Back to Reality

After two days away (Christmas Day and Boxing Day) Heidi and I thoughtit prudent to made an appearance on the ward today, spending a coupleof hours to round and re-supply, to remember the babies in danger andthe battle for their lives . . . so just an update that little Peter

John and his sister Grace (sounds like a combination out of Pilgrim'sProgress) did NOT run away as feared. He is getting simple first-line treatment for HIV, and she is hanging in there with him, feeding him,and has even been seen smiling. Keep praying for them, there is a long and hard road ahead. 

 And baby Gloria, who in spite of her Christmas-y name I did not expect to live to see the holiday, has actually gained a few grams. Her twin sibling and mother died in the process of birth leaving her in the care of a diminutive grandmother and feisty sister Angela, 

 who suffers from sickle cell disease as well as being a marginally malnourished orphan. What a threesome . . .names that reflect the chorus of the heavens, with lives that scream the injustice and sadness of hell. 

 

 We also had a run on burn patients  this Christmas--the stress of the holidays, the confusion of extra people and extra meals, the carelessness of alcohol, for whatever reason we ended up with three toddlers all severely burned. 

 The smallest burn but the saddest story is Lydia, whose mother at the age of 15 and still in primary school decided to "marry" a student from our secondary school, a boy on the football team and with plans in life. Her father had died, her uncle is a destitute neighbor of ours, so she probably did not feel she had many options. Though they have had two children now, Lydia and a little sister, the boy's family refuses to acknowledge the union, and sent the boy off to A-levelstudies in Fort Portal to try and keep them apart. They do not wantthis girl to hold their son back, so they even refused to have him come home for the holidays. However they have taken Lydia away fromher mother and into their home, after all a descendent is a descendent, the proliferation of which is a key goal of life. Her burn pattern was suspicious for abuse and she showed signs of malnutrition when she came, perhaps reflecting the grandparents'stress that they do not want their investment in their son's education to be subverted by his early marriage to a village girl, perhaps just reflecting that people their age get tired out by 3 year olds. After being passed from grandfather to grandmother to one aunt to another aunt, today I found her caretaker to be her actual biological mother. So we are working with the local Child Welfare Officer to see what can be done.

Reality--the burns and abuse and hunger and incurable viruses? That is the reality we can touch and see. But by faith we hold to the deeper reality of Rev 12, as preached on Christmas, the behind-the- veil glimpse of victory. The dragon flung to earth, angry in his defeat, lashing out but ultimately doomed.

In Praise of Boxing Day

Being a proper former British protectorate . . . we celebrate Boxing
Day on the 26th. It is a wonderful tradition, both in theory and in
practice. In theory, it is the feast day of St. Stephen, the first
martyr. He is given the day closest to that of Jesus himself, in
honor of his foundational sacrifice: December 26th. And the
tradition was for a box to be put in the church on that day for
offerings to be distributed to the poor. In the 21rst century, since
we spend half the day in church on Christmas, there is no longer a
service on the 26th. But this year one of the enterprising and
energetic CSB grads, who has been befriended by many of the
missionaries here, A. N., spent weeks drumming up support for the
concept of a children's day on the 26th. He got 8 churches involved,
and since I was so glad someone ELSE was providing entertainment and
instruction, Bible stories, songs, and games, and of course lunch, for
several hundred kids, I ended up contributing heavily to the budget
before hand, then just dropped in to see kids in traditional grass
skirts dancing, and everyone smiling, and left. Thus fulfilling the
spirit of the day.

Which allowed us to enjoy Boxing Day in practice. After non-stop
cooking and celebrating, guests and events, it is a deep inhale day.
Quiet. We had only a few visitors, and none who wanted anything from
us, just greeting (!). We drank coffee on the patio, played ping pong
and a little friendly soccer. Jack and Julia entertained Naomi and
Quinn by transforming the front room into a lego world for hours.
Simple meals, family time, peace, rest. This kind of day is a RARITY
in Bundibugyo, and therefore all the more precious. It was great.

Bundibugyo Christmas . . .

