The Greatest Gift I Ever Received

'Tis the season of Christmas once more.  And I have been conspicuously absent from writing for a long while now.  What can I say?   Sometimes life just gets in the way.  And right now penning these thoughts is getting in the way of a whole lotta' other stuff.  Like wrapping and card writing!  Not to mention the whole stack of cards that I need to read which I have put aside till I can actually sit down and enjoy opening them!

As I have been out the past several days doing the "conspicuous consumption" thing that drives our economy at this time of year, I have been thinking about gifts.  This year I did things a bit differently.  Instead of giving a lot of "stuff" I gave donations in honor of loved ones to good causes.  We gave gifts to a food bank. To World Vision.  Amnesty International.  A scholarship fund.  A church in Kenya.  An eclectic collection of charities to be sure, but all equally valid and important.  A mix of sacred and secular causes....

These are all great gifts, and yet I am still struck by the fact that none of them represents what I consider to be even close to the greatest gift I ever received.  And that made me wonder something.  If I asked people this question, what kind of answers might I receive?  I  have spent quite a bit of time musing about this today as I dashed around from Point A to Point B searching for last minute items. 

For myself, I don't have to even struggle to come up with the answer to this question.  I wonder if everyone can say the same?  I think about the many wonderful gifts I have been blessed with over the course of my lifetime  Loving parents.  A stable family growing up.  A good and loving husband. Healthy children.  A stable career field and gainful employment over the past 28 years.  A lovely home.  Financial security. Ridiculously vibrant health.  Amazing friendships.  A passion for music. What a bounty of blessings!  Anyone would be lucky to have one or two of these things, let alone a list this long.  These are all precious things and I am grateful for all of them.  But none of them is the greatest gift I ever received.  No, that is something else all together different....

The greatest gift I ever received was a direct intervention in my life by the Hand of God which showed me unequivocally that our God is a God who saves.  He is a God who intervenes.  He is a God who sees our need and responds.  He is a relational God.  He knows His children by name and He wants them to hear His voice and respond to His love, His mercy, His leading, and His guidance.   He is a God who orchestrates circumstances, events, "coincidences"  in our lives to grab us and get our attention.  I am certain looking back that He was jumping up and down trying to get me to see Him for many years and I was just going along blithely not paying much attention.  Until one day when I was brought to a screeching halt by life events that knocked the wind out of my sails.  Then, suddenly, I realized that I was alone in the dark in my little sailboat without any emergency equipment.  This was a scary place.  Fortunately, God had not forgotten me and He was about to send a really impressive rescue swimmer with a sturdy boat and a great big search light.  This would end up being the best, the very best gift, He would ever give me: the gift of Life and an interpreter to help me see Him at work in my life in ways that had previously escaped my notice somehow.....

It seems strange to me now from the vantage point of the current summit on which I am resting for a moment, that there was a time in my life when I could not see God nearly so clearly as I do now.   I have used this example before.  If you have never smelled the scent of a rose, then you don't know what a rose smells like.  You may recognize a pleasant smell, but you can't identify it as coming from the rose.  Thus it is with God.  At least for some people, and this was certainly the case with me.  I just was not in tune with His Spirit.  This takes some training,  Some discipline.  Some study.  Some practice with discernment - and a skilled teacher to help you see things that you might otherwise miss.

Now that my own spirit has been tuned and honed, I am like a receiver that picks up signals all the time!  It is amazing, fascinating, intensely gratifiyng to walk this way in His Spirit.  The things I can now see, sense, know somehow, guide my daily course. They enable me to go where He sends me, say what He tells me,  pray what He leads me to pray and with whom.  These are the best days.  When I know we are in tune.  And when the tuner gets out of whack, it is surely a sign that there is something in me that needs to be straightened out. Some kind of sin that needs to be confessed and dealt with.  Because you see, I now know the difference:  a life lived on my own, by my own wits and skill, and a life lived in daily dependence upon His.  There is no comparison, and  I would not go back for anything.

So this is my greatest gift ever.  The gift of knowing God's presence. The ability to identify Him so readily in my day to day life. Being able to recognize the sound of His voice. And the friendship within which I was taught these powerful lessons. Amazing, amazing grace, indeed.....


"It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!"  The best gifts usually do!

So what's your greatest gift ever? Shalom!

Will the Real Saul Please Stand Up?

I really have a few thousand other things to be doing right now.  I am neglecting a huge stack of stuff to be sitting here in front of this computer.  And yet I just can't seem to resist the pull to comment on something I have just read.  It's a book. A short one at that. I read it today in just over an  hour.  It was put into my hands with the admonishment that  I should read it.  That it would answer a lot of my questions.  Has it ever.  Its a jaw dropping, eye brow raising, make you gasp out loud commentary on the pain, injustice, and heartache we often receive at the hands of other believers.  This little book is called "A Tale of Three Kings" by Gene Edwards.

This book is for anyone who has ever lived thru conflict in a church or with other believers.  In other words, it's for nearly everyone.  The three kings referred to in the title are Saul, David, and Absalom.  Two are bad examples of servants of the Lord.  The third, David, though a flawed vessel, was as we know "a man after God's own heart".  There is a whole lot to learn from understanding the ways God worked thru the lives of all three of these men that teaches us much about where we can still find ourselves over a few millinea later.  Who knew?

The Sauls in our lives are the tyrannical leaders and others we encounter as we try to follow The Way.  They claim the right to throw spears.  They tell us over and over that they have this right for whatever reason they deem appropriate. Often times they cite the greater good, the higher calling, stamping out sin, the ends justifying the means, etc.  Saul did this.  He hunted David down like a dog.  He claimed the right to do this as King.  Was he not God's anointed one after all?  He was indeed.  He saw David as a threat that had to be dealt with.   We often encounter similar threats.  Maybe no one is hunting us down to actually kill us, but fellow believers often kill our hearts and spirits in a thousand other ways.  Social isolation.  Slander. Gossip. Tearing down our reputation. Withholding resources.  Disapproval.  The cold shoulder. Dividing and conquering. Creating haves and have nots.  Threatening tones. Sometimes even worse and more direct things.  How do we react? Typically we pick up the spears and throw them back. Is this what we are supposed to do?  Is this what God desires? Is division ever justified? That's where the book gets interesting......

The most important question that this book answered for me is the proverbial "Why?"  Why would God have allowed David to be nearly crushed by Saul before delivering him?  Why does He do the same thing today?  Why does He let those who love Him, who seek Him, to languish in toxic places and broken relationships? Why do we find ourselves living in kingdoms run by lots of Sauls?  According to this book, because God can't use an unbroken, unsubmissive vessel.  And there is lots of biblical precedent to back this up.  Joseph.  David. Jesus. Paul,  just to name  a few.  All were broken before they could be God's chosen instruments. Since God is constant and never changing, the same yesterday as He is today, why would we expect His ways to be any different in 2011?  They aren't.

What God wants from us as we face the Sauls in our lives, is to kill off our own inner Sauls.  This quote perhaps, the pinnacle of the book " As long as you look at your king you will blame him and him alone for your present hell.  Be careful, for God has His eyes fastened sharply on another King Saul.  Not the visible one standing up there throwing spears at you. No, God is looking at another King Saul.  One just as bad or worse- God is looking at the King Saul in you."  He goes on to say that yes, it is true that David was nearly destroyed during the process of being refined by the Refiner's fire, but this had to be.  Otherwise the Saul in him would have survived.  And while we may not like this, and the majority of us won't stand for it, it is necessary and the desire of God to break us so that He can use us. He simply must kill off the Saul in each of us if He is to use us for his kingdom. Now that's a tough lesson.  But is does explain a whole lot.  At least it does to me........

So- what do we do?  What is the solution?  How do we survive the King Sauls in our lives?  We sing songs of praise.  We sit tight.  We forebear patiently.  We dodge the spears.  We do not pick them up or throw them back.  We learn humility.  We trust God.  We wait for Him to move. We trust that He has not forsaken us.  In essence, we let him crush us.  Knowing that like a rose petal, when it is crushed, the true fragrance is released.  And we remember- that while David lived to a ripe old age and remained the beloved of God, Saul and Absalom each met rather unfortunate ends.  Those who "live by the sword shall die by the sword". Or to quote my favorite biblical scholar "Plan A:  Be Christlike.  Plan B:  There is no Plan B".   Shalom!

(For the whole story which is much better than any synopsis I could write, read of A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards)

Learning Strength Through Adversity

Wow! It's been ages since I have written anything. I did actually write a final
wrap up post of my Africa journey, but in one of those inexplicable iPad glitches, the entire thing disappeared into cyberspace before I could post it. Discouraged, I just couldn't find the energy to write it all again.

