A Bundi Day. . .

Friday, March 1 (true story)

5 am: the fan is blowing because mercifully, the unstable intermittent voltage from Uganda's over-stretched under-maintained electricity grid tends to be best at night (having the fridge and freezer off all day but functional in the dark maintains a modicum of food preservation). The fan helps moderate the booming base from our neighbors who are burning bricks. They are constructing a new house, so they have formed thousands of rectangular cubes from digging out the clay from one area of their compound, and stacked them into a pyramid, covered it with a different layer of mud, and then lit a fire in a few arched tunnels left at the bottom of the stack. This fire must be maintained for about 36 hours, which spans one full cycle of darkness. Deep in the traditional psyche there is an equivalence between evil spirits and night time, and a faith in the noisy continuous beating of drums to drive that evil away has translated into use of a speaker and boom box hooked up to the same electricity we are using to combat the all-night brick party with our fan. The call to prayer usually echoes up the valley behind this house as well, but this day at 5 am I wake up to the silenced-phone repeated vibrations of our kids in America having a group Birthday chat.  5 am for us is 5 pm for our furthest west (Alaska) birthday boy, and still within the evening hours (7 pm and 9 pm) for the other three. So the day starts with the delight of hearing all four voices, and the heartache of missing another birthday celebration.

this was from the days when we could celebrate birthdays together, right here in Bundibugyo. John, our neighbor, is now the accountant for the mission.

6 am: Our usual wake-up-to-run time in Kenya at the eastern edge of this time zone was daylight, but in Bundibugyo it is deeply dark.  Nevertheless I've adapted to enjoying the hint of coolness, the nearly empty road, the stillness of village compounds, the fading of stars, the eager accompaniment of Nyota our dog. Jogging in the dark, weak glimpse of the road by flashlight, gives a pretty reasonable metaphor for our life. By the time I'm on the return loop the birds are starting to welcome the return of daylight, and I am surprised to encounter a group of teen boys training for football.  When they get a little too close Nyota gives an impressive impersonation of a vicious guard dog, leading to hoots of laughter as they scatter and to a bit more respect as we continue our separate ways.

7 am: Scott makes coffee with our handy travel aeropresses, and we sit on the back porch to read our Bibles and pray, thankful for this home of the Dickensons with its trees and space, the mountain outline deepening with the sunrise.

8am: Hanging laundry on the line, washing dishes, trying to answer a few emails, anticipating the day. We learn that the suspected Ebola case from the hospital the day before, a febrile pregnant woman with profuse bleeding and a dead baby from Congo, tested negative. Whew. The family had lied about her origin in Beni (where there are active cases) and had not respected the isolation procedure, putting many staff at risk. I had been at Bundibugyo hospital that day with Dr. Marc and visiting resident Dr. Alex, seeing a full ward of malaria, malnutrition, septic shock, burns, pneumonia, dehydration, measles. But on this Friday we are planning to attend the Christ School PTA meeting, so . . .

hospital day before

9am: Scott heads down to school to meet with the Head Teacher and staff and prepare for the meeting, which is scheduled for 10 to be followed by lunch. The UACE (A-level) results have just been released from 2018, and the staff are jubilant.  18 out of 19 CSB grads qualified for further education, 8 of whom did well enough to be considered for 7 district-quota university scholarships. The best performing department was mathematics, and later in the meeting the teachers of this subject are called forward for hearty congratulations. They all passed the "general paper" essay quite well, which is a surprise for Bundibugyo and gratifying to the teachers.

math teachers honored at PTA meeting, Desmond in background acknowledged for setting the O-level foundation for students, AND teaching the teachers when THEY were students . . . 

Meanwhile I remain working from home, as we continue our Area Director roles. Teams in Serge are communities, are ways of life. I have a phone call, two long important emails, and one face to face meeting that delve into hard but good places of marriage, future, calling, faith, health, children, etc.

