On teenage girls, unexpected babies, and strength in weakness

There are two teenage girls who bring Mary to my mind this week.  Both are taking care of babies whose mothers have died.  The first is an 18 year old older sibling to a scrawny and scabby little boy who presented malnourished, and was found yesterday to have AIDS.  She wept upon hearing the news, in fact the staff strongly wanted to keep her in the dark for fear she would run away and abandon the child.  She's already lost her mother and one other sibling, and her father's whereabouts are unknown, so there she sits with little more than a cloth to spread on the hospital mattress and two grungy borrowed pans for cooking, cradling the sleeping little brother, crying.  The second seems a bit more stoic--she is the same age, but technically the aunt of the malnourished child, her older sister (his mother) died of Ebola last December and left him as a 5 month old baby.  I remember providing formula for a while, but they dropped out of sight for the rest of the year.  Now they have resurfaced, seemingly equally alone, the clinging baby holding onto her as his only hope.  It is the Christmas story in real time, again.  Since the Garden, mothers under attack, AIDS and Ebola and hunger and childbirth.  And babies paying the cost, left abandoned.  And young girls, girls who did not choose this path, finding the responsibility to grow up quickly, to seek to help and protect and feed and love the fragile lives in their hands.  

It is easy to romanticize Mary, or the shepherds, to make them into heroic noble figures, people of holiness and strength whom anyone would choose for greatness.  But I think these girls probably hit closer to the mark--willing, but ambivalent, resigned, but unsure.  The good news is, that the same God who gave Mary the courage to face scandal, to leave home, to give birth, to flee to Egypt . . can also strengthen these two girls.  

I just finished a book on the life of Wilma and Arthur Matthews, missionaries in China in the early 1950's, who narrowly escaped with their lives and their young daughter (Green Leaf in Drought-time, thanks to Barb Ryan).  At the very end,  Arthur writes in a letter these words, which express the same thought :

The Lord preserveth the simple.  God does not look for a ready-made Hudson Taylor when He has some special work to be done.  He looks for a man, preferably a weak man, and then makes him ready and fit for His work.  What God did for Hudson Taylor He will do for the least and simplest of His children, if they will obey His voice and follow where He leads.  This is my testimony.

On Shepherds

One of the privileges of life in Uganda:  real life, real time, Biblical imagery happening all around us.  Today, the shepherds are in my thoughts, perhaps because I had to bike through a fearsome herd of cattle on my way down to the hospital, their bony hips and sturdy horns threatening to knock me as I made my way through.  Cows are highly valued as the most desirable Christmas feast, but this is not a cow culture (Bundibugyo's economy has tended towards goats, smaller and more scrappy and independent than cows).  We live in the jungle, actually, steep ravines and bushy valleys, mazes of crops and homesteads, paths and compounds. This is not open range grassland, so any cows have to be kept on the move, grazing elephant grass on the roadsides, herded out of someone's sweet potato garden.  Each herd of anywhere from four to forty leathery beasts is accompanied by several teenage boys, cocky, wielding sticks, caps pulled down, half-attention to the cows and half to anything else of interest along the way.  These are the kids who did not thrive in school, who walk miles, who subsist on very little, who make rude comments from the safety of their gang of fellow-herders.  

And so as I note with annoyance that they are not making much effort to clear me a path, and are talking about me as I pass, I am caught by my own heart.  Would I entrust these boys with the most important news of all time?  If I had something of eternal impact to communicate, would I do it through them?  No.  But God would.

Rwenzori Trek Pictures

Note that Scott has now posted a set of pictures from the climb, accessible by clicking "Flickr Pics Sets" on the sidebar (or click here). I'm not sure how he managed to keep shooting pictures during the gasping and grasping for hand-holds, but he did. It is a glimpse into another world.

Christmas Tree!

