Need

How does one quantify need? There are many somewhat moral or difficult questions I face from day to day as I work in areas where war, disease and poverty have been, and still are, the norm. Among the questions I have faced lately has been the question of need. This past week I was tasked with finding around five thousand beneficiaries for hygiene kits (towel, toothbrush, soap, etc) we are hoping to distribute to families who have lost everything in this past years’ fighting. I traveled to an area north of here which has seen some of the heaviest fighting in the past few years and as we traveled through various villages and displaced placed peoples’ camps I began to wonder, “how will we know who best to give these kits to?” In the end it was decided we would distribute the kits to families who had just returned to their village for two reasons: 1) They were returning to empty houses or no houses at all and thus had very little physical capital to start living with. 2) It would encourage those still living in the camps to return home. But still, as we registered families and gave out ration cards, I couldn’t help but wonder about the need of those living in the nearby camps – was their need not just as great?
The question of need is one that is far greater than simply what I faced this past week. Is the person whose house just flooded in the American mid-west needy, or is it the starving girl in the Horn of Africa with flies on her face and buzzards overhead? The answer, of course, is that both are needy and facing the harsh realities this life sometimes brings with it. The difficulty is in knowing how to help both in their varying degrees of need and helplessness.
Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, and what a world it would be if we actually did just that. There is, and will be until the King returns, plenty of need around us each day; it is for us to see, and answer as we have been enabled. Some of us have the chance to listen to the broken heart of our neighbor, while others of us find our neighbors in the refugee camps of the world. All are needy, and most especially in desperate need of the King. We have the glorious chance to be his hands and heart to our neighbors.
The other day I was sitting in our vehicle waiting for some work to finish up when a small child came to the door of the vehicle and just stood their looking at me with his long face, sad eyes and puffy lips. He just stood there looking at me unblinking for around fifteen minutes; he didn’t even say a word (which is quite uncommon, since the children seem to find particular pleasure in running after me yelling Muzungu! Muzungu! – which means “white person”). I happened to be finishing up a small bottle of water so I handed to him and his face lit up and a giant smile crossed his face as he took it in both hands and walked away. An empty plastic bottle had made his day. Was the giving of that plastic bottle loving my neighbor? I think in some small way it was, in the same way I hope the hygiene kits we distribute will be filled with the love of Christ as people take them into their homes.

One final thought I have had today is this: While doing these acts of love to our neighbors is important, I have been reminded that more important than that is our devotion and love for Jesus himself. Far too often I get caught up in the act of doing and forget the one for whom I am doing it, the King himself. I read this great quote from Watchman Nee today and would like to end with it. “We could labour and be used to the full; but the Lord is not so concerned about our ceaseless occupation in work for Him. That is not His first object. The service of the Lord is not to be measured by tangible results. No, my friends, the Lord’s first concern is with our position at His feet and our anointing of His head.”

In the Volcano's Shadow

After spending a few days at home in Uganda enjoying the peacefulness of Entebbe I have now arrived in the DR Congo. My travel here went surprisingly without any difficulties and I am already quite busy with my new tasks. We are putting together ten thousand "hygiene kits" for distribution to internally displaced people(IDPs) in the surrounding areas
Goma is a beautiful town situated on the shores of Lake Kivu and bordering Rwanda. It has seen some of the most intense fighting in Congo's ongoing conflicts and in 1994 received a large portion of the Rwandan refugees caught up in the genocide. It is also a city rebuilding itself on the lava that flowed through the town from the nearby volcano in 2002. As we drive along we bump along over the porous rock and dodge the occasional puddle. It is refreshing to be somewhere where it is raining and green, especially after five months without any rain in Sudan.
I am continuing to adjust to the languages as my mind is inundated with Swahili and French; it can be exhausting spending the whole day speaking a language other than my own. Thank you to all who have been praying for my transition.

I will try to get some pictures up in the near future but I no longer have my camera and will rely on my teammates for their pictures.

Final Sudan Photos

Sudan Sunset


The View Above our Compound


I have been sleeping outside my tukol on this bed because of the heat


Innovative Loudspeaker


Crowd Celebration



Football Match


Our Compound


Decorated Bicycle



Ali our tractor driver.

