. . . . In rural east Africa, a place I never imagined I would call home.
Check back with me tomorrow, but for now, I feel I could live here forever. It really is glorious in its third-world way. As usual we feel blessed to be here and constantly challenged by being here. We know for sure that God brought us here to change US as much as to help anyone else.
True listening is being willing to be changed by the other person. As I enter this year, I want that to be our entire posture, to listen with all that we are and to be willing to be changed by this culture, this people, and the God who created and sustains them. Much easier said than done. My American thoughts die hard . . . . But will yield to something so much bigger and better. I am so grateful, yet stubborn.
Grateful for and yet stubbornly opposed to:
A culture filled to the brim with languages; lubwisi, rotooro, lukonjo, kiswahili, english of course, and on and on. Imagine how our brains would develop as Americans if we had to learn even a second language fluently enough to read or converse in it. Yet this is also one of our difficulties as a culture here - the difficulty of no universally spoken language for business, etc.
A place where people love children yet have very low standards of care for them. And where many produce children as a status symbol, leading to children who have no hope of moving out of poverty. Yet people here are delighted by children in a really refreshing way.
A way of life that is rich in laughter. These Babwisi can laugh at anything. Sometimes I am disturbed to see them laugh at the fear of a small child, or even angry as they laugh at mine own children’s pain as they fall from a tree or off a bike. Yet the Babwisi have also taught me to laugh freely for the first time in my life, at every small thing. It is a gift.
A place of difficulty. One morning, we travel by motorcar and watch old women carrying huge piles of firewood on their backs, supported by reeds strapped around their foreheads. I marvel at them, bukali mani (strong women), so beautiful. Yet I ache for them, women who in our home culture would be relaxing into retirement are here still doing hard labor. A woman of about seventy showed up on my porch asking for some work so she could buy a mattress. I told her, appalled, that she most certainly could NOT work, at her age. We bought her a mattress . . . But she is only one of many, so many more who are workless, mattressless, and still struggling to carry water, food, and cook over firewood.
A culture which is fascinated by us white foreigners, but not in very healthy ways. I took a brief visit the other day, to a woman friend who I had heard was sick, I was bringing her a little box of juice and a prayer. As I traveled, pleased with myself for finding my way on the back jungle path rather than the main road, I was joined by a large parade of children, all singing and calling “muzungu” (white foreigner). They accompanied me through a slew of mud houses and communal living areas, past women cooking and waiting for their gerri cans to fill with water. I was doubled in laughter, all this, this grand parade, simply because of my skin. Somedays I can laugh, others I grit my teeth at the constancy of the dehumanization of being known only for my skin. Yet I am finally beginning to experience what is a daily reality for many people, some form of racism. I am grateful.
Please continue to pray with us. We enter a new stage of survival, as we begin to commit ourselves to full time ministry at Christ School this term (starting in February). Survival in intense ministry mode is a whole nother step of faith.
We’re here because, Jesus is ALWAYS ENOUGH,
David, Anenlise, Naomi and Quinn