An evening miracle: on healing hate

Blog readers may remember the end of the CSB football season, when a crucial match against our rivals at St. Mary's Simbya ended with me rushing a bleeding teacher out of an unruly mob of their students who had punched her in the face, and Scott getting tear gassed as the match devolved into chaos and soldiers fired guns in the air.  It was frightening and dangerous and a depressing reminder of the way that a sense of scarcity, of fear, of blaming others, of division, can escalate into violence. It was only a football match . . . but underneath was the perception that CSB wins too often and the perception that Simbya was cheating. Each side skeptical, wounded.

Multiply that by ready access to automatic weapons, and you have El Paso and Dayton and hundreds of other American events. When we choose to see others as threats to our survival or just success, as less human or deserving of life, it is a short jump to throwing punches and rocks and pulling out guns.

There are many things I admire about Africans, but one of them is the readiness to forgive. Our CSB staff, since the changes in administration, have been looking for ways to reconcile with Simbya and in fact to demonstrate a spirit of collaboration with the district. Scott has spoken of this numerous times and his leadership shows. Yes, we are deeply invested in Christ School, but as a means to the end of life for Bundibugyo in general. We can only educate a few hundred students per year; it is good for the people if there are other strong school options!

So when we heard that the CSB staff and Simbya staff planned a "friendly" football match, teachers against teachers, we were hopeful but nervous. We had not met as schools since the violent implosion. And we knew that the best laid plans for reconciliation can be derailed by thirst for victory, by competitive spirits, by perceived slights.

On Friday evening, the two schools fielded squads of teachers. I had envisioned a slow-paced mixed male and female low-talent game.  But no. Each school put their youngest, fittest, fastest teachers on the pitch, including some stretches of the definition to recent grads who may have once helped teach something. Crowds came in the gate, students cheered, the sun was setting as rain clouds threatened.  CSB was behind, then scored the equalizing goal minutes from the end. The match ended 3-3.  Perfect.

But what happened afterwards was even more amazing.  All of the students who attended from both schools were seated on the midline, for a short ceremony. One of our teachers, Baguma Godfrey, preached the Gospel of reconciliation. Unity. Love. The students were laughing and happy, hugging and relaxed. Then each head teacher (we have our deputy acting as HT now) was given a chance, and the DJ played dance music over the loudspeaker as these two men busted out moves!! The students went WILD with delight. Then Scott was called up and he did the same! It was festive, joyful, fun. Talk of mutual success, of academic collaboration as well as sports. We have already shared exam preparation materials with the association of secondary schools.

In the old days, clans in this district held dance competitions as a proxy alternative to warfare. I think sports and music and dance all give that opportunity to excel and shine and be seen, to blow off steam and prove oneself, without death.

Let's pray that this spirit continues in Bundibugyo. The pitch was a swirl of color as the uniforms from two rivals mingled, the music played, and everyone left hopeful. Nothing prevents violence as well as the humanizing lesson of actually being together face to face.

So let's support people who respect our common humanity, promote understanding and the mutuality of success in a non-zero-sum universe. And those with some good dance moves.

Basime is the school librarian whom we sponsored for university . . he has had more than his share of sorrows (orphan, nearly blind, lost first child) but his two daughters are about the cutest ever. Here he is in uniform with his post-game fans!

One of our greatest joys is reconnecting with our kids' friends. This young man took the parallel Ugandan path of service to Caleb's American one. He was on leave and came to visit.

The grace of five and two

Today I had an hour-long conversation with our newest Serger, approved a few weeks ago and optimistically hoping to arrive mid-Fall to teach MK's at Rwenzori Mission School and otherwise assist families.  This will be the first year I can remember that we will begin the school year teacherless. Meaning a brand new family will hit the ground homeschooling for the first time, and our medical family will have to cut back their work and return from Home Assignment essentially full-time homeschooling too. And when our sole kid-focused worker does arrive, bear in mind that she does not have a teaching degree (though she does have kid-program church experience) and that our team this year is exploding from zero kids now, to 15 when we turn the corner into 2020. Depending on how we define school age, 7-8 need regular lessons and another 3-4 could use preschool. In most of our time in Bundi we had two teachers at a time. . . . so this year looks humanly difficult to say the least.  Thankfully this new Serger has a flexible attitude and a heart of gold.  Pray for her.

