servant-leader

The vision for CSB has centered on raising up servant-hearted leaders for Bundibugyo.  Spend a little time anywhere here, and you will see that this is a desperate need for Bundibugyo (and the rest of the world!), men and women of integrity with the skills and humble hearts to serve others, to bless as they have been blessed. Sort of a central reason for our continued existence on earth when you think about it.

So Scott chose this theme when he was invited to speak at chapel this week.  He talked about leadership qualities, and then the story of how Samuel chose David to anoint as King of Israel.  People look for wealth, power, height, money, success . . . but God looks at the heart.  Then he took them to Psalm 51:  how do we get a heart that is ready to lead?  We ask God to create a new, pure, holy heart within us.  And He will, because He delights to do so.  By grace these kids can become the leaders of their families, their clans, their district and their nation.

Inspiring stuff, when you're sitting in a packed-out standing-room-only chapel, more students and staff present than ever.  Deus is leading this way, and people are following.  We are thankful for God's ongoing work at CSB, building on the efforts of the missionaries who have led up to now.  It is a huge job for Scott, though, to enable the staff to carry on this vision, to provide the financial accountability and motivation that keeps the school going, now without any other missionary standing with us there for the first time.  He needs prayer to keep the budget balanced (or at least not any more imbalanced than it was left) in the face of staff demands for this and that.  He needs patience to love people well, to support Deus, to deal with the lack of water and the constant crises.  

And we need more servant-leaders, missionary and Ugandan, to love this generation of teenagers who are emerging as the leaders of this new millennium.  I look into the sea of faces and see great kids, who have made mistakes, who need security and challenge and good examples.  And I look outside the gates and see dozens of other schools, thousands of other students, equally hungry.  Who need sports programs and clubs, who need accurate teaching and loving discipline, who need goals and dreams and the gift of positive adults in their lives.  Pray.  Ask God to send us the same kind of out-of-the box points-to-His-power help at CSB that He's begun to reveal in the medical sector.

On banging one's head repeatedly against the wall, and noting a slight budge

The last ten days have not been easy.  I have found myself in tears more than once.  And exhausted.  And stretched.  And wondering.  But looking back, I told our team during prayer time yesterday, that I think this month is a spiritually significant and intense one, and this is just what it feels like to be in the middle of what God is doing.

Because suddenly, yesterday, it started to dawn on me that a lot is coming together. The HIV-testing kits that we've made so many calls about:  a thousand delivered.  The medicines which have been out of stock for months:  delivered.  The entire murky non-functional supply chain that plagues us, we talked to UNICEF about supporting months ago . . . suddenly a competent qualified doctor showed up out of the blue, explained all the forms to Assusi and a few others, explained the schedule and procedure, and we have hope.  The F75 (medicinal milk powder for malnutrition) that we had not received . . located in a district store and handed over to my truck yesterday.  The gas cylinder for the fridge for vaccines:  here.  The immunization program:  resumed.  The blood for transfusions:  arrived.  The ward:  full.  The five-year-old who has struggled to survive his entire life and seemed for a full month to be on the brink of death:  turned a sudden corner, gaining weight like gangbusters, smiling, throwing a ball.  I wrote a few days ago about push, and how tiring it is.  And it is.  But then sometimes we see that God is really the one doing the pushing, and things suddenly start to happen.

This came to me in the Chief Administrator's Office.  At a low point this week, when I was being asked for money to buy SOAP so the midwives could wash their hands, and just tired of the constant little and big things that don't work and don't happen, I made phone calls about the lack of Primary Health Care funds that had been released this year.  I was frustrated.   We're in the third quarter of the fiscal year, and have received one quarter's money (about fifteen hundred dollars total to run a hospital from July to March, absurd).  So I went to the top.  The CAO is the highest position in local government in some ways. He is not elected, but appointed by the central government.  He controls the money.  So that's pretty key.  Someone else that was tired of being bugged by me gave me his phone number.  "Come to my office" he said.  So I did, drove to town after seeing patients, a bit tired by the ward and several procedures and new malnutrition cases and not too hopeful.  When I greeted him I realized we didn't know each other.  That's because our old CAO had been transferred, and this guy had been sent here 15 days ago.  