Well, after being arrested while friendly unofficial forestry workers helped us to our Christmas tree two years ago . . . we decided to stick closer to home for our forray into forestry this year. All the Christmas-sort of trees I've planted over the years we have used, or have so far outgrown indoor sizes that we had turned our sites on the top of a lovely pine-ish sort of tree planted by the Learys many many years ago and nurtured in Scott Ickes/Scott Will's garden. Ebola descended before we had a chance to use it last year. So yesterday, thanks to superhuman kid effort to sort and put away a week of hiking equipment and a month of groceries and general return-to-Bundibugyo mixed-with-holiday clutter . . . and in spite of a continued influenza- level packed pediatric ward . . . we managed by mid afternoon to clear a space in the house and head out to the tree. It turned out to be much taller in reality than in theory. Luke tried to reach as high as he could on a ladder and begin sawing, but Scott ended up with a panga and a lot of effort to fell it. Cutting as high as he could reach we still ended up with about 20 feet of tree which he had to trim down to 10 ish. Jack and Julia rescued the very top and set it up on the porch decorated with flowers. And we put on the Christmas music in the heat and dust, and opened the trunk full of ornaments and lights, and hung our memories. Many are home-made ornaments; others have been purchased on trips; others come in matching sets of 4 from grandparents. All have a story, and I think that is the point. Christmas is a story, of a real life and time, not just a lovely symbol. God comes into reality. By team meeting this evening the lights glowed on the pine and the tree stood as a testimony to God's faithfulness, to the green branch growing from the severely pruned stump, to the power of even a tiny light in the darkness, to the sprinkling of stories which constitute life, the only place we have for encountering God-with-Us, Immanuel.

Christmastime in Kampala

We came down from the mountain to the bustle of Kampala, a rather
shocking change from the wilderness. For the last several days we've
bathed and eaten and slept, and shopped for food and run errands like
drivers' license and park pass renewal, and taken the truck for
mechanical work. All the little errands that build up over months in
Bundibugyo. . . And by God's grace our first day was a Sunday. One of
the largest churches in the city meets in a renovated movie theatre,
with vibrant worship and burning zeal, four or five services, each
packed with hundreds and hundreds of people. This week the children
did a Christmas drama, with great professionalism and rhythm, original
songs, dance, a choir of several hundred all in step and on key . . .
as Scott pointed out the director must have expended 8 thousand
calories with her vigorous coaching throughout the service. And that
the cultural gap between Kampala and Bundibugyo is more of a gaping
chasm, such a production would be unimaginable there. I always feel
encouraged that the country of Uganda has to be influenced by this
core of people worshiping God. Ritual child sacrifice and wife-abuse
and murder are the news headlines, the LRA rebels have walked out of
peace talks again, Congolese refugees clog the borders. But the
Spirit is moving in Kampala.

Since we are only here a few days, we went from the modern
choreographed super-charged pentecostal service to a traditional
service of lessons and carols at the historic Namirembe Cathedral
Sunday evening. The rough brick cathedral with its wooden pews and
echoing organ, the choir in white-collar-ruffled robes and four part
harmony, the stately reading of Scripture, was beautiful in its own
way, in direct lines of continuity with the culture of the same
British colonizers that shaped some of our American roots. Here some
of the readers were justices, ministers, and traditional elders. The
pianist could have been a professional. It was very well done. But
just to remind us that we're in Africa, and our cultural bounds need
stretching . . . near the end the choir came down from their knave,
and stood across the front, and broke into a swaying jiving version of
Feliz Navidad!!! Wow. Their joy was infectious. Then they returned
to their latin-solemnity and processed out.

Tomorrow we head back home, where we have only a week to put up our
tree, visit neighbors, carol, unpack, clean up, catch up with
patients, and focus on Christmas . . .

White Christmas in Uganda: Snow-Capped Rwenzoris

We are back safe if not sound from a week in the wilderness.  On our last evening Scott collected one-word associations as we sat shivering in our wooden hut, candles burning, full moon rising:  gruelling, beautiful, treacherous, exhausting, freezing cold, majestic, snow, summits, snuggling, wild, unspoiled, mud, more mud, glaciers, gum boots.  It will be impossible in one post to capture the week's trek, so I will merely hit some highlights and let Scott's pictures fill out the story (to be posted later this week after we return to Bundibugyo).

The Facts:  Our entire family, along with Ashley and Nathan, completed the full seven-day circuit, climbing from base camp at 4680 feet to Elena Hut at 15,000 feet.  According to our guides, Jack and Julia are the youngest hikers to ever do this on their own (I guess some early intrepid explorers had their kids carried).  Six of us (everyone but Jack and Julia) reached the summit, Margherita Peak on Mt. Stanley, 16,763 feet, the third highest point on the continent, where Uganda and Congo meet.  According to our guides, Caleb at age 13 was the youngest climber to ever reach the peak.  We hiked (read:  scrambled, strained, pulled up, slipped down, jumped, stepped, sloshed) about 5 strenuous hours most days, but 12 hours on the day we summited.  The last day we combined two stages to shorten the trip from 8 days to 7.  It snowed on us, twice.  We were a real expedition:  we were assigned four guides, two of whom were mountain-tough men in their early 50's who had climbed these mountains untold times over 30 years, and took great care of us.  And each hiker gets two porters (dividing 25 kg per hiker plus their own stuff), so the 8 of us qualified for 16, to carry gear and food around the week's trail, as well as their own things.

