Thought I’d share a typical day with you - because my typical days are always full of surprises and I feel blessed to lead the life I do.
Wednesdays start with an hour and a half team prayer time where we pray specifically over two people on the team (rotating) and hear a devotional about the ways they are learning and growing. It’s always a blessing to leave the house before dawn, or just in time to see the sun rising over the mountains, to hear the loudness of the frogs croaking and eating the baby mosquitoes in the mud puddles, to pass the soldiers sleeping while guarding our village/town . . . And reach the haven of another mission home and hot drinks and warm smiles and prayer together.
Today however, David was the one heading off to that haven while I woke early enough to watch the kids sleep, read a bit and pray over my day alone with a hot drink. The kids need me lots these days and the early mornings are our best times together . . . I wanted to be here with them.
We enjoyed plenty of those early morning snuggles, greeted the puppy, read together and finished homework. I drank in their sweetness. We made a simple breakfast of oatmeal pancakes and papaya slices and hot cocoa and they were happy . . . . We began packing lunches (Wednesday they are both in school for the full day) and our workers arrived to greet the kids and start clearing the counters and reading the list of necessary work I had prepared for them, and so the day begins.
The Masso pick up truck arrived at 8:45 - our normal morning school bus. Today I jumped in the bed of the truck alongside the kids and we pulled out and down our single dirt road towards the Christ School compound where our little mission school also meets - we are three families worth of kids, three teachers, and a school bus driver. Outside the gate I jumped out. At 6:30 that morning I had gotten a phone call from one of our staff teachers that his wife had been laboring unsuccessfully all night. He asked me to come and said they were calling for the doctor. I was afraid of a c-section, the risk of infection is SO high here. Yet by the time I arrived God had answered many prayers sent up and she had “produced” a 4.5 kilo baby (almost ten pounds!) a record size here in Nyahuka where most babies are born undernourished. It’s all the great CSB food that momma’s been eating! I stayed with them for a while, sitting on their mattress on the floor admiring the baby and taking in the sights and sounds of the room before wandering on to greet others working in different parts of the “hospital”. Since I try not to bring N and Q down to the health center, I don’t get down here too often. There were several places I wanted to visit.
I went next door to the new pediatric ward with a huge number of beds, twenty-seven . . . . Yet not enough for the demand this week. I think there are forty one patients on the ward. Poor Jennifer and staff - one nurse attending to all. Next I headed around the corner to the an ART clinic where the life-extending HIV medications are given out each Wednesday. A full room of women, babies, small kids and some men (including many soldiers). Several of the toddlers were so adorable I had to sit and speak with and tickle them a little . . . They responded with adorable giggles. So perfectly humanly delightful.
Dr. Scott gestured me to come into a small anteroom where I found a woman lying on a table with her beautiful pregnant belly out and gelled up, ready for an ultrasound. The mission’s portable ultrasound machine provides lifesaving technology in a place where it’s shocking to see it used. The woman had been sent because of large size for dates and possibly too much amniotic fluid but I watched enthralled as we discovered twins cupped against each other head to toe in her distended stomach. What a miracle to see. There is an outrageously high twin rate in Bundibugyo . . . . And though twins are thought to be a sign of blessing they also often mean suffering and death. This woman had already lost her firstborn during birth and seemed none to pleased with the news of two babies, likely sick at birth and perhaps not strong enough to survive their first week.
David had brought our vehicle down on his way to school and I was able to transport the new mom and baby home to their staff housing inside the CSB compound - imagine the transport of most moms here, home from the hospital just two or three hours post-birth on the back of a motorcycle or bicycle along our bumpy dirt road - ouch, ouch, ouch.
