one wedding and a funeral

In the last three days we've spent two afternoons at different neighbors' houses, Monday at a funeral and Wednesday at a wedding.  Both were times to experience and participate in the solidarity of community.  The funeral was by far the larger and more significant event, attracting hundreds of people.  We sat on dried cocoa leaves under the shade of the cocoa trees, as the grave-digging was completed a short stone's toss from the front door.  As soon as the clan leaders spied Scott they announced he would be giving a speech, and so he was called forward into the bright sun of the courtyard to talk about community, mourning, relationship, and the preparation of our hearts for the inevitability of death.  Burials represent probably the largest community events in this culture, and by their very nature times to ponder immortality and the Gospel.  It was hard for me to watch Richard, only a few years older than Luke, hunching his shoulders and wiping his eyes as his father's body was lowered into the freshly dug hole.  The next morning I went back to take some tea to his mother.  It is traditional for close family to spend four days sleeping outside the deceased's home, on the ground together, a long watching and supporting.  Solidarity.

Yesterday's event was more intimate.  We had been informed that we should come, but I had forgotten completely until I walked in from a very long morning at the hospital at almost 2 and found Scott waiting to go.  Our direct nearest neighbor Tabaka, brother of the late Mukiddi, was receiving bride-price for his daughter from a family in Congo where she had "married".  In traditional culture a couple often "elopes", pays a fine of a chicken to show they are officially together, and it can take a year or two or more for the formal family negotiation legitimizing the marriage.  I think this couple had two kids already.  The Babwisi have incorporated some Baganda culture into their marriages in the last decade as this place has become less isolated.  The whole event is rather dramatic, with appointed spokes-persons for each side, the two family groupings seated facing each other, and much bandying back and forth.  The groom's group has to present the goats they have brought; the bride's family makes a great show of inspection and rejects some on the basis of their size being too small or their fertility being unproven, then the groom's family will make them "grow" by adding on an envelope of money.  Besides the goats there were a list of concrete demands such as "7 litres of paraffin" and the men on the bride's side had to open the bottle and smell the liquid to be sure they weren't being cheated with plain water.  The 15 kg of sugar when counted out turned out to be 14 and a half, but the bride's group agreed to forgive. 

Lots of laughter, but also the underlying cultural appropriateness of the DEMAND.  A woman is something to be haggled over, and the exchange of a daughter for goats and crates of beer and soda is considered a fair deal.  And the last chance to press for more, so take it.  ( Our weddings in our culture could also be seen as mercenary, with the expectation that all guests bring gifts . . . ).

So, a couple of observations.  The wedding had very little to do with the bride and groom.  They were peripheral to the whole affair.  The event yesterday was an bonding of two families.  It was a negotiation of alliance, and exchange of goods that sealed a relationship.  The last order of business was formal recognition of the "mukwenda", the go-between, who is related to both sides and will serve to relay messages and confirm rumors and smooth conflicts between the two groups in the future.  The burial was also about family and clan rather than a dead individual.  In the speeches and the customs, the lineage, the property, the descendants, are the key points of interest.

Second, it was a privilege to be drawn into both.  Particularly at the wedding, we were called to come as part of the bride's family.  In fact Scott has had the opportunity to care for both of her parents at times over the last 16 years when they would have died otherwise.  Tabaka, who is now in his 70's and the elder of the whole affair, and recipient of the don't-try-this-at-home surgical procedure Nathan blogged about a week or so ago, made a formal statement early in the ceremony.  He came into the courtyard and introduced Scott as his son to all present, so that we were not attending as guests but seated with the family.  One of our "adopted sons", boys we sponsored through school, was the MC of the affair.  Two other young men who have been very connected with our mission sat near us.  The "maid of honor" I had also sponsored in school, and another "bridesmaid" young woman is one of my patients.  

Sitting under a tarp laid with banana leaves for coolness, in the bright afternoon heat, straining to follow dialogue in a foreign language, claimed by a rascally clan of sometimes-devious always-generous people who have forgiven our other-ness and drawn us in, thankful for moments of inclusion in a life that is often disjointed, but always interesting.

Rolling Stones

I suppose it was the smashing, tumbling drama of the small boulder that Pastor Kisembo rolled in the Easter Sunday service yesterday that has stayed with me.  The resurrection itself has little witness, the flesh forming back over the 39 lashes, the life fluttering behind eyelids.  By the time anyone saw Jesus he was up and about in the garden, and mistaken for a gardener.  But somewhere between the stirring of breath, the swinging of pierced feet down from the slab to walk out of the tomb, and the meeting with Mary in the garden, there was a cataclysmic force that rolled the massive sealed stone door, open.  A blinding light, frightening rough soldiers into a dead faint.  