The Beauty:  Seven days in an other-worldly setting, a land untouched by human imprint except for the half-dozen simple huts constructed to shelter porters and hikers.  We did not encounter any other people besides our group, and even animals were limited to a brief path-crossing with a blue monkey, the raucous calls of chimps in the valley near our first hut, a glimpse of a red duiker in the heather and moss of the alpine zone, and voles peeking out of their burrows (well there was the nasty moment when Nathan discovered that ice axes make great rat-killers in one hut, but that does not fit well in the beauty category). We marveled our way through forest, bamboo, bogs, giant ferns, tangled mimulopsis, improbable lobelia flower spikes, eerie hanging mosses, tree-sized heathers, groundsell, and beyond to the heights of bare rock and glacial snow.  Dozens of wild-flowers, from tiny violet-like ground cover to orchids to something called a snake's head that looked like an over-sized jack-in-the-pulpit.  And higher, the everlastings, white papery flowers on slivery green shrubs, like edelweiss.   Countless streams, many without names, cascaded off the rocks, waterfalls, rivers, crags, peaks.  The horizon would constantly change, suddenly we would see clearly the ridges and peaks above us, then they would disappear in cloud.  We passed by the Portal Peaks, Mt. Baker, Mt. Speke, and Mt. Luigi de Savoia, in order to ascend and descend Mt. Stanley.  We stood on Freshfield Pass in full sun, looking down into Congo and almost eye-level with glaciers on the surrounding peaks.  We bathed in painfully cold rivers and lakes, drank from pure springs, watched the rare Rwenzori Turaco explode into red as it spread its wings, and marveled at the twittering scarlet-tufted malachite sunbird found only a few places on earth.  Every stage, every zone, had its own flavor of pristine and wild beauty, lavishly expended for no human pleasure, seen only by God.

The Danger:  This was, by far, the most physically draining week of our lives.  In seven days of walking, there were not more than 30 minutes of level steady path where one could talk or look around.  If we were not balancing on slippery submerged logs laid through deep sucking-mud bogs, we were inching along cracks in rocks that dropped away below us, or finding secure footing on wet stones, or pulling ourselves up by branches and roots and hand-holds.  Every day the air thinned, the gasping for breath increased.  Every night the temperature dropped--it was 30 degrees INSIDE our highest hut.  No fires, no heat, just sleeping bags, close bodies, and hot tea.  The two times it snowed I really feared for a child slipping over an edge, irretrievable.  On the glacier we saw crevices, the danger-spots in the ice.  I fell once on a very steep incline of snow and my descent was only arrested by Scott's quick anchoring on our safety rope.  We took medicine (diamox) to prevent or at least mitigate altitude sickness, but were soberly aware of the risks, especially for the younger kids.  The huts were pretty bare-bunks and foam mattresses.  But most had tacked to a wall or window a dire warning that two hikers had died of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema in the last two years.  Both Jack and Scott struggled with a cough, a cold-stimulated wheeze that was difficult to feel confident was NOT life-threatening.  If I had known how hard it would be, I probably would not have allowed our kids to go.  So it was stressful, to constantly second-guess, wonder if we had made a BIG mistake, wonder if we would really make it.

The Glory:  In spite of doubts and dangers, we DID make it, and Jack's heels did not bother him at all, and we came down with a sense of confidence and accomplishment that will give us courage for many years to come I hope.  Each morning we read different scriptures together on the theme of mountains, studying how God often chooses to reveal Himself on the mountain top, and asking Him to do the same for us.  Personally this was very meaningful for me, tracing the theme through the Bible while living it ourselves.  Perhaps God drew Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jesus and his disciples, all to the loneliness and austerity of the alpine zone to get their attention, to free from distraction, to reveal His other-ness, His unfathomable ways.  But we also saw that He redeemed the harshness of the mountains, because the ultimate reason He drew these men to the mountaintop was LOVE.  On the day we hiked to the final peak, we arose at 4:30 am, and left Jack and Julia in the frigid hut with one of the guides.  It was dark and freezing, and we could hardly breathe as we climbed over rocks using head lamps.  When we reached the edge of the glacier, we put spiky crampons on our boots for gripping the ice, and roped together in two lines.  It was hard, slow going, and the final climb involved ropes over vertical rock face.  As frightening as it was, my overwhelming sense was that God brought us here because HE LOVES US.  

