The Road to Emmaus

Charles Musunguzi preached on the latter section of Luke 24 today, where two followers of Jesus are walking away from Jerusalem, discouraged, bewildered, questioning, maybe even fleeing the sad and tumultuous events of the weekend.  They don’t understand what God is doing.  But this is the very situation Jesus chooses to enter.  He does not wait for a prayer meeting, a properly organized worshipful reception.  He comes to walk along the road with two defeated men who don’t have the answers right.  Charles reminded us that in our weakness Jesus comes alongside of us.  He does not wait for us to get it all together, in fact in our moments of defeat we may find his presence even more tangible.  How encouraging, that we can be weak, wrong, tired, and even running away, but Jesus will still graciously walk and teach and feed us.

On causality, losing, and witchcraft

The Christ School football (soccer) team lost yesterday, in overtime, to Semiliki High School 2 to 1. They have not lost in the district in a long time, and this was a difficult end to our senior student Birungi’s long career as team captain. It was a well-contested game, and in reflecting on the loss it has been interesting to see how deeply and quickly we all search for reasons. I heard very rational explanations from a few teachers: even Manchester United sometimes loses, in other words, it is not possible to ALWAYS win, and we should not worry. But most of the fans, kids, and observers are not so sanguine.

Mostly, there was the issue of confidence. It was a rainy day, and many times the boys lost their footing when trying to get a shot off. This was compounded by the fact that the strikers seemed afraid to shoot: afraid to miss? Afraid to be blamed for the loss? In a culture of equality, where it does not pay to stand out, is it better to keep passing and let someone else fail? Then there was the further mental issue of doubt: do our players believe they can win without Kevin? They may not be sure, and it shows. And Kevin probably would have convinced them to take more shots and have more confidence, if he had been there. Then there was the crowd: CSB had scored early and began strong, but the crowd grew and grew as the rain tapered off, and seemed more and more pro-Semilki. This could impact the players, but also the refs. There were a number of times that a line judge flagged a violation and was ignored by the main referee, or that calls seemed to be biased. Are the refs afraid of the crowd? Maybe. Then there was the huge advantage that Semiliki had: the leading scorer from last year at CSB, Ahebwa Leonard, finished O levels with Luke but then transferred to Semiliki this year for A levels. So CSB was beat by their own player, essentially. Then there was the long slow impact of integrity and coaching and work: CSB’s success means that other teams have decided to actually practice together, rather than just cobble together random players who may or may not be actual students at tournament time. So for all of these reasons, it was a close and difficult and long game.

Afterwards, however, there are two explanations that seem to be overtaking all of the above. First, the CSB staff has accused Semilki of having an illegal player or two, boys they recognized who were playing under false names. If this is proven on Monday, the result will be canceled, and CSB will advance to the finals.

Second, the girls who milled about the goal and chanted and cheered throughout the match, errupted into a frenzy near the end of the game when they dug up a scrappy paper filled with “herbs” which they accuse the opposing side of burying in the goal to prevent scores. Yes, witchcraft. They were so beserk and convinced that I had to physically restrain the ring-leader during the end of the game, and Annelise had to talk them down afterwards when they were blowing off steam by talking of violence. The essence of African Traditional Religion has been described as problem solving: the world is not going my way, so I need to know why, to protect my family, to strike back at my enemies. It makes perfect sense in this world view that a team who wants to win would purchase a charm, and that at team who loses would accuse the winners of bewitching them.

So I see in this loss a microcosm of many of the problems we face here daily: self-doubt and a sense of inferiority prevent kids from taking risks. Intimidation by the group further binds them in fear. Corruption means the playing field is rarely level. And the pervasive fear of witchcraft, of malevolent spiritual forces, is always just below the surface. They are just kids playing a game, but we have to fight on all these levels on the football pitch if we are to see lasting Kingdom changes for freedom and truth in Bundibugyo.

Smiling at milk

Birungi Suizen smiled yesterday.  His little fragile life continues to teeter on the brink, but for the first time (for me) he grinned.  This boy is the embodiment of weakness, one of the least-of-these.  His mother has revived hope.  Please keep praying for him, for a miracle of life to grow.  

I smiled too.  Because when this smile happened, we were in the process of moving new UNICEF food into our store.  Last week the promised provisions came to fruition.  When we had celebrated the end of Ebola, all of the dignitaries walked together through town to the hospital grave sites of the medical workers, where there was a special ceremony honoring Dr. Jonah and the others.  On this walk I approached a tall mature African-American looking woman, thinking someone of her age and color who was now flying in on a helicopter with the big-wigs was someone I wanted to learn from.  I enjoyed hearing her story, she turned out to be a remarkably brilliant and courageous pioneer of medicine from Panama, working now as a country director for UNICEF, Dr. Gloria. Dr. Gloria was moved by Jonah’s story as well, and by the needs of Bundibugyo, and promised to do something.  Stephanie had long been appealing for UNICEF involvement but had been denied by their regional representative, so when Dr. Gloria heard that, she promised action.  Sure enough a couple of weeks later a delegation arrived and toured the hospital, seeing the needy kids.  Then last week a truck came with boxes and boxes of supplies, in the midst of the Easter holiday.  It wasn’t until yesterday that Heidi and I attacked the organization.  We cleaned and cleared the Paeds ward store room, arranged shelves, and unpacked.  