Earlier, Scott went through a tally of critical-priority projects at Christ School.  Like fixing a leaking roof, or replacing cooking pans with holes in the bottom, or buying 200 needed books (that's only 2-5 copies of any given text, to be shared, but we have 6 grade levels and more than a dozen subjects). We're not talking about luxuries here, we're talking about fixing doors and repairing a fence and buying Bibles. We tried to do the math through to the end of the year to see which would be possible.  Certainly not all.

Yesterday, within minutes of arrival at the hospital, I'd been pulled in to see a baby with a massive congenital defect of his abdomen, probably not survivable, and we couldn't find a single sterile bag to place over his exposed intestines. Then a child on his last breaths because the oxygen cylinder was empty and his blood transfusion and malaria treatment delayed by lack of IV access overnight (the handy junior doc threw in an intraosseous while we gathered the other supplies). Then a kid who nearly drowned in a pit because of the heavy rains and standing water, and critically ill even ten-year-olds with malaria not to mention all the toddlers, and even more depressing, we re-admitted a child who was severely malnourished and has TB because last week he caught measles from the kid in the next bed.  It took five hours to plod through the entire crowd of mattresses on the floor and people in the hallways, examining and doing my best to understand, decide, calculate, write, and communicate quickly then move on to the next.

Always, the need far outweighs the resource. 

Always, that seems unjust.

So the story of the loaves and fishes popped out in a new way once again. Overwhelming crowds, hungry, distant from solutions, disturbing a needed rest, expectant, needy. Twelve learners, who throw up their hands in exasperation and half-jokingly say, here's what we have, five rolls and a couple of dried fish. Only Jesus does not laugh, or explain, or problem solve. Instead, he immediately thanks God for the tiny resource they have.

And then he spends it, breaks it, gives it away, and it multiplies to satisfy them all.

Maybe I can remember that tomorrow, to thank God for the one vial of medicine instead of complaining that I need a hundred. To thank God that an old friend wrote today and sent money to replace the sauce pans, instead of feeling discouraged about how little of the fence we can fix. To thank God that we have a kid-volunteer, even if we need an entire elementary-school staff. To offer up what we have, not begrudgingly or ironically but with true thanks. Because the paltry limited resources we have are the very place where God is at work. Our constant imbalance and need keeps us from feeling superior or smug. Our dependence on others throws us into the same boat as everyone around us. It actually IS good for us, even though the uncertainty of it all feels as painful and ludicrous as it must have been to start serving thousands of people with a handful of fish.

It is certainly to the glory of Christianity that it has been most insistent on the point of responsibility to others whose only claim upon one is the height and depth of their need. This impulse at the heart of Christianity is the human will to share with others what one has found meaningful to oneself elevated to the height of a moral imperative. But there is a lurking danger in this very emphasis. It is exceedingly difficult to hold oneself free from a certain contempt for those whose predicament makes moral appeal for defense and succor. It is the sin of pride and arrogance that has tended to vitiate the missionary impulse and to make of it an instrument of self-righteousness on the one hand and racial superiority on the other. (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited, as quoted by the Center for Action and Contemplation blog)

WE don't have the abundance from which to feel loftily generous.  Instead we have a desperate need hour by hour, day by day, just like our neighbors and friends, and by staying in the place of discomfort we just might be holding the basket as a witness of a miracle.

Surfing the Wave of Transition

When the moon pulls and the currents flow, washed up water recedes and a force of new water rushes in.  And a few people get to ride right on the crest of that turbulence, which can be exhilarating. Or one can feel like drowning.

This, it turns out, is cross-cultural life in a place where tradition is in flux, the old is sucked out to sea as the new crashes over our heads.

And perhaps nowhere as clear as in music.

