On heaviness and enlargement

My soul melts from heaviness

Strengthen me according to your word . . ..

I will run the course of Your commandments,

For you shall enlarge my heart.

These verses from Psalm 119 (28, 32) jumped off the page for me this morning.  My soul is dragging.  Some burdens are part of the territory of love, loving kids who cry when their heels hurt, loving team mates who struggle with the negative aspects of this culture's intrusive neediness and manipulation, loving patients who can not get the medicine they need, loving a piece of this earth that has been scarred so deeply by evil.  Some of the burdens are part of the territory of sin, wanting to fix things my way (phone calls and letters to newspapers can be good, but underneath I know my own heart is not fully right), the weight of self-righteousness and self-justification that has to be uprooted daily.  And some of the heaviness comes from not knowing the territory well enough to distinguish WHERE the heaviness comes from or how to lift it. So Psalm 119 offers this:  the concrete truth of God's word, brought into our souls to enlarge them.  Truth leading to expansion.  It would be easier to protect my heart than to enlarge it, and the temptation is strong.  Sometimes I don't even want to make eye contact with a parent of yet another child teetering on the edge of survival.  And there is a legitimate limit to the pain I can absorb, and a God-given command to rest and refresh, so I am looking forward to a weekend of respite in Kampala with kids.  However I would also pray for a large-heartedness that comes back from the rest to embrace the battle once again.

CRISIS - NO AIDS DRUGS!!

Today I saw 6-year-old Anita, who has been my patient since birth. She was one of the first children started on ARV's (antiretroviral drugs) in our clinic, and responded wonderfully. Her CD4 counts are excellent, her mother caring and faithful. She does not miss appointments or forget to take medicines. She is exactly who USAID, EGPAF, Uganda MOH, JCRC, Baylor, etc. etc. labor to save, and infant who would likely have died by now but instead turned into a growing normal-looking girl. And up until today, she represented the way things are supposed to work. But today, there was not ONE SINGLE antiretroviral pill in our clinic, or in any other clinic in the district. We've watched the supply dwindle. We've made reports, follow-up phone calls. We've switched regimens to economize and use every possible pill. We've been told to ration, to not start any new patients on drugs, to be patient ourselves, to hang on because the supplies are coming. But they never did. The margin has long been tenuous, but the shocking truth is that today dozens of clients left the hospital without medicine. By next week half of the hundreds of people on ARV's in Bundibugyo will be off therapy. And even more shocking: a phone call to Kampala confirmed that this is a nation-wide stock-out of drugs. What happens in the world if one of the countries with the highest number of AIDS patients, one of the places were the epidemic began and gathered momentum, suddenly takes thousands and thousands of patients off meds? In the short term, some people who were barely surviving, early on therapy, will die. In the long run, it sounds like the perfect scenario for a drug-resistance nightmare. I sat outside our clinic in the hot sunshine after my phone calls, crying. Crying for Anita, for injustice, for the inefficiency and poverty and poor management that led us to this point, crying for my own frustration of impotence to do anything about it (these drugs are tightly controlled and not available to just run out to the store and buy). So at least I will give voice to the Anitas of Uganda.

on police and providence

Having spent a cumulative 3 to 4 hours at the police post in the last 24 . . . I've had some time to observe and reflect.  My purpose for being there was to support our younger missionaries and national staff friends as they filed their testimonies in regards to the two house break-ins in May.  The first day we were met by a tall thin older man who was teasing and brusque and craftily bordering on hostile.  But we greeted and sat patiently, adding our smoothing friction to benches worn smooth and shiny over the years of use.  While Heidi spoke slowly and concretely so that a subordinate could write out on an official form just what was taken from her house, and just how she found it . . I chatted with the in-charge.  We had invited him to a community security meeting last week and though he did not come, the gesture served us well.  We left with assurances of concern and action and official file numbers.  However they needed one more testimony, that of a mission house-worker who initially found the second breech and reported it to us.  However, when this young man compliantly reported to give his statement this morning, he was promptly arrested.

This is the dilemma:  complying with a system of justice that involves the slow and questionable process of local law, or giving up on reporting crime altogether?  No wonder lots of people opt for the latter.  We had no suspicion of this man's guilt and no intention of dragging him to jail just because he was the one who was first on the crime scene when he reported for his job one morning last week.  By the time I got to the post for the second time, emotions were high, with the police angry that we missionaries were interfering with their investigation, our worker angry with being treated as a criminal (they took his shoes which seems to be part shame and part collateral), some of us angry that this police force seems impotent to investigate crime and bring justice.  Picture the station:  a bare grimy office with one desk, one chair, one bench, and one locked cabinet; a closet-sized plank partition in the corner with no windows except the gaps between the slats that serves as the holding cell (about 5 men were in there judging by the shoes, but it was eerily quiet most of the time), two women apprehended for beating up a third girl sitting on the floor in the corner, two impounded motorcycles taking up the rest of the space, and a half-dozen milling on-duty policemen.  Their general mode of operation is to sit in this office and the porch in front of it and wait for trouble to come to them.  So a disagreement over an arrest was probably one of the more interesting things to happen that day, and drew everyone's input.