Since that time I have kept very much in touch with our African friends. In particular, thru the marvels of modern technology, I have been able to become good friends via Facebook with Pastor Walter one of our brethren from Kenya. Things have been bad these past few months in Kenya. With the drought, the refugee situation, and rampant inflation his little church has been taxed to the breaking point. Because we have been able to communicate so easily I have been able to keep up with things there. It became evident to me at some point that they needed some help. So, it seemed time to take the bull by the horns and get busy finding some help for his feeding center. Through the generosity of many from my church we were able to send emergency funds in both August and September. In the meantime I have been busy persuing other resources for this church. I believe that God is blessing these efforts though I struggle to wade thru some of the red tape currently.

Having good intentions and jumping in to help is an interesting exercise in patience and forebearance. What seems like a simple idea and a really great cause has ended up being way more complicated than I ever imagined. This can be discouraging at times, but I tell myself that like all new ventures, there are bound to be stumbling blocks along the way. This is normal,right? After all, what we know about God is that He loves to call the ill-equipped to do the next to impossible. So I keep stumbling along. Praying for guidance. Picking myself up after each fall. Pressing onward..

This seems to be a recurrent theme in my life at the moment. Not just with regard to helping my friends in Kenya but in other areas of my life as well. This chaos has been largely what has kept me so occupied and away from doing much of what I love to do. The last two months have been difficult ones. Sometimes things get thrown at us that we never see coming. Communication becomes difficult. Misunderstandings result. Relationships break down. Sometimes they are recoverable. Sometimes they are not. I have experienced some of each
recently.

It is sad and painful when we can't manage to work through our differences with a brother or sister. I think it is especially painful when this happens in a setting where we expect love, understanding, and forgiveness to triumph. In cases of conflict what is needed is enough fortitude to keep working on things until there is some kind of successful resolution. Sadly, what often happens instead is people become wounded. They throw in the towel. They prefer clinging to the absolute conviction of their "rightness" to achieving peaceful resolution of the problem. Being justified and right becomes more valued than the relationship and the people involved. The final insult is the blame game. People on the periphery choose sides. Let the name calling begin.......

I see this pattern occuring at so many levels around me. I see it happen within families. I have seen it happen within a small group setting that is important in my life. I see it happening in our nation as we approach another election cycle. It makes me wonder why we can't do better. Why we can't be better. Why we can't be more understanding of one and
other. It makes me wonder why we just don't give a damn so often about the feelings of other people.

These are questions I have no answers to. What I have learned, however, is that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger in the end. It is often our missteps and failures that become our greatest teachers. Strength thru adversity. It's not an easy way to grow in grace. But I do believe that it is one of the ways God shapes us as His people. Shalom!

Perspectives on Two Kinds of Poverty

Every time I think I am nearing the end of my Stories from Uganda I find that I have more to say. Imagine that! Then I begin to wonder whatever will I write about ever again?!? Now there's a real quandary. Something tells me I'll figure that out....



I still need to write about the day we went back to the prison and pulled teeth for half a day. I mean, how many people can stand up in a room and say " I once worked with a team that spent a day at a Ugandan prison pulling teeth"? There's a real conversation starter.....

But the thing that keeps circling around in my mind is the meaning of poverty. I mean this seems self explanatory, right? We all know what poverty is, what it looks like. However, the thought that I can't escape is that our definition is so very one dimensional. When we think of poverty we think of the lack of material things. And this is certainly one kind of poverty. But there is another kind of poverty as well. There is poverty of the spirit. In Africa we were confronted with both types of poverty. One was the absolute reality day in and day out of our Ugandan friends. The other type of poverty is primarily the domain of those of us from this country and the rest of what we call the western, modern, affluent world. And that is spiritual poverty.


The problem of material poverty is certainly devastating. It is inescapable in Uganda outside of a few affluent neighborhoods in Kampala where the president and some other high placed government officials live. Everywhere you turn there is want and lack. Lack of decent roads. Lack of sewage and waste disposal. Lack of running water. Lack of reliable electricity. Lack of food. Lack of clothing, shelter, medical accessibility. Everything is dirty, broken down, crowded, inadequate by our western standards. And this is the way 95% of the world lives. Think about that for a minute. Only 5% of the world lives as we do. The rest lives like the people of Uganda. Unfathomable.....


Yet, in spite of this, the people we met were spiritually wealthy. Uganda is a majority Christian nation, just as the US is (for the moment anyway). And those we lived among in Uganda were all Christians. But they differed from us in that they were overflowing with the Fruits of The Spirit. Galatians 5:22 describes these fruits or gifts of The Spirit as being "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control". This is by and large what we experienced from being around our African friends. They possessed all of these gifts in abundance. I read this quote recently which explains it really well. "In a place where people have absolutely nothing, God becomes everything.". This is largely born out by statistics and world wide religious trends as well. In the developing world, Christianity is exploding, while here and in affluent western Europe it is atrophying and losing its relevance and influence within society. I would say that in reference to the quote above that the reverse is also true. In a place where people have everything, God becomes essentially nothing. This is a generalization of course, and there are always exceptions, but by and large, overall, what I see in America is people of anemic faith. We are the " lukewarm" that Jesus refers to in Revelation. We are the consumers of Bonhoffer's " cheap grace". We want all of The Grace of God without any of The Cross of His Son. We are this way about everything. Not only our faith, but everything else in life here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We want all the benefits of.....( fill in the blank), but nobody wants to pay for it, or sacrifice for it. We are largely spiritually bankrupt in so many ways. Materially rich, spiritually impoverished. If this sounds negative, well that's just the way I see it. To quote my favorite Jane Austen character, Elizabeth Bennett- "I must speak as I find". Lizzy was often busted for her "pert opinions" and I suspect I will be as well. And like Lizzy, I probably won't back down either.....


The good news is that it's not hopeless. Confronting a difficult and painful reality enables you to begin taking steps to alter it. What I have come to realize is the poverty has devastating effects on the spirit. Whether its the material kind or the spiritual kind. And the solution is to become awakened in Christ. This is what solves both of these problems. Because once we are alive in Him we won't settle for the status quo. We will refuse to live in a world where 95% of our brothers and sisters want for the most basic necessities of life. This will no longer be okay with us. We will begin to look at the world thru the eyes of God instead of our own- and His vision is always 20/20. As He begins to occupy more and more of our hearts, the Fruits of the Spirit will begin to spill over into every aspect of our lives, which is surely a good thing for each of us and the greater world around us. It really is true that what the world needs now is love sweet love. I would add this caveat- what the world needs now is Divine Love sweet love, for this is the only thing that enables us to truly love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the remedy for both kinds of poverty...... Shalom!

Comprehending the Incomprehensible

One of the interesting things about having the Kenyans and Ugandans encamped with us was the many opportunities for fellowship and getting to know each other. We pretty much ate, slept, worked with, worshipped with, these young people and their leaders for the entire week. And we talked. A lot. Mostly about our lives in our respective countries. We learned about their lives in Kenya and Uganda. They learned about our lives in the US. For both groups, a sense of the surreal was certainly apparent in conversation after conversation.



For example, I remember talking to a couple of the men from Kenya about how Americans feel about animals. Dogs and cats specifically. In Africa cats are only for eating rodents and dogs are kept just for protection. And neither are ever allowed in the house. Which strikes me as kind of funny since they can't track dirt into a house that already has a dirt floor.....? I thought of my completely pampered, spoiled 4 legged children at home. My golden retriever who wouldn't be caught dead outside unless someone was throwing a tennis ball for her and my cats who lounge the day away nestled in down comforters on our beds. They are certainly a far cry from the scrawny, starving canines and felines I saw over there. The conversation took a really bizarre turn as I tried, one evening, to describe a Pets'mart store to them:


"A store - just for dogs and cats?"
"Well, yes, primarily".
"And what do they sell?"
"Oh- lots of stuff. Special food. Clothing. Beds. Toys. Health aides. Fancy cat condos and dog houses. Special treats, and that's just a few of the things..."
"Dogs need clothing?".
"Uh, yes, apparently in our overly affluent, consumer driven society, a dog 'needs' clothes. Or at least Madison Avenue has managed to convince us that they do!"
"What is Madison Avenue?"
"Well, that would be people who make obscene amounts of money in advertising which is what drives consumers in the US to buy ridiculous things that they don't need. Like sweaters and rain boots for dogs, and miracle creams for wrinkles"


It sounded amazingly stupid even as I heard myself say it. But no more stupid than the fact that I wasn't making this stuff up, which if you could have seen John's and Simon's faces you would have been able to tell they thought I was pulling their legs! I assured them that Pets'marts are in virtually every city of any size in the US. All they could do was shake their heads and cluck their tongues.....