A few verbal snapshots: Christmas Eve caroling with the whole team, dusky pink clouds and fading light, Scott and Nathan with guitars, stopping a dozen times as we strolled up the road and back, some neighbors a bit bewildered but most happily entertained, old toothless women squatting outside over their cooking fires or young women washing clothes or braiding hair for the next day, men standing on the fringes, listening, smiles, greetings, soda crates rattling in bicycles as teenage boys brought in the last feast items, walking back home and straight to the cow pasture, reading Luke 2 by candlelight leaning against our real manger, dodging smelly droppings in the darkness, our two cows and goat looking suspiciously at the crowd in their space.

Christmas morning: awaking to rain (only three bursts of rain in this month, on Dr. Jonah's memorial service, on his cultural ceremony called final rites, and on Christmas), a downpour of blessing . . .stockings, music, John chapter 1 and an annual candle lighting, a pastry ring extravagance of butter and nuts, sitting around our tree, reading a chapter of a new children's book, unwrapping ping-pong paddles and then the kids' surprise run out to the roofed car-port area to discover that (besides the Rwenzori climb!) our gift was a spindly ping-pong table that Scott smuggled back from Kampala and set up during the night. We are a real teen-age house now.

 

Christmas church service: Hours that did not seem tedious this year at all, but joyful; the women's choir in their new robes radiant, swaying, singing new songs; the children's choir bringing down the house with their synchronized dance; a visitor from Congo borrowing Scott's guitar for a beautiful Swahili folk rendition; our mission team standing up to sing "Joy to the World" looking back on the packed church, hundreds of faces smiling with us (and for me the peculiar shock that we live in Africa, so obvious, but I always sit as part of the congregation deluded into believing we blend in); being pulled (literally) into a traditional dance with the elders and wives in the front of the church, at first reluctantly embarrassed but then amazed at the inclusion and sense of community; hearing Revelations 12 read in Lubwisi for the first time from newly-translated typed pages, then a powerful sermon by Musunguzi who reminded us that this world is at war and Jesus entered it to achieve victory.

Christmas afternoon and evening: the team gathering at our house, a long table set outside in the shade for our feast, a crunchy bag of Fritos from a package from someone we never even met that arrived on Christmas eve (the small joys of crispness and salt!), singing and performing comical carols for each other, exchanging gifts from our name draw and the fun of the surprise of both who drew whom and what creative thing they managed to procure, the Quinns vs. the Naomis all- team soccer match followed by a cool-down round of catch-phrase, family phone-calls to America and the Sudan, birthday-cake shaped like a Christmas tree and desserts and then a patio dance party all by candlelight under the stars, ending with watching "the Grinch" projected on a big-screen sheet.

One of our best Christmases ever, just the right mixture of community and worship and fun and food and reality and giving.

Feast and Sacrifice

The levitical blood-bath of slaughter and offering seems to barbaric
reading at times, whole joints of cow hefted and waved, bowls of sheep
blood collected and poured, the bleating wheeze of dying animals with
their excrement and fur filling the courtyard of worship. But there
is no feast without sacrifice. In Bundibugyo, the connection remains,
less sanitized. This morning I passed a crowd of people around a just-
felled cow, pangas at work to divide the flesh for the nourishment of
tomorrow. No butchery, no paper and plastic, no steel counters, no
wrapped portions in gleaming freezers. Just hide and hoof and
dripping meat, piled on banana leaves, the killing as proximate to the
consumption as possible.

We are temporary carnivores, we humans, between the exile from the
garden and the return to the New Jerusalem, we wander in this world of
killing. And we wander thoughtfully. The killing tells us
something: that life has a cost, that sustenance of one requires the
giving of another. That this is a serious business, living. I'm sure
there are vegetarians who disagree, but for most of the world over
most of history, animals have provided a small but essential portion
of our dietary fuel.

So the feast-day of Christmas is preceded by the killing-day of the
24th. Just as in the big picture, the bleeding, pushing, effort of
Mary; the uncounted lives of the innocent children slain by Herod;
and later the outpoured blood of Jesus precede our feast of salvation,
an expensive spread of grace.

Christmas Prayer Letter 2008

Now available for downloading... our Christmas 2008 Prayer Letter...

For those of you not on our WHM mailing list (or those who would like to see the pictures in color).

