Playing catch-up

I'm all out of words these days and it's just enough to make me batty. Because it's in the words, and it's in the getting them down, that I make sense of life all around me.

So when there aren't any? I'm all clouded up, in a fog. 

But I think maybe I'm missing all of these faces and I think I'm ready to talk. The end of summer is pressing in and we've done well here. Tanned little bodies and a backyard full of bats, balls, butterfly nets, bug jars. In the everyday hours, my feet waded in the river and my knees bounced a boy at the pool. We ran in too-tall grass out back, swatted at monster mosquitoes. We blew endless bubbles and I lost, over and over, to a four year-old at Old Maid. She laughed hysterically every time, fell over backward, when I pulled that old hag from her hand. We blended smoothies and I tricked them right before their eyes, tossing in handfuls of spinach, avocados. We traveled and summer-camped, watched Gabby and co. flip for Gold.

Life, this summer, was good. Mind and body, we were all in. My heart, however, has been keeping it's own time ... trying hard to catch up.

When I got off that plane all jet-lagged and beaded-up, a friend said I didn't have to have any answers. He said, "When people ask what the trip meant to you? Tell them, 'I'll let you know in three years.'" And I laughed nervous and thought, "Well that would be really rude." But the truth is?

I might have to tell you in three years.

On the surface, our team touched down and we served long days, long lines. We pushed through and then re-boarded a plane. It was quick and methodical. But I've spent my life pouring over statistics and books and relief organizations: praying that Jesus would feed his hungry, fill hearts and bellies, stop the brutality, ease the oppression. I waited for the time to go and see, touch, look someone in the eyes. Just. Learn. Something. And while I was there, I was all there: body, mind and spirit.

Hands and feet, finally.

And now? I'm looking at little faces in my kitchen and we're flipping pancakes. And all the while, those other faces hang in my mind. Lovely faces. And while I'm listening to my girl explain why koalas sleep all day, I'm hearing Mandela Beatrice in Uganda. How she waited all night at age six, the same age as my girl. How her parents never came home. How it was the LRA and an ambush. How she longs for a mother to rub lotion on her back, buy her a bar of soap. How she sang right then and there: "I'll never leave my Lord"... then asked me to pray everyday for her future.

I'm thinking of a fifteen year old with a daughter turning one. An orphan- turned- mother and who really needs all of the details? I told her she was a wonderful mama, the way she bounced and sang to her girl, blew raspberries on her tummy.

I'm remembering Bweyale, a resettlement camp, and the metal fence dividing the Compassion school children in green from the refugee children in rags. The two women who smiled like the sun-  peaceful eyes, warm words, beautiful English. They held my hands and told how they walked from Sudan. Walked. How they fled from war. Lost children along the way.

They spoke of how it won't matter if there is peace some day. They won't go north again.

So I'm here and life is good, more than good. I'm just in a bit of limbo, in the healthiest sort of way.  I'm not angry or despondent or detached. My heart just got home a bit later than my feet and that old fire in my bones is raging. I'm restless and trusting God who is here and there. Trusting I didn't spark the fire on my own.
 
I'm thinking on those faces and all of the joy, beauty amidst strife, across an ocean and I'm resisting the urge to frantically DO. I'm choosing to cool off and quiet down by staying close to the One who knows and sends and preserves life. I'd like to get back on a plane or earn a new degree. I'd like to hold up a megaphone.  

But just for today: I'm trusting that He knows how often they cross my mind. I'm trusting that they don't ever leave His. I'm reading and learning and telling. I'm waiting quiet, praying with zeal like it all depends on me ... knowing full well that it does not. 

And I'm remembering all of the faithful who are scattered over this planet- loving, serving, risking, reconciling, advocating, chronicling, innovating for change. I'm remembering that God is not absent, nor is He silent. He is present in all ways, in all places, at all times. He is visible. He is tangible ...

in His people.

Footloose and free ... part 2

We rolled out from under mosquito nets and into our scrubs, into shoes that had straddled pit latrines the day before. We woke up with the sun and a sip of dark coffee, peanut butter on toast. We piled into vans with armed guards and boxed lunches. We hoisted pills, braces, crutches, and creams onto van roofs. 

