traveling mercies

In a few minutes we begin our trek to Kenya, for meetings with WHM
leadership focused on East Africa, and to take Luke back to school.
Right now thunder rumbles and thick clouds dim the early morning,
which is ominous when we are trying to pack everything under tarps in
an open pick-up bed and have to drive on muddy roads. En route
tomorrow, in Kampala, Scott will be trying to get some work done on
the vehicle to help us survive the approximately 48 round-trip on-the-
road hours (and much of it is NOT nice road). I will be trying to
strike the right balance between outrage and diplomacy as I visit
UNICEF offices and plead for another year of milk formula . . . the
supply we've been waiting for for two months as our last packets have
dwindled to nothing seems to be inexplicably unavailable. So over the
next week we face many hours of jostle and heat and car-boredom,
passive-aggressive officials, challenging accommodations, and
dangerous drivers. The inevitable good-bye to Luke will hang over us,
and be another death to pass through. We also look forward to sweet
fellowship with other WHM missionaries and old friends in Nairobi,
rest for weariness, renewal of vision. To a bit of protected family
time, and a relief from the relentlessness of Bundibugyo. Please pray
for a UNICEF change of heart, for safety on the road, for intra-
familial kindness over the journey. In short, for the mercies of God,
which sustain us here, to travel behind and before.

Mt. Zion Primary School

This morning a new primary school was dedicated on the Uganda/Congo border, perched on a small hill next to the soldiers who use this vantage point to protect the border. We could see the tailing end of the Rwenzoris and the Semiliki River basin all the way across to the Blue Mountains of Congo. A spectacular spot, which we pray will also become like the real Mt. Zion, a dwelling place of God. Bishop Hannington Bahemuka, the Charismatic Episcopal church leader who also translates the Bible into Lubwisi (see two posts below), organized the effort to build a higher quality Christian primary school for orphans and other children in this remote place. He was joined by a team from International Stewards in the US, who funded the land and construction costs, but also spent the last several days running a seminar in our Community Center to train pastors in the Biblical principles of giving and stewardship. As long time friends of Hannington and partners in mission, we were invited to witness the dedication and pray for the school. About two dozen of the first pupils, in neon green school shirts and black jumpers and shorts, and led by their teacher a former Christ School student, lined up to thank and welcome the visitors/ Several hundred parents and community members clapped and worshiped on the hill top. Hannington acknowledged that this is a small and fragile project with uncertain funding, but we serve a God who surprises us with unlimited possibilities. . . . so that these children may someday be our doctors and bishops, and this hill may be the center of a university.

We have prayed for primary school education in Bundibugyo, and this may be one of our "by prayer and partnership" steps towards investing in emerging leaders.

Hat trick

Rose, our resident midwife, called at 5pm to say that Nora, the mother carrying triplets was fully dilated and could we come and help. Scott and Heidi hopped in the truck and sped down to the health center to find Girl#1 swaddled and safe. Girl#2 promptly emerged without even a peep from the mother. Another 15 minutes and Girl#3 emerged. All were born head first, a blessing from above. The whole event proceeded quietly, efficiently almost effortlessly (easy for us to say). A medical privilege to witness a vaginal birth of triplets...not likely to happen in the litigious setting of the USA. We chanted "Webale Kwejuna....Webale Kwejuna...Webale Kwejuna"(thank you for surviving)... a sort of thrice "Hip, Hip, Hooray". Nora was too tired to respond with the usual "Webale Kusabe"(thank you for praying).

The girls weighed in at 1600g, 1500g, and 1650g and all cried briefly. They were early - probably about 34 weeks gestation. Please pray for their survival. The chances that they all survive, despite their apparent health at birth, is slim.

Thank you for praying.

abundance/want

Tomorrow we will celebrate Heidi's birthday, with mangos. She requested a mango dessert, so today I made two lovely pies. A heap of fruit that a few hours ago was growing on a tree a few yards from my kitchen door now cools under the criss-cross lattice of crust. Tomorrow morning's milk, minutes from being inside the cow, will be mixed with a few eggs sold off the excess from the chicken project across the street and flavored with vanilla grown on a local farm. Then we will churn it in a hand-cranked freezer surrounded by ice we've been stockpiling in our emptying fridge. The pie and ice cream dessert will follow a dinner that includes avocados from another tree in the yard, and lemons from a third, on tortillas made from scratch and sprinkled with cilantro from our garden and lettuce from Nathan's. The beauty of accumulating a meal from resources which are largely within a stone's throw is one of the aspects of missionary life I love, both for the challenge of combining limited ingredients and for the freshness of being forced to use locally grown ones.

