Hey Friends,
I’ve wanted to update you
for some time. However, circumstances have prevented me from doing almost
anything more than just lay in bed. For the past six weeks, if I’ve counted
right, I’ve been sick. There have been some good stretches lasting a few days
or so, but the sheer weakness has been ever present for the majority of this
journey. No more working in the fields. No more working out with Uncle Peter.
No more outings to see friends in distant villages. Instead a lot of bed rest,
headaches, and refusing of food. I’ve probably lost 10 pounds, which for me is
almost unprecedented. I’ve been to the hospital a few times, but there was
never any conclusion on what I had. Initially it was thought that I had “a
virus” and that I’d get over it. That proved to not be true. A few weeks ago I
became again violently sick and was in bed for a few days. I finally got better
and decided I was strong enough to make it to Rwanda—a trip I’d had planned
since before I came and had postponed because of sickness. So, I went to Rwanda
and was mildly sick the entire time. By the time I made it back to Uganda I was
feeling pretty poorly but still decided to head back out to the village where I
lived. This could have been an almost fatal mistake. Thankfully, Gina Orr, a
middle-aged missionary here who works with API saw me and told me that I had to
go to the hospital the next day and that I could not stay in Kalule one more
night—she would simply now allow it. So that night I packed my things and
headed to Kampala. I didn’t know if I would make it. I almost passed out on the
boda boda to our house in Mengo, Kampala. I’m so glad Gina made me come,
however, for the next morning I went to use the restroom and woke up on the
bathroom floor sometime later. I was blacking out and hallucinating. I was able
to stand and I was able to call out to Gina and then I passed out again in the
kitchen. Everyone mobilized and at that early hour of 5:45 I was in Abby &
David’s new van headed to the International Hospital in Myenga.
Americans, if you’re not sitting down, you should probably sit down before the next sentence, as it will invariably shock you. When I went into the ER I was taken to a bed immediately. There was zero wait. I walked from the car to a bed and was seen immediately. Incredible! I will skip the gory details, but soon enough they had an IV in me and were pumping fluids into my depleted system. I talked to a couple of doctors there and they asked about my symptoms and I told them about the stomach pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, come and go fever, muscle soreness, and the “intestinal problems.” They took blood and did some tests. They found out I have a really bad bacteria infection that before escaped detection and that I have really bad allergies, which is exacerbating the problems. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to finally know what is wrong. The doxy and amoxy I have been taking have had no effect on this formidable enemy. They got the right/strong antibiotics flowing into me and went from there. In about six hours I was discharged at a total cost of like $56. I won’t even try and consider how much that care would have been in the U.S. That was yesterday and since then it has not been all roses and I’ve been in a lot of pain, but I think I am finally on the mend. This evening I ate my first full meal in about a week.
Americans, if you’re not sitting down, you should probably sit down before the next sentence, as it will invariably shock you. When I went into the ER I was taken to a bed immediately. There was zero wait. I walked from the car to a bed and was seen immediately. Incredible! I will skip the gory details, but soon enough they had an IV in me and were pumping fluids into my depleted system. I talked to a couple of doctors there and they asked about my symptoms and I told them about the stomach pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, come and go fever, muscle soreness, and the “intestinal problems.” They took blood and did some tests. They found out I have a really bad bacteria infection that before escaped detection and that I have really bad allergies, which is exacerbating the problems. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to finally know what is wrong. The doxy and amoxy I have been taking have had no effect on this formidable enemy. They got the right/strong antibiotics flowing into me and went from there. In about six hours I was discharged at a total cost of like $56. I won’t even try and consider how much that care would have been in the U.S. That was yesterday and since then it has not been all roses and I’ve been in a lot of pain, but I think I am finally on the mend. This evening I ate my first full meal in about a week.