10+am: Scott texts that the meeting is about to start, but I am delayed because our dog seems to be AWOL. The children around the neighborhood like to unwind the chain link fence in spots to come help themselves to the jackfruit tree, and then Nyota finds ways to houdini out.  I give up on finding her and arrive at Christ School to a scene of impending dissolution and disaster.  The program for the day starts with prayer and then "anthems".  Meaning the Uganda National Anthem . . but there is a fight brewing over whether to sing the Bwamba/Babwisi Kingdom's anthem, and if so then to balance with the Bakonjo Kingdom's anthem.  Scott and the Head Teacher are sitting at a table in the front looking alarmed as the two other senior community leaders up front (whom we have known for a quarter century) are both standing, shouting, gesticulating, on opposite sides of the opinion. I sit by Scott and watch for a few minutes, a half dozen men in the parent audience of about a hundred are also trying to insist that this school is on Bwamba (OBB is the abbreviation for the Kingdom) land and events must include their anthem. The teacher trying to moderate is desperate to regain control. Many parents are threatening to walk out. Physical fights feel imminent.  I've only seen the open tribalism erupt like this once before, during the war, at an infamous baptism party in our yard . . anyway it looks like the day is going to end in irreconcilable differences and perhaps violence before it even starts, and in the noise and shouting and chaos I tell Scott I'm going to pray. Being the only female up front, and outside the tribal division, I wonder if I'll be able to put a pause in the melee.  So I stand up and raise my hands and say in Lubwisi, let's pray. To my surprise, people listen. Within a minute it's quiet, and I pray out loud with a translator, a long preachy prayer working in the end of Galatians 3 about how Jesus breaks down all our divisions, and praying for this school to be a place for all the people of Bundibugyo, inviting God's spirit to calm our hearts and lead us.  Then I sit down, wondering what will happen next.  The moderator teacher announces that we have now had the opening prayer and will stand to sing the national anthem, which we all do, and then move on to item three, the first speech. There is no more mention of the Kingdoms, the tribes, the other anthems.  It feels miraculous.

me with translator after the calm descended

11 am, 12 noon, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm+ . . . yes this parent-teacher convocation takes 5 1/2 solid hours. The Head Teacher celebrates the good testing results. The chairman PTA enjoins parents to see this as their school, to not be deceived by taking their children outside the district for poorer quality education, and asks how many of this year's 59 Senior 4 (UCE, or O-level) candidates are expected to pass in Division one? Desmond, that class's senior teacher, answers 59 to an uproar of laughter and hope. Goats are promised for the anticipated party. The moderator explains that the head teacher, the chairman PTA, and the chairman Board of Governors (Scott) are the three stones upon which the pot of Christ School rests (the 3-stone method of cooking over a fire making perfect sense here) and as Scott is introduced he tells the parents the pot is heavy on his head. He talks about our spiritual input, our protection of girls, our results being not just test scores but leaders changing the district, the quality for value ratio, and ends with a focus on the spiritual battle (Eph 6) which has already been quite obvious in the meeting alone! He tells the parents to pay their fees and be our partners, but focuses mostly on asking them to pray every morning and every night for their children and for CSB. There are more speeches. There are reactions, where various parents get their few minutes. There are responses to the reactions. I've been to a lot of these meetings, and usually their are moderately contentious (nothing like the tribalism at the beginning, but an undertone of 'you need to do more for us' from the parents and the staff). This meeting is amazingly supportive. There is no explanation other than God showing up. Multiple parents express thanks, express ownership. A few complaints emerge--that their daughter's drama group should have won the competition last year so we need better judging, or that school ID's have not been given out, or questioning the need for so much paper. But the atmosphere is generally solidly supportive.

Scott speaking as chairman Board of Governors

4pm: the parents line up for "lunch" to be served, and we shake hands and thank them for coming then bike up the road to our team's weekly meeting. Every Friday afternoon the Serge team here meets to consider business (how to support Bible Translation, what's happening with the negotiations for more electricity, praying for various members) followed by either extended prayer, listening to a sermon together, an educational topic, or a fun/fellowship time, and ending in dinner. Thankfully this week is light, after all the drama of the day. We are so thankful for the Serge Apprenticeship program, which brings in 20-somethings and sometimes 30-somethings who want a mentored, 1.5-2 year initial experience in cross-cultural ministry. Two of our new apprentices have planned a fun trivia game, and we relax with popcorn and team work answering questions about music clips and history and milliliters in a gallon and all sorts of random things. The prize is a bag of home made cookies, so teams vie with passion.

6 pm: the meeting is followed by dinner together, and then conversation, stories, laughter. We hear about near disasters that are now just good memories, or talk about life together. The importance of these evenings cannot be over-estimated. Living thousands of miles from family, from familiar worship and language and culture and friendship, means the team becomes a source of staying power and sanctification. And we need each other.  I didn't include above the multiple texts from the team of Nyota sightings, capture, and care. Half the team was involved at one point or another with that pesky dog, allowing us to spend essential facetime with the community and support one of the team's biggest ministries. We were truly grateful for the sense of all-for-one.

Nyota eyeing small children behind fence, planning next escape

? didn't look at the time, but 8 or 9 ish pm: Back home at the end of a long but good day, a little last hour of work looking at budgets and emails, and then a wind-down of watching C blow out his candles (or not) on a birthday cake generously provided by his "host" family in Anchorage, lovely people who have been a God-send, followed by a downloaded epidsode of a netflix series on Scott's phone as we get ready for bed.