Well, it was one of those bizarre half hours that pop up in our lives.  The CAO told me straight up about changes he was making that were making him, shall we say, less than popular with some sectors as he refuses to pay out ridiculous requests, so he didn't know how long he'd last here.  He told someone to call in the DHO, the senior government health official, from a meeting down the hall, which did not make me too popular either, as it looked like I was trying to get him in trouble.  But we all talked together about the budget, about the procedures, about health, amicably.  People who stand against corruption fear for their safety.  At the end, I told the CAO that God had not forgotten Bundibugyo, that his appointment here was not a mistake, and that if God wanted him here no one could harm him.  Then I asked if I could pray for him, right there.  There were just the three of us in the office, and the DHO immediately said "Pray for me too!"  These are senior politicians, men who are older and more responsible and experienced and WAY more powerful than I am.  But I prayed for them both, asking God to give them strength to do the right thing, and to serve the people.

Between the entire World Food Program anti-Hunger campaign, the shake-up in district administration, the signs of break-through in supplies . . . not to mention the arrival of a fantastically servant-hearted and competent new family, the Johnsons, I am coming out of this ten days of struggle convinced that we are watching God move in.

So in our staff meeting this morning, I talked about prayer from Psalm 46.  Hundreds of people died in Uganda this week in a mudslide in the East.  Hundreds more died in Chile's 8.8 earthquake.  Rebel rumors swirl in Congo, as they do from time to time.  All of this, raging waters and shaking earth and war, is mentioned in Psalm 46.  But in the Psalm we see that God is in the midst of the trouble.  And God's presence transforms the trouble to blessing.  The chaotic waters become rivers of joy and healing for the nations.  So our little Nyahuka Health Center staff prayed big prayers for God's presence in their life troubles (one man's house had fallen in because of the rain, a few have not been able to get on the payroll due to horrible bureaucracy and corruption in spite of years of work, others mentioned anger over conflicts, desperate need for school fees, worries about their kids, sicknesses in their families, anxiety about safety, discouragement when they don't have medical supplies they need to do their work).  We turned to God as our refuge and strength and asked Him to come into the midst of all this mess, as He has been doing so clearly over these past ten days, and to do something big and transforming and good.

The wall is budging.  Slightly.  Keep praying.

Gender Confusion

Yesterday I was in Bundibugyo Town, where I am not quite so common a sight as in Nyahuka.  I was waiting for Assusi and as I stood by my truck, then climbed in, I greeted a little group of primary school kids who were walking by.  There were a few 9 to 11 -ish looking kids, and one smaller girl.  The older ones told the younger ones that I was somehow related to "Kevini" (Kevin B).  As they walked away talking loudly about me (always a peculiar sensation, to hear peoples' conversations who assume I am so other-worldly I don't understand, to be talked about as if not present) I heard the younger one ask the older ones repeatedly:  Is that a MAN?  

Now, I was wearing a below-the knees flowered skirt, had my hair down, curly, below my shoulders, was wearing large dangling silver ear rings.  NO MEN here wear skirts, have long hair, or wear ear rings.  I was feeling pretty ugly actually, as this kid could not get her head around the fact that someone who looked like me could be female.  Then I realized the problem. I had sat in the car behind the steering wheel, and was preparing to DRIVE.  The activity of driving seemed to trump the clues of skirts and ear rings.  The bajungu are bizarre . . but surely if one drives, it must be male.  Her friends corrected her, explaining loudly that I was, in fact, female.

So, just another missionary contribution to the world, rocking primary-school-girls' gender identity, by the mind-blowing reality of a WOMAN DRIVER.

Rwenzori Mission School, Class of 2022 and 2024 . . .

As Luke nears high school graduation, he will be the first of our missionary kids (?since maybe a Herron??) to have spent nearly his entire school life here in Africa. He started "preschool" at age 4 just to be part of the fun, but his dear teacher politely suggested after his first few days of class that his energy level might make it easier to wait another year . . . Then except for 2nd grade in Baltimore, his whole school life has been a mix of RMS (our missionary kid classroom) and Ugandan classrooms in Bundibugyo, and the last two years at RVA in Kenya. (Which explains some of his unusual advances and gaps, not to mention his unconventional tendencies I suppose.)