After years of improvising and doing our best, we now have bags and bags and bags of powdered milk formulas, specially designed with vitamins and minerals to treat severely malnourished kids.  Birungi Suizen was the first to receive some.  Many others will follow.  They also donated Oxfam kits with cups, spoons, buckets, potties, scales, pens, record cards . . . An amazing and generous boost to our meager supplies.  

This donation for the sickest inpatients is still only one small and specific part of BundiNutrition.  We will continue to buy and give normal milk to motherless babies, supplements to children affected by AIDS, outpatient beans and g-nuts and soy flour to moderately malnourished kids.  We will continue to import dairy goats (51 to arrive Tuesday!!) and maintain a coop of egg-laying-hens.  We will continue education and outreach, home visits and follow-up, demonstration gardens and seed distributions.  But the UNICEF milk powder means that the most severely affected children, the ones actually in the hospital, will receive a much more nutritious product.  

God provided.  We, and Birungi, are smiling.

On Fear and Flies

Most years circumcision season follows Christmas, the longest school break of the year and the dry season weather, the holiday atmosphere and enjoyment of the cocoa harvest, all making January the ideal time to perform this cultural ritual for boys.  The tribes in our district circumcise males only, in groups, historically between the ages of about 8 and 15.  It has been a time for passing on stories and traditions, sleeping outside, moving in groups, dancing and drumming, and no small flow of alcohol.  Some years we barely notice the occasion, then other years seem to be deemed auspicious and many groups of boys go under the knife.  The first January of relative peace after the ADF I remember as a major year, one could meet women circling in the muledu dance in the early morning on many compounds, their heads wreathed with leaves.  I think there used to be multi-year cycles, so the up and down of numbers persists in spite of the process becoming diluted by contact with the rest of the world.

But not this year.  In January the government announced that due to Ebola all circumcision was suspended.  When the district was declared Ebola-free in February, we noticed the upsurge of ceremonies.  It should have all been over by now.  But in the last two weeks, the season has escalated into the biggest ever.  Every night there are drums from one direction or another.  I have two patients admitted now with complications.  Friends come daily asking for “medicine” for their sons.  We hear that even men and boys from other tribes who reside here are undergoing the ritual.  Families are no longer waiting for the age of near-puberty . . They are cutting boys as young as 1 year, who will never remember the cultural significance.  

Why?  The power of rumor.  Everyone believes there is a new fly that has invaded the district and bites uncircumcised males in a very sensitive place, causing irreparable damage.  I’ve been trying to trace this rumor.  One possibility is that four kids in a family all died some weeks ago, and they had swelling in their private parts and stopped urinating I’m told (which could be explained by kwashiorkor, or renal failure from many causes, and it is possible that it isn’t even true).  There was also one kid who really did get a terrible allergic reaction to an insect bite in the groin whom I saw a few weeks ago, and tried to catheterize to relieve his inability to urinate.  I’m sure he made an impression on anyone else who saw him.  How an actual case grows to become a public threat, to the magnitude that hundreds of young boys and young men are undergoing the most painful ordeal of their lives . . . It is amazing really.  I suppose it shows from a public health standpoint that people are very much capable of massive behavioural change in a short period of time if the perceived threat is serious enough.  And this one clearly is.

Meanwhile we listen to the drumming in the dark, and mop up the problems in the daylight, and hope it has a positive effect eventually on HIV prevalence.

Garden encounters, part 2

It was my turn to plan prayer meeting this morning, so I went back to John 20, looking for a tie-in with the holiday weekend . . . And it was like looking into a mirror.  If you know me you can imagine me as Mary, weeping (doing quite a bit of that lately remembering Jonah, remembering my Dad who died on Easter night two years ago), up early, and ready to approach the men who may have moved the body and fix the problem.  Oblivious to the holy moment, single-mindedly looking for a solution, ready to work, missing the point.  Lord have mercy.  He does.  My prayer was to see Jesus, to be settled by His call, to lay aside my ideas for making things right and go and be faithful to His sending.  At least that was my early morning prayer.  By 9 am I’m afraid I was once again ready to accuse angels of treason and ignore the voice of the Lord in my wrestling with the mess of this life.  But I take heart in my kinship with Mary, and the patience of Jesus.

