Jesca

It is extremely common here for people to have “house help.” The daily tasks of cooking and cleaning take 3 or 4 times as long, because there are no modern appliances and cooking is pretty much from scratch. And people here are in desperate need of jobs, so if you can afford to give someone work, even if it’s just a few days a week, it’s pretty much expected that you will help someone out in this way.

Jesca has worked for me and Kelli since we moved into our house in February. She is a precious woman who can make amazing chapattis (a tortilla-style flatbread) and French bread, washes our clothes by hand, and pretty much keeps our house from being covered in inches of dust and dirt. She also serves as my sous-chef and is a huge help to me in the kitchen! Jesca, like most people in Uganda, goes to church but is not a believer. She has been taught that as long as she goes to “prayers”, is baptized, takes communion, and lives a good life, she will go to heaven. The Catholic and Anglican churches have indoctrinated the people here in the gospel of salvation by works; Jesca doesn’t even know she’s lost!

Dirty Feet

I had another “Oh, so THAT’S what He meant” moment today. (I really love those moments when they come, by the way. It’s like you get a glimpse into the mind of the Master—what a treat!) We had a long rainstorm this morning. It started out as a thunderstorm for an hour or two, and then switched over to a slow, steady rain for another 4 hours. It was cool and quiet and lazy, and I think everyone in Arua enjoyed the chance to sleep in.

Once the rain finally stopped, Kelli and I took our 7-year-old neighbor to lunch at the coffee shop in town. (Yes, we have a grand total of one coffee shop!) I was almost out of shillings, so I made a detour by the ATM while Kelli and Joanna went ahead and ordered. To get to the ATM, I had to walk around the corner, which had changed from a dirt lot into a mud pit after the morning’s rain.

As I walked through the muddy corner for the second time on the way back to the coffee shop, it dawned on me just how nasty my feet had gotten in all of 5 minutes. I was still clean, not dirty, not sweaty, I hadn’t even spilled anything on myself yet. (That came later in the day!) But my feet were in serious need of a soak!

At the beginning of Jesus’ last Passover meal, He washed His disciples’ feet. Peter didn’t understand what He was doing. (I think I relate to Peter more than any of the disciples—he’s just real!) Anyway… Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” “Then Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean…” (John 13:8-10)

As a believer, I am clean. My sins have been washed away, and in Jesus’ eyes I will never look like I’ve been wallowing around in sin. He’s washed all that away; I’ve had my spiritual bath, and I am clean. But this world is, by nature, dirty. It is sinful. And because I’m in this world, living in it, walking around through the much and mud, my feet are going to get dirty. I’m going to sin, whether I mean to or not. As long as I’m left on this earth, my feet will, daily, get a coating of spiritual dust, dirt, and sometimes even mud. (And, if I’m being honest, there have been times when I was, spiritually speaking, standing knee-deep in a mud puddle and loving the feeling of mud between my toes… which is NOT okay!) But when I realize that my feet are dirty, I need to stop right then and there and ask Jesus to wash my feet again… before the grime gets so caked on it takes a rough scrubbing to get my little piggies clean again. As much attention as I pay to my physical feet (and oh, how I do love a good pedicure!), Jesus, please help me be more aware of just how clean (or dirty!) my spiritual feet have gotten.

My mom's coming!!!

I am so excited I just about can't see straight!  My mom is coming to Arua, and she'll be here in a month!  Mom and I are really close, and I can't wait for her to see where I live and what I'm doing here.  While she's here, she'll get to go to schools for ministry, a village church, we'll hang out in our (tiny) town, and go to the game park where hopefully we'll see lions.  (Start praying now, please!!!)  :D  I just wanted to share... I get to see my mom!!!  Woo hoo!

Hanging Out

Secondary school students arrived home for holiday last week, and, like students everywhere, get bored on school break pretty quickly.  So, last Thursday, Kelli and I, along with the help of Evan and Trevor, began opening our home for students to come, hang out, play volleyball, drink tea, and just be teenagers.  Thursday, because of a horribly-timed rainstorm and commitments at home, only Richard and Thomas made it.  But today, the weather was clear and warm (hot, really), and Evan and Trevor decided to pick up some of the students who live farther away.  By the end of 3 hours, 10 students had come and visited, played volleyball, and shared a snack of tea and zucchini bread.  We had a great time, even if it wasn’t the most inspired game of volleyball ever.    Please pray that students would continue to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays between now and the beginning of September, that they would bring their friends who are also home on break, and that we would be able to build relationships that would eventually allow us to go to deeper levels.  