Thanks to our parents, whose Christmas gifts helped pay our fees for the trip.  Thanks to Ashley and Nathan, who put up with our family in VERY CLOSE QUARTERS and under very stressful conditions, who listened to nightly reading of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, who encouraged and joked and even brought Christmas Carols on an iPod with portable speakers to keep the cheer alive on our long cold nights.  Thanks to Luke and Nathan who bore extra weight, and kindly waited.  Thanks to those who prayed for our safety, I dreamed of our supporters at Grace Church the night before we made the ascent of the peak, and it encouraged me.  This was an unforgettable and unrepeatable week, reaching a pocket of Uganda which is about as inaccessible as any on earth.

Closing words from Jack and Julia, who have patiently waited for me to write all this:  It was awesome. It was hard.  It was cold.

Goats and Goodbye

As we leave, a reminder of the Christmas Goat project (several posts
below, scroll down). The email address for Ginny Barnette was
incorrectly typed, sorry, remove that third "t" if you want to contact
her! May your Advent Season be full of dreams of goats as you
meditate on the coming of Jesus.

To the Mountaintop

God calls His people away to the mountains regularly. There Moses
encountered the trailing brilliance of His glory, there he and Aaron
prayed for victory as the battle raged below. Jesus brought his
followers there at least once to encounter His shining face in a new
way, and went there often Himself just to withdraw and renew.

In a couple of hours we are heading for the mountains that have formed
the backdrop of our daily life for more than fifteen years. We will
spend the next seven to eight days hiking a high alpine circuit of
Rwenori wilderness, hopefully some of us will be reaching glacier-
covered Margarita Peak on Mt. Stanley, Africa's third highest, 16,700
feet. Jack, Julia, and probably I will opt to remain at base camp on
that day, but we're hoping to have the strength and endurance for the
rest of the trek. Scott and Luke did a similar trip three years ago,
thought they chose Mt. Speke instead. Ashley and Nathan are joining
our family, so preparing the food, gear, medicine, shoes, pots,
sleeping bags, etc. for 8 for over a week in a place where we can
access NOTHING but water . . . is a daunting task that Scott has
tackled. Right now it is all in duffle bags in our front room, to be
loaded and carried to our starting point today, so we can begin
tomorrow.

We would appreciate prayer. First, that we get away from the grief and
pressure of life and find rest in the peace of nature and the
fellowship of our family. Second, that we experience God in His glory
as we climb. And third, for safety, health, no falls, no altitude
sickness.

It is never easy to leave this place, and we are probably in the midst
of an influenza outbreak. But Luke has longed for this adventure all
year, and it has become very clear to me that our window of our kids'
teen years is small and closing. So we are off, to the mountains,
together.

Remembering Dr. Jonah Kule 1966-2007

One year ago today, a doctor from the CDC called to tell us that our friend Jonah Kule had died at Mulago hospital. Though we were in the midst of trauma and tragedy here in Bundibugyo, I could not believe the news. I remember sobbing, then making phone calls to other people in Kampala, thinking there must have been some mistake. Since the CDC had more information than anyone else, his relatives remained convinced that Jonah was still alive, and we were not sure who to believe. It was night time, dark, our phones work best outside, so there we stood, talking. Scott Will and Bhiwa joined us, and I remember the overwhelming thought that this does not make sense, not Jonah. Finally we could not avoid any longer the reality, he was really dead, and I called to tell his wife, whom a few days earlier I had personally told of his hospital admission and helped along her way to Kampala to be near him, never thinking then that it would really turn out to be Ebola. We went to bed, not sleeping, wondering how many days until one of us would also succumb. Everything we had worked for seemed to be crumbling in those hours. Our friend had died, alone, in an isolation tent, surrounded by fear. We were not at his side as we would have wished, though Scott made many visits to the only other Bundibugyo doctor, Dr. Sessanga, who was self-quarantined in his home fighting ebola too. Those were among the worst days of our lives, living on a sharp edge of stress and uncertainty and sadness. Jonah's body was brought back to the district by a special transport, while we waited with his family. He was buried along with three other health care workers who died that same week, on the grounds of the hospital. The fear was so great that no one but us and his family and a few health workers attended, no choirs, no pastors, few neighbors and friends. Scott stood by the space-suited MSF burial team with their frightening boots and garb and detoxifying sprays, and read from John 12: unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it bears no fruit, but if it dies it brings forth fruit a hundred fold. Those were words of sheer faith at that moment.