Another one of our campfire discussions centered around the question " What do you dream of?". One of the leaders of the Kenyan youths, a young married man named Reuben with a family volunteered that his dream is that one day he would not have to wake up and have his first thought be "How am I going to feed my family today?". To him, the best thing imaginable would be not to worry that his children would go to bed hungry that night. Seriously- when is the last time you heard anyone, ANYONE in your circle of friends and acquaintances express a similar dream for their life? What do we typically hear people in this country say they dream of? Winning the lottery maybe? Losing 30 pounds? Taking a long vacation to Europe? Owning a beach house? Being able to be rid of a spouse they can't stand? These are a few I have heard expressed by various people I know. I think about this a lot now. About how simple the dreams are for those living in poverty. A house with a floor that doesn't turn to mud during the rainy season. Enough food to feed the family. To be able to send the children to school. To be able to see a doctor or dentist when needed. Such simple, basic, reasonable things. It doesn't seem like too much to ask does it?


Or how about this one? Simon walks with a peg leg limp on one side. He can't bend one of his knees properly to allow him to walk with a normal gait. I noticed a very large scar across his knee. I knew that he had been in a pretty serious work related accident. Judging from the scar, I thought he had probably had open knee surgery for a blown out ACL ligament. As we were walking down a dusty road one day on our way to the work site I asked him about his surgery. He said he had surgery for a torn meniscus. Really? I asked again. Not a ruptured ACL? No- he reiterated again- it was a torn meniscus. This is a surgery we do in my work center hundreds of times each year. It is an outpatient procedure. 2 tiny little incisions, done in less than an hour, recovered and home about an hour later. Simon spent a long time in the hospital. He had to learn how to walk again. He was in his 40's when he had the accident. I just can't imagine this. Permanent disability from a minor knee injury. In this country this would never have happened, and if it had, he would have had treatment to fix the damage or been awarded a lot of money in a malpractice suit if that wasn't possible. TIA, however, and Simon just painstakingly limps his way wherever he goes. Without complaining, I might add. Just happy he can walk at all......

One more story of the incomprehensible.  This one was told to me by one of the SLAM girls.  One of the families I have previously written about, George and Margaret, once had 5 children.  Their 2 oldest now live and work in Kampala.  There are two boys still at home, Moses and Enoch.  Moses is 15 yrs old, and Enoch is 11 or 12.  There was one younger child- a 9 yr old boy named Joseph- until he died last summer.  Joseph got sick with a cold virus and was taken to a clinic.  It was determined that he was anemic (probably a suppressed immune response to the "cold").  He was given a blood transfusion. It was the wrong blood type and he died.  Imagine.  Your child develops a cold.  You take him to a clinic.  You are released with his body.  This is Africa........

So yes- there is a great cultural divide.  On one side there are people who dream of feeding their families, and medical treatments that don't kill their children or permanently damage their bodies, and just being able to struggle a wee bit less.  And on the other, there are people from a country with unimaginable wealth who spend more money on their pets in a year than it would take to send a half dozen Ugandan kids to school.  Who own enormous houses but desire a second one in a vacation area.  Who complain bitterly every time the cost of gas goes up a few pennies, or the unemployment rate nudges up a fraction.  It is very difficult to comprehend the concerns and desires of both of these groups, is it not?  Hang in there with me.  Try comprehending the incomprehensible.  Think about it.  That's all I ask.  More importantly, I think it is what God asks of us......Shalom!

At Play in the Kingdom

I have a thousand other things to do.  I really do.  Stuff is piling up.  Deadlines have passed (I have missed a few!) I should be working on the CEU's I need to earn to complete my nursing licence renewal by the end of this month.  Instead all I do is write.  And write. And write.  I can't seem to stop writing about Africa and all the lessons I learned there. All the soul changing, life altering, conclusion bending, paradigm shifting lessons I learned as a result of less than 2 weeks spent living among "the least of these". 

Near the end of our stay in Bombo, we hosted a carnival of sorts out in an open field between several elementary schools.  By this time, the kids were used to us showing up around 4:30 pm to play games with them every day.  Literally hundreds of kids would come after school to play with us.  In a place where there is little entertainment and daily life involves a constant struggle just to survive, any diversion is a welcome one.  23 "Mzungus" wandering around your village qualifies!  So the children came.  With huge smiles.  With shy expressions.  With their hands extended to take ours.  Some, to run away if we got too close to them.  But mostly they came with the curiosity of children.  Often when we would walk thru the village as we did every day, the children would run to the edge of the road and stand there staring at us. Some were eager, bright, smiling and waving.  Others were tentative and uncertain.  But what I found was that when I made eye contact with them and smiled and greeted them in Luganda, "Oli otya?" (how are you?), they immediately broke into huge smiles and would yell back "Gendi!"  Which means "I'm fine!".  All apprehension seemed to vanish with a smile and a greeting.  These children were eager to engage with us.

So we had packed many, many bags with things for this carnival.  We had bubbles and face paint.  Nail polish and soccer balls.  Frisbees and jump ropes. Silly bracelets and craft projects. One thing we hadn't banked on was that all the kids would have shaved heads.  Even the girls.  So all the hair bows and clips and ornaments weren't gonna work.  We didn't see that one coming!  As we tried to set up areas where we could begin each activity it was clear that we were out of our league here.  This was the only time I saw kids really behaving like kids the whole time we were there.  They were always so orderly.  But imagine what would happened in your neighborhood if a team of folks showed up and stood in the streets giving away Ipads to every kid who walked by.  Bingo!  Now you understand what the carnival was like!  This is a place where toys don't exist.  I never saw a child playing with anything but another child or some sticks or rocks the whole time we were there.  And the kids are out and about en mass.  They are everywhere.  Its not like at home where you drive thru a neighborhood and never see a soul.  In Bombo the streets were teeming with people all the time.  And most of those people were children!  So to show up with actual toys and be able to distribute them produced ...well.....chaos!

I decided that I would paint fingernails.  What I figured was some of the little girls would want to do this.  I had a couple of helpers.  Soon I was surrounded by hundreds of little black hands thrust forward into my lap as I patiently painted one at a time.  As many boys came forward to have their nails painted as girls, which threw me!  And the other thing that they just could not comprehend was that you had to let the polish dry.  So I had lots of repeat customers.  Some kids had so many "do overs" that their fingernails were multiple colors and in various stages of wiped off or nearly wiped off.  Note to self:  painting nails is not something that translates easily across cultures!

But more than the actual nail painting or the toys or the games what I realized is that the thing these kids needed and wanted the most was just some contact, some attention, some notice from us.  Families are large in Africa.  Life is impossibly hard.  It is a daily struggle to feed your children and pay their school fees.  Parents work from sun up to well past sun down.  Every task requires enormous effort.  Hauling water.  Setting a fire to cook over.  Picking the food or finding a way to purchase it at the market.  Preparing the food.  Washing the dishes.  Washing laundry by hand. Hanging it out to dry.  Cleaning the house.  Working in the garden.  Walking everywhere.  Nursing the babies.  The sheer weight of the tasks that must be done daily to survive doesn't leave a parent much time to devote to just being with their children.  They are deeply loved.  They just don't receive the kind of attention kids get here because the entire fabric of family life collectively is devoted to survival.  I sensed this need to be noticed and recognized from the children.  Sometimes a child would just walk into the street and take my hand.  They would just walk with us for a time.  Some of the older children wanted to practice their English.  The younger ones seemed to just want to have some contact with us.  Sometimes they would follow us all the way to our encampment hoping for food.  The saddest thing of all for some of the teens on our team was the realization that these children go hungry every day while we throw away enough food to feed their entire family.  That is a fairly sobering reality for a 15 yr old to face......

So when it is all said and done, one of my fondest memories of Africa will be the beauty of the people there- especially the children.  Their curiosity.  Their eager smiles.  Their bright little faces.  The hopeful expressions they wore.  These were materially very poor children.  But their spirits were vibrant.  Alive.  They all have hopes and dreams.  To look into the face of such a child is to see Christ.  There is such truth to what He said "As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me".  These beautiful children stole my heart.  I hope they now have stolen a piece of yours as well.....Shalom!

And the First Shall Be Last......

I was telling one of my friends recently that one of the things that happened to me during my time in Uganda was that certain passages of scripture suddenly became so real, so utterly clear to me. It's like you can hear the same things over and over again to the point that they lose meaning for you. At my church recently, The Lord's Prayer was removed from our order of worship. Instead, week by week, our pastors have been deconstructing the prayer line by line and preaching about the meaning of each one. Soon, the prayer will be added back into our worship services and I hope that it will have new meaning for each of us as we recite it together.



This same effect in essence occurred within me on this trip. I understood- REALLY understood for the first time, certain key passages of scripture and what they mean as a result of being immersed in a different sort of world. I now have a much deeper understanding of wealth. Also, what it means to be poor. Why Jesus had so much to say about the haves and the have nots. And I have a new found sense of conviction of just how very difficult it is to possess material wealth and not be a slave to two masters.


