the park with our interns piled on top of our truck. At some points we were awestruck by the splendor:  in the pre-dawn darkness, a majestically powerful leopard stretching his night-weary limbs, slowly rising, regarding us interlopers and then sauntering off into the bush.  Restless elephants trumpeting, semi-playfully pushing each other in slow-motion splendor with their ponderous strength.  The flash of jeweled orange as a tiny malachite kingfisher flits up from the reeds.  But at other points we drove and drove and drove, watchful, not seeing anything.  A large grey male lion trotted away after barely a glimpse in the distance, lying down concealed in inaccessible bushes, tantalizing but unreachable.  There was nothing we could do to make animals appear where we wanted, or wait for us to see them well.  They are, after all, wild. This is a savannah, not Disney World.  The experience is not humanly orchestrated.  Sometimes we will be disappointed.

Driving home today, I began to think this was the real point God was making with Job.  Yes, nature shows how creative He is.  But what He was trying to point out, is that nature shows how wild He is.  How Other.  How beyond being orchestrated by human desires and ideas.  We want formulas that work, like Job’s friends we want to put our good intentions in and see God’s abundant blessings flow out, measure for measure.  But God tells Job, look around.  You can’t tell the wild donkey where to go, nor can you control the details of your own life.  God is God.  He does not show up on our schedule.  His actions may not correspond to what we would want.

Like Job, we need to be pushed to break out of the mold of a God-in-our-image, a God who acts as we would, who does whatever we plan.  The inexplicable suffering of Bundibugyo and the untamable beauty of the African plain both shake us out of our illusion that we can predict, let alone dictate, God’s actions.  Like the leopard we saw this morning, He defines Himself on His own terms:
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  (Ex 33:19)

Driving the Ledge

Well, today I’ll be literally driving along a ledge, the spectacular mountain road that leads out of Bundibugyo.  The kids and team and I are heading out, we will all meet up with our Sudan returnees at a small lodge on the edge of the national park about five hours away, for a long weekend together.  Last night when I was struggling to load the car with trunks and camping equipment, and we heard hissing air from a tire, so I was rushing to get it parked on cement to make changing a tire easier and ran over a bike left on the ground . . .Jack’s, which he uses to avoid walking on his heels . . .well, it was a low point, being eaten by evening insects with a half packed truck, a broken bike, and what I thought was a flat tire, in a day in which four patients (!!) had died.  In short, I keep thinking about the edge, and the path was seeming rather narrow.  But Caleb says the bike is probably fixable, we tightened the cap on the tube of the tire (it would have been the fourth flat this week) and as of this morning it is holding, the kids got the tarp over the mountain of stuff and after prayers and dinner we were all more calm.  Pray for us to rest, in the wild wonder of God’s creation as we visit the park, to get a bigger picture than our daily struggles.  
PS Check out the Macha’s blog:  Nancy’s tumor has shrunk, so that is encouraging news!  

The thing about edges . . .

. . . Is that while standing on them, one is perfectly safe, but the perceived drop to disaster is very real.

Which may be why God likes to take our path along the ledge.

For instance, yesterday morning the UPDF began a training exercise that involved intermittent large artillery which we could hear in the distance.  The main barracks is about 15 km by road from us, though with mountains reflecting sound and our house being on a rise it sounds closer.  This practice is good, in reality, part of that solid rock where we now stand, protected.  But it started literally one minute after I hung up the phone with Scott who was from that moment on unreachable, en route to Sudan.  And in the early morning, the sonic booms of distant guns were for me a peek over the precipice, a gut-tightening recall of times now long past when we did not have a prepared military and when rebels could make forays across the border at will.  I am not falling, I’m standing on the path.  But the view into the Fall is dizzying.  

This is similar to the case of the little boy who died last week, whose blood and tissue samples are now being processed by the CDC.  The real danger of this being a viral hemorrhagic fever is almost nil; follow-up in his village has assured us that no one else is sick.  Again, we are standing securely, but the events of the last year make the view over the edge steeper and more frightening than it would have been.

So it is no surprise, in this context, that just after daylight this morning there was yelling, running, commotion and cries a few houses up the road from me . . . No, no rebels, no real danger, just a goat thief.  By the time I got there most people were laughing, perhaps to cover their anxiety.  The goat had been recovered but the thief got away.  

And though I am distressed by the slowness of UNICEF to get milk to our malnourished kids (18 of 29 inpatients now with severe acute malnutrition, little signposts of no rain and rising food prices), when I plead on the phone I’m looking over the edge and feeling faint, instead of noticing that we do still have enough for another two weeks, and kind supporters who I know will rise to the occasion if nothing happens by then.

A wise friend asked me last night to reflect on the timing.  When I am here alone, my sense of the edge is more menacing, my reserve more strained.  But this is the time to look at the path instead of the drop-off, and be thankful for the Rock on which I stand.  Not easy.