SweeTarts

I’m eating SweeTarts and thinking about home.  SweeTarts were one of the (many) candies my grandmother always kept on hand.  I had a craving for them a few weeks ago, who knows why, and Kelli’s mom and dad brought a few boxes out with them when they came to visit.   Tonight I broke out the SweeTarts… and they immediately transported me back to Taylors, to my grandmother’s kitchen table where my cousins and I would sort packets out by color.  SweeTarts also wound up in our movie snack packs, also known as plastic baggies full of candy we snuck into the movies to keep from buying popcorn.  I know it's totally random, and one of those things that I never would have thought, "SweeTarts make me feel like I'm 7..." but turns out, they do!  What is it about the little things that take you back to your childhood?  

Arua Hospital

A couple of weeks ago, Jesca, our house helper, was in a bicycle accident that put her in the hospital for 5 days.  This gave Kelli and me our first opportunity to visit Arua Hospital, and I can honestly say that I was not prepared for what I would encounter.

I knew a little about the standard of care in local hospitals before we went.  Supplies are extremely limited, so patients must bring their own bed sheets and latex gloves.  There are no cooking or laundry facilities, so patients or their families must provide their own food and wash their own clothes and linens.  I had visions of large rooms full of old-fashioned wrought iron beds—kind of like the massive hospital wards in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s in the States.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

From the outside, Arua Hospital reminds me of the Florida-style schools that are pretty common in South Carolina and much of the rest of the South.  Each ward (surgical, medical, maternity, ENT, pediatric, etc.) is housed in its own building, and the buildings are all connected by covered walkways.  The grassy courtyards in between the buildings are literally covered by family members and friends who have come to care for patients.  Sitting in the grass, they cook over open fires, do laundry, and spend the time between visits.  Patients who are feeling up to it can sit outside on the ground with their loved ones. 

Going into the surgical ward where Jesca had been admitted (even though she never had surgery), beds were placed everywhere there was room.  Jesca’s bed was in a hallway so dark I almost didn’t recognize her!  We saw two nurses the entire time we were there, and that was only because Pam tracked one down so we could get some answers for Jesca about her treatment.  As we were sitting on the bed, visiting with Jesca, Kelli felt something touching her ankle.  She looked down and saw a hand; Jesca’s husband, Michael, had been sleeping on a mat under her bed!

As we spoke with Jesca, we got more information about her accident.  On Sunday afternoon, she had been riding up a hill on her bicycle when she saw a man on another bicycle riding on the wrong side of the road, coming straight towards her.  They had a head-on collision, and the other rider went into a coma.  Jesca hit her head on rocks in the road and had a nasty scalp wound and serious muscle pain, but overall, she was in pretty good shape, considering how bad it could have been.  When we visited her, the other rider was still in a coma.

We didn’t know Jesca had been injured until Tuesday, and had no idea how bad it was until Wednesday night.  When we went to see her on Thursday, she had been given a total of 8 Tylenol since Sunday.  No x-rays.  No IV fluids for dehydration.  No antibiotics or stronger painkillers for her head wound or whiplash.  I was outraged and heartbroken for her.

When Pam hunted down a nurse to find out what was going on with Jesca’s care, we learned that she was ready to be discharged.  (I still wonder how much of the timing had to do with the 3 white women who had just shown up to visit!)  We were given a list of 3 medicines to buy at the chemist’s (for a total of $4), a date for her to return to see the doctor, and instructions for “physical therapy”: Move around and do what you normally do.

As we gathered Jesca’s belongings and left to take her and Michael to their village on the other side of town, I wanted to weep.  This kind of care is not okay.  Jesca deserves better than this.  Her son deserves better.  People deserve better.

