Africa Journal #12: the update you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath…

Africa Journal #12: the update you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath…

Part 1:

Sometimes it is hard to even remember that I am in Africa. Of course that is exceedingly obvious from an outside perspective, but through these weeks of sickness I’ve been mostly by myself or in my own head. When I’m with others it has mostly been other Westerners. Westerners mostly have been taking care of me (thanks Gina!). I’ve been reading Western books and I’ve mostly been eating “Western” food (incredibly, it is healthier than food here). I’ve mostly been drifting through African life rather than partaking in it. I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever been in Africa and done that. It’s somewhat disturbing. Even recently when I was walking around Kampala and I felt distant, rather than a part of what was going on.

This morning, however, I feel like I’m back in Africa. I’m drinking tea on this fine Ugandan morning with Uncle Peter and I’ve been writing postcards and he’s reading a book I got for him on leadership. He loves it. Leadership books put me to sleep. He’s also eating roasted ants. That’s Africa. Generally speaking, I’m known for doing “crazy” things, so you may be shocked to find out that I will not eat the aforementioned ants. I’ve decided that I have a rule: I won’t eat anything, unless it comes from the sea, with more than four legs; safe rule, right? That keeps me from having to eat the millions of ants my friends here roast whenever the nasty creatures decide it’s a good time to emerge from the earth en masse. But Peter rather enjoys them and it’s good to feel like I’m somehow “back in Africa”.

A lot has gone on since I’ve last written an update. For me I’ve been more of an observer than a participant. This sickness, which is so uncommon for me, has really gotten me down and kept me out of the action. I’m still not at 100% as my body tries to recover from whatever virus it was that I had—the doctors failed to identify it. Now the headaches are almost gone and I’m probably just days away from having all my strength back although I have noticed that even my slight frame has lost considerable weight and muscle mass over the past two weeks. The remedy, of course, is more meat, more peanut butter, and more chocolate. Fat and protein is what I need! My caloric intake is already much lower here than in the US so it’s always a struggle to keep weight on here, but the sickness has taken it to the next level. My goal for my final weeks here is to “make up” (which is the Ugandan term for working out) everyday and to put some muscle mass back on and hopefully improve my cardiovascular situation after the relatively sedentary lifestyle I was forced to endure. So what have I missed out on recently? Well, a few things. I’ve missed doing much “ministry” as I could barely get around on my own. That’s thrown quite a wrench into the schedule of things, but that’s just how it is. I’ve also missed a number of other things. I was supposed to go to African Hearts in Ssenge, but was unable. I was supposed to be in Rwanda this past weekend, but was unable. One of the boys in our street program died last week and I would have liked to go to his funeral as well, but again I was unable. Speaking of death (sorry, no segway), it is continually an eye-opening experience to see how often it occurs here. If you remember from my previous musings on the topic, the mean age here in Uganda is 17. In the US it’s around 37. That means death occurs at quite an alarming frequency in this country with an almost record-breaking birthrate. One of the women in our women’s ministry had to bear the news that her son had been murdered in prison. Gina, the missionary here that works with the women’s program, went with her. Another woman Gina knows had her baby die when the baby fell off a boda boda (motorcycle taxi). Death, of course, is par for the course of human life and the global mortality rate will always be 100%, but not all cultures view life and death in the same way. One thing about here is that death is a community affair and not hidden from the population as it is in many ways in my/our culture. I am still trying to ascertain the real beliefs about death here, but they are definitely different than in the West where we have so many safeguards against death that most people here simply don’t have access too. Here God gives and takes away. In the West we tend to believe science and medicine give and take away. I remember being in Malawi where the HIV/AIDS rate is well north of 30% of the population and seeing funerals almost all the time. In Africa death is viewed with a particular perspective that I would do well to understand…

Part 2:

Because a number of you have asked, I will fill you in briefly on how my computer was miraculously returned to me. To be blunt, if you have ethical issues (as I actually do) about the use of bribery you should probably stop reading now. That’s an indicator of where this is going…