I was reading a book last year about this time by one of my favorite Christian writers, Francis Chan. If you read my blog often, you have seen this name before. Chan is a young, charismatic pastor from the west coast who has written several best sellers. People have labeled him an evangelical, which I don't like because that has lots of negative connotations in our society. What I do like about Chan is his gentle spirit. The fact that he shares openly his own struggles of faith. The way that he has so much difficulty with " the Church" and organized religion as a whole. Yep- he's my kind of guy. One of the things Chan writes about is how drawn he feels to the Third World. But not because he feels the need to go " fix" everything that is wrong there- rather, he is drawn to this world because of the vibrant faith of the people. He writes about the difference between how people feel and act toward God in places like Uganda versus here in this country. When you read his description of this, you can sense how heavy his heart is with how pale and anemic he finds the love of his fellow Americans to be for the God that they profess faith in. I thought about this when I read it and remembered back to my previous trips to Mexico. The simple, heartfelt expressions of worship I had seen there. The complete dependency on God which marked their daily existence. I could relate to what Chan was writing about.


Even with this previous experience to draw upon, I was still unprepared for how hard some lessons would hit home as a result of my time in Africa. The story of The Rich Young Ruler (Matthew Ch 19) became so alive, so meaningful to me on so many levels. We have all heard this story over and over. It contains the famous "camel fitting through the eye of the needle" passage. We had studied this passage in my Bible Study class not long before my trip. What I knew about this story was that it was the rich young ruler's attachment to his wealth that Jesus was able to see. He was able to see that this attachment was a barrier within him to a more meaningful relationship with the Father, which is why in love, Jesus asks him to forsake his wealth in this world for greater riches in the next by giving it all away and following Him. And we know the outcome- the rich young ruler walks away sad. As I lived and worked in Uganda and was surrounded by the difficulties of just daily existence in such a place I began to question myself "what if Jesus called me to give up my home, my family, my clean prosperous life (complete with actual plumbing!) and pack it all up and move here to serve Him. Could I do that?". I thought about the SLAM people who were doing that very thing. I admire them deeply for their commitment to their faith, the way they will live that out as they plant themselves in this community and live side by side with the Ugandan people sharing in their poverty. Could I do such a thing? In all honesty, I think that like the rich young ruler I would walk away sad too. For the first time ever, I felt sympathy for him and his dilemma. And the sobering look I had to take at myself has lead me to understand that I am not nearly as good a person, nor disciple of Christ as I thought myself to be. So there's that to chew on. Still struggling with that one......


The other thing that I came to understand so very clearly is what Jesus said at the close of Matthew Ch 19: " But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first". This became crystal clear to me and explains so much that we don't seem to be able to comprehend about poverty. Yes - if you just view poverty from the perspective of this lifetime it seems horribly unfair that this is the condition into which many are born. But Jesus said "the poor shall be with you always". And God has a special love and consideration for these among His children. His word speaks over and over of our responsibility to them. It is, in many ways, our care of them by which God transforms us and conforms us more into the image of his Son, which is His ultimate goal. Jesus, at the close of Matthew Ch 19, is speaking of how everything will be different in the eternal kingdom. This is where I will lose my non believing friends. Sorry! This won't make any sense to you if you do not believe in eternal life. But to those of you out there reading who profess to believe in Christ, this is critical for you to understand. In this age, we are the first. Us. The wealthy, powerful, influential, materially rich, the well fed, the health insured, the people with jobs, a bank account, cars in the driveway, roofs over our heads, plumbing, electricity and trash pick up. Yes you. And me. We are the rich- just like the rich young ruler. We are the first. At least for now.....


As I lived among our African friends I saw those who are the last, the least among us in this world. I saw their great faith. I witnessed how they woke up in the morning singing African songs of praise, rousing us out of our tents, exhorting us to get up and begin worshipping the Lord. I saw their devotion to The Word. I heard them express over and over the goodness, the greatness of God. I heard them thanking Him repeatedly for His many blessings. I heard them express their steadfast hope in Him. Their prayers for a better tomorrow. Their absolute faith and trust in His provision. I saw them end the day as they had begun it - worshipping our God. And I understood that these would be the first in the eternal kingdom. And rightly so.....


My teacher always says that this life makes little sense unless you view it in the light of eternity. What he means by this is that as Christians, we profess that we believe that this life is but a moment. In the words of one of my favorite bands, Casting Crowns, "I am a flower quickly fading/ here today and gone tomorrow/ a vapor in the wind". If we believe that this life is but a moment, and the next one lasts for.....well......all eternity, then why would we not be willing to do that which Jesus calls us to do in this life for His sake? Considering the retirement plan He is offering, is it not worth some sacrifice in this life?


My final thought here is this. In the middle of Matthew Ch 19, one of the disciples looks as Jesus in astonishment and asks "Who then can be saved?". To which Jesus responds "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible". It's not that the wealthy are refused entrance into the eternal kingdom. But what Jesus understood is that the barriers which are created as a result of great wealth make it much harder for us to place our trust in Him. We are insulated in a sense. We can rely on our jobs. On our 401k plans. On our excellent health insurance plans. On our paid up mortgages. These things are not bad in and of themselves. Only in so far as we feel that they are more important than trust and reliance on Him. And this was a huge difference that I saw, that Chan sees, among our brethren living in the developing world. Without these things to rely upon, they truly do live each day by faith. They are absolutely reliant upon God for each and every blessing that they receive. There are far fewer barriers for them to overcome to reach the nearness of God. It is so much harder for those of us living in affluence. Not impossible. Just much harder. Jesus speaks eloquently to this fact of life.  He wants us to see it, hear it, understand it.  It is critically important that we do....


It sort of makes you wonder who the blessed really are....those who live in affluence or those living in poverty?  Sorry to blow holes in your "Prosperity Theology" Mr. Robertson (of the 700 Club fame). I guess it all boils down to your perspective- the earthly one or the eternal one? Food for thought......... Shalom!

A God Appointed Conversation

Have you ever had the experience of walking away from a conversation knowing that THAT was no accident? Have you ever been on the receiving end of a conversation, a phone call, a message of some sort, and you just knew that what was just said was from " God's lips to your ears" ? I love it when that happens. I have a friend who says there is no such thing as as "coincidences" but only "godincidences". I believe this to be true......I believe that God speaks to us in a myriad of ways. He speaks to us through His word. He speaks us to through music. He speaks to us through His creation. He speaks to us in prayer. And he speaks to us through our fellow human beings. Late one night around a dying camp fire in Uganda, I am certain I experienced a God appointed conversation with a young man from Kenya.



The fact is, I should never have been there. As I have said, chronic exhaustion was pretty much the norm for this trip. The SLAM people seemed to have a philosophy that life is too short to waste any of it sleeping! They pretty much kept us on the go from 0600 till after 11pm every night. And to top it off, I had lots of trouble sleeping. I think I'm probably too old for sleeping on the ground anymore. I just never could get comfortable in that sleeping bag on the hard packed earth. I tossed and turned a whole lot. So, generally speaking, I tried to turn in as early as I could- knowing that the odds were long that I'd get any rest at all. This particuar evening, I decided a different approach was in order. I thought maybe I would just stay up until I was falling down exhausted and then turn in, hoping that the exhaustion would work for me instead of against me. I decided to sit up by the camp fire and write in my journal.


As always, the Africans were up late, sitting around the fire, and talking. They too were from the school of philosophy that humans need little sleep! As I was writing, the young man sitting next to me struck up a conversation. As I indicated, he was from Kenya. His name was Naman.


Naman began sharing some of his life story with me. He is the last from his family. In January of this year, his only remaining sibling, the eldest brother named David, died tragically, suddenly, unexpectedly. David was 53 years old. He simply fell ill and died. Naman does not know why.

David was the classic case of the eldest child from a family made good. He lived and worked in South Africa as a director and trainer for legal services. An educated man, David held a PhD. He had been planning his retirement and his move back to Kenya for many years. At age 55, he would have been able to do this and then work full time for his foundation, which was his passion.


David, was a man of God. He worked tirelessly for the people of his village. He used to tell Naman that too many Africans were concerned about improving their houses. Until one has built a house for God, he said, there is no need to worry about your own! David built God a house in his village. Naman has promised to send me pictures of the church his brother established in Kenya.


David wanted to help his younger brother. He had seen to his education. Naman wants to go to seminary. David had promised to send him. He was to start this September. In the meantime, he was back and forth to Kenya from South Africa tending to his foundation which looks after the welfare of over 180 widows and orphans in their village. Then suddenly, his life ended. An unfinished life from our perspective, perhaps. But David's work and his dream go on.


For Naman, life has changed. His plans for seminary are shelved. He is now responsible for his brother's widow, really his only remaining relative now- and the responsibility for all those widows and orphans? Now resting on his 26 yr old shoulders.....