Being sick provides a lot
of time to sit and think. This is a dangerous business for me. I can get lost
in the obsessions of my mind for some time and sometimes emotionally I cannot
really handle that. To be honest this sickness has really affected me
emotionally too. I spend most of my time alone and when with other people they
are taking care of me because I’m pretty useless to people. I did two trainings
on sexual abuse last week and that was the last “ministry” I’ve really been
able to do. I’m usually not too concerned about “performance” but when on a
“mission trip” I feel a desire to be of use and instead I have been lying about
in bed. God sometimes has truly felt like my only companion. I know the spiritual
thing to say is that He is always with me, but it doesn’t always feel like
that. A lot of the time I have felt truly alone and that’s not because I am,
but because I feel that I am. And yet sometimes God, in both subtle and
apparent ways, reminds me that he is redeeming the many missteps I have taken
in this life. In this season of profound powerlessness this has been something
I have wrestled with a lot. I thought I came to Africa to serve and to be of
use, but instead I have mostly been served and wrestled with God. Get me alone
long enough and that is what seems to be the inevitable end. God had a
different plan for this trip than I did. I can handle that. But in the silences
of my time here it is the different plans he has for my life that I struggle
with. I am tired of crying and being so emotionally vulnerable and emotionally
weak here. It is a fitting state given that I am sick, but a part of me wants
to pretend strength once again as if I knew even the first thing about how to
live my life; I don’t.
This sick, self-aware man
is the same man who went to Rwanda to see, if I’m honest, the genocide
memorials. I have always longed to go. I’ve read almost every book on Rwanda
that there is. I’ve taken classes on genocide and studied them to the nth degree.
The holocaust is fascinating, but nothing is gripping like the story of a
country that in 1994 was able to convince one group of people to kill their
neighbors, friends, and family with farm implements. In 100 days between
800,000 and a million people were murdered. It’s hard to get good numbers when
the scale is such that those who would speak for the dead are also dead. Many
of you have probably seen Hotel Rwanda or maybe Sometimes in April. Maybe some
of your have read Left to Tell which
is an incredible story of redemption after the genocide. All are good and
helpful, but I have to see with my own eyes. I wanted to see the blood stains
and smashed skulls. I’m no sadist, but I want to never forget what man is
capable of. Nothing seems more real than standing over a pile of bones of a
child smashed against a wall. [If you know little about this recent historical
event I encourage you to briefly read the wiki page on the genocide or perhaps
pick up a book like Gourtevich’s We Wish
To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.]
So, in my sickness and emotional turmoil Uncle Alex (who I work with at API) and I headed to beautiful Kigali, Rwanda to bear witness, both to the 18th anniversary of the genocide and to the continual redemption of Rwanda, arguably Africa’s best current success story. I could say a lot of the trip, but it would take far too long. But I will tell a story. While we were there we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a place where over 250,000 men, women, children, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, students, friends, whatever, were buried. The only thing the buried had in common was that they were part of the conjured “tribe” Tutsi that the Belgians had thought up in the early 20th century. It was a far more socio-economic status than a racial designation, but nevertheless it spelt death in April of 1994. The mass graves cannot be summed up so I will not try. I cannot wrap my mind around 250,000 individual, brutal murders although it became easier when we were inside looking at skulls that had collapsed around the physical power of a machete to the side of the head. But where I fell apart, where I prayed aloud to never, ever forget what I have seen was the exhibit dedicated to children. It was as subtle as could be, but the tall photos of young Rwandan boys and girls smiling were almost themselves too much. The placards underneath the endearing photos were what caused you to fall apart:
So, in my sickness and emotional turmoil Uncle Alex (who I work with at API) and I headed to beautiful Kigali, Rwanda to bear witness, both to the 18th anniversary of the genocide and to the continual redemption of Rwanda, arguably Africa’s best current success story. I could say a lot of the trip, but it would take far too long. But I will tell a story. While we were there we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a place where over 250,000 men, women, children, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, students, friends, whatever, were buried. The only thing the buried had in common was that they were part of the conjured “tribe” Tutsi that the Belgians had thought up in the early 20th century. It was a far more socio-economic status than a racial designation, but nevertheless it spelt death in April of 1994. The mass graves cannot be summed up so I will not try. I cannot wrap my mind around 250,000 individual, brutal murders although it became easier when we were inside looking at skulls that had collapsed around the physical power of a machete to the side of the head. But where I fell apart, where I prayed aloud to never, ever forget what I have seen was the exhibit dedicated to children. It was as subtle as could be, but the tall photos of young Rwandan boys and girls smiling were almost themselves too much. The placards underneath the endearing photos were what caused you to fall apart:
NAME: Ariana Nyabagora;
AGE: 24 months;
FAVORITE WORD: “Jaja”
(grandma);
FAVORITE FOOD: Rice;
HOMELIFE: Daddy’s girl;
CAUSE OF DEATH: Stabbed
in the head with a knife.