Now the cycle begins anew, as Lilli started Kindergarten, and Patton and Bryan preschool, on Wednesday. They were thrilled as only 3 to 5 year olds can be with their awesome teachers and new adventure. Ashley, Anna, Nathan, and even Jack and Julia, have poured incredible effort into the "new" RMS since we shifted up from Christ School property at the request of the Pierces to free up space there, to the former Tabb house. The new set up is probably three times more spacious, with great outdoor breathing room too. With fresh paint and artful arranging, bookshelves and rugs and curtains, it is a wonderful learning environment.

Pray that these new little RMS-students learn to love to learn as our kids have, that the teachers would lead them intellectually and spiritually as they have our kids. That RMS would be a stimulating and safe haven in a sometimes hostile world. That the quiet set-apart location would not be an invitation for thieves (two break-ins already have left us without things like pencils, scissors, and the tape/ear-set learning station). That this new generation of third-culture kids, the future leaders of who-knows-what, would be nurtured and prepared. That God would send us another teaching partner to come alongside Anna when Ashley finishes her extended term this summer.

Fun for us to have been here long enough to watch a full cycle from preschool to high-school and back to preschool again.

World Cup 2010, East Africa

Yesterday, Jack celebrated his real birthday with our smallish family, phone calls, a special lasagna dinner, flour-less chocolate cakes, and home made coffee ice cream. He is, after all, a child whose career ambitions vary between football, preaching, medicine and being a chef. He appreciates a good meal. But the real party was this evening. Thanks to a lenient vote from CSB administration his best friend Ivan was released from boarding school confinement to join us for the post-team-meeting World-Cup-theme party. We divided everyone up into 3-person football squads and while some made pizza others played through a bracket. Argentina (Jack, Ivan, and Julia) met England (Scott, Travis, and Ashley subbing for Lilli) in the finals and emerged triumphant. Ashley had baked a soccer-ball shaped cake, and we ended the evening playing a late card game with the over-five under-26-or-so crowd. On evenings like this I appreciate our team, the effort everyone makes to come together, to celebrate, to enjoy, a taste of the Kingdom.

Jack Thomas Myhre, 12

Jack is a child who lived through more between conception and birth than most people do in a lifetime: rebels, war, gunfire, fleeing, helicopters, potentially devastating illness, thinking we lost our home, crossing the ocean twice, moving countries. When I look at him now with his 99%ile height and his 99%ile brain, huge and healthy and brilliant, I have to be astounded at God's grace. He's a living testament to God's humor, bringing the least expected out of circumstances. Jack at 12 is handsome, mischievous, a rough-houser and a teaser who loves a good cuddly hug, especially with his dog. He's a reader and a footballer, fiercely competitive with no regard for his bodily safety, but also able to entertain 3 year-olds, build legos, roll on the floor. His physical size and academic atmosphere don't match his real child-soul-age . . which means that he absorbs a lot of stress and anxiety going through his days in an arbitrary and harsh system amongst older classmates. He ponders abstract concepts and metaphysical realities, usually quietly, until a question about God or eternity pops out. His messy handwriting is worth deciphering for great vocabulary or creative problem-solving. Jack jumps ruthlessly on weak logic or unfair pronouncements from his mom, or sister, but he also gently understands us and our ups and downs, and appreciates us. He adores his dad, requested to play a little football with him for his Bday, and has the exact same hair cut. He has even less patience than I do, and unfortunately that's saying something. He misses his brothers, bearing the highest cost of any of the six of us for the family separation, lighting up tonight when each independently called him with a group of friends from their dorms to sing Happy Birthday to him. He makes a point of being thankful. His doodles are amazing. And he's loyal to his friends and his sense of home and place here in Bundibugyo.

Tonight we celebrate this boy whose life we watch and hold with awe and caution, waiting to see what 12 more years will bring.

Push vs. Passivity

Much of life as a missionary and a physician in a rural, poor, marginal, and probably corrupt place involves PUSH.  By this I mean the extra effort required to make the system work the way it should.  One could simply go the hospital, do what one can do, and throw up one's hands about the rest.  Which is, after MANY YEARS of stress and defeat, the passive way that many of our colleagues cope.  And me too, some days.  

