Healed and Healing

Below see Jennifer, smiling with her grandmother, this 9-year-old had a severe hemolytic anemia and nearly died, but 5 blood transfusions, some steroids, and a week later she's on the way home. This is Kansime, the little girl whose mother began the death-wail on Friday when she thought her daughter was dead, now smiling and sitting and ready to go home after two blood transfusions and major malaria therapy. And above, M.T. who turned out to NOT have TB, and to NOT be HIV-infected from his mom, he was just HUNGRY. He's probably within a few days of reaching his target weight and going home. So thankful. And last one happy customer, the baby I mentioned whose mom I see singing to him, and kissing him. Seems he also just needed a nutritional boost and is nearly ready to go home. Praising God for these good stories today, because bearing witness means telling the happy endings, too.

In praise of teamwork

This is my dream team. Betty, who is a nursing aid but also a grandmother, knows everyone and everything about this place. Heidi, enough said, my can't-do-without person. Balyejukia, back from nursing school, competent and compassionate, a go-the-exra-mile man. Agnes, a woman of God who personifies Proverbs 31, abandoned by her husband, living far from her home district, responsible and capable. Assusi, nursing officer, completely trustworthy in clinical judgment AND personal character. Olupa, cheerful, hard-working, just back from maternity leave, wonderful to work with. I can't believe all six of them happened to intersect. If this could happen every day I have no doubt we'd be nearly in Heaven. Scott Will, who never complains, so thankful to be sharing the burden of patient care with him. Ndyezika, in the lab, saving lives by identifying malaria parasites and cross-matching blood for transfusions. Baguma Charles, heading out to one of the outpatient BBB sites with locally-produced gnut-soy-moringa leaf paste to be distributed to malnourished kids. Nathan should be in this picture too, but I missed him this morning. Loren, Salim, and Costa registering dozens of new pregnant ladies for antenatal care. All of these snaps are from the last hour or so, and as I look over them I am deeply grateful for those God has called alongside us to work here.

More witness on Friday

Tears were shed Friday, at the health center. As soon as we arrived in the early morning we found a child with severe malaria, who nearly died on us. Heidi and I were just trying to do weights on all the kids before our staff meeting, but when this child was laid on the scale we saw she was limp and barely conscious. We sent them into the treatment room where within a minute the mom began a death wail. But she was not really quite dead, yet, and when Heidi injected her with medicine she cried a bit. Six of us (half the staff eventually passed through the treatment room, though Heidi and I struggled alone at first) tried about a dozen different places to get IV access on this child, before one of the way-more-competent-than-I Ugandan nurses managed a line. Her hemoglobin came back: 3 gm/dl, and many malaria parasites. No wonder she was barely alive. With immediate transfusion and treatment I'm hoping she pulls through, an otherwise beautiful and normal little two-year-old whose family mobilized as soon as they realized the dose of medicine they had given her from home the day before was not enough.

Later more tears, quiet ones, not the dramatic "help me right now" wail from the first case, but the seeping of tears from a broken heart. This time we were trying to understand why the 3 month old baby in front of us was so malnourished (breastfed infants tend to thrive the first few months). The woman I took to be her mother was, it turns out, her 35-year-old grandmother. The 14-year-old mother of the baby had died last week, after a 2 month hospitalization elsewhere. The story does not hang together very well, but we were told that the 14-year-old mom had an "intestinal problem" a month after delivery, required surgery, and that her surgical wound became infected. Tragic in every way. More tragic as her mother, sitting with the malnourished grandchild, related that the dead daughter was her only child. This is what our motherless-baby program is all about: helping this grandmother save this baby.

Meanwhile the 785-gram preemie doubled in the last month to reach 1.5 kg (!). A child whose desperate parents had taken him out to a "witch- doctor" when he did not immediately improve and then come back when he became even worse, whom we prayed over in Jesus' name with only a grain of faith on Monday . . went home, cured. Three children in three consecutive beds each had 5 units of blood last week: one with sickle cell and two with unexplained hemolytic anemias. After losing two children with similar symptoms the week before, we rejoiced to reach Friday with all alive and improving. The women whose stories I told a few days ago are hanging in there, no dramatic resolutions, but at least stabilizing. Caught another mom playing a singing a game with her baby who has begun to round out on UNICEF milk.

