Reading

Last night I awoke to what sounded like the second great flood.  There have been many times here that I’ve said, “This is the hardest rain I have ever seen or heard!”  Then another torrential downpour comes and I amend my statement.  Last night as I huddled under my 6 layers of blankets I again said, “Surely this is the hardest rain I’ve ever heard!”  It rained off and on all day today as well, so the world outside is a soggy one.  Which in a very roundabout way bring me to my topic–rainy weather equals reading weather!  I can’t think of anything more satisfying than a blanket, hot tea, and a good book on a rainy day (unless I had my cat with me!).   Thus I thought I’d share my current reading list and get any good suggestion you may have for the next books I should read.  Rainy season is going to last awhile!

I recently finished The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre.  I saw the movie awhile ago and started the book last November while Aaron and I were in Nairobi.  When I first saw the movie and its dramatized story of powerful pharmaceutical companies vs. poor people in Africa, I thought it was overdone.  Now that I’ve lived in Africa, though, I’m sadly not so sure.  It was a good, thought-provoking read.

This week I finished The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do, by Deborah Dortzbach and W. Meredith Long.  It’s written from the vantage point of experience in the the AIDS epidemic in the developing world.  Mostly, its about the issues we and the Western church ought to deal with in order to face this raging disease sweeping through our already broken world.  I identified with many of this topics in this book, and wrestled again with so many of the unanswered questions surrounding this disease, justice, and mercy.  Quotes:

Neither the need that we encounter daily nor the love and compassion what we should have for people will be enough to get us through the tough times.  We will cycle between compassion and the desire to escape.  The compassion that drove us to action will flake away in shards of pain and anger, leaving us raggedly exposed and vulnerable.  We will want to don a self-protective cloak of hardness.  The hope of Christ, not our own compassion, enables us to persevere.  His faithfulness, not ours, is the foundation of ministry.

When we immerse ourselves in the fight against AIDS at the level of strategy and need, we become frightened by the mismatch between the immensity of the problem and the size of the global response.  Our ministries become all but invisible when woven into the tapestry of global need.  When we personally encounter AIDS in people and the families affected by it, we are overwhelmed by the suffering that lies behind the frightening statistics.  Only as we recognize that the tapestry of response is not emerging by happenstance, but that God is actively weaving us into the fabric of His compassion, are we renewed.

This book challenged me to not forget to think  about the great issues of sin, brokenness, humanness, justice, and mercy behind my every day tasks.  Truly, I–we–cannot do this on our own strength.

Right now I’m reading The Final Act of Living, by Barbara Karnes.  It’s about hospice work and is mainly applicable to Western settings (as far as the medical aspect at least).  I’ve at times considered working in hospice, and here we’ve wrestled as a project with how best to deal with end-of-life issues in terminally ill AIDS patients.  We don’t have the luxury of morphine pain relief and comfortable beds and around the clock nursing staff.  But still–there is always more we can do, and I want to learn more about how to care for dying people.  I actually disagree with the whole premise of this book–that dying is a natural part of living–and all the ideas that flow from that idea.  Dying is the opposite of living, and it was not part of the original plan.  It’s a result of brokenness, and therefore it is unnatural and can’t be made into something good.  I’m reminded what a blessing it is to know that someday death will be swallowed up in victory!

And lastly, I’m reading Moving Mountains, by Claire Bertschinger.  She was a nurse who was very involved with the International Red Cross during the devastating mid-80s famine in Ethiopia.  She’s recounting her crazy adventures in nursing around the world.  I don’t plan to climb 120 feet into a jungle tree anytime soon, but I’m inspired to not twiddle my thumbs at any point in my life!!

There area a couple more books lying around that I’ve started but I’m not seriously reading yet:-)  I have a bad habit in most areas of life of trying to do too many things at one time, and reading isn’t exempt from this!  If you have some good suggestions (and want to send me the book!?!), I’d love to hear about them.  I can add them to my running “Books to read before I die” list!

Exactly

Best ad I’ve seen since the cat-round-up commercial during the superbowl years ago:

First, red wine.

Now, dark chocolate.

Yes, life is good.