Yesterday we spent a very sun-drenched political 8 hour spell attending a presidential visit to our district (to be respectful of our local leaders who asked us to come).  And prior to that, like every week, we attended the church service held at Christ School.  Both were events with a fair amount of music and dancing, which led us to reflect. At CSB we have 260 kids from the primary cultural groups of this district, Babwisi/Baamba and Bakonjo.  They have grown up with the receding influence of a rich cultural tradition built on family, community, spiritual fear and vulnerability, flutes that blow an airy minor scale, stamping feet and jostling bells, stringed damos with their twangy riffs, rustling grass skirts and the strong syncopated percussion of goat-skin drums. We used to hear this regularly at night, as any family with a death would be gathering to honor the departed and ward off potential spiritual harm. Sometimes it was close enough to feel eery, other times it was distant and barely perceptible. Or at circumcision ceremonies, or official gatherings. In the even older days there were competitive dances, a way for the young people of one clan to challenge another and perhaps find partners. (The best groups still come to things as important as presidential visits.)

Then came a handful of outsiders, with churches and hymns, mosques and schools. Then came the radio, with music from Uganda and beyond. Then cell phones and internet and the world-wide culture of music videos.

Now in 2019, these young people have as much or more exposure to YouTube as to clan gatherings. Dance moves that perhaps originated on this continent and evolved have beamed back by satellite. So on any given week, our musical exposure might include:

• multi-part harmony slow acappella voices singing a hymn tune that might be familiar, with translated words
• a group of a dozen girls singing a praise song that one of them wrote using a traditional Lubwisi cadence and tune, and dancing in a shuffling loop that nods to traditional dances, while one or two boys drum their hearts out
• a group of six or eight or ten lip syncing as they do a choreographed, high-energy dance with moves that would be admired on any hip hop stage, to a reggae-sounding gospel track from Kampala or Nairobi
• a string of common worship songs that would be found in any large pentecostal East African church, in Swahili or Luganda or morphed into Lubwisi or even in English, shouted out in a clapping stomping breathless stream
• a hillsong-type American track in English being played as a student sings into a microphone, striding back and forth across the stage with a virtual keyboard/guitar/drum accompaniment
• or if we go for double-church-services, historical western hymns translated into Rutooro words from across the mountains set to slightly jauntier tunes that have been around for decades now

Culture is never static. And the late-teen population seems to me to be the ones to pick what moves them, what appeals, and somehow ride that wave of past and future cresting into the present. Stirred (we hope) by the Spirit, and grounded (we hope) in the truth.

*Scroll down and watch the videos with audio!

Love in the time of cholera, parties in the time of Ebola . . . bleach handwashing stations as we approach the presidential venue, a school ground with tents and chairs for the VIP's and a smashed-together standing room crowd for the rest.

After washing hands, each person screened for temperature

The warm-up speakers, Members of Parliament and Party loyalists, elevated in a truck to be seen and heard.

The President in white, accompanied by his plain-clothes secret service and a hovering drone, walking from his chair of honor to his own special podium-truck from which he lectured the crowd on saving money and building a prosperous country. He noticed our presence when making a point contrasting traditional inheritance (divide between sons, something he is not in favor of) with European (which he feels tends to pass land intact to one one family member) referring to "I see you have some outsiders here with you" which the MP translated "You see Dr. Scott here with us".  Ha. 

A Year of Ebola as we end the week and begin the month

A year ago, we were preparing for our East Africa retreat when we got the news of a new Ebola epidemic confirmed in the DRC . . . followed shortly by a dreaded phone call from one of our teams that they suspected a case had presented to their hospital. We had to make hard decisions about their travel to the retreat, potentially bringing a world-panic virus across international borders and potentially putting at risk our entire Serge group of workers. Because the story didn't stack up and we were fairly certain their lack of connection to the early cases at that point meant the chance of their patient being an Ebola patient were very very small, we decided to proceed on faith, and all was well. But a year of mounting cases, the setbacks, the worries, the one actual exposure which occurred months later, the prayers, the anguish over our people and our Congolese and Ugandan colleagues, the scanning the news, the checking email, the phone calls day and night on holidays, the political insecurity, the attacks on treatment centers, the dwindling vaccine supply, and the relentless surging on of this virus takes a toll.

Our hospital entrance, but the handwashing jug here is empty and there is no one in the tent . . .