But a few hours later, we walked out with our worker set free, all the statement dutifully recorded and filed, and a plan for some preliminary arrests of more likely culprits on Monday.  God's grace in calming words, and in a providential accident.  While we were waiting, and tempers were cooling, there was a sudden crashing commotion just outside the door.  I looked up to see a girl Julia's size sprawl across the road, her green dress in a tumble of limbs, as a motorcycle skidded to a stop on its side and a young man tore off running into the market-day crowd.  In an instant a handful of policemen were chasing the hit-and-run driver, another group proceeded to impound the motorcycle, and only an old lady and I seemed worried about the girl. By the time I reached her side the off-duty surly policeman from the first morning was there too, and grabbed her, though I was trying to protest, stabilizing her spine and assessing whether she was alive or dead.  She was unconscious and limp and I could not see any effort to breathe but the policeman was not releasing her . . . and the crowd was telling him to take her to the hospital (which is a half-block away).  Off he ran, and after excusing myself from our other investigation I followed to see if I could help them.

By the time I caught up with them in the hospital a minute or two later, she was crying.  I was quite relived to see she lived.  She followed commands and a cursory neurological exam and inspection of all her limbs and head did not reveal anything more than bruising lumps.  I wanted to admit her for observation because of the head trauma, but no one else was too convinced that was necessary.  It turned out the tall rough policeman was her grandfather.  By the time we all got back to the police post, we were no longer enemies but allies.  The in-charge was also thankful and cooperative (admittedly I hadn't REALLY done anything for this girl, though my time at the hospital did allow me to evaluate and write orders on a few other worrisome kids . . ).  

So . . a morning of negotiating peace, strangely facilitated by near tragedy.  The little girl sprawled on the road formed a Christ-like picture, a cross-solution to enmity.  Tired but thankful for a reasonable ending, at least to this phase of the story.

A notable family

One of "my" girls from my old CSB cell group is back in town, on holiday from nursing school. Since she is a sister/cousin to two CSB teachers, we invited them all up for Friday evening. We ate and talked and reminisced and played a hand-slapping two rounds of Speed Uno. But what struck me the most was the prayer requests they gave as we ended our evening in prayer: that hearts would truly be transformed at school; that my children would grow to be God-fearing; that God would give me wisdom to be a good father because I'm young and it is such an important job; that I would be a good wife to my husband; that I would not grow weary in serving in my job . . .These were real and important reflections of the Spirit of God on the move.

Specialization

While the modern economy seems to be predicated upon skill specialization, as noted in our post below on practical work, missionary life requires a broader set of competencies. Just this week one of our favorite quotes on this subject came up in a correspondence. We thank Alex Hartemink for pointing us to the actual author…

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

--Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973)

More on celebration and sorrow . .

Not long after the post was written blow, in a moment of post-hard-soccer-practice, pre-dinner-hunger-and-tiredness, there was a brief whole-family meltdown in which Julia sobbed:  I MISS MISS ASHLEY AND LUKE AND ACACIA!!!  This had nothing to do with her immediate brother-frustration which triggered the storm, but was insightful.  The wear and tear of daily life occurs against a hidden background of loss when those we love deeply are far away.  

And along those lines, please pray for Scott's dad today, who will be undergoing a heart catheterization procedure to eliminate a potentially dangerous area of tissue that stimulates abnormal rhythms.  It is possible that a burst of irregular beats precipitated his recent bike accident.  He's amazingly strong and resilient but we hate being so far away at important times.  Thanks for all who extend our family into the world by supporting us in prayer.

celebrations and reunions

Laura May, who has taught the Chedester kids and at Hope School in Fort Portal all year celebrated her 23rd birthday with us last night! We knew she wanted to come for a goodbye visit with our team before her term ends in June . . but the birthday was an unexpected honor! She was accompanied by Amy Hudson, who finished her term as a teacher here about a year and a half ago. Amy is traveling with friends who support orphans in the Kampala area, and carved a few days out of her trip to reconnect with us here in Bundibugyo. A few hours later packages arrived from PRAGUE for the knitting club Julia participated in, sent by former team mate Joanna. Another former team mate sent a package for baby Jonah, and yet another has been emailing involving potential recruits. These team connections that persist over time are heartening. They speak to the long-term nature of relationship forged by shared experience. They make more sense when our colleagues function as extended family than as fellow-employees. Scott and I have been processing about that lately. What is the nature of team and relationship, of the servant-leadership we are called to with our fellow missionaries? For many people who pass through our lives for months to years, the team pulls around them the way a good family should, offering meals and prayer and wisdom and empathy, or at rare times caution and concern and protection. And this makes missing milestones lonely, not just our biological family's events but important things like Lydia Herron's upcoming wedding. We are thankful for all we have learned from our own parents, and though we miss them we enjoy passing on some of their love to our extended team family here.