Because the women who were approaching the garden at dawn worried about how to get inside the tomb to embalm the body with their spices, we know it was no small rock.  And because they wanted to get IN, I think I've always thought of the "stone rolled away" in terms of our access to Jesus.  But primarily the stone was removed to give HIM access to US.  He was the first one who crossed that threshold, coming OUT.  

And I find that encouraging today.  God is willing, and able, to blast away anything that might stand between Him and His will.  Bethany posted on Easter using a phrase from a Mundri saint:  God will not be defeated.  Nothing will stand in His way, tons of stone, or hearts of stone, He will always break through to get out into the world, out among us, to find us, to speak and touch and heal and change.  To make all things new.

Easter Sunday: resurrection and reality

Easter Sunday faded into cloudy light as our team gathered at the Johnsons to sing hymns and be led in a meditation on John 20 by Travis, looking at the ways Jesus comes to the many characters in the story, from Mary to Thomas. Then we all dispersed to our homes for family breakfasts, ours an unusually leisurely waffle production (we have a cast-iron one-by-one pan that cooks over the gas flame, allowing for extended coffee and conversation). The church service began in a pouring rain but ended in steamy sunshine, almost four hours, including about four different singing groups, and the two main choirs must have done 8 to 10 songs each. Kisembo brought an actual large rock to illustrate the sermon, which he dramatically rolled down the steps of the front dais, with a crash! Many people brought produce as their offering, and a business-man visitor in a suit bid up the post-service auction to the highest prices ever, much to the delight of all concerned. In the afternoon our whole team, and a few friends, came to our house where we had spread a long table in the shade and we grilled meat and feasted. People stayed around to chat as the day became cooler, kicking a ball, making phone calls home, playing ping pong, eating cake, and finally resting under the stars by candle light. It was a lovely day.

But reality broke in, too. We got phone messages as we were preparing for the team dinner, that one of our neighbors had died. Milton was the father of a boy we sponsor in school, a boy who has played with our kids and been our friend for most of his life (he's about 21, and we've known him since he was 5). Richard finished CSB this past year, and we sent him last month to be trained as an electrician in a trade school in Fort Portal. By evening he had received the news and come home, and Scott, Luke, and I left our party and walked up the road to his house. From the sparkling table-under-the-trees spread with food and surrounded by laughter, we went to Richard's where I crouched on a dirt floor strewn with banana leaves next to a dead body while Luke and Scott sat with the men outside. No glorifying death here: wailing tears, a man basically our age who worked as a laborer and lived in extreme poverty and struggled with alcohol and died in his home gasping for breath after three days of a pneumonia for which no one sought medical help.

Since my Dad also died on Easter night, it was a bit surreal for me. I gave Richard a big hug. His dad could not provide much (which is I believe a huge factor in the numbing attraction of drink for men here) but he was the anchor of that household, and now he is gone.

Songs and friendship and feast are part of reality . . but only made substantial and sweet by the dust-to-dust contrast of a soon-to-decay body in a soon-to-crumble mud house. Resurrection, come.

Saturday

Yesterday's focus on prayer and memory was good, but absolutely exhausting. More than the long hours, I think there is a draining energy of pushing back against evil in prayer.  Some encouragement came from scattering the invites and finding between 15 and 20 people showing up in the afternoon after a morning's church service, missionaries outnumbered by Ugandans, a diverse cross-section of men and women, young and old, church leaders and teachers, indigenous to Bundibugyo and working here from other parts of the country.  Praying for things like gardens and protection from thieves and justice in government and strength in marriages and even the much-hoped-for pneumococcal vaccine provision.  Praying for miracles. Later in the evening we missionaries met again, about half the team, to meditate on the Cross and then enter into a half-night of prayer.  Since our work is usually very hands-on and public, it is good to acknowledge that yesterday's work is the real deal, the hidden and effective push behind that which is seen.  Our focus for the night was from Heb 12, the paradoxical mixture of suffering and joy that characterized Jesus' approach to the cross, the fatherly scourging that draws us into the unshakable Kingdom.  We prayed for endurance to run the race, we prayed for our WHM teams in Sudan and Nairobi as well as our own, for unity and love, for seismic shifts in endemic corruption, for clear signs of new life.

But today, I feel the cost in weariness, and a rebound of discouragement.  

Which should not be surprising.  The cross was a fully costly experience for Jesus.  He gave up every vestige of wanting to be loved by others, was disfigured, misunderstood, silent, accused, revolting.  There was absolutely nothing in His walk to death that was calculated for popularity, that pushed His own agenda.  The Son of Man did not come to be loved, but to love . . the cross was a full emptying of any right or desire to demand love, an in its place a full sacrifice of unreturned love towards others.  

