Cavango and the Wind…

 

Jesus said, “Follow me.”  He implied (and said elsewhere) that all else must be disregarded by comparison.  “Follow me.”  For many years, while I “followed” Jesus, I also followed other “voices”… common sense, upbringing, comfort, solid principles, people, the bible, reason, feelings, intuition, conscience, etc.

 

About ten years ago, I agreed with my Father that I would follow Him only, and not any other good thing or person.  If Jesus was really alive, leading, interactive and able to be followed today, I wanted to personally know Him and be known by Him.  At that time, I sought to know and obey God’s word, I was part of a great church of people, and I truly wanted to know a living Jesus, but I realized that I was, indeed, serving Jesus AND many other masters.  Perhaps it was “half-time” or another motivation, but I wanted to be “all in”, nothing held back, in my relationship with Him.  I wanted to make all I had (perhaps not so much) available to Him to use however He desired, rather than however I desired.  Prior to that time I would give Jesus this or that part of my life, but never without priority given to my opinion and my desires.

 

So I decided to follow Jesus and un-prioritize house, land, financial security, job, career, church, relationships, family, etc.  He said, “Go.”  He asked me if I was willing to walk away from all that I cherished, and go where ever He led, regardless of comfort, security, etc.  He wanted my trust (“Believe in me.”), sufficient that all else that I trusted (work, satisfaction, people’s praise, my wife’s love, etc) were secondary.  He didn’t call me to trust biblical promises, people, creeds, miracles, myself or experiences.  He called me to trust Him, to walk with Him.

 

So began a new journey (by a proven flawed, fearful and fickle wanderer), with the objective to follow and trust a living, communicating Jesus.  I had come to realize that seeking to obey the bible, WWJD, etc could be life changing, but they were not following a living and interactive God.  Of course, I knew that God was never-changing, so that anything that I thought that He was communicating with me must honor His written revelation of Himself to us.  But the bible doesn’t tell me “Go”, “Stay”, “Change jobs/vocation”, “Move to the Amazon or to Africa or to Columbus, etc, ”, “Invite your neighbor to dinner today”, “Sell you house”, “Downsize”, “Go to this or that church”, “Begin a small group in your home”, “Minister to the homeless”, “Begin a free medical clinic”, “Listen to him/her”, “Don’t listen to him/her”, etc.  I was to begin a journey of listening, trusting and purging like I had never experienced.

 

He did call me to go, and to serve people living remotely, without access to health care and without access to the good news of God’s affection for all people, and I began to prepare my heart to go.  But… I was married to a most precious wife and I had four cherished kids!  We had a great church, great ministry, a great place to live, a great job, great friends, we were near our beloved family…  and I heard Him ever so certainly say, “Go.”  Many in the church today would say I was “blessed”, but these “blessings” were keeping me from a pure devotion to Jesus.

 

Bets wasn’t so sure, but wanted the same type of relationship with her Father and was open to the fact that perhaps God was calling us to go.  Over the course of three years, we came to agreement on His calling, though we were not called to a place, we were certain as to His pleasure in us serving and living among people living remotely and without access to health care and the Good News.  And we relocated… to the Brazil Amazon.

 

Since then, He’s taken us on a strange, torturous route.  We’ve given up so many things that we can see, feel and touch.  We’ve gained so much that cannot be seen, felt, or touched.  Along the way, I’ve met many people with their own definitions of “remote”, who have shared with me their opinion on where Jesus wanted me to go and their opinion on what good thing I was to do, and how I was to do it.  I’ve met a few people who have sought to help me to follow Jesus.  I have been misunderstood, and my motive has been offensive to some within the church.

 

Over the last ten years, our lives have been about transition.  He has asked us to share our lives and encourage many people briefly in many places.  One of the many things I’ve learned about following a living Jesus (and staying conversational with Him) is that ALL earthly things must be held loosely (we are following someone who doesn’t consider earthly things important!).  He also isn’t too concerned about staying in one place (just like He wasn’t when He walked on the earth).  Life and inner security can be found in Him only, but most of us don’t really believe that.  We follow Jesus and…, rather than Jesus only.  Jesus and my dreams, Jesus and my family, Jesus and financial security, Jesus and my comfort, Jesus and my understanding, Jesus and my friends, Jesus and my healing, Jesus and peace, Jesus and happiness, Jesus and my plans, etc.  I’ve learned that if you think that Jesus considers your house, your income, your comfort, your car, or your earthly dreams important, you’re mistaken.  His Kingdom is far more precious that these.

 

When HE asked me to follow HIM and forsake all others, my journey became “windy”.  Our Father has led us to move multiple times over the past 10 years or so, following the never-changing, ever-changing Wind, and being available for “whatever”.  It has often been tempting to scheme to stay put and again seek earthly stability and security (missionaries, who have left their home country, can also put earthly comfort and security before following the Wind of God).  Sometimes the Wind has changed course and I’ve questioned whether I was still following Him (a good question to often ask – 2Pet 1:10).