Yeats, Bonhoeffer, and original poetry from Jennifer...

Don't delay get your copy here...

Christmas Eve-Eve

Scott went to perhaps the only Christmas "office party" happening
within a hundred miles, the annual holiday feast for the Lubwisi Bible
Translation Project. A couple dozen literacy workers, committee
members, spouses, and the two men primarily involved in the Bible
Translation work came together to celebrate another year (the 13th) of
progress. There are 18 books of the Bible so far translated, though
only three are available in booklet form. Though SIL and the Tabbs
still offer invaluable support from a distance, this is one example of
a project that has passed successfully into indigenous hands with
solid results. And an example of God raising gifted people, who have
passed up other careers and opportunities to remain faithful here in
this outpost of the Kingdom. Scott spoke from Rev 12, the word being
a primary instrument of the defeat of the dragon. Amen.

Meanwhile we continue in the half-normal life of patients and
problems, this week a forged check and malfunctioning water lines,
medicine shortages and absent staff, the usual struggles, a full
pediatric ward (as many as I send home for the holidays, the spaces
seem to fill right away). One god-send, literally, along the same
lines as the translators above: a nursing student whom we have
sponsored the last two years showed up for his "holiday" from school
and is pretty much single-handedly managing all nursing care on the
ward. Then the half-holiday life of baking cookies and more cookies,
kids hanging out, a dozen for lunch and football yesterday, watching
Christmas movies (a scary British-accented version of Dickens'
Christmas Carol last night). Many have asked about Melen and the
family; I've seen them smiling lately, perhaps there was some lifting
of burden in passing the one year mark, perhaps just the slow healing
of hearts. After last year's stressful December, I think daily of how
good it is to be home with all the kids, to be greeting neighbors on
the road, to be having friends in to see our tree, to be living a
normal life this year with team and family and Ugandan friends, with
dust and cut-out snow flakes and the ipod shuffling music and the
extravagance of candles and lights.

On Holiday Feasting

For the average person, Christmas in Bundibugyo is synonymous with a large family meal, a day in which everyone puts on their best outfit (and in many cases the one set of new clothes for the year), parades to church, then retires to their home compound to eat meat. Yesterday in church a young Bible-school student railed against this "materialism", in a very discouraging and non-Gospel-giving sermon, no doubt a sincere effort to combat Christmas heresy but in the process completely missing the point. Sigh. But ironically, the service also included the Lord's Supper, a feast. And in reality, Christmas was first celebrated as a feast day by the early church, and the deepest meaning points to the final feast of the Kingdom, the Isaiah 25 banquet of good wines and juicy portions spread upon the mountain of God.

Last night we gathered as a team for our fourth Advent Sunday, on which we traditionally hold a Norwegian-inspired White Dinner. The kids cut out dozens of snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling, we rearranged the furniture to spread a long table in the front room by the tree, and everyone contributed monochromatic dishes (white fish, rice, potatoes, cabbage salad, rolls, fruit salad with cream, and this year Heidi's innovation cold cucumber-yogurt soup as a starter!). I make a traditional Scandanavian potato cake that is rolled in butter and sugar, called lefsa . . . in spite of the high stack they were all devoured. We began with an ancient prayer about Christ's feast-day, and after dinner moved outside to the candle-lit porch to light our advent wreath the final time. We traced Scripture passages from the Garden in Genesis, to exile, Egypt, the Promised Land, exile in Babylon again, the hope of the Messiah, Immanuel, the Word becoming Flesh, the Bread of Life, the promised Rest, to consider the fact that the longing for home is an integral part of the Christmas story. We are in exile, in the midst of the battle of Rev 12, the baby is born but the dragon remains at large, we are in the wilderness but with the Presence of God through his body and blood giving us strength to press on. And our fellowship and feasting pictures the end of the story, Rev 21 and 22, when we will finally eat of the healing fruit of the tree of life and finally rest in our real home, the city of God, where He is light and Presence. So nights of candlelight and friendship and family and food come as reminders of our Edenic roots and our Mountain of the Kingdom destination, waypoints in celebration of our history as well as sings of our hope.

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.