I began to know these people on a deeply personal level and that only drove my desire to help them more.
Beatrice was a prostitute, sneaking quietly away from her home after her children had fallen asleep and selling her body in the dark so she could put some food on the table for them in the morning.
Fatuma was brewing alcohol as a quick way to make money to support her children, one of whom was literally dying of starvation. On days when alcohol didn’t sell, she took the mash from which it is made home to her family and they would swallow it until they fell asleep. She was making her children drunk so they were unable to feel the pains of hunger.
Elizabeth, whose husband left after her third child was born, had recently taken in her sister’s five children after her sudden death. “What was my choice?” she asked when explaining the situation to me. “God says I look after the orphans, I look after the orphans.” Elizabeth and the eight children sleep together on the floor in a home smaller than my tiny kitchen.
Jja Ja Sofia cares for her three grandchildren, though she is elderly and can barely walk due to severe back pain.
Brenda has use of only one arm as a result of polio when she was younger but uses it to pick through the trash, hoping to find some food for her six children.
Each of my new friends had a story that broke my heart.
I wanted to do something for these women. I couldn’t imagine having to work so hard and still not be able to provide for the basic needs of my family. There had to be a way out. In the local mud-and-stick church, I gathered twenty of the women I had gotten to know—women all from different tribes, of all different ages, with all kinds of different hardships. But they had one thing in common: They were all trying to support their families and feed their children and they were not succeeding. Well, that and the fact that they all had stolen my heart.
After some friends taught me how to make necklaces out of long, thin, triangular-shaped pieces of colorful, recycled paper rolled into beads, we began teaching the women how to make them. We spent the first few months simply getting to know one another as we learned to make necklaces, crying together when someone announced that her HIV test had come back positive, and laughing with one another when someone made an awfully misshapen bead. We formed bonds that transcend all racial and social differences and, most important, we began to teach each other about Jesus.
One of the many things I love about these women is that they are happy to have honorable work. Those who are part of the bead group are not allowed to engage in prostitution, brew alcohol, or pick through trash; those are the rules. They must make a certain number of necklaces each week and bring them to our group meeting. There I purchase the necklaces from them and then send them to the States to be sold.
When our weekly meetings conclude, the women climb into my van and I take them into Jinja to deposit half of their earnings in their savings accounts. The other half of their earnings covers living expenses for them and their families until the next week. The fact that the women in the group are prospering is not only amazing, it also benefits the entire village and inspires others to try to raise themselves above their current levels of poverty.
Even with the amazing things happening in the women’s group, there are still days when I walk through Masese and feel completely powerless and totally overwhelmed. The illnesses are more than I can treat even if I sit in the makeshift clinic in the back of my van for fifteen hours a day. Sometimes the sadness seems almost unbearable, the problems unsolvable, the wounds unhealable. This has taught me one of the greatest lessons: the tension between inefficiency and faithfulness. The assurance that I must obey and be faithful only to what He has asked of me, even when tangible, earthly results or successes are not seen. I want to help them all, fix all their problems, and successfully find a solution to their horrendous living conditions. But often in an unideal situation, there is not an ideal solution this side of heaven. The projects Amazima has started in this community are wonderful, but they meet the needs of only some people; they only scratch the surface of the problems. God assures me this is okay. If I continue to preach the gospel, and more important, live the gospel, here—even if outward conditions never change or change very slowly—and these people can live eternally with Jesus in heaven someday, a few years of suffering will pale in comparison. In the meantime, He allows me to see Him in their faces and to love Him by bandaging their wounds and letting their charcoal-and-mud-covered children curl up in my lap.
One day, as I drove into Masese with a friend in the passenger seat of my van and with Prossy, Jane, and Grace in the back, we came upon a roadblock. It was an odd place for a roadblock, because government agencies responsible for road repair wouldn’t normally pay any attention to the deep holes and large crevices that punctuate the road into a place like Masese. Nevertheless, I stopped the van and spoke with the man doing the work, a man wearing a hard hat that did not look official.
The man had placed a piece of lumber, a two-inch by two-inch board across the road, then tied a rope to stretch across the road, between two trees. To move the rope and the board so I could pass through, he wanted money. I am well acquainted with this kind of scheme, and our conversation went something like this:
Katie: “What are you doing?”
Man in hard hat: (Looks at me, mumbles and gestures toward the road as if to say, “Can’t you see? I’m fixing the road. Now pay me to let you continue.”)
After a spirited exchange in Luganda, I finally said in English: “I will pay you when I come back. If you fix the road and you are working hard when I return, I will pay you. Now let me go.”
He did.
We continued into Masese and went to bead group. By the time we left the village, we had a van full of industrious, necklace-making women on their way to the bank. When we reached the roadblock, I stopped and the man in the hard hat approached me, expecting his money. All he got was an observation: “Nothing about this road is different and you aren’t working very hard. I am not going to pay you.”
Soon a chorus of Karimojong voices from the seats of the van affirmed my decision, saying, “Doooo not pay theeeess mahn!”