He said to me "I don't know how, but I know that God will provide. This much I know. I want to tell the stories of the children. I want to see if I can arrange sponsorships for them so that they can go to school.". I told him of the child in Uganda that I sponsor. He was very attentive and interested. He gave me his brother's business card and asked if he might contact me thru email after the trip. I said of course. We exchanged contact information. I told him that my church was a big place and that I have many friends in the US with whom I would share his story. I told him that God does indeed provide, and that help would surely come to him because of his obedience in taking over his brother's work. Because care of the widow and the orphan is God's highest calling, God will bless the work of his hands. He is already doing so.....


I believe that God nudged me in my exhaustion to sit up late that night. I stayed up past 1 am talking with Naman.  It is the only night I didn't turn in shortly after our final evening meeting. As he was speaking of his work with the widows and orphans I had the thought "this is why God put me around the campfire this evening. He wants me to hear this story. He wants me to be moved by it. He is arranging help for Naman". This is the way God works. He has every piece of the puzzle and He knows exactly how they fit together and are interrelated. He brings them together in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It is my hope that I will hear from Naman soon. God arranged for a woman from a distant land to be sitting in a field in Uganda next to a dying campfire to hear a story from a young man from Kenya. Two people who had not a snowball's chance in hell of ever meeting, but for the grace of God. I recognize the hand of God in this. I am anxious to see what the next step will be..... PS: that night was the first decent night's sleep I had had in 6 days! Shalom!

An Education

As promised, I said I would be writing about the education system in Uganda and here it is! Visiting schools is something we did a good bit of. We visited some public schools and a private one, St Mary's. I bet we saw close to a thousand school kids during the week we were there. There are SO many children in Uganda. It is really something that strikes you almost immediately. The population there is quite young. 50% of the population is under 14 years of age. The average life expectancy is 51 years. Retirement is at age 55. Uganda is full of mostly people who are a lot younger than we are in the US. Here at home only 27% of our population is under the age of 20. And we have nearly 13% over the age of 65. So the demographics of our two countries are quite strikingly different. As is most everything else, in case you haven't noticed that already......



The fact that there are so many children perhaps in some way explains the conditions in the schools. They are just not equipped in any way to handle the number of kids who need to be educated. Consider the teacher to student ratio in the US. Once the numbers get much above 25 per classroom at the elementary level, big red flags begin to go up. Parents become very concerned. Class ratios and concern over them lead many parents to choose private schools or to home school. In Uganda the ratio of students to teacher is around 70 -80 per teacher. No- that is not a typo. You read that correctly. 70-80 students per teacher. How do they do that you are wondering? Well, there are a couple of things that they have going for them that teachers at home do not.....

First of all, African children are taught to fear and respect adults. There is a very definite belief in the proverb "spare the rod, spoil the child". Teachers have the authority to beat students with a stick if need be. They do it regularly. No one bats an eye lash. Consequently, the kids are well mannered and well behaved. They fear the rod. So they think twice about acting up. We saw children being beaten in the streets by adults. There is no social services to come around and threaten parents. They have full authority over their children and no one questions it. You might think this is terrible. But if you could see the difference between how these children behave compared with children here at home, you might begin to think differently about it. I may not like the idea of children being beaten, but I can tell you I certainly can see the positive effects of it. There is absolutely no denying that children there are more polite, better behaved, more respectful than children in this country. Of course there is more than one reason for this, but a healthy fear and respect for authority is certainly a part of the equation.


This for example. We walked into a class room of 3 and 4 yr old children. 70 or so of them. They were all seated on long narrow benches. Maybe 8-10 per bench. The room was very small and dark. There is no electricity in the schools. There were no books. No computers. No pens, pencils, crayons. No educational toys. All they had was a blackboard and some chalk. These children sat quietly. No one said a word. There was no touching. No bothering each other. No one fidgeting. No one getting up to run around. In short- no evidence of ADHD anywhere to be seen! If someone wanted to speak a hand was raised. The teacher had absolute control over all these children. Is there a preschool anywhere in the US that would look anything like this? Oh, I think NOT! I remember drop off days at preschool. It was like Bedlam!


As I spoke to in my previous post, school attendance is a big deal. Being able to go, that is. Every child wants to go to school but many can't because their parents can't find the fees for various things. Public school is free in Uganda. Sort of.....kids are allowed to attend to a point. But then parents are contacted for the fees they owe, and if they can't pay, the kids can't come back. This results in many breaks in the child's education process. And this is why they are much older when they finish up the equivalent of high school here in the US. It is not unusual for a 20 yr old to just be graduating from what we would call high school.


My family sponsors a 14 yr old girl in a village in Uganda somewhere. Her name is Deborah. We support her with a monthly stipend which pays for her school fees, uniforms, supplies, and any extras that she needs. She writes to me often in English. She never fails to thank us for paying for her school fees. Just this simple thing takes so much pressure off of her family. Kids in Bombo where we were staying know about these type of sponsorship arrangements. If they approached us and asked for anything at all, they asked us to sponsor them to go to school. Such a small thing to desire. And something so easy for us to do. For less than the cost of a dinner out each month, we can make a huge difference in the life of a child in the developing world. There are several good organizations thru which you can do this. One of the things I want to do at the end of my journal sharing is to offer suggestions for ways in which people can get involved in helping to make things easier in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the third world who have so much less in the way of material things than we do.


The time that we spent visiting schools in Bombo is one of my fondest memories of the trip. At one elementary school we gathered outside under a large mahogany tree with at least 200 children. We sang worship songs, shared some inspirational messages, visited their class rooms, and played games. At another we gathered in a large auditorium with about 400 high school aged students. We were teaching the teens a Third Day Song entitled " Sweet, Sweet Song". It's a simple song to sing. The chorus is "You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song. You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song. You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song. And I will sing again...". At first they just listened. Then Rachel invited them to sing with us, and 400 beautiful African faces smiled broadly and broke into song. It was one of those total "God present with us" moments. In that room was the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was amazing. Powerful. Holy. I will never hear that song again and not go right back to that moment in Uganda. I will carry that memory in my heart till the day I die. As I will the beauty of all the children we met during our brief time their country. Children with dreams.  Children who long for a better life.  Children loved by a Holy God who wonders how long before His people answer His call to care for the orphan, the widow, those less fortunate?  I have heard skeptics say that God should get off His butt and take care of these people if He loves them so much.  To which I say- that is the job He has left to us until He comes again and all things are restored.  How long will that be?  Until The Gospel has reached the ends of the earth. Help spread it.  Love a child who is not your own.  Care for one.  Provide for one.  We can't fix all the ills of this world.  But we can be like the Star Fish Thrower.  We can make a difference to one.  Shalom!

Parenting Paradigms and Family Values

Just for fun, before beginning this post, I did a google search for "family values". It's amazing all the stuff that comes up. Everything from propaganda by political organizations (both left and right leaning- each has an amusingly different take on what the phrase means) to a bunch of psychobabble from different psychological organizations and publications. It seems everyone wants to weigh in on "family values". Each group seems anxious to own it. To define it. But what does it really mean? We could argue long and hard over this, but what I am really interested in talking about is the way in which American values differ so vastly from African values. Mainly in that they actually HAVE some and live them out......



We talk a lot in this country about how we value the family. Our politicians blather on and on about it seemingly endlessly. That is, when they aren't trying to destroy each other over debt ceilings and the like. What I see in this country is little thought or care at all for families or by families for their own collective good. Or for the collective good of the community. What community?  Here it is largely every nuclear family for themselves. And this is the opposite of what I saw in Uganda.


In our society, what I see nearly daily, is that most families bow down at the altar of The Almighty Child. I see families who practically worship their children. From what I have read, this trend began the the 60's with the advent of such writers as Dr Spock. I see lots of parents who believe their kids can do no wrong.  Who carefully orchestrate their every waking moment. Who agonize over every possible "trauma" which might befall them and then go to great lengths to ensure that these things never happen. Kids are rescued from every potential failure. Failure is not an option- Johnny might feel bad and suffer a loss of self esteem. Unthinkable! Parents go into debt buying things they can't afford so that their kids won't feel bad about not having what their peers have. They neglect their own retirement needs so that their kids can attend a $40k per year private university when a public one would do just as well. Children in our society are taught practically from the moment of their birth that they are the most important person in the room, and certainly on equal footing with any adult. They are also taught that their needs, wants, desires, supersede those of all others at all times. I could go on and on. Don't believe me?  Talk to a few teachers!  I once witnessed a woman take 40 minutes to dress a 4 yr old after minor surgery. Because every time she tried to put the child's clothing on the little girl would begin screaming and whining. So the mom would stop, coddle her, tell her how they didn't need to do this right now. That they could wait. That they could stay here all day till she felt like putting her clothes on. That she (the child) was in charge today!  I can tell you had that been one of my boys those clothes would have been on in 30 seconds and we would have been out the door. Cry all you want. Crying is not a fatal illness!  I sometimes feel like shouting this at work on a daily basis!  Like school teachers- I see a lot of parenting issues going on all around me through my work environment. And frankly- I don't know how on earth they are able to put up with most American parents. To every teacher out there who might read this- you have my complete sympathy!!