I don’t even like red wine, but this has stuck with me for a couple of weeks now. That’s good marketing! I’m burning through my dark chocolate stash, which is slightly disconcerting on several levels. The other day I bit into some Hershey’s special dark and thought, “This doesn’t taste like dark chocolate.” What have I done to myself?! It was only 45% cocoa, so I reached for the 70% Sao Tome chocolate and life was good again:-)

Kolfe

Welcome to Kolfe Keranyo. It’s the new area where we are starting a project site, and where I’ll mostly be working over the next few months. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve begun the process of working with the community leaders to find people to accept as beneficiaries in the project. This has included multiple meetings that Teddy, the project manager, has handled, and many home visits to assess the potential beneficiaries’ status. As we’ve walked through the community to various homes, I’ve been struck with how very different the area is from the other parts of Addis we work in. It’s easy to think that I’m not even in Addis, a sprawling, stinky city of 4 million. Kolfe is on the edge of the city, and is a relatively new residential area. There’s a lot of construction going on in the area, and it’s home to a lot of people who recently moved here and have no place to go.

There are moments I feel like I am in a much smaller town, set somewhere far out in the country. It’s green and the mountains are close, the roads are wide dirt ones full of rocks, and are often banked by small pastures full of grazing sheep, cows, and goats. In my time here in Addis, I’ve come to understand that my heart beats for the needs of cities–I didn’t know this about myself before, but yet again I’ve seen how much better God knows my heart than I do. Cities are full of energy, but also crammed with people who desperately need something. I always thought I liked surburbia, but now I long for my life to be lived out seeking to extend hope to the life-weary who have come to the city looking for another chance. So now I find it interesting that I’ve been assigned to Kolfe–I’m admittedly a little hesitant to face the learning and challenges that will have to be dealt with. At the same time, I’m intrigued to see what new thing God’s going to show me through this work and the people I’ll interact with here.

Even with all the differences, Kolfe is still full of people who are hurting. I’ve talked about some of the women I’ve already met. Yesterday we had our first distribution day, where we pay for rent and provide teff (grain), oil, and soap. Our 27 new beneficiaries came, and it was a a joy to be able to begin to practically reach out to them. We are still working on finding an office location, but this time we met on the the yard and porch of an old community government office. I’m still figuring out photo uploading in wordpress–I really need a full time computer expert to just trail behind me and fix all my problems!! I hope, though, that these photos communicate more than my frail words can!

Mesfin and I look really solemn here, but we were actually really happy to be there!

Boonah. Kaffee. Cafe’. Coffee.

Most people who know me very well know that I love coffee. It’s the bittersweet fruit of the earth, in my opinion made more perfect by a shot of skim milk. I’m not sure when coffee first became an integral part of my daily routine, but it was many years ago. Coffee got me through the relentless study schedule of nursing school and ensuing wee-hours nursing shifts. When I started the whole process of going overseas to pursue medical missions, I also sort of unknowingly embarked on a journey of learning to give up a lot of stuff. A lot of it was a mental battle, and resulted in many talks with God–me arguing about the stuff I “needed” and Him responding that He had promised to be sufficient. I remember one such extraordinarily petty discussion over coffee. I was driving down Lakeland, and I had just stopped by Cups (an espresso/coffee shop for the non-Jacksonites). I was thinking about how much I loved coffee. And it hit me–I had to be willing to give it up too!! Everything, all of me–I had to be willing to lay aside. The struggle was obviously a lot deeper than the nonfat vanilla latte I probably had in my hand, but it was the surface issue at least. So, after a few miles and a lot of self vs. God, I realized that I could give up coffee if I was sent to some boondock place where you couldn’t get it. Even though it wouldn’t be any fun.

Then, the sweetness of His goodness–I came to ETHIOPIA. Where coffee came from. And it’s amazing coffee, and it’s all over the place, and I could have it six times a day and be thought of as normal. An true Ethiopian macchiato puts Starbucks to shame–it’s the perfect combination of espresso, milk, and sugar. And I can get it for a whole 17 cents!!

But.

I was sick a couple of weeks ago, and skipped the coffee for Excedrin. A couple of days into this, I realized that it was a perfect opportunity to quit my coffee habit. It’s not that I think coffee is bad, or that I don’t like it–I think I’ve proved that I do. I mean, I’m writing a blog post about it!  But I was annoyed that I had become addicted to something, and thought there would probably more enjoyment in something that I had learned to live without.  (Running water, for example!  It’s a wonderful thing!!).

For the following statement I feel as though I should be sitting in a circle of bleary- eyed people–but I’ve now been off of the morning coffee habit for two weeks!  And you know?  Life is still good!

