A life remembered

The Reverend Ammon Sereboya died last night, at the age of 83, friend of the mission and father of one of our nurse-midwives. His life was remarkable in many ways, and we were privileged to carry his body in the casket from town to his parental home for burial, and speak at the ceremony. He was born in 1925 in what is now the DRC, but his parents shifted a few miles eastward when he was a boy, into British- controlled Ugandan territory where he attended colonial-inspired schools. He was a primary school teacher and an Anglican pastor, and he taught at about a dozen different schools over the years. But Scott recognized him for two outstanding life features.

First, he was instrumental in the beginning of the Bible translation project. He served as chair of the Lubwisi/Lwamba Orthography Committee, and throughout the last two decades continued to work on the committee to oversee and check and promote the translation and literacy work. Sitting at his burial with hundreds of people today, I was struck by how his effort and vision contribute to a preservation and validation of their culture. And how the Gospel intersects with that, saying that each people group is valuable and unique and every language worth studying and encoding. What will the impact be on generations of children who learn to read in their mother tongue, who hear the truth in understandable words?

Second, he was married for 56 years, to one woman. Monogamy is not the norm here, particularly not for a man of his stature. Yet he persevered in his call as a man and as a pastor to the principal of "one life, one wife". Scott took some risks to stand up and publicly exclaim this in a crowd of men and women who may not agree. But he expressed admiration for the Reverend and compared him to the Ugandan national bird, the crested crane which mates for life, and people seemed to listen and enjoy the idea. I was at his wife's burial about a year ago. We have great respect for the elders who survived decades of disease and war and hardship, and brought a family and a community into being.

And so we joined our friend Alice, his daughter, and many many others today, lowering the body of a man whose soul, we were reminded by the main speaker, now walks face to face with God.

Africa rejoices . . .

I'm sure our supporters are mixed in their enthusiasm for the outcome of the presidential race in America. But there is no mistaking the enthusiasm here. Ugandans are smiling broadly. Today we had kids chanting "Obama Obama" as we drove by on the road. We actually tuned into the satellite radio early this morning (pre-midnight in the US) and heard projections but tight races . . . then after prayer meeting we turned the radio back on in time to catch Obama's speech, listening as a team, with our kids, here in Africa, his nostalgic rhetoric seeming substantial and historic in the growing morning light. At the very least the sheer fact that a man whose father was Kenyan could become president of the United States gives the average person here in Uganda a sense of pride, of possibility, of redemption, of interest in the potential for America to turn towards Africa in real ways.

In Memory of Daniel

Daniel died today.  He was four years old, and down to skull and ribs and 6.2 kg of feverish flesh.  For three weeks we had tried everything we had to revive him, but we failed.  He suffered, a lot.  Dying of malnutrition is not comfortable.  He drank the proffered milk, right up to the last day, so I think he felt hunger even though almost everything that went in was vomited back out.  More than everything that went in came out, he heaved his life out, so that he slipped downward, losing ground daily in an inexorable march towards not-being.  Ironically I suppose, I had requested the whole family to be present today, father and brother and sisters and mother, to consider transferring him to a referral hospital in Kampala. But when I arrived this morning to a ward of chaos (39 patients instead of the normalish 23-25 . . ), Daniel's father informed us that he was much worse.  He was the first patient Heidi and I evaluated, and we found the family packing up all their scraps of cloth and pans and pills into a sack to go home, though Daniel was arousable at that point, and able to swallow a few spoons of milk.  We discussed referral, but his father pointed out that he would never reach, he would die en route, which was true.  I thought they just wanted to go home to die.  It was agonizing to agree that we had failed him, that there was nothing else to offer.  An hour later they were still sitting on the bed though, as ambivalent as I was, not sure if they should begin their homeward trek or wait until he died.  Then he began to convulse, and have a fever, and we all agreed that we should try a small amount of IV fluid and Quinine.  At least the diazepam for the seizures would perhaps make him more comfortable.  Hospice care should not be a part of nutrition therapy.  Anyway he died at 12:47 pm, still hot with fever, but no longer struggling, vacant-eyed and stiff.  Heidi and Olupa wrapped his body in cloths while the family bustled to collect everything else and his mother began the traditional song-like cry of grief, and escalating wail of sorrow.  Finally Heidi and I slipped into the store room and shut the door and had a good cry ourselves.  When you see a child daily for weeks, when you ask your kids to pray for him by name every night, when you have to be present and helpless through the final agony, well, it is brutal.  