 

Because Jesus communicates largely nonverbally, and we “see through a glass dimly”, following Him can appear subjective and others might not understand why you feel a certain breeze and they don’t (He doesn’t invite everyone to every task).  It is messy and unpredictable for flawed humans to follow the unpredictable Wind of God.  Because of this messiness, like the Israelites, we often turn to reason, knowledge, strategy, organizational structure, comfort and order instead of Jesus.  All of these are good, if following the Wind is primary.  If these become primary, however, we can do good earthly work and completely miss the Wind.  Because God’s people live by faith and not by sight, certainty, based on reason, can be elusive.  I’ve fought to stay in the Wind and stay close to Him, disregarding the other voices in the fog, and each time He asks us to move, we face the temptation of seeking comfort, avoiding again stepping into the uncomfortable unfamiliar.

 

Yes, we are moving again.  It’s tempting (and self-focused) to again hope that this may be the last time (it has potential), but we will ever fight to disregard our own desires, dreams, or ideas as we seek to follow only Him.  If He tells us to move again, we will.  If He would have us continue to serve the people of the Cavango region for a few years, so be it.  He has called us to lay down ALL things, most especially our security, comfort, and ease, because these are NOTHING compared to walking closely with Him.  He has called us to disregard our life and consider all earthly things rubbish in order to more fully gain intimacy with Him (there is NO treasure its equal!).

 

So we are moving in August to Cavango (I’ll describe below) and have committed to live and work there until our furlough in the summer of 2014, when we will evaluate if our Father would have us continue.  The beautiful missionary couple living in Cavango has had a health issue (not life-threatening) that has taken them back to the states for an extended time, leaving this very remote mission station vacant.  Our mission director asked us if we would consider relocating to continue the work at Cavango, all of this happening after we just committed in February to work for a year in the remote Lutheran Mission of Shangalala.  I spoke with the beautiful Lutheran bishop who “hired” us for the work at Shangalala, and he easily recognized the severity of need in Cavango and graciously released us from our commitment, only asking us to remain in Shangalala until August in order to “leave well” and move on with sensitivity to the folks who have grown to love and appreciate us in this remote desert region.  We were only glad to honor his request.

 

Isn’t it just like our Father to have His kids pour themselves into remodeling an almost condemned house and then have someone else benefit?

 

We would only consider moving to Cavango if it fit what God has been asking of us since leaving the States.  He called us to live and work among those who have no (or minimal) access to the Kingdom and to health care.  Cavango is 8-9 hr from Lubango and 5-6 hr from Huambo (we’ve never been), two larger cities with simple hospitals and churches.  Those hours are tough and slow and the never-graded “roads” have destroyed many cars and trucks.  No trucks routinely enter and leave this beautiful part of Angola, located in the river valley of the Cuvango River, east of Lubango.  It has abundant wildlife, including hippos, crocodiles, several deer-type animals and large cats (I can’t remember which type).

 

There was a leprosarium at Cavango from 1950-1976, built there because it was central in Angola (“accessible” to lepers from anywhere in the country) and was bordered by rivers on two sides to lessen the likelihood of disease spread (it was thought at the time that the disease wouldn’t spread beyond a body of water).  The mission has an area of 6,000+ acres (plenty of room for new missionary families!!!), reportedly so that each leper family could raise a few animals and grow food, isolated from the rest of the country, eliminating the need to interact with (and contaminate) outside people while purchasing necessities.  Leprosy still impacts this region as I’ve diagnosed several new cases during my monthly clinic visits to Cavango.

 

The work in Cavango was destroyed during the 30 years of civil war.  In 1976, all three hundred lepers and their families were locked in a building and burned alive.  There was a small missionary hospital from 1970 to 1976, when it was destroyed by the government, brick by brick, so that the rebel forces wouldn’t be able to capture and use such a facility.  Since then, the only missionaries in the region have been Peter and Shelley Duplantis, who have faithfully begun a new work in the region for the past several years, and it is their need to vacate that has caused the request for our move to the area.  This generation in the Cavango region has grown up with virtually no exposure to the Good News of God’s kingdom and we’re told that there are but a few scattered churches in the whole region, each with but a few people.

 

There are reportedly about 60,000 people in the region, living in grass-roof, dirt-floor huts in villages of 500-1000 people.  The villages have no power source, no running water, no stores, etc.  There is no doctor or hospital serving these people.

 

We will be 6-9 hr from a grocery store (depending on the weather and which city we choose to visit) and monthly visits will be necessary for purchasing bulk food, necessities, and fuel.  It’s like driving to Iowa from Columbus for groceries once/month!  For most of these people, it’s the same for finding a doctor for their ill child.  The very nice, North American-type house on the property was built by a team from Colorado in 2010 and has a solar battery system that allows 24 hr limited electricity.  It has water piped to the house from a spring, 2 km away, and overlooks a spectacular, expansive river valley.  The language is Nganguela (yes, we’ll be learning a new language) and few people in the region speak portuguese.  In the next few months, we will be trying to find a way to bring in machines to level a dirt airstrip on the property so that I will be able (without driving the 8-9 hr to Lubango) to continue to fly about two weeks/month to hold clinics and share Jesus’ love with other remote peoples.  The airstrip will also provide emergency evacuation potential for our family in case of an accident, snake bite, emergent illness, etc.  It’s a two hour flight from Lubango for the small MAF planes.