That was Jesus.  That is not me.  And that's why Saturday feels long, and tiring.  How to thrive in a life of giving love rather than seeking it?  I think a big answer is the continuous way Jesus prayed, which is strikingly portrayed in the movie the Passion.  Psalms drop from his lips and flow from his heart.  Patrick from our mission wrote a post about this a few days ago, the continuous prayer that taps into the power of God.  Power to love. Because I can't, none of us can. May the morning's celebration of resurrection begin there, a fresh-from-the-garden encounter with the One who has the power to love, and to share that with us.

Good Friday

Our church here in Uganda always spends Good Friday morning meditating on the seven "words", phrases really, that the Gospels record Jesus speaking from the cross.  It is a smaller service, more somber, the faithful come, but the crowds do not.  And I always find something new in the way that people from a culture closer to Jesus' read and understand his words.  Today, for instance, when Jesus speaks to John about his mother, the preacher drew a picture of how a boy might bring a friend from school to his home, to eat, and then later if that friend came alone (without the real son of the home) he'd be welcomed by the parents based on the friendship with the son.  So Jesus was showing us that those he calls friends are now part of his family, and welcome, even in his absence.  Or the phrase "I thirst" . . . was very analogous to the first words anyone would say coming in from a morning's work in the garden.  We're on the equator.  We sweat.  Everyone leads lives that involve physical exertion.  So to hear Jesus say the same thing makes sense to them, it is a word of his humanity, of his connection.  He is not over-spiritualized into someone inaccessible or opaque, rather he is portrayed as he was, a flesh-and-blood man in agony, pouring sweat, and feeling real thirst.  Seeing Jesus through the eyes of others makes him more real, to us.

On the night he was betrayed . . .

Jesus ate, with his friends. He knew he was walking into the end, and yet he took the time to celebrate, to feast, to honor tradition, to build community over a meal. To drink the four cups of wine, to consume of the sacrificial lamb, to break the crisp unleavened bread.

In the stress of conflict and impending arrest and torture, Jesus did not consider such an evening of fellowship optional or expendable. And he knew what physical, concrete creatures we are, how we need to be anchored in the rhythms of community and remembrance. How we need the drops of deep red wine, the tang of bitter herbs, the texture of shared bread, to understand reality. And how we need each other, how meals bind. These friends would soon desert him, but in the act of this meal he affirmed his love and set the tone for bringing them back together on the other side.

And so this year once again we relive the Passover, a doubled vision backward of the Exodus and the Crucifixion, and a peek of vision forward to the Supper of the Lamb. Holy and deep with analogy and meaning, but also immediate and accessible in the familiarity of a dinner with friends.

CSB 1, Bumadu Seed 0

It was not a pretty game. We were the better team, but we played like
we expected to lose. Mentally, the team was NOT there. But as the
sun turned the last shreds of western cloud into a magenta pink tower,
the ref blew the final whistle, and we were through to finals.

Visitors, partners, blessing, hope

One of the delights of RVA is connecting to a community of incredibly interesting, committed, diverse, creative, godly people, and pulling some of them into Bundibugyo as we go back and forth to Kenya. Last term as Luke and Caleb returned from RVA they brought a handful of senior boys with them to visit. This term they came with a whole family, one of their teachers. Alex H took a sabbatical from his job as a professor of computational biology at Duke (yes, he's pretty brilliant) . . . and because he and his wife Melissa (a teacher) attend the same church in Durham that sent us the Barts more than a decade ago, they corresponded briefly in their pre-sabbatical time with us about working at CSB. In God's providence it wasn't the best time in head-teacher transition to host short term missionaries, but they ended up, of all places, at RVA. God had many plans and we are only a small sideline in their life, but from our perspective this was a huge out-of-the-blue unexpected gift. Alex coached Caleb's JV soccer team, and taught Luke to love AP Biology. Melissa invited them over for meals. They were a huge factor in making this a great year for our boys. So before they returned to the US to complete their sabbatical with family visits, they decided to bring their kids out here and see CSB for themselves and as representatives of Blacknall, the church that funded a solid proportion of the dorm construction there.

We had a delightful few days, the kind of kindred spirit connection that comes through common friends (the Barts) and common experience (living in Africa) and common vision for the Kingdom and education and family. A whirlwind tour of a few Bundibugyo beauty-biology spots (Ngite and the Hot Springs/Ituri rainforest), as well as our work and life. But the culmination was a celebration at CSB of the partnership the Barts forged between the church and school over all those years. The students threw together a program of song and dance and worship, speeches and welcomes. We splurged for a special meal of meat for all (!). There was much laughter and enthusiasm as a group of about a dozen students very capably danced the muledu, a traditional dance for circumcision ceremonies. We believe it is so important for CSB, as the place where kids are being exposed to the wider world, to affirm their cultural roots as valid and honorable. Alex thanked the school for their welcome and affirmed the joy of seeing in bricks and cement the fruits of their fundraising years ago. At nearly the end of the evening, a massive driving-rain cold-front storm moved in. The rain on the tin roof of our assembly area made speeches impossible to hear. After a few minutes, some students spontaneously began to beat drums and sing worship songs. And what followed was a solid hour of pouring rain and pouring praise, of dimming light and raising voices, as the world turned to wet darkness the students danced and sang and sang, with all of us joining in.