On healing heels

Jack ran too hard, too far, on poor shoes, his strength and stamina outstripping his growth plates. Almost a year ago he began to run cross-country, enjoying the fellowship, the approving attention of the coach, the bonding with other boys. But he was young and big and growing rapidly and wearing hand-me-down shoes. He would occasionally complain of pain in his heels, but we did not stop him. A big mistake on our part. By Fall we did finally realize he needed rest, so we stopped the cross country, but he still occasionally mentioned the heel pain. The xray machine was broken in Bundibugyo, so it took a long time to get an answer. Before Christmas when I was finally in Kampala for a few days, I took him to get xrays. We sent them to a dear friend and supporter who is an orthopedic surgeon, and he looked at the films and listened to the story and diagnosed “calcaneal apophysitis” (Sever's disease) in January. An over-use injury, a sort of stress fracture. Rest was ordered, no bare feet on our unyielding cement floors. No sports. Now two months later, we see little improvement, in spite of the always-shoes and no-running rules. Jack has tried not to run, he really has, but he’s a whirlwind kind of kid, a storm of activity, not easily stilled. We are starting to worry. Our friend sent orthopedic heel pads that would have helped, if the package had not disappeared in the obscurity of Ugandan mail. So we decided yesterday to put one foot in a cast and give him crutches, thinking that would slow him down and give at least one of his feet time to heal. The only casting material here is good old-fashioned heavy damp plaster. 24 hours later we have given up. In spite of very functional crutches hand-made by Scott, Jack was tending to hop on the non-casted foot. And consequently, the non-casted heel was actually getting WORSE, probably faster than the casted one was getting better. We took the cast off. Tonight he’s very discouraged. He could use prayers for healing his heels. He’s a very athletic kid. He does not sit still easily. This is very, very discouraging for him, and my heart aches too.

A few thoughts on resurrection, from the weekend

Resurrection sound like a dramatic word, but in practice the glimpses are subtle. God does not overwhelm our senses. Even Mary was slow to recognize reality. How much more so am I. Birungi Suizen did not die on Easter weekend. He was as close as it is possible to come by Good Friday, gasping, intermittently conscious. But Sunday morning he was sitting on his mom’s lap eating a soupy fish sauce, with a snarly little protest when she stopped feeding him to talk to me. Resurrection? He still has far to go, but I’ve rarely seen a little flame of life so stubbornly flickering, so close to being snuffed but smoldering back to light. Matte’s ribs seem to carry a few more millimeters of flesh. The three 1-kg preemies, one of whom stopped breathing repeatedly when he first came in, are snuggling along on their mothers’ incubating breasts, today clocking 1.45, 1.3, and 1.6 kg. Boxes of UNICEF food arrived over the weekend, the real-deal malnutrition milk supplements instead of the ad-hoc formulas we’ve been concocting. I saw staff today covering for each other, pitching in outside their areas of duty to help. Yes, resurrection changes, slow maybe, murky, but there if you squint hard and really look. Highlights of the weekend for me: celebrating passover as a team, reclining, asking the questions, breaking the unleavened bread and drinking the cups of wine, washing feet and celebrating the community of the redeemed, the rescued. Gathering on Friday afternoon, after services, in the side room of the community center on simple benches, praying through John 14-17, a powerful time drawing very diverse people together to lift up the troubles of Bundibugyo. Watching The Passion, which is full of Scripture but hard to fathom, best seen soberly in the company of trusted friends and then followed by prayerful meditation on Is 53, into the night. Sunrise on Easter, drizzle, considering canceling our little sunrise service but over-ruled by my kids, heading down to Massos passing the camouflaged forms of armed soldiers just waking in the dawn, like the first Easter, soldiers. Easter service, a visiting worship leader dancing and clapping the crowd into a joyous swaying celebration. Finally the afternoon feast, family-like, resting together, secure, including three of my orphan students brought into the fold of our family for a day. All of these moments infused with the quiet glory of the resurrection.

Two Gardens, One Question

In the garden of Gethsemane, when Judas led the  temple guards to capture Jesus in the dark, He asked them, “Whom are you seeking?” (John 18:4).  When they answered Jesus of Nazareth, he simply stated “I am”, the Old Testament name of God, the one reference point for all the universe.  Blasphemy, unless it was true.  This is the turning point of the story, the beginning of the long road through torture and death.  A question, a choice, a probe of the heart, the motives.

Three days later, in the gardens around the tomb, Jesus asks Mary “Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15).  She also pleads for the physical body of Jesus, willing to carry him, not to mock trials and beating but to safety and embalming.  This time Jesus does not declare His identity, he simply says “Mary.”  In His voice, his commanding tenderness, His calling out to her, she recognizes Him.  