Some men, when trying to swindle a woman, would give up at the sight of seventeen resolute females. Not this one.
He tried to convince me he had been working hard, but hard work is its own evidence, and the proof simply wasn’t there. I inched the van closer to the rope, almost touching it. The man stood and watched, asking again for money. And round two of the chorus urged me not to pay him.
Finally, I said: “If I drive through your rope, it will break. You will not have a rope anymore.” Still, he stood there, waiting to be paid.
I’d had enough. I turned off the van’s ignition, climbed out, picked up the two-by-two, and tossed it aside. I then proceeded to untie the rope from one of the trees, placed it on the ground, and climbed back into the van. My friend in the passenger seat was speechless.
“Two years ago I wouldn’t have done that,” I told her. “I would have been terrified of what that man would do to me. But now, in that village behind us, I have three thousand friends who may literally kill him if he hurt me.”
God has given us this friendship in the most unlikely place, in this most unlikely condition. He has made us feel like family, even though we come from completely different worlds. Because of this beautifully God-orchestrated, unexpected friendship, hope courses through my veins even on the most difficult days.
God teaches me, and Masese teaches me, this: Resurrection is real. Life is more powerful than death. Light can pierce darkness. I may never see the end of horrendous situations on this earth, so instead of trying to fix the situations here and now, I will focus on helping these people come to heaven with me, so we may say together: “Death and sadness have been swallowed up in a victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?” (see 1 Corinthians 15:54). Christ has overcome the mess that is this world and I am humbled to get to witness His salv
ation on a daily basis.
ONE DAY . . .
Monday, April 20, 2010
Last month, one of the members of our women’s group in Masese, Christine, died suddenly. She borrowed one of the few cell phones in the community and called me that morning to tell me that she had a headache, and by the time a friend got there to check on her, she had passed away, probably due to very advanced AIDS, which she had been fighting for as long as she could remember.
I was devastated by the loss of sweet Christine, with her huge smile and her gentle, cheerful spirit. But I was also full of joy. Just a few weeks earlier, after a lengthy conversation among the women in our group and lots and lots of questions, Christine had given her life to Christ. The next Sunday at church, we celebrated her baptism. Christine may be gone from this earth, but I know where she is. Death does not claim the victory, Christ does.
I watched Jesus Christ make Christine a new person in her time left on this earth. Her once–frail, sick body was suddenly able to move with more energy and work with more vigor. Her smile expanded to fill her whole face and there was a new light in her eyes. Praise and thanksgiving were always on her once–cracked and –bleeding lips; she was quick to encourage all her new friends. While before she complained that she did not have enough, her new Christ–following self thanked God for everything, right down to the bitter leaves she used to brew her morning tea.
At forty-seven years old, Christine found what she was looking for. He makes all things new. And I know that now in heaven, Christine’s once ailing body is now fully restored, made perfect in Christ. I am so thankful.
At Christine’s funeral, the remaining nineteen ladies in our group stood and said beautiful things about her. And afterward, in a community where the culture is strictly every-man-for-himself, where people can hardly feed their own children, let alone their neighbors, those nineteen women pooled their resources and cooked everyone lunch. It was an incredible gesture of selfless love and extreme generosity. The meal was like the New Testament story of the loaves and the fishes, the meal I had envisioned the first day I drove into this community with a van full of rice and beans; everyone sat and ate together—and the food simply did not run out. The community shared a meal together as they never have before. My sweet friends made sure that Jesus was not only glorified in Christine’s life, He was glorified in her death.
It’s true; I look around this community some days and wonder why I even try. Things are changing, maybe even improving, but oh so slowly. I remember a story Jesus told: “The kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” I got to witness the great change in Christine’s life when she learned of Jesus’ great love for her. One day, I believe I will get to laugh with her again in heaven. This is why. The gospel of Jesus Christ changes people’s lives and their eternity. And that is worth spending my life for.
16
JUST ONE MORE
Where is that hungry little boy?” I asked a friend who accompanied me one morning to the school where Amazima runs our feeding program.
He looked at me like I was absurd. “Katie, they’re all hungry,” he replied, with obvious question in his voice.
There was one, though, who was hungrier than all the others.
I stood in the schoolyard, literally surrounded by hungry children, but one in particular caught my eye that day. As I scanned the sea of faces, I couldn’t locate him. Then I saw him, a tiny boy who looked to be about three years old (but was actually six), with white hair and swollen cheeks, sitting alone beside a small tree.
I took him a plate of food and a cup of water. He registered absolutely no emotion when he looked at them. When he finally decided to reach for the food, I saw that his body was covered with open sores and his arms were dotted with small burn marks. His feet were so cracked and blistered I couldn’t believe he had walked up the hill from Masese to the school that day. He was terribly malnourished; I could tell because his splotchy yellow skin was peeling off him, and his short hair, which should have been black as coal, looked like a blanket of snow on his head.
