Bringing in the Triple

Party number 3:  a Romp. Julia and Acacia had planned a Narnia Birthday, and the Romp from Prince Caspian was a pretty good picture of how it turned out.  We ended up with about 30 people, as team and friends filtered in. Games based on Narnia books, including a treasure hunt where the prize was blank books we had covered in beautiful kitenge cloth so that kids could begin to write their own stories, and a relay involving yellow and green rings and various worlds as in The Magician's Nephew.  Pizza, and at the end an Aslan-cake (thanks to Pat's decorating help!).  The highlights:  first, that the entire team poured creative effort into costuming themselves.  Most creative mention goes to Heidi for coming as the Lampost, complete with missing arm.  Best use of artificial hair was a Masso family tie between Michael as Tumnus and Liana as Trumpkin.  Julia herself chose to be Fledge, the winged horse.  Second highlight, Julia's true joy in the event.  She was lit up all evening.  Her girlfriends who have celebrated almost every birthday with here were there along with team and a few other friends.  She beamed and hugged and generally delighted in the spotlight, particularly since she could share it with Acacia.  And last, the final half hour of dancing, outside in the grass, in a circle of candles, the freedom of laughter as the kids jumped and swayed under a crescent moon.  Though thunder had rumbled threateningly, and though we are in the midst of our most intense rainy season, the gathering clouds moved down the mountainside and left our plot of ground amazingly untouched.  I am very, very thankful.

Reflecting back on this week I wonder if we are just humanly worn and tired from goodbyes, or if there is a particular spiritual intensity to life in Bundibugyo right now.  In favor of the former:  as the Massos prepared to depart, their heavily loaded truck was parked in our yard, hugs were passing around, and Jack came for comfort saying that this goodbye reminded him of leaving Luke, and made him sad. Thursday the people constructing the new road held a town meeting in which it dawned on all of us that the Ngite water system (along with Butogho and many other water lines) will be destroyed in the process of road construction, and relying on the district to re-construct water lines feels long, stressful, and uncertain.  They have now been gone less than 8 hours but first desperate request from a person who was primarily their friend has landed on our doorstep.  Sigh.  But in favor of the latter:  a church leader stood up today in the testimony time at church, to say he had been awakened from a dream of a snake by screaming only to find a monstrous snake coiled around his arm. In the darkness it took time to find light and eventually a metal pipe with which he killed the intruder, and he then passed around a photo of himself holding a heavy python that was over 6 feet long.  He radiated thanks for God's deliverance.  The other testimony came from a man who had been accused of being bewitched.  Perhaps there is an undercurrent right now of spiritual warfare, and we are close enough to feel the ripples of effect.

Either way (or both ways), a party that celebrates community and a lovely 12 year old girl and points to Aslan's country is a good antidote.  Thanks for praying.

Party, verse 2

This evening was wonderful. 21 teenage girls got to eat their favorite foods, with seconds and sodas and prayer and games (after a short lecture on being humble as they went back so we would all avoid arousing jealousy). Julia got to giggle with friends and welcome them to her home. Acacia got the special attention of authentic goodbyes. I got to sit in a circle of girls who were just being girls, watch them drop their guards as they participated in a charades-like game, and watch Julia and Acacia cross cultures in a free way that is more difficult for us adults. And give back a little of the grace that others are extending to Luke as he boards . . . through his eyes I can now appreciate the tremendously valuable life boost an evening like this can provide. Ashley got the satisfaction of giving her team a treat after their months of practice.

A very different party from last night, but fun all the same. I am grateful, knowing we do not deserve the miracle of two authentic Isaiah 25 celebrations in a row, but still hoping for the triple hit tomorrow.