The week ends, with some tears, and some signs of tears redeemed, of effort and prayer and struggle resulting in healing.

perfection x perfection

My man reaches a milestone of Biblical proportions today, 7 x 7 . . . a number that represents completeness x godliness. I've known Scott 29 of those 49 years, and been married to him for over 22 of them. So at the risk of causing embarrassment or losing my blog access privileges, I will bear witness. One of my favorite books is The Time Traveler's Wife, because it takes a human relationship above the vagaries of time, and shows that the person we are becoming is part of all that happens along the way. Embedded in time, however, we can look backwards with thankfulness, but only forward by faith. On such a milestone as this I look back to say the years have forged a man of integrity, grit, humility, strength, and love. One who can doctor a cow or a person, fix a motorcycle or a computer, read a novel or a sports page, teach about the Bible or AIDS, score a soccer goal or bake a pizza (and usually all of that in the same week). Each year only increases my confidence in his judgement and gratefulness for his patience as father of my children, lover, friend. So today I look forward by faith for all that is not yet seen in the next 49 years. Having survived loss of loved ones, rebel war, ebola, and more importantly the daily wearing challenge of life in a broken world among other sinners such as ourselves . . . I am not afraid of what comes next, with him.

Note that according to Leviticus 25, we should be due for a year of Jubilee: sound the trumpets, proclaim liberty, return to family, and dine on the holy grain and grapes. Sounds like an HMA?

You say hello, goodbye

Anna Linhart arrived almost two weeks ago, and already feels like a very integral part of our team. Pray for her to really engage in language learning and cross-cultural friendship even as she finds her feet in ministry with our kids as a teacher at RMS, and with the CSB orphan sponsorship program.

Scott Will, otherwise known as Superman, has been here for a month, working as a physician assistant at the health center, and reaching out to neighborhood kids. And just being an all-around voice of cheer and sanity and passion for God. He is committed to Mundri, Sudan, but in a clever deal negotiated in the smoky inner board rooms of WHM, we get him until the end of January.

Today Dan Thrush departed after a one-month rotation as a Physician Assistant student, half of that time accompanied by his wife Karen who is a marriage and family therapist and did play therapy with the kids on the ward. We are not-so-subtly praying and begging that they come back to Africa with WHM after finishing school.

Barb Ryan landed on the airstrip a few hours ago, and has a week-long agenda of love. She has come in a pastoral care capacity to listen and counsel and re-connect with us, after spending a month here last year with her husband Skip.

The Massos landed for an interlude from Sudan . . . Karen and kids now, Michael to join soon. This is an opportunity for some closure before the Pierces move on next year, and gives time for organizing their old house for the Johnsons to move in (we hope by January). But mostly it's just great to see their familiar faces and bask in their friendship.

Women, Bearing Witness

John 12 is one of my favorite chapters, and has been a very spiritually significant one in recent years.  It opens with Mary pouring perfume on the about-to-die Jesus, an act of devotion and prophecy that his body will soon be prepared for burial.  She can't stop the march of tragic events, but she can bear witness.

So today, I bear witness to some women and their lives, unable to stop their suffering, but called to testify about it. 

This morning began with a mother and grandmother arriving somewhat breathless on the ward, carrying the bundle of Achelo Jeneti, a very sick 2-year old.  Normally patients are supposed to begin in the outpatient department, but a quick look at Jeneti and I knew she needed lots of help, fast.  It turned out that she was HIV positive, though her mother out of denial or misunderstanding had never brought her for care until today, when it was too late.  In spite of our best antibiotics, and a blood transfusion, her little body had decompensated beyond the point of return.  Jeneti's grandmother was hysterical:  of her six children, five had died, and this daughter with AIDS was her last living offspring, and had now left her without a grandchild. Jeneti's mother's wails pierced the ward, she had been abandoned long ago by the baby's father, a soldier who fled back to his home in Fort Portal when his health began to fail.  Two women who had come too late for help, and lost everything.