We remain peripheral. The one case that came to our Serge team's hospital in the DRC was handled with remarkable discipline, and NO OTHER CASES occurred from that patient. Our Bundibugyo team remains much closer to the past and current epicenter, but inexplicably protected. The bleach hand-wash station was empty when I checked mid-day, and the temperature screening tent was unmanned.  Yet God has been gracious to not allow the disease to cross over to Bundibugyo.

the red arrow points to our DRC team, the green arrow to our Uganda team, the box is the epicenter and the size of the circle reflects the number of cases. 

This past week was significant for the epidemic, however, because for the first time, Ebola was not only carried to Goma but transmitted in Goma.  Goma has been under scrutiny for some time, as it is the largest city in the region with a million people, and sits perched on the Rwanda border close to the Ugandan border too. It's a gateway type of place where international NGO's set up their programs. And until now, it was far enough south of the epidemic to be safe. But a father-of-ten miner working hundreds of kilometers north evidently passed right through the hot zones on his way back home to Goma, and picked up an infection which went unrecognized for a week. He and his 1-year-old daughter are dead, his wife is sick, and between him and his sister who fled town there are now another 200 at-risk contacts. Meanwhile the DRC's minister of health resigned when the President's office took control of the epidemic response, and the epidemic was finally declared an international emergency, as two new attacks near Beni by the ADF disrupted that epicenter and many other Congolese fled to Bunia displaced by a separate internal war.

Everyone points to the Congo as the reason this epidemic is smoldering. People are mistrustful. They attack each other. They refuse to be vaccinated. They lie about their origins or symptoms, they disappear, they don't follow protocols.

But what if it's actually much more complex than even that?  For instance, if there was a nearly universally fatal disease that had spread over a large portion of the state of New Jersey and infected 2,713 people killing 1,823, and there was a vaccine 97% effective, wouldn't we have immunized everyone in New Jersey by now?  Think about it.

Or if the New Jersey epidemic caused an influx of Russian and Iraqi doctors, who started driving around in flashy cars and upbraiding Americans for dwelling on the Cold War or 9/11 as ancient history and telling them to trust the new treatments they had brought, would people be lining up for care?

Or if the government and world approved funding to build a brand new hospital that would be dismantled as soon as the epidemic was under control and placed it in the very place where New Jersey residents lacked care, would they consider that to be legitimate?

Yes, Eastern DRC is a complicated, murky, often dangerous environment, but focusing on that seems to me to border dangerously on blaming them for a problem that the vast majority of those infected have little control over. That strikes me as hypocritical coming from a country where the anti-vaccine movement thrives, where people get their facts from social media, consume calories and avoid exercise to their death, and support the right to assault weapons even as the number of school shootings rivals the number of Congolese rebel attacks. We're all pretty much the same.

It seems to me that the best thing we world could do now is to:
1.  Ramp up vaccine production and immunize the entire region.
2.  Send in long term bridge-building people who are willing to do the hard and risky work of taking on life in Eastern Congo alongside the Congolese, listening, working together on common goals, generating trust.
3.  Fund the small local on-the-ground hard-working health workers who are the front line day in and day out.

None of that will be easy. Uganda is way more functional, yet today my first few patients were all children with malaria and severe anemia and THE MALARIA MEDICINES WERE OUT OF STOCK. The nurses were late. People kept jamming their problems into my hands. So much felt out of control--a child sent two days post-op from a complex neurosurgical procedure with high fevers and cerebro-spinal fluid leaking out of her head, a child with TB infected by an uncle whom we have yet to track down but suspect drug resistance, a child who has spent three weeks with an infected wound that almost never gets bandage changes, a child in pain with sickle cell disease who has not had pain medicine dispensed, trying to problem-solve so we can split vials of medicine and share doses, a child with malnutrition not improving whom I gather from the dad and the neighboring beds is rarely on the ward because the dad takes him home between rounds to care for his other two kids since his wife left him, a patient with measles breathing virus on the open ward because the isolation order wasn't carried out.  Not a single patient with a vital sign taken. It is just this side of complete chaos and frustration. But minute by minute hour by hour God's people touch, listen, think, talk, care and slowly by slowly, patient by patient, treatment is given and transfusions hung and a remarkable number improve.

Reasons to hope: a faithful mom of twins feeding her malnourished cuties, and the team that enables her to get the food.

