|
| Ok, I am finally updating my blog entry. It has been a long time. Someone once asked me what it was like to be a mother of a missionary. I will be working on that response very soon. For now, I just want to give a little insight on what it is like for my daughter. Karen and her family are missionaries in Uganda. She works in many areas in the village of Bundibugyo helping in the Health Center with a nutrition program to help the children who have either lost their mothers or are the children of mothers with HIV. There is a lot more that they do, but this is just to get me started. If anyone wants more information please log on to: http://bundinutrition.blogspot.com I also copied one of the postings from my daughter's site, to give you all an idea of what it is like to live and work there on a daily basis. Yes, there are difficult times as you will read below, but we know that no matter what, God is working in all of their lives, helping to keep them focused. Please continue to pray for all the missionaries there, and know that God is in total control. Here is the post regarding a peek into Uganda. Innocent died this morning. She was six years old. She died of sickle cell disease and anemia and poverty and family stress and too little too late.
Her father Kapu does gardening work for the Massos, as he has for a decade. They have watched him grow from his early teens into his mid twenties. They have watched him become the father of three children, Innocent being the oldest. The second died on Christmas Day two years ago. The third is a 4 month old baby. Kapu’s mother died on Friday. Karen went to the burial that day and held Innocent on her lap through the whole event, a bright and eager six-year-old girl whom no one expected to be close to death herself. We have possibly the highest prevalence of sickle cell disease in the world here in Bundibugyo, and its victims are too numerous to count. Kapu and his wife had done a good job of steering Innocent through many crises, but I think the events of a family death and burial over the weekend probably threw them into disarray, and no one noted the signs of her impending danger.
I found her this morning having just arrived at the hospital. The alert staff immediately sent her for a check of her hemoglobin and the lab result was 3.3 gm/dl, a value incompatible with life. In sickle cell disease a child can literally bleed to death internally, red blood cells melting, clogging the spleen, disappearing. She was already hooked up to a transfusion when I entered the ward. I immediately heard her labored breathing, saw her lying unconscious on a mattress on the floor, supported by a relative, clinging to life by the merest thread. In spite of mobilizing the nursing staff to give her antibiotics and antimalarials in addition to the blood, she died within the hour. I’ve rarely heard a cry more despairing than this mother’s. Perhaps being near the anniversary of her other child’s death, being left with only one of the three, perhaps she had allowed herself such hope that the treatment would work, I don’t know, but she fell apart.
By afternoon the clan had dug another grave by Kapu’s mother. Most were still at the home observing the four day period of mourning. I arrived just after the coffin, mostly to support Karen whom I knew cared deeply for the family. She sat outside weeping and I joined her, like the other women, sitting on papery dry banana leaves with our legs stretched in front of us, wet sand scratching my legs, leaning against the house. Many of the friends we’ve made over the years were there, the diverse network of relationships that run through the community. When one of Kapu’s age-mates, Kawa Vincent, who is now a primary school teacher but also used to be a little boy hanging around our homes, gave the requisite “report” on Innocent’s life, he got choked up. Seeing this young man struggle to speak moved many of the women (including us) to tears afresh. The hardest part was when the little cloth-covered coffin was lowered into the fresh muddy hole, and the men began to push the excavated dirt back in. Loud, thunking splats as the finality of the act echoed. At that point Kapu broke out in heart-rending cries (not usually seen from the men at these events) and that released Karen’s grief too, so that like the other mourners she just had to sit on the muddy ground and sob.
Death in Bundibugyo is death unadorned. We sang hymns, but while sitting in the dirt, with food scraps covered with flies lying nearby, the hymns giving counterpoint to the wailing of the closest relatives cradling the body throughout the ceremony. There is no illusion that death is a sanitary medical process—here it is sorrow, and filth, and gasping weakness, and empty hearts. Sitting on that ground I could only remember that some of the other patients at the hospital, as soon as she died, did a better job of comforting than I did. They surrounded the mother and said “she’s with Jesus now.” The more bleak the death the more important the hope of Heaven becomes. | | |
| This past week, my daughter and three granddaughters came to visit. To start it off, it was the first time two of the girls were ever on an airplane. So that was exciting for them. When they arrived and we were waiting for their luggage to go round and round, I asked the five-year-old, “Do you know where you are”? She replied, “Where”? I said, “Florida”. She looked very surprised and said, “I am?” They were very excited by this time, and even more excited that they would be going to Disney the following day.