Conclusions: this was yesterday.  Every day is different. But this day illustrates the core of life that we are learning.

• First, PRESENCE is our method, and God's. Just being here is 90% of the battle. It's not easy to manage in a place with 90-degree days, no air movement, interruptions to water and power, threatening epidemics, poverty, etc. But again and again, what we know is that simply being present with people in their trouble speaks grace. One line from a parent speech: Dr. Scott kicked Ebola out of Bundibugyo once, and when he came back this time we knew we'd be OK. We know that is not exactly true, but it demonstrates the power and importance of showing up. 
• Second,  PRAYER. We witnessed a prayer usher in God's spirit in a way that averted the escalation of tribally based anger. This is the Gospel: God's power to break down barriers between people. 
• Third, PARTNERSHIP. Our team has the thorn scratches from chasing our dog into the bush to prove their partnership with us during a crucial community time. Our CSB staff are the real reason students performed well on exams. Our supporters are the people whose money and prayers enable us to survive. 

Stick with us for more stories of providence!

Along the Road, Counting it all joy in Kenya

Days on the road: 10

Accommodation: 4 different missionary homes for 1-2 nights, 4 different hotels for a night each in between, yes that's a lot of movement and transition, apologies for what we probably left behind. Mobile office work in between meetings below . . 

Adorable Serge children: a 15, sampling below skewed towards the youngest. Let's be real, these kids are a big part of our hearts and prayer life, they did not choose to be ten thousand miles from grandparents, to be touched and poked and stared at, to bond their hearts to homes that could evaporate into inaccessibility at the whim of politics, to forgo swimming lessons and summer camps and ice cream cones and libraries and a lot of what is considered normal American childhood.  Oh, some of them will need teachers soon . . . contact us!

Heart-to-heart conversations: daily, sometimes hourly, the core of what draws us on trips like this. What a privilege to listen to the stories, to pray, to sometimes give a reality check, to sometimes just give a testimony of empathy.  Yes, life is hard. Yes, God sees. From the struggles of kids to the discouragements of ministry to the bewilderments of language and culture and laws, we try to hear and process and lift up these saints.

 

Hospitals: 2 this trip, Kijabe and Litein. We purposed to thank the administration for their welcoming partnerships, their grace-filled help for our people.  And we tried to work on clarity, job expectations, MOU's, future planning, ideas, vision. 

New ministries: 1 Serge Apprenticeship with 5 Apprentices started in Nairobi in January. These young adults spend a day a week in a structured study of Scripture and discipleship, are mentored in cross-cultural relationship, study a new language, and get their hands and hearts right into the fray. We also have 5 SA's/interns in Bundi doing a parallel program.  It's a great way to test the waters and grow in grace.

Languages: 5, though we only attempted 3 . . and continually confused them.  

Amazing coffee stops: not as many as one might wish . . . but we did squeeze in some Cafe Javas (Uganda) and Java House (Kenya) with more mobile office time . . 

Photography gigs: 1 night, Banquet at RVA, the purported instigator of this entire trip.  Our Serger teens at RVA happened to be on the committee responsible for photography for their big Junior-Senior formal night, and way back before we heard the call to fill in the gap in Uganda we agreed to help them as photographers which would have been a quick jaunt from Naivasha.  So glad we could still come, because everything else in this trip was equally compelling and valuable . . and the BQ night was a treat to witness. Beauty and the Beast themed dinner theatre for a couple hundred people DIY . . no problem. Note Michael Masso's fountain in the background.

Emotional reunions with former pets: 2, though that's a bit of a stretch, we only kept Pili for others for a short time. But Chardonnay nearly made me cry. You can't really go home again, we know it, everything changes.  At least the dogs remain faithful.

Regrets: TNTC, which is medical short-hand for a lot ("too-numerous-to-count").  Honestly, after 25 years, we have a lot of cross cultural relationships that are longer lasting than the teams we supervise, so it is a sorrow to breeze through a place we used to live and only connect with a few people briefly. It makes them feel undervalued and makes us feel the gap. Should we have tried harder to set up a party, a meal, an open house, a meeting point? Probably. Can we be thankful for the glimpses of continuity we DID get? Yes. Perhaps the highlight of the week was Tanya, daughter of a Kenyan paediatrician friend, running out to jump into my arms for a hug when I knocked on their door, and then the next day just stopping by to chat with me after school, all on her own.  I felt loved. Below, Bob and Lilian who welcomed me to Kijabe over 8 years ago and have remained colleagues and friends.