Contrary to my nature, I’ll make this explanation as simple as possible. As soon as my computer was stolen, Gina, the aforementioned missionary here, called an Uncle at a different home for street children, a home that only takes in teenage street boys. That in and of itself is worth commenting on. It must be known that it is very rare for anyone to take in street boys who are 14+. To be blunt, they are steeped in violence, thievery, drug abuse, and any other number of vices. They are the few survivors of their group in society, and they didn’t make it to their teenage years on the streets by being moral. On the streets the just perish. So this home is a radical concept of the gospel that says, “none should perish.” Yet Gina knew that the boys in that home knew where we lived and knew that if they wanted quick access to the expensive gear mzungus have, this was where to get it. So! She called the Uncle of that home and asked if any of their boys may have possibly stolen a Macbook Pro. He said he’d try and find out. Long story short, it became apparent that one of the boys had stolen my computer. We’ll call him Joseph for the purposes of this disclosure. One of the other boys had ratted him out to the Uncle and so now we knew who had taken it. However, by the time Joseph finally admitted to stealing my computer, it had changed hands four times, with money obviously exchanged in the process. Gina wasted no time. She went to the ATM, pulled out 500,000 Sh. (about $205 USD) and then went to the police to start to track down the computer. First she had to pay/bribe the police to do anything. That’s how it is here. Then, long story short, she had to pay each person off to say where the computer had gone. Incredibly, by the end of the day, she’d located my computer with a random Ugandan who lived in the Kivulu slum. He’d paid some 80,000 shillings for a computer worth over 1 million shillings. She paid him to get back the obviously stolen computer. It would seem that all is well at this point in time, but then there is the question of “justice” and it is not one that you would think. Somehow, and this is incredible, amidst the being paid off and everything else the police decided they would in fact want to arrest the perpetrator for stealing the computer. This is uncommon, in case you’re wondering. Usually there is no drive to arrest someone, especially if arresting someone may be a hassle, unless they are paid specifically for that. Nevertheless, they wanted to arrest Joseph, which they did. Now, you may be thinking, “That is just. He stole your computer and should face the consequences.” In a perfect world, I may agree with you. But Gina knew well enough how I viewed justice and knew that I would be appalled if this teenage boy went to prison because of his theft. He wouldn’t “learn his lesson” there. A boy who had never known an ounce of justice in his own life, a boy who had no one in his life who loved him besides the Christians who had taken him in, a boy whose own family rejected him, would not experience justice in going to prison without a judge, jury or trial. What he would experience would be sodomy, violence, and perhaps death. In there this young, impressionable boy would become a cold man. So the police were then bribed to not send him to prison. Joseph, our young thief, was set free. God be glorified for getting my computer back to me.

Personally there are few things in life I am more interested in than ethics… and yet as I’ve consider what it means to bribe the police to free this boy from ultimately being taught to hate I can think of no more sound of an ethical decision. Granted, my ethics have developed over the years of trying to practically apply my faith and don’t fit a “system” per se, but they are grounded in the two basic Kingdom ethics: Justice & Mercy… God’s ultimate justice and his mercy that we are to model. Those two cannot exist without the other. Let me offer and example. There is a famous scene in Victor Hugo’s preeminent classic Les Misérables in which the Bishop Myriel hands two silver candlesticks to the thief, Jean Valjean, who has stolen from him after the police return the man they saw leaving the city and suspected of stealing. The context you’re probably familiar with, and you’ll then remember that the Bishop Myriel leans over to the man and whispers, “and with this I have ransomed your soul. I have purchased you from Satan and am giving you back to God.” These words are some of the most beautiful in the history of European literature. The moral concept holds fast as well. I do not want to give stark moral equivalency to this timeless story and the freeing of a young Ugandan thief from prison via bribing, but I think we do well to understand what ends ethics has in mind. Bishop Myriel knew that he had been sinned against, but he knew to an even greater understanding that Valjean had experienced terrible things in life and he too had been sinned against. Bishop Myriel knew that as a representative of God he could pursue man’s limited notion of justice, or he could trust God with justice and insodoing, could do something divine and offer forgiveness and freedom from earthly consequence. He is afforded to opportunity to offer the fullness of mercy and chooses to do so. I believe that is the demand placed on us all. If we’re all truly God’s representatives in a broken, fallen world, then such radical mercy is the demand placed on us. Not as a legalistic demand, but as a response to the grace we’ve been given. We are free to offer mercy.

I had already forgiven the thief for stealing my computer. I was furious at having it taken because it is such a helpful tool in this life, and yet I could not really be angry with someone who had acted, in truth, as rationally as I often do. Abject poverty is a devastating circumstance to bear. It disallows me to really judge those who are caught in its web. When I learned that the thief was in fact a street boy, it was all the harder to cast judgment into the waters. I do however look forward to meeting this boy. I want to tell him that I forgive him and yet tell him of my side of the story so that he understands that taking from another isn’t a zero sum game. I want to give him an opportunity to speak about his side of the story as well.

The rest of the story is even more incredible. I was encouraged by a couple friends to try and raise the money that was lost by the theft of my computer. So I made a paypal support widget on my facebook profile. Within some 72 hours my friends have raised over the value of what I had suggested. It was profoundly humbling to be on the other side of the earth and to have my friends via the “faceless” world of facebook, raise over $700 to replace my computer, my portal to the modern world. Then my computer showed up, negating the need for the money… and yet every single person told me to keep the money and use it for any needs that I currently have or use it on ministry here. I wept when I thought of just how much God continues to use people to speak about his goodness. It is his church and the relational aspect of God in which I most experience His lovingkindness. And so now I find myself with a decent amount of money, enough to purchase some software to recover a portion of the data the purchaser of my computer erased, enough to give me some space to think about how I can bless someone here with this money. I am a blessed man and every day I run out of more reasons to believe otherwise. Thank you, friends.

So that is the story of the past few weeks. I will continue to update you as I can, and I have a lot of writings that I want to share, but thank you for reading and considering my thoughts. You all bless me. Please pray for the remainder of my time here. I want to be effective in my counseling and Mending the Soul groups. I want to heal so that I’m not so weak all the time. I want to be emotionally prepared for my return to Phoenix and the short turnaround that I have before going to Portland. Thank you.

Dan