But not today.  As soon as I walked on the ward I found out that my newest admission had died at 2 am.  This was an extremely ill child with sickle cell disease and severe acute malnutrition, who had come on death's doorstep.  Worrisome, but we've seen many similar kids revive.  Only this time, the person who promised to bring the blood needed for transfusion never showed up, and no one noticed or did anything about it.  I called him today, and he said the district had refused to pay for his transport, because all their funds were frozen due to failure of our entire district to pay taxes for who-knows-how-many years (and who-knows where that money went).  This is not a new problem, and this lack of essential funds does not seem to have kept half the district health office from traveling to a seminar in another part of Uganda today.  Meanwhile the blood transport question was tied up with the propane gas cylinders that we have advocated for for the last month, which run the cold chain which stores vaccines which run the entire country's immunization system, which have been out of supply.  Finally they were delivered to Bundibugyo town over the weekend (after their own set of phone calls last week).  Just 12 more km to make it to the health center, but this required desperate pleading and phone calls to a half dozen people to accomplish.  In fact I just counted 7 calls and 9 sms's from this morning, the cost of getting those in power to agree to release a vehicle and fuel to bring the gas cylinders, plus personal contact with the lab and a person with a motorcycle and provision of fuel from my own pocket allowed the blood-cool-box to go and get blood and bring it back for the next four patients with dangerously life-threatening anemia.  Though all this should happen automatically, it DOES NOT.  The people affected do not cry out, they accept their inevitable problems.  And those who have some ability to make a difference are either overwhelmed by too many other issues, or profiting from the diversion of funds, or caught up in the same passivity.  

Mid-morning I realized that a neighbor's baby I'd seen early at my house never showed up for a lab test as directed.  Again, phone messages to the child's grandparents whom I know, pushing.  An hour later, they are there, and the child turns out to have severe malaria, AND sickle cell disease, AND need a blood transfusion.  The ward is not so busy, but still I spend half the morning finding the person with the key to get a patient the food they need for discharge, or leading someone by the hand to get their TB meds refilled after they defaulted, or encouraging an aunt to offer her newly-orphaned nephew her own abundant breast milk as the tiny infant screams in hunger, refuses spoons of boxed milk, but eagerly sucks her breast and falls into an exhausted sleep.  

Then "little-miss-polka-dots" shows up with her mother, my true hero of persistence, the antithesis of passivity.  The mom is convinced that we needed to file yet one more form with the police, or check on the "file" one more time.  More phone calls, the police confirm that the rapist whom we caught has been moved to a more secure jail in Fort Portal.  We discuss Miss Polka-dots' mental/emotional recovery, give candy and paper and crayons, unheard-of luxuries, and make sure she's in school.  Mom leaves, relieved.

The child I THOUGHT would die lives on, Ivan Tumwine, miraculously SITTING UP after a litre of IV fluid revives him, non-passive effort by Assusi.  Little five-year-old Kabasa has turned a corner, he smiles and runs after a ball, new appetite kicking in on his second week of TB therapy, and the possibility of healing dares us to hope.  Twins, and a one-year old girl whose mother had abandoned her but was convinced to return when she ended up malnourished, all go home today, cured.  Nathan discharges from the motherless program the very first new orphan he personally enrolled a year ago, healthy and alive.  New premature twins arrive, bringing our 2-to-3 pound speck-of-a-baby population up to 4 on the ward, too many for the side isolation room, so we cordon off an entire section of the ward after cleaning it well, and try to make it a safe preemie environment.

Very little of my effort today involved specific medical knowledge.  Very much of it involved a few resources that most people do not have:  about 4 dollars of air time, about 4 dollars of petrol, and the sense of outrage that growing up in a country that generally "works" lends to my perspective.  People who work in settings like this need prayer support, to not give up, to believe that a little more push is worth it.  I know I do.

HAPPY 15 TO CALEB

We celebrated Caleb's 15th early, together, the last day we were in Kenya with him. But today is his real birthday, and it is sad to be apart. His dorm parents and guardians will recognize the Bday later in the week I think, but today he's kind of on his own. This, right now, is the cost, paid by our kids and our parents and us. It is mostly worth it, by faith it is ALL worth it, but that does not mean that we don't feel the sorrows along the way.