I knew this little boy needed help, so I asked some of the nearby children to find his parents so I could speak with them. His father came up to the school to see what was going on. I asked this man if I could take the child home with me to clean and bandage his wounds. He agreed.
Then I asked, “What is his name?”
To my great shock and sadness, the father replied, “I don’t know.”
One of the children around me said, “His name is Michael.”
I don’t know if Michael had ever been in a car before; he certainly hadn’t been in a van as large as mine, and he rode home with my friend and me without saying a word or making a sound.
When we got home I fed him my lunch and gave him a big glass of milk, which he drank quickly but still without making a sound. I wanted to get Michael clean as soon as possible, so I hurriedly helped him undress. More burn marks covered his back and legs, probably as a result of being punished with hot sticks, fresh from the fire—on purpose. As we began to bathe his filthy body for probably the first time in a long time, he finally spoke, saying: “I want to go home.”
But I couldn’t take Michael home, not yet. He needed so much care! I wrapped him in a towel and, as my friend held him tightly, I began to cut away the dead skin that hung from his heels and the insides of his feet. Then I went to work extracting the jiggers and removing the egg sacs and the caked mud and rocks embedded in the holes the jiggers had eaten in his feet. My friend watched in horror and Michael didn’t say anything. He didn’t scream or cry; he simply sat there in what must have been excruciating pain as tears rolled down his beautiful, little, expressionless face.
I, on the other hand, ran out of the room and threw up.
I quickly returned to put clean clothes, a fresh pair of socks, and a new pair of shoes on Michael in preparation to take him back to his family. As we drove along in the van, my friend searched for some kind of little treat to give to Michael and finally found a lollipop with a whistle on the end of its plastic stick. He demonstrated for Michael the wheee sound it made, then handed it to Michael to try for himself. Wheeee. We watched in awe as, for the first time, Michael displayed some emotion. His big brown eyes lit up and a wide, happy grin overtook his face. It was as though he had held joy inside for all of his brief life—and could at last express it. The fifteen-minute drive back to Masese was so unlike our silent journey to my house earlier that day. Michael was happy, and I watched in the rearview mirror as he blew his whistle all the way home.
Michael’s mother saw us coming and greeted us with one comment: “He looks smart,” meaning he looked nice. I wondered about this woman. Was she his biological mother or was she his stepmother? I didn’t know. I tried to show her how to care for him and explained that feeding him protein-rich foods would improve his health, because he was otherwise healthy. I left him with some powdered milk and multivitamins, prayed with their family, and promised to check back again soon.
A few weeks later, I went to check on Michael and noticed that his condition had deteriorated significantly in the weeks since I had seen him. He was dirty and hungry, obviously in need of immediate attention.
I knew I could help Michael, but had one problem: I had promised myself over and over again that I would not take any children from Masese into my home for more than a bath, a meal, or some kind of basic medical care, such as bandaging a cut or removing jiggers. I warned myself against getting involved in this way.
“Katie,” I said to myself, in my firmest tone of voice, “these children are all sick. And they are always sick. If you start caring for them in your home, it will never end.”
After all, we fed these children lunch and dinner every day and twice a week, I drove my van, stocked like a minipharmacy, into their village to provide whatever simple medical care I could offer them. I told myself that these twice-
weekly visits were all I could handle. I could not take children to my house for several days or weeks to help them recover from their various illnesses or injuries. I really, really wanted to keep this promise to myself, but as I looked at Michael that day, I saw no alternative, or at least no alternative that would keep him alive. He needed to be bathed in warm water every day. He needed to eat milk and eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables. He needed multivitamins and fluids high in electrolytes if he was going to live.
For me to get all these things to him every day in Masese would have been impossible. Even if I could have done so, there was no guarantee his parents would not sell these valuable commodities and continue to feed him posho. No matter how malnourished he was and how much care he needed, Michael was also fearfully and wonderfully made, created in the image of my Savior. I owed it to him, and to the Lord, to give him a chance to live, so with his parents’ permission, I put him in the van and took him home.
I started Michael’s “rehab” process with some basic medical tests, and thankfully he tested negative for HIV, TB, and typhoid. We began a rigid deworming routine and I fed him a high-calorie, protein-packed diet. During the first five days he lived with us, he gained two and a half pounds, which was great because he only weighed twenty pounds when he arrived. Over the course of that first week in our home, Michael began a remarkable transformation. He went from being an unresponsive, lethargic, expressionless child who slept all day to being an extremely cheerful, sometimes ornery, delightful little boy who rarely stopped smiling and loved playing games with other children.
During the time Michael was staying with us, a desperate woman in Masese put her infant niece—a very sick, very tiny, very hungry baby girl—into my arms. She was beautiful but so fragile, and I didn’t think she could survive much longer without medical intervention. With the woman’s permission, I did the only thing I knew to do: scooped up the baby, put her in the van, and drove as fast as I safely could to the best hospital in town. After having the baby admitted to the hospital, I drove back to Masese to explain to the woman that the baby would need to stay there for a while.