Working hard and practically

Scott found this article in the NYTimes called " Working with your hands" :

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?emc=eta1

And it gave us some satisfaction, to know that as Scott comes in soaked with sweat and grime, he's living out the new American dream . . ..

The author, Matthew Crawford. finished a PhD in political philosophy and landed a prestigious job in Washington DC. Then he realized that he was being pushed to do and say things he did not particularly believe in, and that he really loved the intellectual challenge and hands-on satisfaction of motorcycle repair. So he moved to Richmond and opened a shop, and now he's written a book called "Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work". He promotes the value of education designed to give people skills for serving others as plumbers and mechanics and cooks. And I think that is part of the lure of missionary medicine. A very hands-on and practical profession, we are always touching broken people and making do with what we can, sometimes with needles and scalpels, sometimes with books and articles. But because of where we live, we also end up making bread and ice cream, or cutting down trees and fixing chain-saws (read Jennifer's day and Scott's day in the last 24 hours, for example). One can spend a morning hour delving into the nature of forgiveness in the face of war, then the next milking a cow or making yoghurt. We can apply ourselves to programs for nutritional education, and then actually hand out food. I'm sure Adam and Eve had such a balance, walking with God in the Garden of knowing, then digging their hands into the soil.

So here's a plug for shop-class and soul-investment, for living fully as humans.

Distance and Belonging

I will be blogging occasional thoughts from a tremendous book gift from Bethany F, entitled Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf.  Let me say this is, so far, a challenging read but well worth the effort, even though I'm only a quarter of the way in.  The themes of culture, conflict, identity, are presented in the context of the author's context of a war-torn Croatia and his wrestling with the theology of the cross as a professor at Yale.   So the quote for today: 

Both distance and belonging are essential. Belonging without distance destroys .. but distance without belonging isolates.  

This applies to us as missionaries.  We do not erase our own background; we live out of who we are.  But we do so in a way that connects us to the culture here.  We look for ways to be authentic and yet to lay down our will  in order to approach others.  Always a dance, a give and take.  Volf points out that in creation God separates and binds:  separates light from dark and land from water, but then binds all of creation together in an interdependent and complex web.  In marriage we leave and cleave.  In parenting we raise children to independence, but we do not cut off relationship.  So much of the task of life is to discover who we have been created to be as separate from others, but also in relation to others.  

In this culture the belonging is protected by an extreme distancing from anything aberrant.  I am humbled by the task of crossing the distance without erasing it, of belonging without completely assimilating.  And as a parent of teens I want to help them develop a healthy sense of distance, of identity . . while giving them the solid foundation of ever-belonging to our family.  When these two forces proceed imbalanced, we can see the wreckage for years down the road.  And when it works, it is beautiful, such as the dreaded reality of boarding school turning into a strengthened loyalty.  Lord, have mercy.

On Language and Learning

Here is a link to a well-written article on Uganda's policy that local languages be the medium of instruction in the first three years of primary school, switching to English in P4. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2009/may/22/teaching-english-uganda

The issues are extremely relevant to Bundibugyo:  teaching primary literacy in Lubwisi and Lukonjo has long-term potential to enhance the neural connections that will allow students to love reading and become life-long learners.  However in the immediate future, it could put our students at a disadvantage when competing with children who have a multi-year jump start on English.  Last night we invited a few friends for dinner.  One of our sponsored medical students described his primary school experience learning to read in Lukonjo.  He is a bright and poised man who is headed towards leadership and responsibility.  His colleague, another sponsored student, also talked about how he walked over the mountains each school term to attend a better primary school on the other side, also in Lukonjo.  But we also had seated at the table a child of a CSB teacher whose primary language is English, his parents choosing to ground their children in that tongue since infancy.  And the teacher herself has spent much of her career in the field of linguistics, with a great interest in the connection between language and learning.  

Certainly my kids spend HOURS of their days on break absorbed by books.  I can't imagine the impact on their lives if all the printed material available to them was in a language they struggled to understand.  Sobering and fascinating.