This was a prayer update from last week . . . .
I awake to rain splattering through our glassless windows and onto my face - having a window behind the bed is wonderful for breezes but not so handy in a storm. The sound of rain is a torrent all around me, bringing to mind pictures of flooding. In reality this is just another downpour of the rainy season in Bundibugyo. I can barely think because the pounding of water against our iron sheet roof is magnified many times by the metal until the noise is too loud even to speak over.
A tremendous boom of thunder shakes the house and reverberates as the sound circles around the the mountains which somewhat enclose us. Naomi and Quinn have sought refuge from the storm in our bed and they snuggle closer, seeking warmth and security as the lightening strikes near and far and the thunder continues to sound and the rain pounds down.
I get up in the pitch black of our night here to find something warmer to put on. Who knew that I would be cold in the middle of Africa? I head to the bathroom for a quick midnight call - always hazardous in the rain since the stovepipe ventilation over the toilet allows the rain to fall right the user! I am drenched now and colder than ever. As I stand in the blackness, surrounded by the powerful noise of the rain I feel so small, so alone in this vast jungle which is our part of Uganda. We are a tiny speck in the universe, a few whites living with a small people group amidst kilometers of banana and cocoa trees and spear grass and, semi-circled by huge and beautiful mountains, submerged in rain.
As the next bolt lightens our interior I see that I am not alone; Quinn stands beside me,just a moment before invisible to me in the darkness. But in that next moment I see his mass of golden curls, his tie-die shirt and red sweats, the fear and sleep apparent in the lines of his body. I gather him in my arms, savoring the smell of his sweet self and carry him back to the warmth of our bed and our bodies together, reminding us that we live in community for a serious reason!!
Hagar was apparently the only person in the Bible to give God a name - she called him El Roi, the God who sees. What it really means is the God who sees ME. Who can see the whole world and yet uniquely see me. When I saw Quinn in the darkness of our home in the silence of the rain’s overpowering sound, I was reminded of how I look and how I feel in this place. I look alone, I feel alone, I am small. But GOD SEES ME, just as I saw Quinn. And He doesn’t require a bolt of lightening to do it.
Worship with me El Roi who called us to a place of poverty, despair and hopelessness for a reason. Praise El Roi who sees the mess of this world as a whole and yet sees into the heart of each person whose life or body I touch each day. The name El Roi reminds us of the greatness of the God we serve. Because even in His all knowing-ness, He is personally and intimately involved with each of us.
Perhaps it was watching the movie Blood Diamond a few days ago and being reminded in such graphic ways of the 200,000 child soldiers estimated to still live in Africa, a significant percentage of them live and are trained within or bordering our own country. The suffering of those children, only a few hours from me, reduces me to a smallness that I cannot give words to. Rebel soldiers live in jungles nearby me. Malaria kills hundreds of children around me each month. HIV/Aids steals life and hope from hundreds of others, betraying individuals in relationships as close as mother and child. Poverty and malnutrition stunt the minds and bodies and break the spirits of so many of the rest of these people. And only a few hundred miles away, some use fear, violence and witchcraft to train the child soldiers who will deepen this cycle of despair. But El Roi is Rohanga (in Lubwisi), the one true God, the God who appeared to Hagar, and the God who stands beside me in my smallness and in my ineffectiveness to stem the flow of suffering I see around me; both in this place as a whole and to new depths in the lives of individuals.
Continue to pray for God to have mercy on this country and this continent. And to have mercy on each of us who continually forget that He is all we have and yet it is enough.
Annelise