I think most Americans we are totally unaware of any potential problems with parenting paradigm I have just spoken of.  It is so pervasive that we think of it as normal. No one questions it.  In fact - we believe that all other ways of parenting are wrong.  But it wasn't always this way in America.  And it is not this way in other parts of the world in 2011.  There was a time in this country when children were "seen and not heard". There was a time when they were just one member of a typically larger family unit that probably included some gradparents.  When their needs were on par with everyone else's needs within the family as a whole. They didn't live on a pedestal. There was a time when their job was to contribute to the general welfare of the family unit. To function in it as a cog within the larger wheel- instead of as the engine which drives every single decision, often to the detriment of other family members.  Those days, sadly, are largely gone in this country. Africa, however, is a different story.


Our society is all about The Individual. We live and die by the iconic philosophy of "The Rugged Individualist". This is as American as red, white, and blue, and mom's apple pie! African society is all about the collective welfare of all. This is true of each family unit as well as the village. Families live and die- very literally- by attending to their welfare as a whole. A child in Africa understands that his or her place is in submission to the adults in the community. They honor their parents and their elders. Parents are so very valued by African children. On a continent overwhelmed with orphans due to HIV/Aids, those who still have at least one parent consider themselves to be very fortunate. I met two orphaned boys in Africa - one a 15 yr old boy named Sam, the other an 18 yr old boy named Henry. Their parents have long been dead. They died when these boys were very young- so young that neither boy can have much memory of them. Yet, when each spoke to me about having no parents, a dark cloud passed over each of their faces and their eyes bore a distant pain. By the end of the week they were both calling me "Mum". Parents are seen as a great advantage in Africa. When was the last time your kids thought of you as any kind of asset in their lives? I could rest my case right here but I won't.........


School is a great privilege in Africa. Every child wants to go. Many cannot due to a lack of ability on the part of their parents to come up with the necessary fees. School is technically "free" and public and private schools both exist. But kids need uniforms. They need porridge money (lunch fee). Books must be purchased. Just to keep starvation at bay an African needs to earn around $2.00 per day. In Uganda and Kenya you can earn around $ 1.50 for 12 hours of work. If you can find it. Remember- the unemployment rate is around 80%. So you do the math. Where's a family to come up with school fees? I was curious about how much it costs to send a Ugandan child to school. For an entire school year it costs about $200. That's 55 cents per day. Nothing to us. But you can see that it's a sizable chunk of your budget if you live on less than $2.00 per day. Again- think about your kids and their attitude about school. Do they see it as a great privilege to attend? Or do they mostly whine and complain about every single thing associated with it?


I don't want to digress too much here because I intend to write a whole post about schools later. My purpose here is to contrast the stark differences I saw between the way in which we view family in the west, versus the way they do in the developing world. Families there depend upon each other and upon God for their very survival. As such, they recognize the great importance of the collective good. They function as a unit. Individual desires are set aside. Children there don't dream dreams for themselves. They dream dreams for their family! So many children told me of their dreams of going to school and making something of themselves in order to raise up their family into a better life. This is in fact, exactly what they do. If one child manages somehow to escape to the city and land a job, they immediately take on the role of provider to the family. They begin to send money home for school fees for all the remaining younger siblings. The one who becomes successful becomes the provider for all. One night when we were playing a game called " cultural hot seat" one of the Ugandan youths in our group, an 18 yr old named Billy, was asked what his dream was for his life. This is what he said. "I dream of making my parents the proudest of me". Billy wants to graduate and go to university -so that he can help his family. Not so that he can party. Not so that he can drink himself into a coma every weekend. Not in order to chase chicks. Not to get away from home and the oppressive rules of his parents, but to make something of himself so that he can take care of his family. Again- I could rest my case here but I have one more story to tell.


One night during our adult leader's huddle, one of our young Ugandan friends shyly approached us and asked if he might speak with us. His name was Moses. He is the son of George and Margaret, whose house we were working to enlarge by creating a foundation for 3 new rooms. Moses stood there in the dark at nearly 11pm so that he could thank us profusely for making his parents so happy. He thanked God over and over for us. He expressed again and again how wonderful God is for sending us to his country to help his family. He just wanted us to know how thankful to God he was that we were making his parents so very happy. When he walked away to begin his mile long trek home in the pitch black African night, I was just shaking with emotion. I was doubled over in tears. It took a long time for me to stop weeping. I wasn't alone. There wasn't a dry eye in our group.


So there you have it. Family values. American style versus African style. You be the judge. Draw your own conclusions. For me, they win- hands down. Shalom!

Confronting the Superiority Complex

One of the most interesting and eye opening things I learned in Africa were the many differences between our culture and that of other societies. To which you are probably thinking "Duh. Everyone knows that". But bear with me here. I contend that as Americans we give little thought to the culture of others. And that is because we automatically dismiss everyone out of hand as inferior to us. Before you get all up in arms with me for saying this, just think about something for a minute. As a nation we are taught that we are the best. That we are what everyone in the world aspires to be. That we are the greatest nation on the planet. Because we are thus taught, and most of us buy into these beliefs, we automatically think that our culture and values are superior. It's not a conscious thought, perhaps, but because we are such an ethnocentric nation, deep down, we think our values are just better than those of every other culture. The proof is the fact that everything is just so darn good here! I believe that those in the developing world aspire to America's level of prosperity and advancement. But they do not aspire to much else about our country. And what I would say to you is "rightly so". Allow me to elaborate......



At some point during one of our cultural sharing exchanges somebody asked our African friends (I think it might have been one of the SLAM leaders) if they thought that the Americans believe themselves to be better than them. Nearly every hand went up in agreement. I was shocked. Here we were- living in tents, working hard side by side with them, immersed in their culture, and yet we are still perceived as thinking of ourselves as superior somehow. My initial reaction was one of hurt feelings, and yet as I thought about it, I had to admit that they were mostly right. Deep down, we do think that we deserve better things, a better life, because as Americans, that is what we are used to. I thought of my own attitude towards the Cho. Disgusting. Gross. Just the worst thing ever. And yet, this is what everyone in Africa uses daily. They deal with it. Why was I having so much trouble? And don't think they don't know how we feel about it either. One day as we were walking thru the village a local yelled out at our group "How do you like the Cho?". It was a taunt. They know that we look down on them for this. I still hate the lack of decent plumbing in Africa. But what I hate even more is that in myself which makes me feel like I somehow deserve something better because of the accident of where I was born. Beware, dear friends, of going on mission trips and asking God to open the eyes of your heart. He will indeed do so. And you won't like some of what you see. Mostly about yourself and beliefs that you didn't even know you harbored.


I once read something someone wrote about how easy it is for Americans and Europeans to just dismiss all the repeated tragedies on the continent of Africa. The endless cycle of war, genocide, famine, drought, hunger, insurrection, terrorism, massive numbers dying from HIV/AIDS and the resultant orphaned children crisis. It is so common, so endless, so repetitive, that there is a temptation to just tune it all out and say "Well- that's Africa for you. Nothing ever changes there. What else can you expect from such uneducated people?". The same writer suggested that this would not be nearly so easy to do were it not for the fact that these were all brown skinned people enduring these hardships. If they were white, he contended, our attitude would be a whole lot different. He went on to say that the lives of blacks around the world are less valued than those of non-blacks. That there is less of a premium on them. That they are less valuable. I remember that I recoiled from these words when I read them. I thought "This guy is a jerk. That's not true.". Sadly, I think about those words now and can see that though it is painful to admit, they are in fact, true. Deep down, we in The West do value these lives less. The proof is the very fact that we turn away from their suffering and go back to watching "Jersey Shore" or "Dancing with the Stars". We'd rather distract ourselves into numbness. Consume our way out of any momentary pangs of conscience we might feel. We flip the channel quickly when we see the images of skeletal children with swarming flies around their faces. We are more comfortable looking at all those glittery gems on QVC than those sunken eyes staring out from nearly lifeless faces......


Discomfort is God's way of nudging us. My teacher/mentor has taught me that when I feel really uncomfortable, when I feel restless, when I feel unsettled about the struggles of this life, that this is God's hand moving across the waters of my soul. It's a signal to pay attention. That this is the place where He wants to meet me and remake me, remold me, reform me. If I have written anything here that unsettles you then I say "Good!". Pay attention. See what God wants to speak into that place where you feel uneasy. I have come to embrace feeling uncomfortable much of the time about the world we live in. I now understand it to be the nearness of God. I know that His work in me to "break my heart for the things that break His" is evidence of His great love for me. It is evidence of His great love for each of us..........Shalom!