Chronicles

Chronicles – the telling of life’s stories. I imagine if we ever bothered to collect and catalog our individual, unique stories we would have no need for fiction; we would have endless entertainment at the expense of ourselves.
I wonder at times what my life story would look like if written down to this point in the adventure. One theme, that I am sure would emerge is displacement. My life has been filled with displacement, sometimes of my own choosing and other times out of necessity. Displacement has shaped who I am in so many ways. I view the world through the lens of collided continents, tangled traditions and forgotten identity; through poverty, war, educational elitism, affluential idealism, and simplistic faith. My most feared question is, “where are you from”, and I am particularly fond of international airports such as Heathrow, Amsterdam and Dubai because there, more than anywhere else, I can see the worlds I know smashing into each other with paradoxal ease.
Displacement has also led me to place little value on material objects. There are those items I possess which hold sentimental value mostly for their association with one time of displacement or another but generally speaking I don’t take great stock in the things I own. I would be far more upset if someone stole my journal than if someone stole my camera or computer.
I am once again on the verge of yet another displacement and it is, as always, a time of reflection on what I have learned from my time here and on the uncertainties that lie ahead. I sometimes struggle to know what my role is supposed to be in places like this and in Congo, where I am headed. What I have been reminded of lately is that wherever I am, I am called to Act Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly with my God. This is not always easy, but it is certainly a benchmark by which to gauge the work that I do. I pray that what I do reflects Jesus.

I leave Sudan tomorrow and will spend several days in Kenya before flying home to Entebbe for several days. Next week I will then head off to the Democratic Republic of Congo for a new set of challenges and adventures. Please keep me in your prayers.

The Edge of Nowhere

When I arrived here over a year and a half ago I felt that I was quite truly in the middle of nowhere. One of my bosses had quipped that to get here, “you go to the end of the world and turn right”, and it certainly seemed to be true. You fly for hours over the emptiness that is South Sudan and suddenly you bump down on a little dirt patch surrounded by shrubby trees and you are here; here where muddy trails are called a road and the nearest ice-cream is six hours away through the dust of migrating cattle and a zillion thorn trees.
As time has passed however, this “middle of nowhere” spot has taken on a vibrant life of its own and has ceased to be just “nowhere”. It is now a place with memories and faces; a place that has been filled with moments of joy and moments of utter frustration and doubt. As I prepare to leave for my next adventure it is dawning on me that I will miss this unpredictable patch of Africa. Here are some of the highlights that have made this place a little like home for me…

* I now have two lizards that sleep on my door at night. They are super skittish during the day but at night they just climb up onto my door and fall asleep. The lizards, along with the rats have ceased to bother me….well actually the rats still bother me, but they don’t keep me up at night anymore.
* I have survived two devastating fires and witnessed how people can pull together in times of crisis.
* My favorite time of day is dusk when we go to the market and enjoy a small cup of dark, sweet coffee under the shade of a Niem tree.
* I can’t decide which is worse, the mud of rainy season or the heat of dry season, but at any rate there are still those few months when the rains are just starting and the grass pops out of the parched earth which are absolutely stunning in beauty.
* The mud actually has its enjoyable moments…like when you get to slosh through some muddy trail with the vehicle sliding all over the place and in the end you conquer the road. Yes, that feels real good …as long as the vehicle doesn’t get stuck.
* My 16 hour trip through the mud with my friends Gorshi and Nile is probably my most memorable moment here…partly from the absurdity of it but mostly because it was the time I got to know them the best.
* One of the guys I work with actually knows how to use a carpenter’s square now, which after a year and half I feel is a huge accomplishment.
* I have eaten A LOT of goat meat here.
* When a father happily told me he was teaching his son to hate the northerners, my heart bled because it was such a hopeless moment for this country. It was a moment that makes me want to pray and pray and pray for this place. It also makes me long all the more for the King’s return.
* There was one evening when a friend received a package from the US that included some bubbles and he ran around blowing bubbles over all of us. It is a moment of silly joy that I will never forget.
* When the first rain came in April we went out and danced in the rain. The sound of it pounding on the tin roofs is probably the greatest sound I have heard in my time here.
* There are those half-naked, snotty-nosed kids that stand by the road just to wave at the vehicles as they pass by and it makes my day.
Those are just a few of my memories of this place…not all of them are happy memories but that is the way life is, there is good and bad wherever we go.