Meanwhile we are steaming in soggy Bundibugyo, the tropical rain forest where clouds smother in unseasonable dampness. And Luke is shivering in Boston, as the East Coast gets yet another snow storm, concluding a weekend interview and hoping to get on a plane tonight back to Kenya. Life goes on, the Saturday surge of people and issues and contracts and money owed, domestic disputes next door, disappointing grades as exam results come back for some, future plans for our boys, issues at school, neighbors who are sick, projects, demands. And today, the return to normal rhythms, breakfast with the Johnsons and Nathan, greetings at church. In the midst of separation and uncertainty the song we sang this morning comes to mind . . "kangumire hali Yesu" . . I cling to Jesus.

must-read

This is Kevin Bartkovich's testimony as presented at Exeter where he now works. Powerful. I didn't think I'd cry over the story again, but I did. Read it: http://kwegesiya.blogspot.com/2010/02/meditation.html.

Marching to End Chronic Hunger

After a very brief check on the Johnsons this morning and hurried rounds, we went up to Bundibugyo town with Nathan and Emily to attend the launch of World Food Program's new campaign against chronic child hunger. Another interesting out-of-the-missionary-box day: first, the entire event had its conception really in the scientific surveys performed by our team, which showed that levels of chronic malnutrition reflected in stunting were more severe in Bundibugyo (and parenthetically Karamoja where our OPC-friends work) than any other area of Uganda. About 45% of kids slow down their linear growth in response to constant infection and inadequate food. Their striking shortness is just a marker for how hard their little brains are struggling to grow and develop, against the odds. So it is no wonder when later they fail to achieve adequate standards in school. Chronic undernutrition is a COMPLICATED sort of multi-factorial issue, a final common pathway of social injustice, poor choices, family disintegration, inescapable infectious diseases, poor roads, watery starchy protein-poor foods, unstable marriages, poverty, generational cycles, gaps in educational opportunities for the girls who will become mothers, individual greed and sin. So there is no one easy answer, and attacking the problem means asking an entire culture to consider child-nurturing practices and ponder where we have gone wrong, and how important a change would be, and what it might look like. Which is just the sort of place that missionaries should be, advocating for the voiceless children, contributing scientifically to the debate, and reminding us all that the issues stretch from microbes to heart-attitudes, and praying for God to send organizations with expertise and resources to do so much more than we could ever do on our own.

So back to today. Scotticus and Stephanie's research led to some papers, and that led to some contacts and short-term work in Kampala, and attention for Bundibugyo. Right at the time when WFP was changing its policy to address underlying causes of malnutrition and not just distribute food. Visits ensued, articulate and eager WFP staffers came and talked to us, and we expounded on all we've seen over the years. WFP hired a very creative and professional media-campaign guru named Richard who then mobilized many others. The government Ministries took note. There were trainings, meetings, ideas, proposals. And songs were written. Richard contracted two local talents to collaborate on a catchy-beat tune in Lubwisi that extolls parents to care about their children's nutrition. The major messages they chose to focus on were about balanced, varied diets, the impact of malnutrition on brain growth and school performance, the responsibility of men to care for their families (another original song: What is a Man? Who is a real man? Someone who drinks when his family is hungry? NO!) All of this came to a head today, when the launching celebration took place.

We arrived just in time to march with a brass band through Bundibugyo Town. ALL around Bundibugyo town, actually. Picture a sure drum and mostly-in-tune brass tubas and trumpets, banners, dignitaries, local people in campaign T shirts, us, and a thousand kids, winding through the market and up and down streets, waving banners and drawing attention. I looked down a lot to keep my footing on the uneven stones and mud. But it was great fun. The ladies I was marching beside laughed a lot. About half-way through I turned around to Scott and said "If only they would play 'When the Saints Go Marching In'" . . . and sure enough, a few minutes later, the tune changed and that was the next song! Sadly and foolishly I had changed at the last minute into my cheap Christmas heeled shoes, which I thought were more appropriate with my dress-up outfit, but as it turns out are not ideal marching shoes so now my feet are throbbing with blisters. I'm sure there's a lesson on vanity there, or a good parable about taking on some pain for the children of Bundibugyo!

Other highlights of the day: meeting two very interesting young men, PhD's from America and Italy now working with WFP, and having a long talk over lunch about the causes of hunger, and life in Bundibugyo. Seeing a creative mime/dance troupe from Kampala perform. Watching our own local musicians dance and perform their new song. Trying to concentrate on the political speeches when they switched into Lubwisi and weigh just what was being said. Having Scott called on twice to pray. Hoping that the several-thousand-onlooker crowd would take some of the message home.

Praying that Bundibugyo will be redeemed, that an awakened awareness of the impact of hunger on children will lead to real change.