Let the Work Projects Begin!

One of the purposes for our trip to Uganda was to build two houses. We were supposed to begin construction on two homes for some Kenyan missionaries who are part of the SLAM leadership program. Well- TIA. Apparently the land that SLAM had purchased is now tied up in the Ugandan court system. There are squatters on it, and the issue of the squatters must first be resolved before any building can take place. Yeah. Good luck with that. I am certain there will be no hurry to resolve that, and many palms will have to be greased before resolution occurs. Everything governmental in Uganda, like most African nations, is horribly corrupt.


So- Plan B. Visiting prisons. Visiting schools. Organizing a carnival for the children. And working on improvements in housing for some Ugandan friends/partners of SLAM. SLAM has a partnership with several local families in Bombo town. The way they operate is this. Slam has a presence in both Kenya and Uganda. They are currently training teams of people thru their parent organization G.O.D (Global Outreach Development) to become full-time missionaries in Bombo. Several of these young people- Christina, Josh, Jordan, Kendace, Liz, Canan, are all training and preparing to move to Uganda eventually. They were currently in the country for 3 months learning their roles, meeting the people, learning their way around. Currently two SLAM families are living much of the year in Bombo. Adam is the leader of the team.


G.O.D's philosophy is one of biblical teaching first and foremost. They are there to spread the Word of God. Beyond this, they believe in equal partnerships with the Ugandan people. They live like the people there live. Their homes are in a modest compound that has in the center a courtyard that is always strung with laundry on a line. They do have a water catchment system and showers. But their bathrooms are cho's. They live with sporadic electricity like the rest of the people in Bombo. They shop at the local market and eat local food. Their vision is one of equal partnership across the board. They believe that imperialism and paternalism have caused most of the misery on the continent of Africa. They do not believe in throwing money at problems, nor in handouts. They don't want to be seen as the Great White Rescuers. Instead, they seek to educate. To empower. To give a hand up. To teach biblical principals for living. The story we were told about how SLAM came to be in Bombo is that Pastor Tom, a local pastor, had been praying for a long time for someone to come and help him spread the Word of God. Greg, the founder of G.O.D felt drawn to Uganda but had no contacts there. He nevertheless got a team put together and flew over, not knowing where he would end up, but trusting God to lead the way. God guided him to Bombo and to Pastor Tom's church. When he arrived Pastor Tom asked him " Are you the ones God has sent?" And yes, indeed, they were! That was many years ago, and the partnership has been in existance ever since.


SLAM partners with several local men who serve as Bible teachers and mentors to the local youth in Bombo. These men- George, Peter, Francis, Lawrence work closely with their American counterparts. And as such, the Americans are working with them to make practical improvements to their lives, and to those of their families. Improvements to their homes. Improvements to their sanitation. Improvements to their ability to catch and contain fresh water when the rainy season comes. Helping to fund school fees for children. Teaching them improved techniques of gardening and farming. Teaching them how to keep themselves and their children healthy. These are just a few of the practical ways that God uses His people to spread hope and joy in the world.


Our teams were assigned work for three of these families. Lawrence and Josephine would receive improvements to their existing home. Francis and Annette would receive a vastly improved and much expanded garden so that they could grow enough food to feed their family of 5. George and Margaret would have their existing home enlarged and expanded. We dug and built the foundation for 3 new rooms to follow. These were our work assignments.


On Monday I was assigned with a team to work on Lawrence's house. It needed gutters, because when it rained, water was coming into one of the rooms. We laid gravel and sand pathways all around the house so that during the rainy season the outside of his home would no longer be a mud field. We finished up work on his Eco-toilet- a vast improvement to the Cho. Sewage and sanitation is a huge problem in the third world. Water is always a problem. Consider the frequent droughts in East Africa. Bill Gates and German engineers are currently researching and developing a waterless toilet for the developing world. The Eco- toilet that the SLAM folks had built at Lawrence's house is something we put the finishing touches on. This new and improved toilet is still in an out building. It has 2 stalls if you will. For one year you use only one side of the system. After one year, you switch and begin using the other side. The waste products drop into a pit about maybe 10 feet deep that is filled with straw, etc. After each solid waste, ash and wood chips are dropped into the pit. Heat from the hot African sun beats down thru the steel covered doors over the pit. After 2 years, the waste is considered fully " composted" and the pit is cleaned out. The composted material is safe to use around trees and bushes, but not around food plants for consumption. The beauty of the Eco- toilet is that it does not contaminate the ground water source. A Cho is dug 40 feet into the earth. Every family has a Cho. All that run off from human waste seeps into the village water source- the community pump. So all these people filling their Jerry cans with water are filling them with contaminated water. They have to haul it home and boil it before consumption. And if not, children and babies will die, typically of severe diarrhea. Death in infancy from water borne pathogens causing diarrhea is a leading cause of death in the developing world. And it is preventable. Hurray for the Eco-toilet!


We were quite the sight at our work site. We attracted quite a crowd. A bunch of mzungus getting sweaty, dirty, hauling rock, shoveling dirt, etc. The Africans don't get this. To them Americans are all the like people on MTV "Cribs". They think we live in mansions with swimming pools lined with gold. They believe that once a person has status, wealth, that one hires a laborer to do anything physical or manual. They don't get why we would leave our country, come to Bombo, and do this kind of work. This is not how wealthy people act. This is not how white tourists act. Sorry- we weren't tourists! We were a perplexing puzzle to them. Still- they all smiled and said how nice it was that we were making Lawrence's home so beautiful. One watching woman expressed how she wished we could make her home better too. We wished for this as well.


After working for 6 hours, we knocked off and walked over to a village common area- a big dirt and grass field between multiple primary school buildings. By 4 pm school would be out and there would be hundreds of kids to play with. This became our routine. Work all day. Play with school kids from 4- 6:30 pm. Walk 2 miles or so back to camp followed by hordes of children. Grab a 5 minute bucket shower. Prepare for dinner. Eat. Do dishes for 70 people. Gather at the campfire. Sing worship songs. Share The Word. Play games or have small group discussions. Have a team meeting. Have an adult team members meeting. It's now pushing 11pm or later. You have 2 choices. Try to crawl onto your tent and sleep. Or hang out at the fire pit with the Kenyans and the Ugandans talking till all hours. I swear the Africans never sleep. They stay up half the night. They then rise at 6 am beating their drums and singing praise songs. We were regularly awoken by our African brethren yelling at us at 6 am to "Get up! Do not enjoy your sleep! It's time to worship the Lord!". Thus begins and ends another day in Africa........ Shalom!

Culture Shock

At this point in the story I want to pause and talk a bit about the emotional impact of the trip.  So far  I have given detailed descriptions of our activities and surroundings, but I have talked little about the emotional climate of the group.  There is a lot going on beneath the surface in the human heart that we seldom see.  But given enough time, enough stress, enough feelings of being overwhelmed, and things just begin to bubble to the surface.  Its a bit like watching water begin topping a dam.....

Remember the composition of this group.  Fifteen high school and college age kids and 8 adults- only two of whom have raised kids thru the teen years.  For some of these kids it was their first time on a plane.  For others is was their first time out of the US.  For others it was their first time to a third world country.  For me- it was the first international mission trip that I have ever been on under primative conditions (ie camping, no running water, no electricity, no hot showers, no flushing toilets, etc).  There was a lot to adapt to!  By Sunday night after our long day at church, we returned to our hotel, collected our belongings, and took a ride out to the SLAM camp to begin the process of pitching our tents in the rapidly approaching darkness.  Thank goodness for some of our boyscout lads!  They got those tents up in no time!  Our tent assignments were made and after evening Bible study and worship, followed by a Raleigh team meeting, and an adult leaders meeting, we settled into our tents with some of the kids. 

What was becoming apparent to some of the adult leaders at this point was that many of the kids were really struggling and homesick.  But what to do about it?  It's not like any of them could pick up the phone and call home.  No one could call up mom and dad and asked to be picked up.  There was no changing the living conditions or the length of the trip.  We all just had to cope.  So- we could tell the kids to just get over it- they knew what they were signing up for when they volunteered  (we did indeed, but the fact of the matter is that head knowledge of something and the actual sensory experience of it are two entirely different things!) or- we could offer a listening ear and some coping strategies.  The truth is we did some of both of these things.