Though this is Daniel's story, not ours, we are listening, looking for meaning in the way our lives intersected briefly.  Is this a clue, to where God wants to tell the story of redemption?  Daniel's suffering?  Our powerlessness, our failure to save him?  No answers today, just a tiny bundle of cloth and a spasm of lament.  Any angels escorting him to the place of no tears did so unseen, as we emerged from the ward to a sky grey with spitting rain.  Faith, not substance, all that we have this afternoon.

Not exactly a restful day . . .

But a good one. Our three new arrivals, the visiting Ryans and the
just-arrived Nathan, joined us for our Sunday morning feast. Over the
years our family has slipped into a sabbath rhythm that works for our
sanity and survival, at least it mostly works. We start with making
tortillas together on Saturday nights at sundown as we listen to Car
Talk on NPR by satellite radio . . . games or something fun, solid
sleep, no morning alarm clocks, a long breakfast with worship music
playing, church from 10:30 ish to 1:30 ish, reading or hanging out
together outside on the one day a week when we don't have onslaughts
of visitors in the yard, a family soccer game in the late afternoon,
a simple soup dinner that brings the day to a close as we get ready
for another week of life. Great. Today's rhythm began well enough
with the steaming coffee and cinnamon rolls, telling stories and
getting to know each other, and continued into lively and joyous
worship at church and the amazing experience of hearing powerful
preaching in our own mother-tongue right here in Bundimulinga as Skip
talked about the pursuing love of God in the story of the Lost Son
(Luke 15). People were very engaged with this story of the father who
humiliates himself to run to His son.

When you push, you get a reaction. After church things went downhill,
fast. Rest fled. The door to our house would not open. We've had a
recalcitrant bolt lock, but today we jiggled and coaxed and no deal.
The good news is that our house is NOT EASY to break into. The bad
news is that it took a generator, an angle grinder, cutting through
metal bars with showers of sparks to get a space a kid could be eased
through, to get us in after church. An hour of sweat and frustration
for Scott, and a mess. Now it was nearly 3, kids were hungry. Before
we could clean up the break-in mess, a family brought a deathly ill
newborn to the kitubbi. Sixteen-year-old mother whose prolonged labor
produced a gasping convulsing child, carelessly absent school-boy
father, concerned grandparents, prognosis almost certainly severe
brain damage if not death soon. A few minutes later two men from
another NGO pulled up in their spiffy vehicle to ask us for data on
one of the water lines (on a Sunday?). I was supposed to be making
bread for communion and soup for dinner for the team, clean up the
house for everyone to come to worship, practice about 16 songs for our
first Sunday evening without Michael's talents to lead us (no pressure
that our visiting pastor Skip wrote a BOOK on worship and is used to
the kind of amazing gifts one finds in a 6,000 member church), and
make my kids feel loved by keeping our commitment to our family soccer
game, all before 5:30 . . . Can I just say that my sense of humor was
not carrying me through with grace? That I was feeling the rest slip
right through my fingers as the old and new weeks melded without a seam?

By evening, though, the candles were lit and the songs began to
ascend, and, amazingly, the sermon that would normally be written for
the benefit of thousands was again offered to the dozen of us. Psalm
139, encouraging us to discern the way God is at work in our lives to
tell His story of redemption. Skip challenged us to look for the
truth about ourselves, to look for that truth in unexpected places, in
parts of our story we'd rather skip over, and offer those hard and sad
things to God for redemption. While we're with you for a month, he
said, try to take note of the times you feel stressed, angry, or
fearful . . . .

Well, how 'bout most of the afternoon?

