On Taking Heart

 The anchor of our days here: early morning runs in the cool dark, followed by coffee and Bible reading and prayer as the kingfisher trills and the weaver birds start their ruckus. In early Matthew, Jesus says "cheer up" multiple times, to desperate people seeking healing. And our Serge founder Jack Miller was fond of repeating it, usually in the context of yes, you're a mess and so is the world, but that's not the end of the story. Cheer up, there is a force of grace so powerful that no evil can withstand it. Sometimes I try to re-read the passage in Lubwisi, and found that what my NKJV translates as "cheer up" the Lubwisi calls "ogume mutima." Mutima is heart, and Ogume is a command to grow strong, from the same word that describes the development of a child over time as transformation, tallness, muscle, wisdom. It does not sound trite at all in Lubwisi, it sounds like a call to a battle. Take heart. Summon your courage. Strengthen your soul.

Take heart, a needed word this week.

COVID infections in Uganda are spreading like wildfire, as the delta variant lit the blaze with only 1% of the country vaccinated. Every day we hear of deaths of famous people, established leaders, senior doctors. And of other health care workers on the front lines. Last night we lost our first worker at Bundibugyo Hospital, a man on the cleaning staff. Once again the marginalised pay the price. As we share dinner in a small group with a team mate, she gets a text that two friends have tested positive. Even though most people will recover well, as we have learned over and over these last 18 months, even 1% mortality feels tragic when it is 1% of a very large population based number. In our district alone, that could be 2-3 thousand people. I don't think it will be that high, we are 50% children here, and the older people may be staying home, and Ugandans are excellent with public health. We have sunshine and breeze and we live outside the walls of buildings. We also have hope.

Still, in the morning meeting, we learn of a 2 year old who died within a short time of admission the night before, with pneumonia. Which could be baseline for a district with considerable under-five mortality, or could be another harbinger of COVID worsening to come. Meanwhile this is a place with holoendemic malaria. With extreme rates of sickle cell anaemia. A place where the top killers: prematurity, neonatal sepsis, birth asphyxia, pneumonia, diarrhea, and malnutrition, show up every day, sometimes every hour. So COVID notwithstanding, the hospital is still busy with the normal patients and the normal problems. Someone stole a lightbulb and now the outpatient waiting area is dark at night. The scale batteries for weighing newborns have finally been fully drained. A misdiagnosis nearly ends the fertility of a 25 year old heading into theatre for a hysterectomy, but thankfully Scott's ultrasound shows she's bleeding from a miscarriage not fibroids. We sort through three new sets of premature twins in small, medium and large (and by large, we mean 4 pounds . . ). The smallest one is 890 grams, less than two pounds, cradled in a power outage for warmth by a surprisingly engaged dad, which gives us hope. There are calculations and fluids, negotiating longer stays, warning a mother with a child whose bone is infected that he will need weeks of antibiotics. There is teaching our interns, greeting and thanking the nurses, pulling in our nutrition team, reminding everyone of the importance of vital signs. The usual. 

So what give us heart? 

Daily rhythms, which in a crisis do become anchored life lines. God told us how to stay human and healthy, and when we listen it helps.

An intentional search for the themes of beauty and grace. Noticing that even on a morning of grief, how awesome is it that our new pharmacist chose to preach from Luke 8 instead of giving a talk on malaria meds? Seeing what we have done taken up by others. Or just noticing the brightness of Jupiter setting. 

Community. Commonality. The moments when we can work in harmony with common purpose. With each other, our team, our colleagues and partners. The nurse that pulls out Dr. Marc's protocol and suggests a new antibiotic on a baby in pain. The intern that patiently jiggles the pulse oximeter until it reads, or counts breaths. The team mate that is working on clean water or teaching children, that sense of being part of something bigger, something God is doing through many. The friend that brings spinach from Fort Portal. The ever present reminders that we lean on the great cloud of witnesses who pray, who give, who care.

And lastly, remembering purpose. Today I read a reminder that we are not sent because we are anything special, quite the contrary, we are ordinary. God is extraordinary. So God plucks a few unlikely sorts and pushes us into a sojourn of discomfort in order to highlight that we are all loved. That this story has a good ending, eventually, in resurrection. That the road right now that feels dark and uphill . . . will broaden onto ways scenic and smooth. We are called to live as if that were true, by doing things that only make sense if it is. So be it.

As usual, we need to preach this to ourselves. Ogume mutima. Take heart.