The ripples of AIDS are most acutely felt by the young women, the outsiders, the abandoned wives.  Two on the ward are in their late teens.  One I can picture a few years ago, full of hope and importance, sent by her father to a good school in Fort Portal. She returned pregnant by a school staff, and infected with HIV, and now her child is malnourished and struggling, as she lives back with her parents, her education suspended probably forever.  The other is from Kitgum, far away in northern Uganda.  Her parents brought her here when her soldier father was transferred this way.  Both have since died, and she has been left to survive as she can.  For a young woman in Bundibugyo, that means finding a man to pay for her needs, and giving him what he wants.  In this case she also received the HIV virus.  Her baby also has AIDS, and she spent the weekend out searching for money from any acquaintance from her tribe who would help her get to her uncles' homes up north, because there is no one here to whom she can turn.  She is right beside a listless young woman from Congo who has not seen her family home in eight years.  Her husband has refused our plea to send someone from the family to help her with her malnourished twins, and she looks tired and vacant as they whimper side by side on the bed.  

A woman's voice here is only felt if she has brothers, a father, or uncles to back it up, or a grown son to stand behind her.  Without that she is a trade-able commodity, a potential producer of more clan members for a temporary husband, easily discarded when she becomes sick or inconvenient.  Too many suffer alone, perhaps the greatest loss is to see them emotionally withdraw from a child they suspect will either die or be reclaimed by the father's family.

Our pouring of perfume is more like milk, some nourishment, a prayer, kind words, eye contact, listening.  And remembering.  And giving witness to the suffering we can't stop.

A tale of two boys

In 1993, sixteen years ago, we were fresh young missionaries (less than two months' experience) when the rest of the team left for Christmas.  And two little boys, about 11 or 12 year old, came and asked us to buy them used shoes for the holiday, little boys who had become acquainted with some of the other missionaries and therefore hoped we would be sympathetic to their needs.  One was an orphan, his father had died and his mother remarried a man who did not accept any responsibility for him, so he lived with his late-teen and somewhat mentally unstable older brother in a small hut, subsisting, and primarily taking care of his sibling.  The second was the son of a man debilitated by severe alcoholism, but a little more connected with family and clan.  Both found their ways into our hearts and lives, beginning that first Christmas and continuing through the years.  We bought paper and pens for their primary school classes, or occasionally new material for school uniforms.  When they were ready for secondary school, the orphan went into the inaugural class at CSB.  The other boy was a year or two ahead, and since CSB was not then available, we helped him get into school in Fort Portal.  

And that is where their paths diverged.  The orphan struggled academically but thrived spiritually.  He became a Christian.  He worked hard and persevered even through failure.  He completed training as a lab tech, married (in the church no less, and prior to moving in together, very rare) a lovely young woman who shared his values, and now has a sweet 7 month old baby. They were eating dinner with us this week and I was so thankful to see this young man, now in his mid-20's, has become an amazing father.  I rarely have seen a man play with his son like that here, helping him stand and walk, getting him to giggle uproariously.  God's mercy in his life is so evident, taking him from boy to man against incredible odds.

The story of the other boy has been more of a tragedy.  He was much more gifted academically, and did well enough in school to become a teacher.  But he lost his job when he was found to have had an inappropriate relationship with a student, he began to slip into his father's alcoholic patterns, he borrowed money and lost it, he floundered, he had a failed marriage and then another.  For about seven years his path has led mostly downward.  Many times we have sternly warned him, or prayed, or pleaded, or advised.  But our lives grew apart.

Today he stood up in church and told the congregation that he wanted to become a Christian.  He told about two dreams:  in the first he was sitting by the road drinking with a group of men, and people came up behind them singing.  One of the singers looked directly at him, and would not stop looking at him, so he ran away.  This dream made him feel convicted of his sin but he was still helpless, or unwilling, to leave it.  In the second dream he was crossing a flood-swollen river on a log, which began to break, and as he fell into the torrent where he could have drowned, he called on the name of Jesus, and the water dried up.  The combination of an awareness of displeasing God, and then a hope in the greater power of Jesus, led him to take the courage to stand up today.  

