Soul-sapping injustice and injury, what is our hope?

 Yesterday's Psalm was 23, which we've all read to many times we tune out. But I dutifully did read it through and the phrase that struck me was "he restores my soul." Not the most obvious image of a shepherd. Grass and water to meet our needs,  straight paths to safety, even a staff to pull us from wandering, all make sense with the image. But soul restoration gets at the deep weariness of wilderness. 

Our souls have been sapped this July. We knew that bringing the Area together for a retreat would meet resistance on some level, though probably never expected the venue to cancel, the country chosen for being our most stable to become our most fragile, several families in health or trauma crisis. God met us and we are deeply grateful. But that probably didn't set us up for returning as nearly the lone workers left in a remote place full of its own sorrows. And frankly, who would have guessed that the BANK would be the hardest part of the week?

Bringing justice in the form of water, nutrition, education, medical care, translation, truth, love, costs. It actually costs money as well as time and energy. 30+ years ago we had to do all our banking and administrative tasks in the capital, and we couldn't even drive there in a single day, so a lot HAS improved. (Does anyone remember photos of us counting out cash whose highest denomination was worth less than a dollar, to pay for buildings and salaries? Or our risk traveling on the nearly impassable mountain roads plagued by bandits? We are thankful that banks now exist out here.).  But one of the hidden costs of still living on the margins is that systems jump ahead aspirationally without capacity to meet their own requirements.  People assigned to less desirable posts are often trying to follow rules they have almost no understanding of, and tasks that should be straightforward can eat up hours, days, weeks. Though we're a mission with a long history and track record, we find ourselves having to jump through hoops designed to root out criminal intent and negligence. Long story short, the bank froze our accounts for Christ School and BundiNutrition with zero warning this week, and presented us (piece by piece) with two lists of 26 steps required to reopen them, mostly forms obtained from Kampala, signed by people in Bundibugyo, returned to Kampala for the sole "certifying" authority to put their stamp on, then returned to the bank branch in Bundibugyo. That's still 7 to 8 hours drive each way. 

We have spent hours daily this week searching old files, meeting people, downloading forms, sitting at the bank manager's desk. It's Saturday afternoon, and we have 12 of the 26 requirements done, our CSB accountant  is now fully involved, plus some help from a MAF administrator, and advice from former team. We were able to keep the nutrition program running this week and next on the repayment this month of money stolen last year. But if the bank decides NOT to let us access all the donor funds and parent tuition fees we've banked, then staff payroll on the 30th of July could be late for the first time in the school's history. Which feels very soul-sapping. 

As soon as we returned from the retreat, the soul-sapping of real people with real problems met us too, accidents and illnesses, sorrows and losses. The bank inefficiency and arbitrary unwritten policies are painful, but even worse are the non-bank local money-lenders. A friend had borrowed the equivalent of about $200 a year ago, and with the compounding interest he owed closer to a thousand less than a year later, with threats of jail. Injustice hurts real people, and we understand the Jesus who crashed those tables over in the temple courtyard.

One of the lines from our retreat that sticks with me is the "open wound of hope".  (Thanks Doug McKelvey). We have enough hopeful imagination to look ahead, to know that the muck of injustice is wrong. But that makes living with the current world hard. I had a surgeon in my prayer group, and I told him this open wound of hope can't be stitched up with fine plastic-surgery-sutures, cleanly quickly closed and forgotten. Instead it's a wound that has to be healed by "secondary intention", cleaned and packed with gauze, then the bandage ripped off to cause a little bleeding down to healthy tissue that slowly fills in. Lament is the name of that scrub. Acknowledging the suffering, calling out that it is wrong. Sticking with the care over months not minutes. Celebrating the beauty of a shiny lumpy scar tissue, like Jesus did on his hands and feet and side. 

This is how our soul is restored too. Psalm 119 prays "expand my heart". Not by a neat stitch, but by stretching and a serging of the frayed edges that result. Refilling the soul with hope.

visiting sick friends in the hospital, an "overflow" area we built many years ago for NHC still in good use!

Some days we need the trucks to preach

And most days we need to life our eyes to the hills and remember our help will come, even if the clouds obscure the view.