A taste of true home

Yesterday I felt that the week was going to prove to be just too much, that saying goodbye to the Massos and all the emotional intensity of our family-coping would be insurmountable.  I sent a quick email for prayer, an acknowledgment that we were at the end of our abilities and we needed a Divine intervention.  It seemed a bit odd as a missionary to ask for prayer for a party.  But then people thought Jesus was not serious enough either.  So we asked for prayer that the farewell dinner we gave last night would be an Isaiah 25 type feast of fine food and beverage, or as Capon puts it "May we all sit long enough for reserve to give way to ribaldry and for gallantry to grow upon us.  May there be singing at our table before the night is done, and old, broad jokes to fling at the stars and tell them we are men.  . . The road to Heaven does not run from the world but through it . . Eat well then.  Between our love and His Priesthood, He makes all things new.  Our Last Home will be home indeed." 

And it was such a night.  All 18 of us dressed up, sat at a long candle-lit table, and though there were a few tears from us old-timers, the general tone of the evening was thankfulness for our shared lives and a hopeful longing for the final Feast of the Lamb.  There were toasts, poems, songs, games, pictures and stories.  Each team member honored the Massos in some creative way, and we were all entertained by each others' efforts.  We have walked the most intense years of our lives together and that will not be replaced, but it was a night to be grateful for that past and to be willing by faith to walk on into the future.  

Two more answered prayers.  One, Julia's team has been allowed to come have a party for her Birthday and Acacia's goodbye after all.  So in a couple of hours the next party starts, 21 teenage Ugandan girls.  Then tomorrow, on her real birthday, she'll have the team and a handful of younger Ugandan girl-friends with whom she has grown up.  Yes, we can still use prayer for stamina for three parties in three nights, and for the Spirit of graciousness, gallantry, and gazing to Heaven to continue.  Second, Jack has stabilized a bit, from prayer and rest and Scott getting back from Kampala, whatever the cause it has been a relief to go through a day without major tears.  

And today a small glimpse of the redemption of our suffering.  Most of my patients are babies and toddlers, a few are elementary-school age, but once you survive to be 10 most kids don't land in the hospital very often.  Today a 12 year old girl was lying on a mattress on the floor, with a diagnosis of "cerebral malaria" because she had come in the night before acting distraught and incoherent.  She had no fever, and when we checked no malaria parasites either.  Something about her weary and wary expression reminded me of Jack.  So I got a trusted nurse, Olupa, and we probed further.  At first she had little to say, but slowly the story emerged that she had grown up in the care of her grandmother, after her parents divorced.  But her mom recently remarried and had decided to bring her daughter to her new home.  She claimed her mother was beating her, she missed her grandmother, and though she denied anything further it would not be surprising for step-father abuse issues to be part of the picture.  We were able to call in the mother and grandmother and discuss this and all agreed the girl could go back to live with her grandmother.  If I had not just lived through an emotionally wrenching week with my own child, I'm not sure I would have recognized the cry for help and taken the time to intervene.

And so we long for our last home, home indeed, and in the meantime savor tastes and struggle to pull others along.

Heartburn

I found solace in an unexpected place, thanks to Scotticus, who bequeathed upon me a great book.  

This has been a very very emotional and intense week so far, and it is only Tuesday.  Our oldest is struggling to overcome homesickness and injury, our second has been glumly lonely without him, and our third was knocked down by the non-party birthday edict.  But the real stress is our youngest, whose sadness has bowled him and us over.  He began with some very sad and tear-filled days a month or two ago, after a fever and rash, in what seemed like a post-viral depression, that resolved. But now it has returned.  He's had plenty of reasons to be pushed over the edge this year, besides the virus:  the forced inactivity of stress fracture-like orthopedic issues, being an outsider in an insular culture, going into a Ugandan secondary school as a 10 year old, saying goodbye to his neighbors the Grays and his friend Joe Bartkovich, leaving his parents abruptly in the dangerous uncertainty of the ebola epidemic, and most significantly leaving his adored oldest brother at boarding school. Not to mention the spiritual forces at work in this place.  So as we enter the Masso count-down-to-departure week, a bit of an implosion should not have been unexpected in this child who thinks deeply and feels intensely.  But the magnitude of his sorrow  . . . . none of us could have predicted.  It didn't help that Scott had to go to Kampala for much of the week, to re-stock medicine and retrieve our newly repaired truck and run a couple dozen errands.  In short, Jack has been inconsolably sad.  Hours of tears, and desperation, leaving us heartbroken and confused.  