This is a hungry time of year in Africa, the rains have begun but the fruit of last season's harvest has dwindled. Our elderly neighbor came asking for food this morning. A group of our boys spent a post- soccer hour shaking down the mango tree mid-day for ripe fruit, then Julia's friends showed up in the late afternoon to collect even more. I'm thankful the tree is having a bumper year to bless our friends, for these kids is it not an expendable pie to celebrate a birthday but perhaps the only food until dinner they can get their hands on. It is hard to imagine surviving here without our cow and her milk, and as thankful as I am for our small garden and few fruit trees we lean heavily on our cash to purchase food that others can not. Last night I was called by a doctor from UNICEF, who slowly and indirectly and politely made it clear that the organization is hesitating to re- supply our nutrition unit. The indirect and Africa-correct reason: all their stocks are designated by donors for the LRA-affected areas in the north. The real reason: I don't know, but I'm hoping to make a personal visit on the way to Kenya, to stop in their office and beg.

And so the classic and constant tension of savoring the richness of a golden mango and a creamy flow of milk, while strenuously advocating for the listless and scabby kids whose mothers drag them into the hospital as a place of last resort. East African population growth leads the world, and Uganda leads East Africa, so that today's paper reported that 8.8 million more people were hungry in this region than when we arrived about sixteen years ago. This place can produce both a fruitful tree, and yet the even more fruitful population means that hunger continues to rise, that abundance slips behind want.

Pray that we would enjoy the bounty of God's good earth with grateful hearts, and that we would use the ensuing energy to strive for justice.

Lubwisi Bible Translation-where we stand

The WHM-Bundibugyo Team has been supporting the translation of the bible into the local language of Lubwisi since 1991 when Rich and Alie Benson pioneered that work. Our partnership continued when Waller and Mary Tabb of SIL took over in the mid-90s. The work has since been fully handed over to two Ugandan translators, Charles Musinguzi and Hannington Bahemuka who continue to faithfully toil day-by-day chipping away at the thousands of chapters in need of translation. SIL continues to support these guys logistically and technically, but the work is primarily now in Ugandan hands.

We received a report from Waller Tabb yesterday that the New Testament translation is now 59% complete. Please continue to pray for these faithful laborers who grind away at a task which is measured in years rather than weeks or months. Sort of like building the pyramids in my mind.

Waller's closing words in his update came from 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Finally brethren, pray for us, that the word of the LORD may speed on and triumph , as it did among you.

growing up

Luke hiked to Fort Portal with the Sudan interns and Nathan yesterday, and Caleb hiked to the forest and back down with our new team mate John Clark. No parents involved, or needed. Luke's purpose in going all the way over was to visit a young man who became his closest friend at CSB. Kataramu Taddeo is an amazingly pleasant teenager, with the most remarkable study habits and best grades of anyone we know. He and Luke consistently took the top positions in all their classes. Since finishing O-levels, they have stayed in touch, though Kataramu is from our neighboring district and only ended up at Christ School because of an orphan sponsorship program through his church. On Good Friday, we got a call from Kataramu that his mother had died. He had already lost his father long ago, and 5 of his 12 siblings, so he was no stranger to grief. Still, as the youngest and only one still in school, we know the untimely death of his mother (from asthma, a death that most likely would not have occurred in a more resource-filled world) hit him hard. We missed the burial, but Luke decided to go and see his friend within the 4 day traditional mourning period, a very culturally appropriate and important response to such an event. He left his fellow hiking missionaries in a hostel in town and took a motorcycle taxi out to Kataramu's home alone, to spend the night. This is a pretty big step for a 16 year old, to go stay completely cross-culturally with a family whom he knows only through his school friendship, hours from home. He was so glad he did, though. It is gestures like this that cement friendships, and Luke has been around long enough to know that friendships like Kataramu's (and his other friend Nuuru's) are a rare gift. He met back up with Nathan mid- morning in town, and the two of them set a WHM record for hiking back over the strenuous mountain pass in 4 hrs 5 minutes. It usually takes us at least 6 hours, sometimes 7 if we rest a lot. To do the 20+km route, with about 5 thousand feet of elevation change up and down, twice in two days is pretty crazy.

More than probably any time in the last few months, I am very aware tonight that our son is growing up, that the independence of going away to boarding school in another country is maturing him faster than I had imagined.

War Dance

Heidi brought back an award-winning documentary film called War Dance, and we had the opportunity to watch it last night. We highly recommend it on many levels. Artistically the cinematography, color, pacing, framing, all are superb. But the real power of the film lies in the ability of the crew to make the atrocity of the Lord's Resistance Army's war upon the Acholi people of Northern Uganda palpable, while still holding out hope in their beauty and resilience. The documentary focuses on the lives of three children going to primary school in an IDP camp, and one by one they tell of their experiences of war, some quite horrific (this is not for younger kids, there is intensity in the dialogue that made Jack and Julia cling to my hands, too close to home . . . so for even younger kids it would be too much). But all of this is set in the context of the annual Ugandan primary school music competition, where schools compete all over the country and are then selected for finals. We have often watched the preliminary stage here in Bundibugyo, but never been very clear on what happens to the winners. In the movie we watched the chosen school rehearse and prepare, then followed them through the contest. In this way the stark realities of their lives are balanced by the laughter and music of their culture, and in spite of sorrow they find strength in the experience of success. Like CSB football, the music competition becomes one of their islands of competence, a life-raft of success that keeps them afloat in the chaos created by the rebels.