One of the other adult leaders and myself had some quiet side conversations with several of the girls.  I was surprised that even those who seemed to be in good spirits readily opened up and admitted that they wanted nothing more than to go home right now!  What I became aware of was the most of them were putting on a brave face because they did not want to disappoint anyone.  I knew that a couple of the boys were feeling this way as well. The truth of the matter is that after 72 hours on the ground we were still jet lagged and we had been bombarded and sensory overloaded.  We were kept up our first night there till nearly midnight with Bible study about prisoners.  We had been to a prison and to an all day Church service.  We were eating strange foods and living in accommodations that frankly,  just creeped out even the adults.  We were seeing large swaths of this country thru long bus rides daily that were one unrelenting imagine of extreme poverty after another.  It's enough to make you......long for home!  Homesickness, I decided, was probably completely normal at this stage of the game.

So what I told the girls was this:  It's okay that you feel this way.  I feel this way too and I am a lot older and have been on these kinds of trips before.  But what I knew for sure was that we had an entire week to go. And if we allowed this mindset to take hold too much we would miss what God had brought us here to experience.  So my advice was to keep their chins up.  To try not to focus their thoughts on home, but rather instead, to live in each moment, to take one day at a time.  I also knew that once these kids could get their hands dirty and start doing some real work that they would feel good about themselves.  That they would see some merit to their efforts.  That they would stop questioning why they had come.  Having seen the joy on a family's face when they move into a new home at the end of the week, I had some experience from my past Mexico trips to draw on. I knew that feeling at week's end.  The kids did not.  I wanted them to hold on till they could have this experience for themselves.

Our low point mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I believe was on Sunday night and into Monday.  After this, what I began to sense was a turning point.  It's not that we did not still complain about stuff.  We all still hated the Cho.  But we could laugh about it now.  We began to talk about our new friends and the families we were serving with excitement.  We wanted to work as hard and as fast and as long as possible so we could get many things done to help our families.  The kids began to speak with pride about all that they had accomplished at their work sites.  I saw new friendships begin to bloom with the Kenyan and Ugandan youths.  In short- we all began to adapt.  We had a lot of prayer being offered up for us by family and friends during our time away.  I think those prayers helped us over this hump.  It's nonsense to suggest that you can take a group this size halfway around the world and dump them in a place that feels as foreign as the surface of the moon and not have adjustment issues.  The point, however, is that these things can be weathered for the most part.  You just have to hang on and trust that the God who called you for His purposes isn't about to abandon you during your hour of need.  He stayed with us.  We drew near to Him.  Good things are in store if you can but believe this.  As we were about to see.....More later.......Shalom!

The Church in the Bush

It's Sunday. Back in the states you rise early (maybe), take a shower, dress yourself, and drive to church. Maybe 15 minutes, tops. Here in Uganda it's similar (not really). You rise at 6 am. Brush your teeth with bottled water. Use the Cho and hope not to let your skirt drag the floor. Next, you pile into a crowded bus with your team and your new best friends from Kenya and Uganda and drive over 2 hours thru the countryside. Yep, just another typical Sunday......



The bus veers off the paved road suddenly. You bounce down a rutted out dirt road for what feels like 10 miles or more. Finally the dirt road narrows to a trail. Tree branches are now reaching into the open windows on both sides of the bus. Suddenly the bus can go no further so it stops. Rumor has it that here is where the 3 mile trek on foot starts......


Not so! Up ahead is a clearing. There are at least 100 men, women and children present. A big party seems to be going on. As it turns out, your group is the honored guests. These people are dressed in their best clothes. The women wear silk gowns in an African style that is unfamiliar to me. Many are wearing head scarves. The children are dressed in their best as well. The girls wear elaborate dresses. All the children are barefoot.


From the moment we arrive, the people descend upon us smiling broadly, speaking words of welcome, shaking our hands, hugging us. They speak in both English and Luganda. The children fall into two camps. Those who smile broadly and are fascinated by us, and those who hide behind their mom's skirts peeking out at us. Any child who I smiled at and extended my hand to dropped to their knees and shook my hand as a sign of respect. I would like to go on the record right here and now as saying the children I met in Africa (hundreds of them) were the most respectful kids on the planet. They are so unlike American children as to be practically a different species altogether. But more about that later.....


The clearing we are now standing in is a hubbub of activity. Over to the right women are cooking and preparing food. There is meat being grilled and other dishes being prepared. Other women are circulating handing us mangos and roasted nuts. Children are playing an animal skin bongo drum of sorts. And front and center is a church constructed of mud bricks with a dirt floor and thatched straw roof. It is small and quite hot inside. There is a praise and worship team inside singing and dancing. They are singing in both English and Luganda. One song being sung over and over is " I love you so much Jesus". That is pretty much the entire song! Africans love repetition in their music!


We gather in the little church at first, singing and dancing, but it is soon apparent that there are too many of us and it is too warm inside. After awhile, plans are made to move us all outside for the church service. A large tarp is raised. Plastic chairs are moved from inside the church to outside. The worship service begins. There is much dancing, singing, and praise going on. Each group takes turns leading. The villagers lead the singing first and Pastor Tom, planter of this church and numerous others, speaks a few words. Our team plays some American praise and worship music with guitar accompaniment. We sing "Ebintu Biterede", a song we learned in their language. The Kenyans lead some singing, worship and scripture reading. This goes on for awhile, then suddenly there is a break. At this point, all the guests are asked to be seated in the same area. We sit down. I have a small child in my lap- a little girl who has befriended me. Soon the women begin passing out huge bowls of food. There is no silverware present so you eat with your right hand, even if you are left handed. I'll leave it to your imagination why.....


The food we are served is hot and plentiful. Most of it is identifiable. There is chicken, goat meat, rice, cooked greens, and something I can't identify that looks like a large hard dumpling. What is it? I find out later it is a staple dish called matoke. Of course I have no idea if that is spelled right. There is so much food that I am perplexed for a number of reasons. One- I know that the villagers have sacrificed to provide this meal. Their children won't eat meat for who knows how long because their parents have sacrificed their animals for this feast. Secondly- there is no way I could eat this much food in one sitting even if I was at home and it was something I really liked. It's just way too much food. Third, my stomach is in a state of revolt- mostly because I am suffering from the universal affliction of our group (see Day One of my journal entries). And lastly- no children are being served and there are a hundred hungry eyes peering at us watching us eat. All I wanted to do was hand them my bowl, but I could not. That would have been an insult. As it was, we were expected to eat ALL of this food. It is a crime to waste food in Africa. And knowing the hunger there, it is easy to see why. Still- I could not do it. I passed the goat meat to one of the men on our team, picked at the chicken and rice, and tried the matoke which was awful. None of the Americans like it, but some bravely choked it down. It is something made from unripened green bananas which are then fried. At least that is what I have heard. I can't confirm that.

When we had all eaten all that we could, we placed our bowls down and they mysteriously and mercifully disappeared. Later we saw the children eating what we had not finished. The little girl who was on my lap whom I had hoped to share my food with was scooped up by her mama long ago leaving me to fend for myself. I kept wishing she had been able to stay in my lap so that she could eat as much as she liked. No doubt that would have been a first for her.


Just the gesture of this meal was overwhelming to me. I mean here these villagers were. They lived in mud brick houses with dirt floors and straw roofs. They were the poorest of the poor in material terms. And yet they had pooled their resources to provide this meal to so many visitors. At great sacrifice to themselves and their families. And it was an honor for them to do so. Think about that. Do you think that anyone in our country would have done the same had the roles been reversed? I think probably not.....


The other thing that stood out about these villagers so profoundly was their faith. Their great joy in the Lord. Their unshakable belief that God is good, that He is great, that He is glorious. I wonder at my own ability to embrace these truths were I to find myself in their place. Would I still believe in the greatness and the goodness of God if I were as poor as these people? Or would I be bitter about my lot in life? These are questions I now find myself thinking about. At the end of our time with them, a few of the women who spoke some English asked some of our team members if they could come home with us. America is well know to the Africans. They think it is the land of milk and honey. Or more accurately, a place where the streets are paved with gold and every man lives like a king. I suppose there is some truth to this when you draw the obvious comparisons.


As we trudged back to our bus one more surprise awaited us. The bus was broken. A broken down bus lodged in the bush. A very interesting dilemma indeed. It's not like you can just call AAA and get a tow. It's not like you can call up the bus company and they will send a new one. I can just hear it now " Yes- hello. Our bus is broken down in the bush. What bush? Hmmm.... I don't know. Anyone got an address for this location?". Something tells me things just don't work quite that way.....TIA, baby. Nothing works like it should (see Day One).


We had lots of people pushing that bus. We ran and pushed it for close to an hour. We just kept running along side it and pushing it. I decided that prayer was our only real option. That finally worked. The stupid bus started. We climbed aboard and rode thru the countryside back to Bombo Town and our lovely hotel, The Diplomat for another restful night in our deluxe accommodations. (Not! ) Thus ends Day Three of our journey......Shalom!


(For photos of our day at the Church in the Bush, see my Facebook Photo Album)