Another reason to hope: data.  The Kwejuna Project that Scott started has become standard care for the District, and here we are in a weekly staff meeting poring over HIV and TB follow up and outcome data !

Likewise, a year on, Ebola is still lurking and spreading, but the people of Congo are also still hopeful, loving, fighting on, working, caring for each other, performing educational dramas, tracing contacts.  Slowly by slowly the good will prevail. Just wish it could be a little faster and more definitive!

Visibility and Language

These days, we live in Bundibugyo, where the primary language is Lubwisi. In the 30+ years of Serge input into this place, a primary focus has been to translate the Bible into Lubwisi, thereby preserving, encoding, dignifying, recognizing this group of people and their culture. In 2016 we celebrated the completion and publication of the New Testament. Which means that there is now WRITTEN LUBWISI that we can read (after years of hiring language helpers, listening, making cards, asking questions, trying to imitate, all aural learning). Faithful local translators operate out of one of our community center offices, and I see them daily, chipping away at the Psalms and the Pentatuch.

So, every morning when I'm reading the day's lectionary of passages, I try to also read a portion of a Gospel in Lubwisi. I certainly don't understand all of it, and it is painfully slow and tedious, though knowing what it's SUPPOSED to say sure helps. But an unexpected delight is to see stories in new ways through new eyes and words. And one from over a week ago sticks with me, inviting pondering.

In the middle of Matthew chapter 9, an important man comes to Jesus with urgency--my daughter has just died, he says, but come and lay your hand on her and she can live. His faith is remarkable, and usually the thing remarked upon. But in a different language, what jumped out was muhala wanje, my daughter. Perhaps because I'd been trying to tell people about my kids and my new daughter-in-law and I was noting the difference between muhala (daughter) and mugholi (a word I never really needed until now, daughter-in-law, that people keep saying back to me). Perhaps because this exact scenario plays out for me several times a week--someone comes to find me because their relative has a particular medical issue they are convinced I should help, and I sense the urgency and advocacy in their effort. So the muhala wanje spoke to me of tenderness and courage and persistence, the love of a father for his little girl, the desperate desire to restore her life, the quivering grief threatening to engulf him as he refuses to accept reality and holds out for a miracle. The father-daughter relationship is unique in its pure delight and blessing.

Then a few verses later, the procession to his house is interrupted. This time it's a middle-aged woman with perimenopausal excessive bleeding. This woman does not have a father advocating for her healing, in fact she's probably excluded from the center of community life, considered unclean, perhaps alone and not very valued at all.  She's perhaps invisible in the crowd, and has perhaps absorbed the general low estimation of her value. Perhaps her bleeding has lasted about as long as the little girl in the ruler's family was alive (12 years). Perhaps she impulsively reaches out to touch Jesus (like the ruler who wanted him to physically touch the dead girl, they sense a power in his bodily presence). A huge risk, a woman taking initiative when few would approve. And what does he say? "Muhala wanje".  My daughter! The exact same phrase that the distraught father used to plead for his daughter's life, Jesus uses to address this marginal woman.

What a wonderful and understated literary device, enfolding the middle-aged unimportant woman's story with her unmentionably embarrassing problem, into the narrative of a relative princess whose well-connected father is moving heaven and earth to help her. And introducing both with the same phrase, to subtly but powerfully show us: Jesus feels about this woman the same way the ruler feels about his daughter.  Longing for her wholeness, desperately on her side, delighted in her as a person, bereaved by her suffering, eager to see her well. An invested, passionate, tender love. Suddenly the woman becomes visible, or at least she and the crowd now grasp that she is seen and loved by God, that she is just as appealing in God's eyes as the celebrity girl to whom they rush.