The next morning, the traffic was terrible, the weather was extremely hot and humid, and the crowds were larger than life. It was not looking like a fun day. Then, as we were approaching the entrance to Disney, her eyes grew and grew, and she finally found her voice and said, “Look, The Castle…Look, it IS real, Cinderella’s Castle is real”. At which point, the traffic jam disappeared, the weather did not seem “that” hot, and the crowds were no longer there. All that remained was the reminder that seeing the world through the magical eyes of a five year old was a truly beautiful thing.
I wonder if that is the way we will feel when we reach Heaven and see our savior face to face? | | |
| One more work day, and I finally get a "vacation". I have not had a vacation day since October, when I went to Africa. I used up all of my time for that trip, and it was well worth it, but it is almost the end of July, and I NEED some time off. I worked every holiday this past year, just to save up more time. So, I am on my way to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to visit with my family. My son is hosting his sister (missionary family from Africa, who will be leaving to go back the beginning of August), and my other daughter lives in NJ. This is going to be a really great trip, since I get to see all of my children and grandchildren at the same time. This is very unusual and special. I'm just not sure if I can keep up with all the little ones at one time, but should be fun. I think this would be a perfect time to get that Family Portrait done. All 14 of us (poor photographer).
My birthday falls during the time I am away, so I actually get to spend my birthday with everyone too. That hasn't happend in a lot of years. And, my grandson will have his 4th birthday while I am there, so lots of celebrating to do.
So, feel free to join in the chorus: If you're going on vacation clap your hands...If you're going on vacation clap your hands...If you're going on vacation, with lots of anticipation...If you're going on vacation clap your hands...Yeah!
| | |
| For Sale?
As I was reading the paper this morning, out fell some of the sale advertisements for the local grocery stores and department stores. Some were having a half off sale, some were having a buy one, get one free sale, and others shouted Free Pepsi with $25 purchase. As I was turning the pages, a small book I keep in my office caught my eye, and I just opened it randomly, and this is what I found…(this is taken from Day by Day with Billy Graham).
Salvation is Free! God puts no price tag on the Gift of gifts…it’s Free. Preachers are not salesmen, for they have nothing to sell. They are bearers of Good News…the good tidings that “Christ died for out sins according to the Scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3). Money can’t buy it. Man’s righteousness can’t earn it. Social prestige can’t help you acquire it. Morality can’t purchase it. It is, as Isaiah said, “without money and without price.” God is not a bargaining God. You cannot barter with Him. You must do business with Him on His own terms. He holds in His omnipotent hand the priceless, precious, eternal gift of salvation and He bids you to take it without money and without price. The best things in life are free, are they not? The air we breathe is not sold by the cubit foot. The water which flows crystal clear from the mountain stream is free for the taking. Love is free, faith is free, hope is free.
Even though my salvation was obtained only through the costliest sacrifice ever made, God freely gave it to us. I just wanted to Praise the Lord and say Thank You Lord for this gift of salvation. | | |
| Yeah...The pool is at just the right temperature now. No more sliding into it, trying to "get used to it" feeling. You just jump right in and relax. I have my floating noodle chair in there, my iced tea by my side, a good book, lots of sunshine, and time off for good behavior. Aahhhh, so relaxing. The only person I know of who would not appreciate this is my son. If the temperature is not 30 degrees or lower, he thinks it is too hot. He actually cancelled a winter camping trip one year because it was only going up to 37 degrees that weekend, and he said that was too warm for a winter camp out. Are you crazy? One time he was in Maine in December, and actually cut two holes in the ice, tied a rope around himself, and jumped in the water and came up through the other hole. Now that is crazy. I guess it was a good thing I did not find out about if until years later, and he was over 21 at the time. The only other scary thing about that day was he had a good friend with him (to hold the rope), who also jumped in and came up through the other hole. Problem with that "good friend" of his, he turned out to be my son-in-law. Now, I have two of them in the family doing crazy things. But, this was not about the cold, the ice and the snow, it was about the warm, warm pool water. The sun, not "son", and enjoying the day. I wonder, do more people prefer the cold or the heat? | | |
|