I have been waiting to say where I will be headed until I knew for sure that it was actually going to happen but it now seems to be in the works so I thought I would fill you in. In March I will be headed to the DR Congo with Sam’s Purse to do some relief work in a couple of the areas that have seen mass displacements of people due to recent fighting. I am excited about this opportunity as Congo is still the country on this planet I would call home. I am also quite nervous and would ask for your prayers as I try to remember the languages of my youth. (French, Swahili, Lingala)

A Moment of Rest

If I could sum up my life right now I’d sum it up with the song “Big Sam Thompson” by Chris Thile. I find it somewhat ironic that I am listening to bluegrass music in the 105 degree heat of a parched Sudan, as I typically associate bluegrass music with the back-country hills of America where the music seems to blend with the beauty of the mountains and the changing of the seasons. Nonetheless, I swing gently in my hammock and listen as the music winds its way through the rafters of my thatch home; the violin’s melody hovering in the hot air, punctuated by the piercing notes of the mandolin. I sway in my hammock, sweating in the extreme afternoon heat, and let the music remind me of all that is beautiful and painful in this world, because after all, the music if filled with both beauty and pain.
I think there are times when our lives really could be put to a song that speaks of the hardships, victories and love we are encountering. We go through the day uncertain of what might befall us, trusting that regardless of what may come, there is One who knows what he is doing with our lives. As I prepare to move on from my present work, there are a lot of uncertainties that lie ahead, looming like some vast precipice on the horizon. In times like this it is far too easy to forget to look around. It is far to easy to miss the beauty that is never too far beyond our next footfall. I am reminded over and over again that we are told to “wait on the Lord”. I think that perhaps part of waiting is also taking the time to look around; taking the time to let the music lift our spirits out of dumps and just reveling in the wonder of the moment we are in regardless of all the doubt and fear it may hold.
My dad and his good friend Mukanirwa like to remind each other is Swahili, “Usi tembea imbele ya Yesu”, which simply means, “you shouldn’t walk in front of Jesus”. It is a great reminder when times are uncertain. Getting ahead of Jesus usually leads to falling off the precipice of uncertainty that lies ahead, while following him leads to green pastures and cool waters where the soul is refreshed and Jesus gets the glory.
Maybe I am just suffering a nostalgic moment on a quiet afternoon as I listen to my music, but then again, it is a moment filled with longing and waiting for the King. It is a moment when, despite the questions that plague the road ahead, I am able to rest because I know the One who knows the answers to all those questions.


Also I wanted to let you know that I have started a separate blog for some of my attempts at poetry. If you're interested it can be found at the wazi poet.

Messy Hands

I was looking at my hands, and they are a mess! For starters, they are sweaty and the sweat does a marvelous job of mixing with the dust that is everywhere to form mud. Then, of course, there is some grease and a little bit of paint dotting my fingers and the creases of my palms where it just won't wash out. Add to that the blotchy dots where my skin is reacting to the soap I’ve been using and the blister from the digging work I was doing today and it is more than apparent that my hands are a mess.
One of my favorite worship songs is a beautiful Spanish song that talks about offering our hands and our lives to the Lord because he is precious to us. I was listening to that song and looked at my hands and all I could think was – what a mess! As I was thinking that, it also struck me that it was a great analogy for the rest of my life. I come to Jesus and I am a mess just like my hands are. But I come anyway because he didn’t come to save perfect people but messed up people. He doesn’t even use perfect people to do his work but builds his kingdom on the offering of our messy lives for his service. That is a huge comfort to me.
My time here in this part of Sudan is quickly drawing to a close. I am planning on leaving here in mid-March and where I go from here is still uncertain which can be a bit daunting. What the journey looks like from here is far from certain but I am confident that the King will be able to take these messy hands of mine and use them for something noble and true that builds up his Kingdom. Sometimes I look at my hands, or my life, and I wonder what purpose they will be used for, especially in their current state. It is a good thing I serve a creative King who has a use for me!