This movie makes my top 5 on Africa, for sure, and I think anyone who watches it should be moved to come and nurture and encourage kids in the arts, sports, drama, whatever activity that could serve a similar role in their lives. Today we faced the post-Easter morass of patients, our two houseworkers went on strike because we burned in our trash pit some old junk that they considered their right to take home, our schedule was a topsy-turvy mess with exams at CSB, a second team kid came down with chicken pox and another team adult got very sick overnight, word come of the disgruntled distress of some other workers who resent the new taxes being required through us by the government . . in other words, it was a typical day of struggle. So in the midst of our war on poverty, on darkness, on destruction and deception . . . let us remember the dance, the brightness of a child who is praised, the pride of a group who is given the opportunity to succeed.

It's a movie that helps me to not give up. And that's saying a lot.

Our Favorite Photos

We've been uploading pictures up to our FlickR site for a couple of years now to keep the site fresh and give a window into our lives and this place...but that site has over 1300 photos now--not really edited or refined.

So, we've chosen our Top 100....our creme de la creme...and put them on a new photo-hosting website called Zenfolio. Our personal favorites in about 10 categories.

So check it out here!

Or in the new link in the sidebar...and feel free to comment...and enjoy.

Tali Hani, ahumbukie!

This is the phrase we were told to repeat in church today: He's not here, he's risen! As the preacher retold the story, I tried to think of the ways I look for Jesus in the wrong place. Do I prefer an entombed Jesus, one who is to be thanked and pitied but is safely out of the way, stationary, controlled, and findable? Do I expect him to follow my rules and meet my expectations? Probably. Instead, He sends a messenger or two to announce the truth. He's not here, He's on the move, out in the garden, awakening the day, making all things new. Scarred but whole, achieving victory through absorbing the pain and suffering of all humanity and emerging to breathe life into His world. Calling us to love our enemies, to carry our crosses, to rest in His mercy.

This has been a full weekend, of many hours of prayer and fasting, and now of celebration. We create space by following the rituals of remembrance, space for Jesus to come and to act. But we do not control the outcome, and we wait expectantly to see what He will do in the coming weeks and months. This morning's worship was a foretaste: first we all crawled out of bed for a brief outdoor sunrise worship, then Jack and I attended the Church of Uganda just up the road to see Ndyezika and Juliet's 3 month old baby Arthur Atukunda baptized. Arthur screamed his head off but the atmosphere of holy ceremony and loving community prevailed. Then we joined the rest of the family and most of the team and a few hundred other lively worshipers at Bundimulinga New Life church. In two more hours the whole team will gather here for a family meal together (and last night we had a blast at Naomi's Egyptian Birthday party complete with silly costumes, games, and creative stories and songs presented to her by various talented team mates). Some other or our friends will probably come by today, too.

Easter is a morning of freshness, beginnings, and community. But tinged with cost. Three years ago, at midnight on Easter night, my Dad died. Just now we got news that Scott's dad had a somewhat serious bike accident this weekend and is coming home from the hospital, recovering. The memory of my Dad's long-suffering, and the present reality of Scott's Dad's injuries, reminds us that the celebration, though begun, is not complete. That Jesus is not always doing what we expect, or want. That we have to look out of the tomb and follow him into this world or risk and loss, until we also resurrect. That death, though defeated, still puts up a fight, and catches those we love in the cross-fire.

So these are words of faith, not sight. When they were uttered, Jesus was not visible. The women who heard them had to go forward in faith. He is not here, He is risen indeed.

Aching Visionaries

The mourners are aching visionaries.

The Stoics of antiquity said:  Be calm. Disengage yourself.  Neither laugh nor weep. Jesus says:  Be open to the wounds of the world.  Mourn humanity's mourning, weep over humanity's weeping, be wounded by humanity's wounds, be in agony over humanity's agony.  But do so in the good cheer that a day of peace is coming.  (Wolsterstorff, Lament for a Son)

Jesus, as the Messiah, stepped into the crucible of judgment, taking on in his wounds the pain of the world (Is 53).  We gathered again yesterday afternoon, after church, for prayer, inviting the teachers from our school, the health center employees, the church leaders, and some random friends to join us as missionaries in aching and vision.  I admit that I doubted anyone would come, after already sitting through a 2-plus hour morning Good Friday service, to sit again on uncomfortable benches in the blazing heat of afternoon and pray for another 2-plus hours.  But God has His people in peculiar places, and His plans.  We had about two dozen again, but this time the missionaries were only a minority.  It was a picture of the Kingdom to see these Ugandans, from different denominations, different tribes, different ages and education levels, different roles in life, praying for the cup of suffering to pass from Bundibugyo, and praying that God would strengthen all of us to choose His will even if that path lay through the pain of the cross.  

My heart was greatly encouraged by the picture of community, and the reality once again that the Kingdom is coming.