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.
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 . . .
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.
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.
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.
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.
? 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.
Stick with us for more stories of providence!
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
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!
1 comment:
LOL, all that and all I can think is "I LOVE MY AEROPRESS TOO!" :D I have been praying for CSB, specifically for less contention and conflict.
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