Miles to go before we sleep: approximately 400 km (miles in poetry, km in reality). We drove Bundibugyo to Fort Portal to Kampala to Entebbe, flew to Nairobi, drove around Nairobi then to Kijabe, then to Litein, then back to Kijabe back to Nairobi. Flew back to Entebbe for our car this a.m and are now headed west back to Bundibugyo.

Along the road, your path may wander . . but through it all, a heart held humble, levels and lights the way.  Thanks Dan Fogelberg for the life soundtrack.

OH UGANDA, MAY GOD UPHOLD THEE . . .

One month back in the heavy lush greenery of Uganda, and this anthem which we sang so often frequently runs through my head.

We love this land. The most formative years of our family life were lived in this land. We risked our lives for this land. We have deep roots in the people we left behind here.  So it is hard to see not only the spectacular potential but also the heartache. I think in the last 8 years in Kenya, it was easy to feel like it was pretty similar. Sure, a decade down the development highway, but basically comparable. Then I found myself explaining the last month to a Kenyan colleague on the phone yesterday and . . .well, there are no interns or medical officers of any kind on the wards, actually most days nurses are alone. There are few drugs. Marc is working on oxygen tanks because there is rarely enough power to run an oxygen concentrator, and there won't be enough for incubators. There are not really hospital records other than plain lined paper books. There are no vital signs taken. There is no documentation most of the time of medications given. The health center 4 where we worked most of our time has persevered with good maternity services thanks to the faithful nurses we invested in . . but the rest of the care has fallen from "one of the best in the country" to a level of dingy sad mediocrity as the supervision fell to a doctor who seems mostly interested in procedures he can charge extra for. Private clinics have sprung up like weeds and the medicine meant for the poor is rumored to be divided amongst them. Patients shrugged off their lack of an injection or lab test as understandable since they could not afford to bribe action. The inertia is palpable. We have also been told so many stories of deception, of conflicts over money or land, that our heads are spinning about who to believe or how to function without believing anyone too fully. The team sank thousands of dollars into a new transformer to solve electricity problems that has become a year-long saga of one excuse after another for failed results.

Then the bright spots shine through, our friend the medical superintendent with integrity and passion and a sense of responsibility that must be giving him ulcers, carrying on in Dr. Jonah's footsteps with wisdom and sacrifice. The young men who tell us that even though we can't always be around, they are our "seeds" and want to carry on what we did. The student we interviewed who said she came to CSB feeling hopeless and sad after losing her parents and being left with her grandmother, but then chapel after chapel, service after service, she kept hearing that God saw her, loved her, valued her, and she started to believe it. So much so that she has excelled her way through with a vision to counsel others. A fair-trade cocoa business making a chocolate bar sourced from Bundibugyo. Girls playing the drums in church.

O Uganda, we laid our future in your hands in 1993, and we still stand with you longing for better.

Tomorrow we will fly back to Kenya for a week. The Lubwisi and Swahili are waging a war in my head and on my tongue already, so I'm bracing for a setback. We look forward to a 20-degrees-cooler elevation and to not feeling quite so foreign. A long time ago we became sojourners, strangers and pilgrims, people of divided loyalties. Now I'm realizing that alien heartache subdivides and fractures even further, not just North America vs. Africa, but each home we have loved, and even each team we pray for and support intermittently. 

Here we go.

First stop was Fort Portal, ran into Pat immediately, headed to get coffee at Andrew's Gardens and of course a former CSB teacher passed by to chat.  The beauty of Uganda is that we find people we know so easily.

Our Fort Portal team, Jenna and Pat, discipling young women and creating beautiful handmade fabric-based items to give them an income and hope for supporting their families.

Isaiah and Ivan are two Kule Leadership Students, medicine and nursing, with huge hearts for God and others, and great skills in their final stages of training.  They met us for dinner as we arrived in Kampala on our way to Kenya.

This was our favorite restaurant, back in the day, Indian food . . . and of course one of the waiters remembered us.

Even at the mall in Kampala, the guy doing the security check says "Dr. Scott??!!?" Turns out he was a church leader from Bundibugyo back in the day, and asked about our kids by name, so of course we had to show him their pictures . . .