Praying that we and our team listen to that voice of the Spirit
challenging us to offer that which is painful, praying we would not
run from the truth, but wait for redemption.

Bearing and Inflicting

More Pain for the Congo

"Fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, the Red Cross says." (BBC)  For those whose family members live here on our team, let me assure you that while we are within 10 miles of the Congo border, our neighboring part of the troubled North Kivu province is to this point unaffected by the fighting further south.  Laurent Nkunda leads a rebel force which has over-run numerous towns and now stands at a cease-fire within a dozen miles of Goma, the provincial capital.  The history here is long and complex and I'm sure I don't understand it.  For the last decade eastern Congo has been de-stabilized by the pillaging of both rebel and government militaries.  Some of this relates to the post-genocide flight of the Hutu militias into Congo, triggering the influx of Rwandan and Ugandan troops to protect ethnic minorities, the overthrow of Mobutu, our own frights with the ADF, the rise of Kabila the elder and the succession of Kabila the younger . . . but lots of it also has to do with the fact that this is a monstrous country with zero infrastructure and vast resources being exploited by Europeans, Americans, Chinese, other Africans, anyone who can get a piece of the wealth.  Meanwhile on the ground ladies wrapped in kitengis who look just like our friends (and some are probably related) are trudging down roads once again with anything salvagable bundled on their heads, trying to decide whether IDP camps within range of the Nkunda rebels are less safe, or more safe, than the towns held by the government.  The UN troops stand in the middle hated by all, particularly the population whom they are unable to protect.   And children continue to die of TB and malnutrition and gastroenteritis, on the run, unable to access care that most of the rest of the world takes for granted.  The IRC (International Rescue Committee) has done commendable research to point out that 4 million people in the DRC have died as a result of this ongoing, ever-shifting war . . . and very few of those deaths were battle-ground bullets.  The death toll is being borne by civilians once again.

Corruption Kills Too

"Uganda has lost 25bn Ugandan shillings ($12m) of Global Fund money due to concerns over poor accountability, according to reports this week. The Global Fund has refused to release a second $10m instalment from the $36m pot it allocated for HIV/Aids activities in Uganda in 2003 because it was not satisfied with how initial payments have been spent, reported New Vision. " (from The Guardian)  When the people who are supposed to work for the health of a country divert aid, pocket money, obscure accounts, and generally use the Global Fund as an opportunity for personal gain . . . the poor, once again, suffer.  Donors have cut Uganda out of funds that could assure that children like Mbabazi in my post below receive medicine.  When a culture turns a blind eye towards truth, children suffer.

So missionaries who talk about sin sound pretty old-fashioned, fundamental, out-of-touch culturally, intolerant.  That is because we fail to see the logs in our own eyes, so let me first say that the power and greed and deception that plague Africa are the same germs of evil that plague my own heart.  But that is not a reason to pretend they are not germs.  At the root of today's headlines:  sin.  One group that panics and wants to assure its own survival by raping and murdering another.  Shady cobalt deals that rape the environment and steal from the poor.  A view of reality that justifies using resources for personal ends with no accountability.  We see the same dynamics in families, in tribes, in local politics . . but when they reach proportions of international attention, the effect becomes more clear.  Sin kills.

Pat read us a prayer this week that beautifully sums up the response of the Cross to this mess of a world: Lord, let me bear more pain than I inflict.  Amen.

Today's Needs

We are directed to focus on the needs of each day, one at a time.
Richard, whose body is riddled with painful tumors, being sent to the
bowels of Mulago hospital on a quest for life-saving chemotherapy,
armed only with hope and a hundred dollars. Daniel, whose intractable
vomiting notches his skeletal frame closer to the grave daily in spite
of milk and therapy, 4 years old and 13 pounds, we cry out for his
healing. Basemera, weaned too early, her body swelling from lack of
protein. Mbabazi Kristine, struggling against both TB and AIDS, a few
pounds of humanity frail in the face of those two foes. Kabonesa
Malyamu, in spite of being unable to wrest enough to survive from the
dry breasts of her ill mother, still looks at the world with hope and
trust as she smiles at me every day and sips her milk. For these and
the dozen others whose lives hang on the edge, we ask for today's
mercies, for swallowing without pain, for absorption of food and
medicine, for warmth in the rain and the comfort of familiar arms, for
laughter and respite and safety and wholeness.