In this context I came home today from the hospital, no workers due to the national holiday (end of Ramadan), kids still in school for another hour, Scott still in Kampala for another two days.  I sat down to eat some lunch all alone, which I usually either skip or eat with Scott.  So I picked up the book I'm reading to keep me company as I ate, since it is a book about food.  I had reached the last chapter, called The Burning Heart, which begins as  an ode to baking soda and then transitions to the larger heart-ache of living in this world.  

Having provided baking soda for your solace and soup for your sustenance, I press on to the last consideration of all:  the higher distress for which earth has no cure--that major, vaster burning by which the heart looks out astonished at the world and, in its loving, wakes and breaks at once. . . . For all its rooted loveliness, the wold has no continuing city here; it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself--and it is our glory to see it so and thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last.  We were given our appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.  That is the unconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God. (from The Supper of the Lamb:  A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon, my new favorite book)

I actually read these paragraphs to Jack later, who grasped it.  This is the true cause of sadness in the midst of fellowship and learning and family and goodness:  we long for that place we can not yet grasp, we know the tears will be wiped away but not yet.  And so we live in the tension, and ache with the longing.  

And so in the final pages of a cook book, the reflection that encourages me to press on in the sadness.  Capon says we must no just cut and run for cover when the bother of love itself overwhelms us.  We must fight.

Love is as strong as death.  Man was made to lead with his chin; he is worth knowing only with his guard down, his head up and his heart rampant on his sleeve. . . .playing it safe is not Divine.  We have come to the end.  I tell you simply what I believe.  Love is the widest, choicest door into the Passion.

Jack's heart burns, and mine burns for him, until we feast in the New Jerusalem.

Our Widow's Mite

Today we sat through over 4 hours of church and goodbye . . . because
it is the Masso's last Sunday in Bundibugyo. Kisembo continued his
sermon on giving, this time from Luke 21, the story of the widow's
paltry offering being recognized by Jesus. As with the other weeks,
the Spirit-led words worked on my heart too. I'm tired of giving the
things that are precious, the things that I feel are the heart of our
resources, like our kids and friends. So when Scott rose to spoke at
the goodbye section of the service, he pointed out that we as a team
and a community are giving our two mites as we send the Massos off to
Sudan. They are an integral long-term serving family; they have
provided our only engineering and goat-nutrition and tracking and
fundraising and community development and church-encouragement
skills. We do not send them to a new field out of excess; it is a
sacrifice. And of course the Massos themselves are embracing
sacrifice as they leave some 13 years of home and relationship and
ministry to start anew in a country that is unstable. In terms of
daily life, it will be like stepping back more than a decade to the
Bundibugyo of the mid-90's. Kisembo's sermon concluded by pointing
out the compassion of Jesus, who saw the sacrifice of the widow, and
blessed her. Tonight we cling to that reality, that Jesus sees, and
knows how hard it is to say goodbye to yet another family.

Many people spoke, including the grandmother of Kobusinge, the
orphaned infant whom Karen (and JD) took in to nurse and foster for
several months when Liana and Louisa were babies, and whose plight
drew their hearts into the motherless baby ministry. Her testimony
gave God glory, because it was amazing to her that people she did not
know who were protestant even (she was catholic) would help her!
Others thanked the Massos for the water flowing, for the teaching they
have done, for the goats and the perseverance to live here with a
family so many years. Karen and Michael also spoke, and the afternoon
closed with the elders laying hands on their kneeling family and
commissioning them to go to Sudan.

On fairness, culture, and turning 12

In the midst of three brothers who are struggling to find their way as
American teens in rural Africa, Julia has been an unexpected joyful
presence. She takes school and all its idiosyncrasies in stride. She
thinks spending a Friday evening in Knitting Club with a dozen girls
is fun. She thrives on the camaraderie and exercise of the girls'
football team. She still welcomes her life-long Ugandan friends on
Saturdays and giggles in games. She's responsible and kind and lovely
and smart. And she's turning 12 this week, stepping closer to being a
woman in a place where it is not easy to do so.