And even in 2019, that's counter-cultural. Being in the 50-something range for women is rarely lauded as ideal, compared to a girl or teen or 20-something, or compared to a similarly aged man.  Not in the USA (just look through advertising, movies, TV, social media). And certainly not in Uganda, where my peers are juggling gardens and grandchildren, often widowed and landless, dependent on the good will of brothers or grown children, displaced by younger wives. But the Gospel is literally good news, and I'm grateful for this vivid picture (in a long line of such stories from Hagar to Hannah to Esther to Mary) of El-Roi (Gen 16:13), the God who sees.

some women God sees

and some girls who are loved

My dad, with my sister and me visiting his mom

A dad and daughter near my heart, just over a month ago (feels like a year)

July in Bundibugyo: Floods, Intrigue, and Plodding on

Three weeks ago we drove back into Bundibugyo after two very full months of graduations, THE wedding, reunions, meeting people, driving, family time. While we were in the USA a few good things happened: our Kenyan-licensed Land Rover sold to a sweet missionary family, taking that burden off our hands. And our Ugandan work permits (visas which allow us to stay here two years) were approved. So as soon as we landed, we went to immigration and became official.

Departing Dulles, escorted by my niece Emma and my mom

Immigration, waiting . . . .

While we were gone, some not-so-good things happened too.  The night before Luke and Abby's wedding weekend, a group of students at Christ School rioted, attacking four teacher's houses and destroying property. The latter half of June saw us spending hours on the phone, piecing stories together from a distance, writing letters, begging for calm, with the knowledge that this event had roots in deeper dysfunctions which we would have to face upon our return. While we grieved being so far away, and briefly considered an emergency (post-wedding) accelerated return, the time actually allowed investigation by a board-appointed committee and allowed us to observe how our decisions were being received and carried out (or not).  LONG STORY short, within a few days of return Scott as Chairman of the Board called a board meeting, and we spent 11 hours in deliberation of the evidence. The board unanimously voted to end the contract of the Head Teacher. It was an exhausting process.  It's hard to describe just how murky facts can be in a place that values loyalty and unity and cleverness and manipulation over truth. It's hard to describe the way Evil subtly infuses all of our best intentions and at times rises up naked and dangerous to destroy Good. At times like this, we have been thankful for:

• Incredible prayer support for the blessing of Bundibugyo, over many many years. You, and we, have to be tenacious.
• Our own scars, the painful ways we have been shaped to understand some of the undercurrents. Hopefully some of our years have leant wisdom, though we're still in the dark all too often.
• Scott is calm in crisis, and his presence alone just brings a measure of order. People know he rode an armored tank back into this district to assess for aid in a time of war, and stayed to care for Ebola patients in a time of plague. The various meetings have not lacked for drama, but by grace and prayer and perseverance we've seen the tide shift until people are on board.
• Guidance and support from the Board, the school's leadership team and staff, and our own right-hand-man John, the Old Boys and Old Girls (alumnae), even a very dignified group representing the District Elder's Association (traditional leaders' peacemaking NGO) who came to meet us in a polite and neutral way to remind us that Christ School belongs to the people of Bundibugyo, they love it and want it, and do not want to see disorder cause implosion.
  
• the elders who came to advise us

The Board meeting was followed by staff meeting, student meeting, and a few days later a parent meeting. Scott wrote letters, we put out a radio announcement, and we held our breath to see if the community would accept the decision well and continue to entrust us with their students. In spite of rumors and various plots for trouble, it seems we are beginning to emerge. Which means that Scott is up to his ears in normal school issues: repairs on the perimeter fence, scrutiny of the food budget, registering students for exams, going to Chapel, troubleshooting computer issues, contracting to fix a leaking roof, meeting the leaders to hire a new literature teacher. We have put off hiring a new Head Teacher for now, as our Deputy has become the Acting HT and is doing well with leadership team support.

CSB entrance (behind the blue gate) in Nyahuka town

Selfie on the way into Board meeting . . . what a day

Meeting staff and students

Students on the field as HT departed and Scott met with them

Pre Parents' Meeting, admiring the new scoreboard Ike made

Fielding questions from the parents

New metal beds in dorm

High grade posho, a CSB perk (cornmeal for porridge)

Classes back to normal

University student teachers join us in the summer months

The background to the drama is no less important. Bundibugyo is having unseasonably heavy rainfall. This district is a rainforest valley on the north-northwest side of the third highest peaks on the continent, defined by tapering ridges and gullies that can flash flood. Before the paved road, this weather might well have made the place inaccessible, but now as long as you stay to the single tarmac artery it's a breeze. Still, people's homes have been filled with mud and crops destroyed, and even some bridges have washed out. Mosquitoes love the damp, and malaria runs rampant. I am trying to round on the Paediatric ward three times a week; there are always 60-100 patients and half to two-thirds are malaria diagnoses. It is not unusual to see a child admitted with a hemoglobin of 3 or below (that's a quarter of normal).  This week, the main antimalarial medicine went out of stock.