Abounding with Abundance, Everything that Creeps: Life, Youth, and Calling

Those phrases are from Genesis 1 and nowhere more apparent than the tropical rainforest that is Bundibugyo. When I was growing up in the 70;s, terrariums were popular, and I remember making mine in a glass jar, a mini-ecosystem with moisture and green mosses and transplants from the woods. Now with live in one. Stifling humidity gathers in a haze for days into a pounding downpour, grasses taller than our heads, vines thicker than arms, splashes of color in wildly thorny bougainvillea, ares of cocoa trees. Whirring insects and trilling birds, swooping bats, bleating goats, and all manner of lizards from geckos to massive blue-headed reptiles, tiny ants in the shower and huge biting ants in the yard. Walls and screens are a porous line between indoor and outdoor, easily traversed by all manner of life.  Likewise skin, as insects feed and burrow. Any low point of ground becomes a soup of more life. What would be a puddle in in most places is a cacophonous croaking amphibian habitat here.

And human life in all its messy glory abounds as well, giggling toddlers and self-assured packs of young boys, teens in school uniforms and mothers with basins on their heads, farmers carrying machetes and young women lingering behind roughly made tables piled with tomatoes and matoke and cabbages for sale.

Eden literally means paradise, and Uganda has as good a claim as any to being the steaming fertile incubator of life.

The median age in Africa is 18, compared to 37 in the USA.  In Uganda that is even lower, 15 years, the second youngest country in the world (that means HALF the population is younger than 15 years old . . and we have seen that population more than double in our 25 years on the ground). This is a young continent. I routinely meet women who have 8, 10, more children; plus families care for orphaned nieces and nephews, or grandchildren, or neighbors. Progeny are the most precious goal of life here. All the world over, when survival improves, child spacing and planning for a family's education and future follows suit, and things even out a bit But right now, this generation is booming.

If you are sitting in one of the red/orange countries above, you might think of priorities differently than if you are sitting in a green one.  WE NEED PEOPLE COMMITTED TO THE YOUTH. Teachers, youth pastors, coaches.  Health care workers.  More teachers. School administrators. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, counselors. This generation holds potential, and if people of God, people with kindness and maturity and selflessness and skill do not pay attention to them, unscrupulous people will. The green countries are also recruitment grounds for rebel movements. My former neighbor became a rebel soldier as a youth, trained in Khartoum, took advantage of an amnesty to return to Uganda then became a gun dealer selling to gangs of thieves, and is now in jail. His brother, instead, went to CSB and is now an accountant doing solid honest work. Both were influenced by adults who took interest in their lives, one to exploit and one to empower. Another neighbor girl who grew up with our daughter has now been recruited by one of over 140 firms operating in Uganda to export workers to the Middle East, to countries with abundant oil revenue who want cheap labor in their homes. It's a fine line between jobs and human trafficking. We are torn between being worried for her safety and empathizing with her spirit of courage and adventure.

This is a map where Africa shines. Green is usually the "good" on maps, and red is usually "danger".  Will God's people the world over see this youthful abundance as blessing and opportunity? As strength? As a call for sacrificial investment?

We have a dozen important things that we could use help with here in the valley of biological exuberance. Contact us here to get some ideas!

Friday wrap up: A few photos of the week . . .

We were invited for lunch yesterday to celebrate with old friends Bamparana and Donatina.  Days are full with work, correspondence, calls, mentoring, budgets, meetings . . and then moving about in the community or receiving visitors as we renew friendships.

A rare moment of work intersection, with Dr. Marc and the nutrititon team of Bahati, Jessie, and Alisha, on the Paeds ward.

One of our jobs this week: raising money to replace ALL the wooden dorm bunks with metal beds, for fire safety and improved hygiene. Our supporters already replaced half the beds before school started, and we have had funds come in this week for 20 of the remaining 75 beds. Donate here if you want to help us! (Type in any amount but it's $100/double bunk, and type "beds" in the dedication)

One of our Kule Leadership Scholars, Dr. Kisembo Peter, came with his mother and brother to express thanks for his graduation from medical school (complete with a live rooster and bags of rice!). He's now an intern. His father died in our Bundibugyo Ebola epidemic 11 years ago.

We had a 3-day visit from the LaRochelle family as they returned to DRC. Praying for their wisdom and safety as they continue their work, even as the Ebola epidemic just over our border percolates on.

Mary teaching mothers and children about nutrition at Nyahuka Health Center.

This baby's mother died, but after a week on our inpatient nutrition service the grandmother is re-lactating!

A young family very dear to us, Ndyezika was in the inaugural CSB class and later married Juliet, who taught there for many years.

Scott and CSB staff on an hour-long radio talk show, complete with call-ins and questions! They were promoting the school to boost enrollment.

Sorting the haphazard stack of files on the Paeds ward and weighing every patient . . the ward gets more full every time I go.

A quick visit to our friend Melen's Alpha Kindergarten, some of the 200 tiny people in those classrooms spilling out.

With John and his mothers, feeling thankful.