Now, about the dark chocolate . . . . that’s something I’m not ready to give up!!

She’s

In your short life, you’ve lived a thousand times
You stood so brave, they robbed you blind
The truth is, there’ll be harder times
It’s ok to say you’re fine
But I’ll be waiting back behind, and
You can make your troubles mine
–Ellery, “Anna”

She’s 25.
She has two kids, named Nathanial and Hannah.
She’s pregnant, due in a couple of weeks.
Her story could be mine—we’re the same age, I could pick those names for my kids, and had my life taken a very different turn I could be pregnant now too. But beyond these details, her story sharply diverges from mine. Her husband died, and all she was left with was HIV. She’s living in a one-room mud house on borrowed time, knowing she’ll have to move out in a couple of months when the house is demolished for impending construction. She can’t work anymore because of her pregnancy. She hasn’t told anyone in her life about her HIV status, so there is no one she can really lean on. Besides the community-employed caregiver, there is no one who she says she can call if she ever needs help.

She’s 22. She’s living with some kind stranger and the woman’s daughter in a tiny room. She’s huddled on a little stool, almost on the floor—a foot from the piece of fresh wood that’s covering the spot where the sewage keeps seeping up. She’s hesitant to speak. Her face is flat, devoid of emotion. She quietly answers the basic questions. No, never been married. No, never went to school. No, have no work. No, have no parents. The next questions, though, bring raw emotion and her eyes redden and fill with tears. She can barely get the words out. She doesn’t know anything about HIV–she’s never understood anything about it. How does she think she got the disease, we ask?
Rape, she says. I was raped.

She’s 28. Her husband has left, and she’s trying to care for her 7 year old daughter. She didn’t do anything wrong. But now she can’t even get work, even though she owns an old-fashioned sewing machine and knows how to tailor. She’s shy, averts her eyes from facing us, the strangers in her home. We ask her what she knows about HIV. She just shakes her head, but this time she glances up in time for us to see the dripping tears. She doesn’t know much, not medically anyway. But her words, though soft, are fierce with anger.
What is HIV?
It’s evil.

It’s Friday night, and I’ve spent the evening typing the database for the beneficiaries in the new area where the project has just begun working. I can’t separate myself from all these things as I enter the information—it’s all on paper, I just need to get it into the computer. But I can’t do it without their faces coming to me, their stories piercing me anew. It’s so messed up. It’s not supposed to be this way. Anything I do, we do as a project—it’s help, yes, but it won’t change the fundamental tragedies of their lives.
To the first woman, I talked about HIV and breastmilk—she didn’t know it could be transmitted that way, and there was a moment of fear I saw in her eyes. I knew why—she was thinking that she would have no choice, because there is no way she could afford formula. So my coworker and I quickly assured her that we would provide formula and do all we could to make sure her baby was healthy. Her sweet three year old, Hannah, came up to me, curiosity in her brown eyes. I made friends by way of a peppermint. But I can’t bring back this woman’s husband. Or take away her disease. Or plant her in a world of comfort and cars and healthcare and Walmart.
To the second, I could do nothing. I gave her a Kleenex, and I hope she knew that my heart was crying with her. I told her how to take care of her burned right hand, and I touched her as I left and said, “May God bless you.” Even to me, though, my words sounded simplistic. Yes, I hope He does. But her life is so, so low I don’t even know where a start up would be.
To the third, I held her hand, assured her we would see her again. I couldn’t agree with her more—this is an evil disease we are dealing with. It’s easy to point fingers and cast blame for why some people contracted it, but even that’s usually because we don’t understand the choices that had to be made. But for her? She’s innocent, it seems, but she can’t get out of this nightmare.

There are days here that I want just to tell the good stories—of life and laughter, of death pushed away, of changed lives and happy people. But today was not such a day, because to tell only the joyful stories would be to ignore the reality of these three women’s existence.

I can’t wait, though, for the day when we get to see these women again, and to truly demonstrate that we do intend to care for them. I can imagine they’ve been promised a lot before, and that they’ve been let down just about as many times. On Tuesday, I got to go with two other staff to re-visit a woman and her kids who had just been added as a beneficiary. I felt like Santa, and I was just carrying a white trash bag that had some donated used baby clothes in it! The mom ended up not being home, but we spent a few minutes with the kids. I’m so glad for those times of joy that somehow He uses to soften the sorrow of the hard times.