More Nostalgia

This is a week of remembrance, and several glimpses of the
orchestration of a light-clothed heaven-stretching Being, working
above and beyond and behind the scenes of time (Psalm 104, from Pat's
prayer meeting . . . ).

My neighbor's oldest wife, who stays in Congo most of the time, came
for a visit, trailing her 10 year old twin boys. As they kicked a
soccer ball around in the yard with Jack and Julia, it dawned on me
that these boys were born in our car, delivered by Scott who had been
trying to get them to the hospital in labor all those years ago.

In chapel the S6 students came forward for prayer, before they begin
their final period of University-qualifying exams. There are only
about a dozen of them, and many have been with the school all six
years and we therefore know them well. One is one of our sponsored
boys. Another is a former m'lm orphaned boy who became a Christian at
school. One of the girls is the daughter of one of Bundibugyo's
freedom fighters, a man who led the rebellion many years ago that
threw off the domination of the Toro Kingdom, and who has inherited
his charisma and leadership. But I was mostly focused on three girls
who were in my cell group for several years in their O-level days. I
am not a very notable evangelistic missionary. In all my years here, I
have only had the privilege of being present with about 10 people as
they became Christians. That's OK, we are a body and I am more of a
hand, touching, feeding, healing, typing, than a mouth or a head who
preaches and sees conversions. But those few are important to my
heart, it is a remarkable experience to watch over months and even
years as a girl weighs her beliefs and takes the courageous step of
change. Two of those three girls from my group who stood yesterday,
nearing graduation, were among those who made professions. I have
seen genuine faith slowly blossom in both, and I am grateful.

Physical and spiritual new life, a good legacy. And the two come
together sometimes, too, in Kwejuna project. Yesterday was a very
trying day at the health center. We are in the midst of Child Health
Day outreaches, meaning that most of the staff has been deployed to
villages to dispense vaccines and vitamin A and deworming tablets.
The malnourished and HIV-infected seemed to pour in in their absence,
lots of new admissions and new patients. I was very stretched by the
onslaught of patients and the exodus of staff, if Pat had not plugged
on I might have given up. So it was another gift from God to review
two of our last patients together, bright spots that made our tired
and hungry and grouchy faces smile. Sera Sedrack had been admitted
last month in a pitiful state of starvation, which led us to discover
that his mom was HIV-infected, his sister had TB, and he was somehow
free of both diseases and just hungry. Now many packets of milk and
days of monitoring later, he's unrecognizably rounded, from 5 kg to
7kg as he returned for follow-up, and his mother and sister are
getting treatment. The second was Crispus, whose PCR results just
came in. His HIV-positive mother had been screened in pregnancy, took
her drugs, delivered her son, fed him only from the breast for six
months, and brought him for viral testing as instructed. He was
negative! In fact all the results just in from last month's Kwejuna
batch were negative. So he will wean while he's safe, and hopefully
live a long and joyful life. And his mother will be followed and
treated and hopefully get to live many of those years with Crispus.
And these families will hear the good news of God's love for them at
the same time they see the evidence in the care they are offered.

Which brings us back to Psalm 104, the transcendent God who rebukes
oceans and spins moons, also directs rains for the grasses and trees
and vines that make the oil and wine and bread that bring beauty and
joy and strength to the heart of man (14-15 in the middle). Decades
ago he new that Nalongo would be in labor, that Winnie and Farida
would be searching for truth and meaning, that Sedrack would be hungry
and Crispus would be threatened by HIV, and He brought together the
people and fuel and pills and money and books and love to reach each
of them.

Fifteen Years

October marked our fifteen year anniversary of living in Uganda. As
the month draws to a close I was thinking about this, about the
changes in our neighborhood over the last decade and a half. More
mbati (tin) roofs instead of grass. More vehicles, motorcycles, and
bikes. More kids. More schools. More people wearing shoes. More
buildings, shops, paths, roads. More trash. More choices, for us and
others. More expenses. More organization. More communication. More
obligations.