Like probably most American 12 year olds, she wants to invite some
friends from school to celebrate her birthday. Unlike most, however,
she does so in a place where birthdays are a foreign concept, where
being friends with an outsider carries the risk of ostracism, and
where singling out any handful of girls will lead to jealous
repercussions from the others. So we thought we had hit on a workable
solution: provide dinner for the entire girls' football team after
practice on Friday. It will also be Acacia's last practice before she
moves. The team is already a selected group of 21 girls and includes
the handful she most wants to have over. It seemed to be a treat for
these girls who have worked hard to become a team, a boost to Miss
Ashley the coach, and fun for Julia. Repeatedly when we study the
idea of "friendship" here, it includes sharing food and visiting each
others' homes. So we planned.

But then we ran into the wall of culture. Some of the teachers come
from very strict post-British boarding school culture in which the
frivolity of a special event is seen as dangerous to the seriousness
of school, and resist any special privilege accruing to the boys'
football team let alone the girls. Others suspect that any student
who visits a missionary house will take on airs of superiority that
make trouble at school. Others insist that fairness demands that no
student do anything that all are not doing. So we were told, no, it
would not be OK.

Last night at dinner, we were going around the table doing "highs and
lows" of the day, and the normally cheerful Julia sadly mumbled her
low was that she could not invite her team for her birthday. Sigh.
It has left me really struggling. How much do we ask our kids to
follow the apostle Paul's prescriptions on culture, that we do nothing
that will cause our brother to stumble, that we "refrain from meat" if
it causes misunderstanding, even if that puts a damper on a 12th
birthday? Or do we examine this whole idea of "fairness" and push
back against it? I admit I am really confused.

As humans, it seems our relationships are inherently unfair, if
fairness is defined as being the same to all. We leave to cleave. We
take more responsibility for our own children than others. When 8 CSB
A -level graduates qualified for University, missionaries were only
able to sponsor three. We are limited, but I don't think that means
we should not have sponsored any at all. Only God can be infinitely
intimate. For the rest of us, what we give to one means less for
another. And in this culture in particular, where we are perceived as
the ones with the resources, if we enter relationship with anyone,
there are sure to be others who are irritated about it. And I can't
completely blame them. Yes, there is sin involved in jealousy, a holy
person would be happy for the goodness that accrues to their
neighbor. But there is also good reason for closely monitoring
anything that smacks of favoritism, in a culture where the politics of
all relationship from polygamous marriage up to the presidency are
tainted by nepotism and corruption.

As always, we cry for wisdom! To be fair in giving equal
opportunity. To be completely just in the assignment of grades and
the offering of medical care. But to also enter the risky mess of
relationship which requires moving closer to some individuals and not
to all. To handle the repercussions with grace for the disgruntled.
To resist the temptation to become a walled off institutional concept
rather than a flesh and blood human neighbor. And to lead our kids in
doing the same.

Duty is only a substitute for love.

---C.S. Lewis, excerpt from a letter.

I do not discount the power of duty, because I know my heart to be so imperfect in love. Duty means continuing on, cooking another meal, answering another knock, accepting the burden of another patient's illness, preparing another lesson or biking another mile. Yes, it would be better to do all of those things out of love, out of the joy of relationship. . . . if I play a card game with my kids because they deserve attention and it is my duty to give it, that is good. If I play because I love their company, that is better, and more honoring to them. Which is the point. We press on towards the goal of God Himself, but I confess He remains elusive and my love hobbles forward on the crutch of duty. But I believe, by faith, that that hobble is better than a sinking refusal to go anywhere at less than a flying pace, and that the crutch will one day be flung away, useless.