These two boys started in nearly the same place 16 years ago, but have taken very different paths, partly by their own choices and partly because one was the end of the pre-CSB generation and the other had six years of discipleship and oversight there.  Yet God was at work in and for both of them.  Pray particularly that the young man who professed faith today will have the power to turn away from the destructive cycle of alcoholism. He said that after giving his testimony he knew by evening that his old "friends" would be laughing at him and tempting him to rejoin his former patterns of life.  

I would love to see both young men with us, worshiping, this Christmas.

Testimony

Scott stood up in the time for nkaiso, testimonies, at church today, to give God glory for working through a very challenging and unknown process over the last few months culminating in the unanimous vote of the board on the new Head Teacher (see post below). So much remains to be seen, but we have to affirm that prayers have carried us through everything up to this point and trust that the Spirit has been leading. How could a dozen people from different language groups, skin colors, education levels, genders, ages, experiences, with different goals and hopes, otherwise agree? If Scott had sorted through the paperwork alone and presented his choice, he might have felt more in control of the outcome, but there would not have been the sense of community ownership and spiritual intervention. We are grateful.

And this outcome fits into a general pattern of movement, risk, change, hope, that we and others sense. A few posts below I wrote about background anxiety. We knew this was a crucial weekend, and asked many to pray. I am not on the board, but invited all our team and all the CSB staff to join in an extended prayer time during the board meeting, quietly and on-the-side asking God to move. The chaplain seemed to catch the vision for this and announced it to the school. He requested me to type up a list of prayer requests, and I asked him to lead or delegate the leading of the time. Fine. But on Saturday morning, I found the room locked and no one waiting to pray. I had envisioned a significant coming-together of most of our team and most of the staff and even a handful of students. Instead one CSB staff and one missionary joined me and a half-dozen boys. I had had a vivid, disturbing dream the night before which I wrote down that morning (something I RARELY ever do, but it seemed to combine all the anxieties of the last weeks). As Eunice opened, she described dreams three people had told her that week, and all were very similar to mine, and led to a sense of need for prayer. Africans put a lot of stock in dreams, more than we tend to. If it stirs people up to pray, then that's a good outcome. I only wish it had stirred more!

But my testimony is: it was a great day. I enjoyed the time with Eunice, the counselor, as we prayed through the book of Ephesians. We prayed against deep patterns of destruction that have been etched for centuries in Bundibugyo, we prayed for love, for unity, for wisdom, for change. And the handful of students joined in. When the lunch bell rang, Eunice asked them if they would like to go, or take a break. No, they replied. So on we prayed. Instead of people coming in and out, the small group stayed the WHOLE time. I kept wondering when the rest of the people invited would show up (only one more eventually did). . but mid day God brought to mind the story Gideon in Judges 7. He mobilizes an army, but God whittles the group down to a mere 300 men, to show that He does not need numbers to accomplish His will. So those few boys and we few women were who He wanted to pray for that day.

And in the 24 hours since, here is more testimony. The biggest, that a new Head Teacher emerged. But more things are happening. A group of Dutch doctors from a Christian NGO showed up to meet us . . . never heard of them before, but there they were saying they wanted to find medical projects to fund. A young man in whom we invested deeply early in our time here who had been taking wrong turns for seven years stood up in church today and became a Christian. Another young man gave a testimony of God working in his life. Worship was lively. My child, whom I worry about having friends, spent a whole day hiking with a group of boys yesterday and had a great time. Some students asked if they could volunteer to teach Sunday School at church. All of these remind us that the Spirit is moving. Stay tuned.

A Pivotal Day Ends...

Scott here...

Nearly two months ago, we ran our first advertisement in the national newspaper recruiting for a new Head Teacher at Christ School - Bundibugyo. We ended up running three adverts in two different newspapers. Twenty applicants clogged my InBox with every certificate and degree imaginable. Hours and hours I have pored over these apps, trying to distill the details down into bite-sized chunks to plug into a summary spreadsheet for committee consumption. Hours and hours we have discussed the relative merits of experience, degrees, age, and spiritual life.

It all came down to today.

Seven applicants were short-listed (I know, it's not a very short list) from three corners of Uganda. By definition, all were "big men" with a treasure of experience in teaching and leading secondary schools. We, the Board of Governors of Christ School-Bundibugyo, spent the first four hours of the day in Phase 1 - interviewing every candidate for a half hour, trying as David put it, "to triage our applicants." We were able to narrow the field from seven to five who we would focus on after lunch (not very impressive sounding, but it was a lot of work!).