Jesus does not ride triumphantly through the streets after His resurrection, He comes quietly, in closed rooms, along the road, in the early morning garden.  He does not lecture on His origins or His work, instead He asks:  Whom are you seeking?  

On Glory and Devastation

Somehow God’s promise to put the world to rights is not achieved by blasting evil out of the way, but by his people bearing its weight so that the force of evil does its worst in the chosen people themselves. Alongside the vision of glory we also find the vision of devastation. NT Wright, lecture series on Evil Good Friday is a day of devastation, and a day of glory, and a day to ponder the paradox that the extremes of both intersect on the cross. Many times this week I’ve been reminded of my own heart’s desire to blast evil out of the way, to smash it with a lead pipe, to impose a triumphant order on this mucky world. That is what the disciples expected of Jesus. But that was not God’s plan. Being called to the slower path of bearing the weight of malnutrition and poverty and and hate and loss . . . Seeing it, touching it, sometimes experiencing it . . . That is the way of the cross. That is the way that evil truly meets defeat. That is the way seen only by eyes of faith, Good Friday eyes that squint ahead to believe that Resurrection morning will come. Join us in praying for Bundibugyo, and for our own hearts. In “downloads (pdf)” there are two prayer guides. One is based on John 14-17; we will be using it this afternoon with a broad spectrum of community people (teachers, church members, health center workers all invited) to apply the final words of Jesus to praying for His Kingdom to come in this place. The second is based on Isaiah 53; we will use it this evening as a team to meditate on the suffering of Jesus.

On crushing the serpent

As we move into the Easter weekend, we move into the spiritual battle that peaked on Good Friday but still continues.  As a mission we sense a call to pray specifically against some of the cultural forces that oppress people here in Bundibugyo.  I will give one example of corruption, since it occurred this week:

One of my former students went to obtain a driving permit so that he could legally use a mission motorcycle to help us with nutrition outreaches, and after many offices, fees, lines, bank transfers, and a day of effort he landed in an office in which he was issued yet more forms and told that the cost for the approval of these forms would be 50,000/= (about $30, a week’s wages for a mid-level professional).  He asked if he would receive a receipt for this, upon which the person behind the desk laughed at this absurdity and began to explain the way the world works to this young man whom he no doubt perceived as hopelessly naive.  My student then clarified that this money would essentially be a bribe, and gave the form back, refusing to participate.  In the end he was only able to get a provisional learning permit without paying the bribe, but I have to say his indignation over the entire affair gives me a glimmer of hope that the rising generation of CSB students will not accept business-as-usual when it comes to blatant corruption.  If only more people would take such a stand!

Culturally acceptable patterns of oppression can be vague and nebulous, hard to recognize, easy to justify away.  But God knows we are concrete and visual creatures, when He wants to present truth He often works through a story or a physical demonstration (compare the amount of the Bible devoted to history and parable rather than theological treatise, or notice the way prophets like Jeremiah used props like plumb lines, or consider the visceral nature of the passover meal and communion).  Good Friday commemorates the ultimate victory of Good over Evil in the paradox of the death of Jesus.  In Genesis this is foretold as the crushing of the serpent’s head while the promised One’s heel is bruised.  

This visual image of the evil one as a snake is very vivid to me today, because we had a snake in our house last night.  Everyone but me was in bed.  I had been at my desk and walked out into our sitting/dining room (the main area of our house) to turn off the lights.  As I walked in, a dark slithering form inched across the rug, right in the middle of the four chairs where our kids had been reading books before bed.  It was not so large, about 3 feet long and fairly slender, and not so fast due to the coolness of the night.  I called Scott and Luke to come with weapons, and Scott took the lead pipe we keep under our mattress and killed it with a few solid blows.  It released a putrid stench, and it’s blood smeared our floor.  We’ve had a few very small (juvenile) snakes in the house a long time ago, and cobras in the yard, but the sight of this fully grown snake penetrating the safety of home, well, it was unsettling, as if evil incarnate had come to fight back.

But this morning I sensed a good lesson in this image.  The snake was no match for Scott.  Yes, people suffer and die from snake bites, but invariably those occur when the person comes upon the snake in the bush of an overgrown garden, or when the snake slips into a home seeking warmth at night and goes unnoticed.  Unseen snakes are dangerous.  But in one on one open combat, a human can prevail.  The Evil One tries to slip unnoticed, causing harm by stealth, but will be defeated when seen and recognized.  

Defeated, but the bruising will also take a toll.  Please join us in prayer this weekend.  I will try to post some prayer guides by tomorrow.  If we could only crush corruption, apathy, infidelity, passive-aggressiveness, tribalism, fear, defilement of school girls, and other insidious evils with a lead pipe!  Instead we must pray and persevere, we must bandage our bruised heels and march on.