I’m sorry this post is so long, friends☺ I have a lot to think about, and I usually think best by writing (that is, if none of you are around for me to talk to!). And Over the Rhine, Coldplay, and Ellery have kept me inspired as I’ve thought and written this evening! Thanks again for journeying with me through the pain and joy of this work.

Hannah’s Prayer

Today I’ve been at our second project site. It’s cold, really cold today. Oh, not a 10 degrees, snow on the ground kind of cold—but definitely a wet, persistent, gray kind of cold. The support group that came this morning was small, mainly due to the nasty, rainy weather. A few minutes before it started, a coworker asked if I would share a devotion with the group. Not knowing these women very well, I started flipping through my Bible, praying for some quick inspiration. I stopped on Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel, and thought about the words of praise to God for His power. Hannah’s rejoicing began with her exclaim over her much-prayed-for son, “I asked for him from the Lord.” But for a reason I didn’t know then, I decided not to talk about Hannah and her longing for and receiving her son, and her subsequent praise to the God of the universe.
After I talked with the group, my coworker started asking about their needs that we could pray for. Each shared their struggles—concerns about their health, or about having enough food, or about family difficulties. One of them talked for a long time in Amharic, and I couldn’t follow her story–I could only understand the tears in her eyes. My coworker translated for me . . . this beneficiary has a one-year-old child. But the woman has been weakening as her disease progresses, and felt that she couldn’t adequately care for her child any longer. So she made the impossibly hard decision to take her baby 6 hours south of Addis, and to leave her child with family there. She did it believing it was the best way for her baby to have a chance at life. Through her tears, she asked for us to pray that her baby would forget her—she didn’t want her child to remember Mama, because the remembering would be sorrowful. I can’t begin to think how deep her anguish goes—for a mother to have to give up her only child whom she loves so intensely, and to then cry out for that child to forget her—grief surely cannot go much beyond this. Tears filled my eyes, and I wished I could carry some of her painful burden. Yet I cannot, so I plead with the One who can.
This precious one who gave up the child she longs for—her name is Hannah.

Facing Reality

I’m glad to be back in Ethiopia.  My heart has settled, knowing that for now my place is here.  It’s been a joy to see familiar faces and to hear friends and beneficiaries exclaim, “Sahryay!”  I’ve been hugged and kissed repeatedly, and have been welcomed back enthusiastically—what a humbling reception.  Yesterday the adherence group at the main project had a traditional coffee ceremony for Mom and I—we broke bread and ate popcorn and drank sweet, dark coffee and laughed much.  For all the inconveniences and irritations spoiled me finds in the developing world, I’ve still been glad to get back in my groove of minibus riding and super (read small) market trekking.  As I mentioned before, I (like most of my fellow humans, probably) crave routine and stability.  On the surface, being in Africa may not seem like the place to offer those things, but it has become the place where I can feel most rooted at this point in life.  So for these reasons and many more, I am glad to be back.
But it’s not easy.  All over again I deal with facing reality—the reality that is here, the poverty and mud and disease and death.  It was easier to not be here, to not have to process through my convictions about begging and giving in those 10 seconds the old man missing an arm and a leg is standing outside the vehicle window, arm extended.  The first day back in the project office, I had greeted 25 beneficiaries who were all there for adherence group.  They were leaving, and I decided to go see what was going on in the pharmacy.  I got to the open door and peered around the line of beneficiaries waiting there, and I saw her.  I whispered loudly, “Tsehay!”  She started, turned, and saw me.  With a pained cry, she dropped the bag that was in her hands and suddenly was in my arms, clinging to me and weeping.  Her sobs shook our bodies even as my tears began to mingle with hers.  It was weeping that was two months overdue.  We had never been able to grieve together for her son, Henok.  I was in America, and she was here.  The loss was fresh for me, and the wound was still raw for her.  Again my heart wondered why, why it had to be this way.  We cried and when we finished, it was with the knowledge that the sorrow wasn’t gone, but you can’t cry forever.  Not here, especially, when life in all its grueling labor demands that you get back to living so you won’t die.
Already I feel the familiar urge to shrink back from facing all this reality, to ignore its presence and not ask the questions that don’t have comfortable answers.  I pray again for grace to keep on living, even when it means dying a little more inside every time I hear the familiar beggar-knock on the car window.