After lunch, we had some difficulty making progress in Phase 2 but were eventually able to narrow the field from 5 to 2 using a "rank order voting system." The whole process was excruciating. Letting go of any candidate seemed like a death, a loss to the school.

The scariest part of the day (at 6pm) is when we all agreed to cast our votes for one of the two remaining candidates.

The final vote: 12-0. We agreed!

We have selected a new Head Teadher for 2010 for Christ School - Bundibugyo, our first time to have a Ugandan lead our school.

(We have not yet established what kind of financial package we will be able to offer the chosen one so we have not yet informed the candidate. So, the identity of the new HT is still a secret.)

God seems to be in the result with such a definitive outcome.

When I did the final briefing with the candidates, apologizing that I could not yet reveal the result to them, one stood and asked to speak on behalf of the others. He thanked us for our hospitality ("in Uganda in most interviews, one doesn't even get a soda, let alone two nights food and accommodation and return transport reimbursement!). He then said that the whole group decided that they would like to "continue to be a friend of the school. We would like to make ourselves available as a resource, offering free consultation, whenever you need us." What a privilege and a blessing this day has been.

Many, many thanks to all who have who have showered this process with prayer over these last hours and days.

A Pivotal Day Begins

"Now my soul is troubled,

and what shall I say?  

Father save me from this hour?

But for this purpose I came to this hour. 

Father, glorify your name."

Jesus in John 12

We are keenly aware of the soul-troubling times we are in, and which lie immediately ahead of us.  Today Scott as Chairman of the Board of Governors for Christ School Bundibugyo will be leading the board in interviewing 7 of the educators who have applied to become the first Ugandan Head Teacher of the school.  In just over a decade, two missionary head teachers have brought the school from ground zero to the most successful secondary school in the district, serving over 300 children and employing two dozen teaching staff, covering 6 grade-levels equivalent to middle/high/junior college.  Over the past year we have examined the school closely, hired consultants, held meetings, and we believe it is the right time to make the staff fully indigenous, while continuing to provide vision, support, and overall direction from the mission.  We are looking for someone with the wisdom and experience of a lifetime in the Ugandan school system (something we can not begin to achieve) . . . combined with the integrity, vision, and Christ-like love of a real leader.  This is a tall order.  And the lives of many of our friends seem to hang in the balance, orphans for whom this is their only chance, staff who have laid down their lives here for many years.

CSB has always been, and will no doubt continue to be, a battlefront of the Kingdom.  Within the fenced compound we (mission, teachers, other staff) are attempting to treat children as valuable image-bearers of the Creator God, to bring TRUTH to bear upon all of learning, to model lives of holiness, to worship with passion, to enable health and fun and growth and safety.  In short, exposing the next generation of Bundibugyo's leaders to the ultimate reality, the way the world should be, to give them hope and direction as they move out to change their world, to give them the tools they need academically and socially and spiritually to succeed.  Which is, of course, met with trial and opposition, sickness, budget shortfalls, teacher anxiety, student unrest, a general pattern of need and crisis.  The missionaries who have been most involved will finish their commitment soon, and to this point we do not have other missionary educators applying to join our team.  The hour looks difficult, to say the least.  Like Jesus, we would like to pray for the cup to be removed, we would like to be saved from this hour.

But by faith we say this is, after all, CHRIST School, and for this purpose we have come to this hour.

Please join us in praying:  Father, glorify your name.

If you can, please set aside time to pray on Saturday.  Ask God to glorify Himself by clearly providing the right person as Head Teacher, someone with whom we can partner.  This is extremely important to the future of Christ School and our WHM team.  Thanks for your care.

Love,

Jennifer and Scott

(This is the prayer email we sent out last night . . so thankful for dozens of gracious responses, which represent untold hundreds of other prayers lifted up.  The day has just begun here, with the board gathering and the interviews beginning.  Meanwhile the missionaries and teaching staff have decided to hold a half-day prayer meeting on the side to acknowledge the importance of this day for the Kingdom.  And life goes on for others, visitors are here, Luke takes SAT's today, etc. . . . )