But not yet. So here is a summary of the day: no milk from the cow is the first bad news of the morning, who is either rebelling the lack of dairy meal (a casualty of no truck) or is pregnant (our hope). Staff meeting at the hospital, good, about 20 show up, I give a Bible study I prepared the night before on Ezra and the concept of accountability. This is in response to accusations that at least two new staff members are illegally charging patients extra fees. Interestingly this issue came to a head through a drama group who presented a public play on corruption imitating health workers, a really interesting example of non-violent protest and expression. It seems that a certain midwife was demanding 5,000 for delivery of a boy and 10,000 for delivery of a girl, also an interesting twist justified because girls bring in bride prices later which enriches the family. Hmmmm. Good discussion of all we have been given and our accountability to God, self and others. But as I'm walking away the in-charge regrets to inform me that Ammon's just-vacated house has been given to a very unreliable and dishonest worker, one of the two charging illegal fees. I feel crushed, because just that morning Scott had made a political visit to make sure that a new clinical officer was transferred here, just to keep that from happening. I try to call the management committee to protest, the chairman's phone is unavailable. The health care of the town seems to spiral downward before my eyes and I feel a strong desire to just run away rather than continue struggling with this person. I get three steps closer to the ward when the in-charge of one of our two outpatient decentralized nutrition programs approaches to inform me that the nurse who has been leading the effort quit. She had been putting pressure on our mission for extra money, which we did not agree to give. In our view malnutrition is just one of many diseases, and a salaried government health worker should not be paid extra to treat one particular category of patients just because we supply the medicine. The in- charge assures me that he agrees with me and that the program can continue without this nurse. I'm skeptical. Now I'm through the door. My most worrisome patient, whom I had arranged for a blood transfusion, I find still deathly ill. After about 45 minutes and 10 phone calls trying to trace the murky path of requisitions and order forms and transport money and people responsible, I am no closer to understanding why the person we sent to the Fort Portal blood bank returned empty handed. But I have a commitment from Bundibugyo to send three units and a commitment from Fort Portal to send the rest of the order. I hope the child in question lives long enough for the blood to arrive. Before I can see any more patients the new doctors who have been hired by WHO to serve in Bundibugyo, a huge answer to prayer, call to say they are canceling on our invitation to come and see Nyahuka Health Center and have lunch because they don't have any transportation. I don't have a vehicle either. I SMS back that the rooster is already dead, so they should come, and then arrange for the hospital truck which is picking up the blood, to get them too. Then the rest of the patients, including one little boy whose skin-and- bones pitiful state inspires us to put in an ng tube for milk, and arguing with the mother of a patient with severe burns to the hands that she has to stay until the little girl heals, that if she runs away now the girl could have contractures which prevent normal use of her arms and hands. And so on. On the way home I drop in to greet the Pierces and hear more about the unrest in the S3 class, which Caleb had thought was just boys and girls disputing with one another but which Annelise believes could relate to a particular boy who may have been a violent ring leader in a previous school trying to stir up chaos in ours. And to check up on the food procurement officer who was arrested yesterday when trying to buy massive amounts at the market across the border in Congo. It seems that the school has to hire someone to sort the problem out and free their caterer. Back home, our nutrition extension worker waits to report that the other outpatient site is also complaining about not being paid extra money, requests that I go talk to them. I promise, but admit that I'm probably not going to make it as soon as they'd like. Then our doctor guests finally arrive for lunch at about 3, just as a hydrocephalus patient and family show up in the kitubbi and the kids are filtering home from school. There are four of them, Louis, Simon, Philip and Dennis. I try to grasp that this is exactly what we were trying to do, recruit young doctors, and here WHO has done it. They are fresh from internship, former classmates in med school. And they are already frustrated with Bundibugyo, with promises not kept, with ineffective leadership, with corruption and laziness and the difficulty of doing their jobs. Scott and I listen and sympathize and encourage and feed. Mounds of rice and chicken to soothe the loneliness of being far from their homes. We play speed UNO and take a little tour of the yard and cows; we talk about our team and our life; we invite them to make this a meeting place and feel at home. As the day fades into evening they leave, to go back to Bundibugyo Town where they are managing to survive in spite of the lack of promised housing. We clean up and convince our kids that it would be great fun to eat popcorn for dinner . . .