I know that I will never have to depend on this kind of medical care.  I can always go to Kampala.  If a situation is bad enough, I can be airlifted to Nairobi, or Johannesburg, or even back to the States.  But most of the people I’m around don’t have that luxury.  If they want medical treatment, Arua Hospital is their only choice.  It’s wrong, and it’s heartbreaking, but that’s all there is.

Planet Earth

I have to admit it: I’m a nerd. A big nerd. I love to read. (I’m amazingly grateful for the blessing that my Kindle has been in Africa, by the way!) I can kill hours on crossword puzzles and Solitaire. I’m a Food Network junkie, and I’ve been in serious Alton Brown withdrawal since January. I like, really like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I watched Gandhi a couple of weeks ago, all by myself. I love learning. I want to understand. I need to know.

Somehow, I didn’t watch Planet Earth when it aired on TV a few years ago. I don’t know how I missed it. (Maybe my bottom-of-the-line satellite package didn’t carry the right channel? I’m a nerd, but I’m a cheap nerd!) Anyway, somehow I missed it. I remember seeing clips in commercial and thinking that the shots were amazing, and being jealous that I couldn’t justify showing it to my English classes the way the science teachers did. But I never got around to watching it.

Last week I was snooping through my supervisor’s DVD collection, trying to find something new to watch, and what did I find but Planet Earth! Because, as earlier established, I am a big nerd, I borrowed the entire series. My roommate, who is not as big a nerd as I am, had no desire to join me, so Planet Earth has become my “filler” to have on while I’m cooking, folding laundry, straightening my bedroom, or, in a testament to overwhelming nerd-dom, while playing Spider Solitaire.

Over and over again, I am struck by just how magnificent this world is… and by how intentional the Creator was when He designed it. There are caves deeper than some of the biggest buildings man has made. The ecosystems around the world, even though they’re so vastly different, are perfectly in balance. The tallest mountains in the world, so tall that birds can’t fly over them, are placed in a location where winds passing over them will create the needed rains in Southeast Asia. And our planet itself is positioned at such a place in the universe where we won’t burn up from being too close to the sun, but we won’t freeze because we’re too far away.

How good He is to be so in the details of this world. There are still plants and animals that we don’t even know about; there are places in this world that we’ve just discovered. He made them all, just because He could, and just because He wanted us to enjoy them and understand just how good and great He is. I am in awe of the Creator, because of what He has created!

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you know so much. 

5 Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? 6 What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone 

7 as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 

8 Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb, 

9 and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness? 

10 For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores. 

11 I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop!”…

22 “Have you visited the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of hail? 

23 (I have reserved them as weapons for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war.) 

24 Where is the path to the source of light? Where is the home of the east wind? 

25 “Who created a channel for the torrents of rain? Who laid out a path for the lightning? 

26 Who makes the rain fall on barren land, in a desert where no one lives? 

27 Who sends rain to satisfy the parched ground and make the tender grass spring up? 

28 Does the rain have a father? Who gives birth to the dew? 

29 Who is mother of the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens? 

30 for the water turns to ice as hard as rock, and the surface of the water freezes. 

31 Can you direct the movement of the stars—binding the cluster of the Pleiades or loosening the cords of Orion? 

32 Can you direct the sequence of the seasons or guide the Bear with her cubs across the heavens? 

33 Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth? 

34 Can you shout to the clouds and make it rain? 

35 Can you make lightning appear and cause it to strike as you direct? 

36 Who gives instruction to the heart and instinct to the mind? 

37 Who is wise enough to count all the clouds? Who can tilt the water jars of heaven 

38 when the parched ground is dry and the soil has hardened into clods? 

39 Can you stalk prey for a lioness and satisfy the young lions’ appetites 

40 as they lie in their dens or crouch in the thicket? 

41 Who provides food for the ravens when their young cry out to God and wander about in hunger?

Job 38:4-11, 22-41

Slack Blogger

I confess… I am a slack blogger. I realized this morning that it’s been 3 weeks since I posted last. NOT okay! I could make the typical excuses: African internet is crazy slow; work has been ridiculously busy; Kelli’s parents were here for 2 weeks and life just went a little nuts for a while. But, if I’m being honest, the truth is that I just haven’t written. I’ve got blogs all ready in my head, but I just haven’t written them down. I am slack. I plan to remedy this VERY soon… assuming I don’t lose my motivation!