Our newest team mate, Nathan, will land tomorrow. When we landed 15
years ago this month, we sat forlornly on our pile of bags outside the
somewhat decrepit old Entebbe airport as the sun rose and smoking
cooking fires filled the air. Luke was an infant being swarmed by
what I thought were malarious mosquitoes (they were lake flies,
harmless, just annoying). We had no phone, no contacts, and no plan
for what to do if our team did not pick us up. Several Ugandan
drivers approached us, but we kept hoping that someone who knew us
would show up. We had heard of the Sheraton Hotel and so were about
to try and hire a taxi when a blue pick-up pulled up two hours late,
and Atwoki, the Ugandan mechanic who served our team over many years,
jumped out. It turned out that both Dan and Betty were sick with
malaria and therefore had to send him. . . we went back to the
Namirembe Guest House, back then a very simple place with common
bathrooms and hostel-like bare accommodations and Ugandan food, to set
up Luke's pack and play and try to get some jet-lagged sleep in the
heat. No A/C, no fans even. To make a phone call telling our
families we had made it we all went to the lobby of the Sheraton
(which was why we had heard of it before arriving), a past-its-prime
somewhat dingy place at that time, where the only international line
was located for pay. No cell phones, no internet. No bottled water,
few sodas. Then Lynn Leary took us shopping--no grocery stores, no
mall, just a 4x8 foot duka, opening onto the sidewalk, where we bought
flour and oil and salt and sugar. The biggest treat was Ribena, a
juice-like drink. I think I still have the shopping list Lynn wrote
us in pencil on a legal pad, detailing all 20-some items available for
sale in the country. Thankfully the Herons went to Kenya in those
days and came back with huge rounds of cheese, which a thousand
kilometers later we divided up to share. When we finally got into our
4-wheel-drive vehicle to drive west, the road soon petered out into a
dirt track. It took two LONG days to get to Bundibugyo. People waved
and stared. A passing truck was a rare event then. We waved back.
This was to be our home, and I remember how stark and National
Geographic it looked.

But I also remember driving into the mission for the first time, and
looking up. The mountains. My heritage is Appalachian, West Virginia
Hills. Somehow in all the anticipation and discussion it had never
dawned on me that we would be living at the foot of Africa's third
highest mountains, the Rwenzoris, where equatorial snow rises above
the palms. Some people feel a sense of belonging in the city, by the
ocean, in a suburb, on a plain. For me the ridges populated by
insular clans, the rivers running down, and the green hillsides rising
up, felt like a gift of beauty and security. My Dad's favorite Psalm
was 121, which happened to be my reading today in Peterson's year-long
Psalm devotional. Driving into Bundibugyo 15 years ago with a baby
and trunks and little else, the hills reminded me that our
transcendent God gives unexpected gifts.

And that, though much has changed in 15 years, He has not. The
glaciers have receded but the mountains stand, unmoved.

Arm youselves

Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger, is one of our favorite all-time books.  Jack is currently reading it, and left it on our bed (ever a favorite nesting spot) so I picked it up and re-read the first chapter in which the narrator describes his near-disastrous entry into the world as a blue and lifeless newborn baby until his father knocks over the non-resuscitating doctor and picks him up, commanding him to breathe.  The chapter ends with these great lines:

If he were to begin the account, I believe Dad would say what he said to Swede and me on the worst night of all our lives:

We and the world, my children, will always be at war.

Retreat is impossible.

Arm yourselves.

Real Risk: Roads

From today's Ugandan newspaper (New Vision) with a front page picture of a car smashed by a bus:  

According to Police records, the death toll from road accidents shot to 2,334 last year, up from 2,171 in 2006. In the last 10 days, 90 people have died and hundreds sustained injuries in bus accidents.

The Police blame reckless driving, speeding, defective vehicles, environmental factors and poor roads. 

Puts Ebola in perspective.  We keep the angels busy when we drive.