And so a Friday draws to a close, some love and a lot of duty,

A deep breath

While Luke's MRI results were good, his symptoms continue, so we remain a bit edgy, hoping that the enforced 4 week rest brings healing and not merely an additional delay before surgery.  He's no more patient than I am, so the weeks stretch out, long days away from home and missing soccer.  In the midst of this I cling to several rocks:  the prayers of friends.  The wise kindness of his guardians, dorm parents, and the student health nurse.  The faith that this suffering works weighty glory, somehow. The growing identification with a parental God whose child felt alone in His hour of need in a distant country.  And the mystery that Luke's position pulls me towards my other students with their teenage angsts and their orphanish needs.  Godfrey very nearly ran away from his eye surgery, in a panic of denial and a despair over missing classes (sounding familiar now).  But God completely changed his heart, gave him courage, and yesterday the glaucoma surgery was accomplished.  We are grateful.

And in the background, the inexorable march towards the Masso departure, meetings, handovers, packing.  Watching the kids feel their way through another loss, both ours and even moreso the PIerces'.  Treasuring an hour stolen for conversation, or an evening for the fellowship of a meal.  And further back, the rumors of threats from disgruntled students, the passive-aggressive filthiness of the hospital ward, the gap in political will that leaves crucial positions unstaffed, that lets the road slide weekly into muddier ruts.

Annelise led prayer this week, and one of her two passages was back to 2 Cor 9, the same one that the Spirit had used in our hearts from church this week.  Whenever a particular set of verses comes from two directions simultaneously it is good to listen.  Annelise's meditation was on breathing in God's love to breathe out grace, mercy and peace on others, a rhythm of respiration that sustains our lives.  It is easier for me to sense the exertion of the exhale these days.  So I know the need for the deep breath in, the life-giving spirit filling our lungs.  Here is the Message version:

God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything, and everything, more than just read to do what needs to be done.  As one psalmist puts it, 

He throws caution to the winds,

giving to the needy in reckless abandon.

His right-living, right-giving ways

never run out, never wear out.

Let us gasp in that reckless abundance, and soar.

Tuesday Night report

Thanks to all for praying, two big answers: 

Luke's MRI shows bone bruising and a slightly abnormal signal that is not clearly a tear, so the doctor wants to keep him on rest for four weeks and hopes to avoid surgery. If there is no meniscal tear he should heal on his own. So now just keep praying for full healing and relief from pain. Looks like soccer is still out for a while, but maybe he can resume in the second half of the season. 

Secondly, Godfrey had been ready to refuse surgery yesterday, he was imagining all sorts of horrors and very afraid. With firm encouragement and much prayer he took the step of faith to go to the hospital, and tonight he says that God has given him courage. He will be operated on by Dr. Bonner tomorrow. We continue to pray that this treatment will arrest the progression of his blindness, and that with the glaucoma under control he can resume studies.

THANKS

This letter was handed to me today, sent by Baluku Moris.  I am posting it in its entirety so that the people who are donating to the Dr. Jonah Memorial Leadership Fund can also enjoy this young man's spirit of appreciation.  Please remember to pray for him, Amon Bwambale, and Monday Julius, all beginning medical school in the wake of Dr. Jonah's death, all the first sprouts of the seed he planted.  Money is only a fraction of what they need; prayer will carry them through to become three dedicated and competent colleagues caring for this district.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am very thankful and appreciative of the sympathy and faith you have had to afford me this opportunity as an individual and also as a community of Rwenzori.  My thanks to you are endless but I strongly believe God the almighty will reward you in advance.

My strongest promise is transparency and not to let you down in academic and professional conduct.  I know that the journey I am going for is thorny and sacrifice demanding and given that I have the spirit of competitiveness, inquisitiveness and the zeal to serve this population, God will be by our side.  

I also ask you to send my heartily thanks to our worthy donors in the United States.  

On University fees, I will establish from the university registrar the exact figure before paying in and then notify you coupled with the receipts to give proof of that.

In a nutshell, I will stand firm to be what you and the entire community would like me to be.  

Thank you Dr. Scott, 

thank you Dr. Jennifer, 

and thanks to the good samaritans in the United States of America.

Baluku Moris

(P.S. The featured rooster was given to us as a gift of appreciation by his parents)