This used to be a bridge . . . near Kisubba. 

Saturday bike ride

But even here, there are signs of hope. The hospital's medical superintendent is a man of integrity and determination. He's holding staff meetings and holding people to account; there is continuing education and I've had students rounding with me. We've made some life-saving diagnoses like TB or typhoid, puzzled over some syndromes, seen some malnourished kids gain weight. Earlier this month a facilitator from another district, arranged by Dr. Marc, taught Helping Babies Breath (neonatal resuscitation). Our persistent new team mate Ike got the long-awaited (more than a year!) transformer installed and we now have electricity much of the day. Jessie is not only carrying much of the nutrition program but also decided to re-open Books for Bundi (our library for kids) twice a week. Our interim team leaders the Justices are leading the preparation for new and returning team, including supervising house repairs and buying new appliances. So the Gospel is alive, in meals, in stories, in prayer and Bible study, in food and healing. We've enjoyed the small-team summer remnant and bonding with these young couples.  We've had about a dozen meetings-by-phone/facetime/etc. with team leaders around our region.

Staff CME on Friday

HBB training

precious people

Team Birthday meal for Ike

Internet access, time pressure, and just not being sure how to even process the complexity of life made it hard to return to the blog, but we hope to resume our normal verbosity now. Please keep Bundibugyo and all of Serge East/Central Africa in your prayers.

Hospital hand-washing station with bleach . . Ebola is running rampant about 100 Km west of us

The road up from Nyahuka towards the mission, on a rare day of sun

Why it is all worth it: this young lady became a believer at CSB in my cell group, now she's a university grad and a mom.

And this young man received a scholarship to CSB, which enabled him to pass at the top of the District in sciences and qualify for a government University Scholarship. He is student-teaching until classes start!

Not pictured: dense bugs. But it was a lovely picnic site. We do have fun too! Hot Springs trip with Ike and Jessie, and below.

57, in Almost Heaven

My parents and Scott's parents married in 1957.

And this year, I turned 57.

Which, I believe, is a pretty great year to reach. One kid married, one new daughter, last kid finishing college, hopefully a bit of wisdom from all the mistakes we've lived through, and hopefully enough health and energy to keep putting all that experience to good use a bit longer.

This birthday I was in my favorite place in the USA, Sago, WV at our farm, in between two reunions (see post below), and appropriately with my mom who made the birth-day possible. We were also in a bit of chaos with phone calls and meetings, sorting and packing and cleaning and cooking and preparing. But I decided I wanted to do my own iron-woman ezer-thon. Iron, as in iron-sharpens-iron as a metaphor for true friendship and a good marriage. We should be becoming sharper, becoming more holy and focused as we bump up against each other. And ezer, as in Helper, one of the names of God and one of the descriptions of a woman. Strong and hard enough to be a reliable and integral part of the Kingdom.

One can be iron-willed and ezer-capable in a thousand, a million, actually a few billion unique ways. As a non-athletic person in a family of athletes, though, for my birthday I decided to design my own little 57-kilometer (miles are a bit too long) challenge that would push me but not kill me.  I was going to knock a few out with kayaking but the river was dangerously high that day.  So I put together a few of my favorite running routes to challenge myself by going on a 20k run (jog) (pretty much a half marathon) at my own steady pace, then in the afternoon Scott went with me on a 37k bike ride. We threw in a hike in the woods and a dip in the muddy fast river (not straying too far from the shore) for a bonus. Plus quiet time to read and reflect and pray, and some good food, and since it was discount Tuesday at the local theater we ended up with Toy Story 4.

Since 7 rhymes with WV's slogan "Almost Heaven" . . . I guess I'd say I'm hoping for a few more earthly years to enjoy with my family and work and community. But for empty-nest moms and middle-aged people, the rare chance to take off and plan a birthday challenge was pretty fun and highly recommended.