There were dozens of
these and the deaths were gruesome: beheaded, grenade in the shower, buried
alive, stabbed in mother’s arms, etc. I wept bitterly, writing furiously in my
journal to keep the emotions safe. Then I saw a photo that caused my heart to
do a somersault. In 1993 when this black and white photo was taken someone used
way too much flash and this one young girl looked like a white baby in the
photo, but not just any white baby, but resembling my very own niece, Grace. I
wanted to run, to scream, to not think of it, but I had to stop and hold that
pain in and know it intimately. I had to cry and face what evil really means in
this world. I had to face that lie that says sin is benign, unimportant. The
young girl’s name was Felicia and she was almost one and a half when she was
thrown against a wall in a church by a genocidiare.
Even a passing resemblance to Grace rocked my world not because a white baby is
more valuable than a black baby, but because it wasn’t any white baby, but my
sister’s own child whom I love. And we deceive ourselves when we think
ourselves too sophisticated for such anarchy and evil. I agree it is highly
unlikely that the racist, anti-life voices in our society will every have
sufficient power to convince every brown-haired person to kill every
blonde-haired person, for example, but just as radio RTLM in Kigali convinced
the Hutu that Tutsi were “cockroaches” sufficiently dehumanizing them for
extermination, we have voices in our own society who use their prejudices to
dehumanize and hate. It is but for the Grace of God that those hateful words
land on ears sufficiently taught to be nuanced in interpretation. The sin,
however, is the same. “Never Again” was said after Rwanda’s genocide in which
every Western power (save for the French who, expectedly, helped the genocidiares) watched it happen—as one
of the Rwandan Colonels orchestrating the genocide told an American during that
dark time, “we have no oil, no bridges, no strategic interests for your
country”, rightfully noting the US would do nothing. And yet “Never Again” was an
empty statement for a few years later Milosevic send his Serb forces to
exterminate the Muslim minority in the Balkans. Some years later after that
Omar Bashir’s Sudan sent attack aircraft and the Janjaweed rebels to
exterminate the people of Darfur. The list is extensive and it should be
instructive but I don’t want to help others reach policy conclusions. I want to
never forget what my eyes have seen and what it means… for me, for the church,
for life. And speaking of the church, the average pastor (catholic,
evangelical, whatever) in Rwanda in 1994 did not protect his flock. In fact,
number of them led the killers to their church to get rid of the “Tutsi
Cockroaches” amidst their congregations. The Muslims, on the other hand, almost
universally protected people in their mosques. We can make all the excuses we
want, but in Rwanda circa April-June 1994, Allah looked a lot more gracious
than G-d. May we learn to be the first to die to save a life.
I could never capture
Rwanda in a word. I will not attempt, but I hope someday you go and see what
amazing things God is doing out of the ashes of atrocity.
I leave Africa is a few short days. I do not yet know what the lasting impact of this season will be on me, but I believe it will have been instrumental in some way in my life. I’ve seen God do amazing things and I’ve seen God keep me sufficiently humble and reliant on Him. I’m truly thankful for your prayers and support that got me to this place. You’re a blessing to me and I want you to know that. Some of you I owe emails too and I hope to get those to you when I can. I hope to write one more time once my thoughts and life are in order. Expect some new blog entries soon at my blog: www.glocaldan.blogspot.com
God Bless,
I leave Africa is a few short days. I do not yet know what the lasting impact of this season will be on me, but I believe it will have been instrumental in some way in my life. I’ve seen God do amazing things and I’ve seen God keep me sufficiently humble and reliant on Him. I’m truly thankful for your prayers and support that got me to this place. You’re a blessing to me and I want you to know that. Some of you I owe emails too and I hope to get those to you when I can. I hope to write one more time once my thoughts and life are in order. Expect some new blog entries soon at my blog: www.glocaldan.blogspot.com
God Bless,
Dan
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