Each day, the clinic sites varied while the set-up remained routine. Start with triage, then the doctors, then physical therapy. Finish up at pharmacy.

And I've never seen, in all of my life, a more patient and dignified crowd: quiet, gracious, and waiting from dawn to dusk under an African sun. Hungry babies. Strong mamas. Men in best dress. Their eyes told soul stories.

They waited outside while I stayed in. One by one, they stepped into a dirt-floored classroom with posters on the walls, all in English. They came with fevers and questions and heart pains. We listened and narrowed down, taught on-the-fly and rapid tested for malaria. We de-wormed and counseled and auscultated. Occasionally, we moved someone small to the front of the line.



And the lines were long, snaking through Uganda's red dirt and lush green with bikes and jugs and wash basins. Some days we turned hundreds away.

"We are so sorry," we said.

Just not enough hands, not enough hours in the day. In Uganda, the second fastest growing country in the world, there is 0.001 doctor for every one thousand people.

 

And for the little ones in the crowd each day, we had one box of shoes to share. Just one.

They were placed in the care of the physical therapists, an extraordinary group of young professionals with immediate and practical skills. They taught body mechanics and dressed wounds. They fashioned braces right on site from boiled plastic, old neoprene. They shared knowledge and hope.

"Do these exercises, wear this brace, bend your knees while you work ... your boy will walk."
They cut off casts, sewed belts, arranged an amputation.







And each day they put little shoes on little feet.

I didn't work with them directly- always a few doors down- but I knew they had been up to some good. Each day at clinic's end, I stepped out of my tiny triage space and into open air. I greeted darling faces, grabbed hands and sang songs, helped the pharmacy distribute long awaited meds.

And each day, without fail, I wrapped up our clinic time with delight over little feet. Just as soon as I shook my last limb to the Hokey Pokey and turned myself around, my eyes caught a glimpse of  little shoes.

And the first time I noticed? I cried.

Because they were my baby's shoes- the little green sandals with the flowers- and there they were, all those miles from home. The moment caught me off guard, and then it bowled me over with delight.



Her mom said they were her first and only pair.

And I didn't need to see them. Bringing your shoes and mine was never about seeing who received them. When we are called to give, we simply give. We don't get to calculate or manage or oversee.

But suddenly, there they were. Everywhere I looked, my shoes and yours were running to and fro nearly half a world away.

I thought of that big box in my attic, all the hanging on and what-ifs and just-in-cases ... how sometimes the clinging can stifle, take on a life of its own. Suddenly, we become hoarders of blessing never meant for the keeping.

And in the letting go of things, we grow a size or two.

These shoes were just bits of rubber and leather after all. But suddenly my heart was laced up in a new way ... this little life all tied to theirs somehow.  

Like when I saw him in my boy's first shoes and how my eyes welled up. I held my breathe for just a moment. Because my Ben learned to walk in those shoes. Then he ran down our street like he'd been born to fly.

And now? 



Here they were.

And I watched this little guy run right into the wind, and thought of my own blue-eyed boy back home ... all of his busy steps.
 
And two worlds really can collide, if we'll let them. If we'll give a bit of ourselves away... make some room to see.

You did the giving. And so I really wanted you to see too.

Thank you again, friends. For sending along some joy and for meeting a very practical need.

(I'd like to talk more soon about how so many are learning to meet their own needs in long-term, sustainable ways. Through vocational training and hard work, many are providing for themselves and for their families- not merely relying on gifts from afar. And isn't this really the goal? Why not send boxes and boxes of shoes several times a year? What then of the small business man who fashions and sells rubber-soled shoes from discarded tires, hemp ... for his village and for his income? These are things  worth thinking about. Plus, I'd love to introduce you to some of the folks I check in on from time to time.)

Friends, here's to running fast into Him today. Here's to letting go of the obstacles. Here's to giving with joy, so that His joy might travel far.

photo credit: Chris Kundrock