Now, a year later, we had the kind of memorial service we could not have at the peak of the epidemic. I went down to the family home this morning, and one look at baby Jonah sent me into tears. I'm thankful that I was able to have a good cry with Melen at home before we faced the official ceremonies. We proceeded to Bundibugyo in five vehicles, each carrying and assortment of family, team, and friends. There we congregated at All Saints Church of Uganda, for a great service. The Archdeacon read from 2 Timothy 4 and talked about leadership, integrity, sacrifice. He called Jonah "a man among men." Scott also spoke about the Biblical theme of remembrance, remembering Jonah's sacrifice as well as his life. The Resident District Commissioner, the highest ranking government official in the district, came without retinue or pretense, carrying his Bible, saying he wanted to participate in honoring Dr. Jonah. There were a hundred or so others, including a nurse who survived Ebola and Dr. Sessanga who also survived. It was a solemn but worshipful time, and we were included in the bereaved who were specifically prayed for, kneeling on the hard cement of the church floor.

But the most poignant and beautiful aspect of the service: Baby Jonus was baptized, taking the official name Jonus Gift Muhindo. Jonus, for his father Jonah, a living picture and remembrance of a great man. Gift, because he was a beautiful and unexpected gift to us all, especially Melen who had longed for a son after 5 beautiful girls, and had to wait until her husband was dead to receive that gift. And Muhindo, which translates as change, because he is a boy in a family of girls, a smiling and honored family member passed lovingly from hand to hand. I leant them the very outfit that Luke wore for Christmas when he was the same age as Baby Jonus, our first few months in Uganda. The red velvet also appeared on Caleb when he was baptized (because it was the only fancy boy baby outfit we owned) with Jonah and Melen's daughter Biira; we had no family to attend that event but celebrated with Jonah's family afterwards. And Jack wore it too, at his baptism. It was special for me to see Jonah's son baptized, in the same outfit.

As the service drew towards its completion, the weeks of hot dry weather ended with a downpour, as if God Himself wept. In Africa rain symbolizes blessing, so it was a dramatic climatic evidence of God's favor upon this day. We had to sing extra songs as the entire congregation waited for the rain to end. Then we processed to the hospital for a final graveside service, the entire congregation singing as we slowly walked a kilometer through town, past the shops and restaurants, offices and taxis, everyone respectfully silent, watching, aware. At the grave Dr. Sessanga spoke, then more prayers and presentation of flowers, the four tombs lined up as concrete reminders of the way that this disease targeted the very people who most sought to alleve its suffering.

We are grateful for the milestone of remembering Dr. Jonah, his friendship, his service, his courage, his death. And of affirming the continuing life of his family, his daughters, his wife, his tiny smiling son, who will never meet his own father until Heaven, who smiled and played with his aunt's earrings and his own shoe, who slept snoring in my arms, blissfully unaware of the grief and loss of the day. A year brings the first measure of healing, and in spite of shaking sobs in each others' arms this morning, I caught Melen smiling at her baby this evening. Grief and life, tears and thankfulness, all mingle tonight.

Life, a Wednesday interlude

Two of our closest Ugandan friends died this past year, Dr. Jonah in December and our neighbor John Mukidi in May.  Both were men we met within days of our arrival in Uganda in 1993.  Both were the kind of people who would be genuinely concerned for our welfare, who would share meals and life, who would advise and listen, who would include us in their family celebrations, and we included them in ours.  This kind of friendship is rare, particularly cross-culturally, and we lost much as they died.  And though they died months apart, from very different causes, both are having major remembrances this week.  Yesterday was the second death rite for John Mukidi, his oluku, the official end to the period of mourning, as he takes his place as an ancestor.  And tomorrow we will head to Bundibugyo Town's main protestant church for a memorial service for Dr. Jonah.

So in between those two events, today, we had an interlude devoted to life rather than death.  Mukidi was from the generation preceding us, Jonah was our peer, and now we are left looking to the next generation.  We celebrated the 14th birthday of our friend Ivan, a boy who has found his way into our hearts and lives as our kids' friend (Jack's best friend).  His mother left him to re-marry after his father's life crashed around alcoholism, and when he's not at our house he lives with his young uncle in a small room behind a commercial clinic in Nyahuka.  By God's grace this boy has maintained humor and perseverance and hope in the face of a chaotic and disappointing life.  Tonight we cooked a great meal, and sat by candlelight under the bougainvillea, with a sparkling candle on the cake and a few simple gifts.  The moment of focus, of specialness and appreciation, does not come often in most kids' lives here.  Ivan has been a great gift to our family.  Tonight was no exception, sandwiched by mourning we exhaled for this evening of celebration, the affirmation of ongoing relationship and a new generation of hope.