I spent the next two hours observing several of our teachers in their classes and remembering how little I know about math and chemistry. We shared the staff lunch as we often do - makooke and goat today. I normally enjoy the school lunches and find them filling and comforting but the large portion of goat hair in my soupu (as they call the meat juices) turned me off. I headed across the football field to JD to look for other food. I grabbed a quick lunch of cooked beans and cole slaw - yay for JD! - and headed back across the field for our weekly chapel time. Chapel is an hour of preaching/teaching on God’s word and it’s applicability to our lives. Today the topic was rules and our lives and the idea that rules are there to protect us and those around us. Afterwards I met with the girls from my cell group for another hour. We had some good discussions using the study questions; we talked about faith and life, our doubts about God, behavior and why we do things we know we shouldn’t. I invited them to my house for a Saturday pedicure party and there were cheers all around.
Time to head home with a car full of kids and teachers but I find that today Dr. Jennifer has everyone loaded into hers. I follow her home after some brief conversations and enjoy a snack with her and the kids - then I leave Quinn with her to play with Jack and Julia while I take Naomi over to her ballet time with Miss Bethany, our summer intern coordinator who always has extra time for loving on team kids. I get to sit and talk with Karen about some kid and education issues before heading home.
Strangely, I am now home alone. Naomi still with Bethany, Quinn still with Jennifer and David still at the school. I find my workers and a number of others waiting for me in the kitubbi and as I pull into the yard, opening my gates, a stream of at least twenty kids enters with me and with shouts of joy head for the swings, “Mwesungu”, as they call them.
Daniel, my friend and house helper is in sad shape as he has discovered his six month old son is seriously ill with malaria out in the bush where his wife and sons are staying with his family . I give him money for transport and pray with him. I advise another worker and give him an advance on his pay for an unexpected expense. Three others visitors say they will wait for David. and I finally enter my house, hoping to check email before our internet hour expires.
I have a few moments to bustle around, grabbing a drink of water, filling our water tank while the sun (and power) is high, etc. Now our cross country kids from CSB start arriving, as do Naomi and Quinn and the XC coaches and the running fun begins. Wednesdays are a fun day for the team, always at our house. They do circuit training, relay races, and running games such as capture the flag. Then we have a devotional time and drink sweet drinks like home made lemonade. Today is no exception and the crowd of small children in the yard gather in the kitubbi to watch it all go down. Naomia and Quinn assist me with my minor coaching duties while we all shout encouragement to the students. Knowing their names and hugging them and greeting them is the love they so desperately want and need.
By six pm the students are heading out the gate and back down to CSB for dinner and evening prep time. And we are heading inside for our late day cold showers and tidy up time. Everyone always melts down a bit at this time of day. I start some music and light some candles to help us prepare for evening and the calmness of togetherness. Naomi and Quinn start getting clean, as does David, and our dinner arrives. Wednesdays a Ugandan friend cooks for us, a good way to support her and provide a tasty Ugandan meal to be hospitable with - and a lot simpler for me on such a busy day. I write in her book so as to make sure she’ll be paid properly and have her set the saucepans, black with the charcoal from her outdoor cooking, on my counter. The chicken that smells so good in the pot now was carried home under her arm, alive this very morning! Better her than me!
We are getting clean and so is the house, it’s a lovely time of day . . . . Our evening guests arrive, three male staff from the school, none with wives in the area. We sit down and get familiar with each other, bring them their sodas and begin talking before serving our dinner an hour later, around eight. Rice, g-nut sauce, kikonje (cooked hard bananas) and chicken. One lucky teacher gets the gizard. Naomi and Quinn eat well then fall asleep in our arms at the table. Their day has been long.
We make coffee for our teachers - a rare treat in a place where coffee is frequently grown yet never processed. Ours is from Kenya. We serve them banana cake and listen to music until about ten thirty.
Now David has driven them home, to keep them from walking the pitch black dirt road. He’s back and we are wrapping up our day, giving leftovers from the plates to the dog, stacking the dishes for washing by someone tomorrow, brushing our teeth and getting the kids comfortable in their beds.
It’s been a long full day - I fall asleep thanking God.