Dinner was about two hours late, but that's all part of the Africa experience, right? As we left the school about 9 pm, the full moon's rays seeped through the clouds towards more rain in the west, and we saw the only moonlit rainbow I've ever seen. The promise that God will build and not destroy, that hope remains, that life will go one, was poignant in the silver light of night.

Whom are you seeking?

Passion week begins, the retelling of the story, the stepping back through time to remember.  

This week we studied John 18 in our team Bible study, the arrest of Jesus in the garden.  He asks, twice, "Whom are you seeking?"  

At first it looks like a rhetorical question, one with an obvious answer, one meant to challenge the guards.  But later, in another garden, he asks Mary the same thing (ch 20).  Whom are you seeking?  And upon further reflection, we see this is the essence of all questions.  Whom are you seeking?  We are all seeking something, and most of what we seek stems from broken relationship, broken identity, broken purpose.  So on the night of all nights, one of Jesus' last questions is this one.  And on the morning of all mornings, it is again among the first words from his mouth.  

Not a sermon on whom we should seek.  Not a challenge to the wrongness of His arrest.  Not a forceful assertion of the truth.  Instead a last chance for change.  Jesus poses the question to give Judas, the guards, Mary, us, the space to consider our own hearts.  

Which, if you think of it, is pretty incredible.  God withdraws, covers, suppresses His irrefutable power, in order to give us a moment to ponder and consider.  Which, if you think again, is the essence of prayer.  God has ordered the universe in such a way that we have to actually think about whom we seek, what we want, and ask for it.  Seek it.  Instead of just giving and directing, He waits.  He listens.  

Jesus asks whom we seek . . but he has also just emerged from the human experience of wrestling with the same question himself in the hour before the guards arrive.  He has struggled in the garden with a hidden God, been given the dark space in which to search and pour out his own heart to His Father.  He has acknowledged God's limitless power and love, he has asked for the cup to pass, but he has also come to terms with his commitment to drink the bitter dregs to the end if it is God's will.  He could have sought power, recognition, justice, a quickly-ascendent time-bound kingdom.  But instead he sought God, even at the cost of everything.  If God the Father wanted Jesus to have that space to choose in prayer, how much more so us.  

And so every day, over and over, let us take the time to reflect on whom we seek.  And if it becomes clear that the answer is God, then let us pour that request to Him too, which is prayer.  And as we enter that garden of reflection and asking, over and over, I believe our hearts will gradually become more the type that chooses the cross and the glory of God.

CSB 2, Semliki 1

Today's first quarterfinal match was a replay of last year's finals, Christ School vs. Semliki. Last year we had a heart-breaking defeat, and then Semliki, who qualified to represent the district, never even ended up playing any games in the national tournament because too many of their player were disqualified (too old, no longer in school, repeating grades, that kind of thing) for them to field a team. Our last two games of the regular tournament group-stage play last week were ugly victories, the kind where we win but the play is erratic and uncontrolled. So it was a bit nerve-wracking to go into today. However the CSB team came out strong, trapping, passing, dominating, showing team work, keeping cool. Both of our goals were scored by our own "son" Mutegheki Joshua, and were textbook. I am so proud of him, and so happy for him. He gave me a big hug after the game, which is not culturally typical at all, and a measure that this is a BIG deal. He almost didn't get to come back to CSB, but God had other plans for him. This moment of success will carry him through a lot of the inevitable grief to come in his life, which has already known plenty (both parents dying, for starters). Jack managed to get both goals on film, one above and one below.

The victory was even more remarkable in light of the fact that we played more than half the game one man down. A Semliki player blatantly fouled one of ours late in the first half, and the ref called it, but as he was whipping out his yellow card to book Semliki our CSB victim struggled to his feet and slapped the Semliki player. Red card. Out of the game. Foolish temper. And remarkable for the fact that CSB actually SCORED all three goals . . . the only one against us was a flubbed pass by our own player back to the keeper.

Weds will be semi-finals, and finals next Saturday. Only the winners progress, there are no second chances, so we are pulling for the best! OK I try to think that every boy out there wants a chance, and every parent longs for their kids' success. But really deep in my heart I believe our team has worked ten times as hard as any of the others, and I'm unabashedly rooting for victory.