 

The challenges will be numerous, primarily isolation, another move into the unfamiliar (all new relationships, etc), a new language, and simply another huge transition in a short period of time.

 

Our Father’s ways are truly not ours.  He asks a lot, but gives more.  Rest and leisure are on the other side.  Our Father has invested much in our preparation (that we would not have chosen) to make us tougher, more pliable, more surrendered, more willing to do “whatever” He asks, where-ever He asks, with whom-ever he asks, how-ever He asks…  We wouldn’t have gone to Cavango ten years ago!

 

I believe He is stripping every willing heart similarly, tearing away from each of us our many masters, all that doesn’t hold life, and all that distracts us from following Him.  Are you willing?  I am asking myself again just how willing I am for “whatever” He asks!  As we invite Him to bring us to “whatever” (He works by invitation), our Father uses His Spirit, time, circumstance, His word, other people, etc to bring us to a place where it is only Him that we follow; to a place of our greatest and most humble usefulness.  He’s preparing each of us especially for life in His Kingdom, where we will serve and worship Him forever, beyond the fog.

 

Where is the Wind leading you today?  What is He asking of you to “put off” so that you can run freely after Him to a life of simple and pure devotion to Him?  Will you join Him on a quiet walk and discuss with Him how you can be more wholly His?  Let us together disregard again all things that distract and run hard after the Wind!

 

Lunch, Walelepoh, Spitting Cobras, Witnesses…

 

We were invited to lunch yesterday with the missionary patriarch of Shangalala.  Present were our family, the Lutheran bishop of Angola (who is becoming a dear friend), a visiting missionary couple who lived and served here for 25 years until 2007 and our hosts, Noah, his wife and his sister.  90 year old Noah and his wife are Africans from Namibia who came to Shangalala as missionaries in the 1960s.  There was nothing here when they arrived in this very remote location, and they began sharing Jesus’ love with the surrounding people.  They lived and worked through several wars and many hardships.  They simply reek of humility, gentleness and honor.  As we sat in a small circle outside his home under a tree, Noah stood and said that he wanted to share his story with us, as well as the history of Shangalala.  He shared in Oshikwanyama and the bishop translated to Portuguese for us.  What a remarkable life story spoken quietly and confidently by a man whose life is marked by such obvious courage and humility, a beautiful combination of qualities in a man of God.

 

When he finished, he asked if we had any questions and I asked him what advice he would give to those of us working here presently.  He smiled and said he greatly appreciated such a question and he spoke at some length about what a joy it has been to have us working and living here (he didn’t answer the question!).  He spoke of the time that he came in to see me at the hospital (I didn’t know who he was) and was quite honored and encouraged that I listened so well to him and then prayed for him.  He said he loves to see especially a doctor recognize who is the Healer and the Giver of life, and one who so obviously works in surrender to a power greater than himself.

 

Noah said that he has heard so much positive feedback about our presence here and shared that, to him, evangelism is pointing people to Jesus and that the humble and loving way that I serve, combined with asking God to touch/help/heal/encourage each person, is very effective evangelism.  One of the women serving the lunch shared that there is a rumor about the region that the doctor at Shangalala has special medicine and that, in contrast to other medicines, his medicine works. Hopefully, with time, more people will connect any health success they experience with the only Healer and not the instruments that He chooses to use.  It is such a blessing to be for these beautiful people an instrument of service and to have tools (medications) with which to help them.

 

Through your faithful contributions to our work, so many of you have purchased the medications that we use to help those ill and hurting (for example, we have several babies currently in our simple hospital recovering well from severe pneumonia and malaria).  This rumor is about me, but also about you and the One that calls and motivates both of us to serve these people and, in doing so, serve the One we especially love.

 

Ben and I began our daily lessons in Oshikwanyama.  What a mountain we face!  This rural, desert tribal language is no less complex than english or portuguese and very, very different.  We have a patient, incredibly intelligent instructor in Miguel, who knows many languages fluently and is a school teacher, so instructs quite well and patiently for the hour that he is with us each day.  He doesn’t want paid (we’ll remedy that somehow) as money just means so little to these rural folks.  An example of a sentence is, “Ami ondahála okupópia mongulah.” “I would like to speak with you tomorrow.”  Instead of a word for “ice” they say “water rocks” as the only form of ice they know is made in blocks or ice trays.  “Good morning” is “Walelepoh” and “Have a good night” is “Tunangálepoh”.  The word for God is, “Kalunga” and “Praise God” is “Kalunga na pandulwe”.  Now you can confuse someone!

 

In this extremely rural environment, it is amazing how few traumatic injuries we see.  Our love of speed in the west kills and maims millions.  Not only do we pay a dear price for all of our modern rushing to experience more, it also leaves many of us unable to experience deeply.  Likely few things separate this culture from the west more than the pace of life.  NOTHING happens fast here.  It seems nothing is urgent or would cause a person to even walk quickly.  No one wears a watch, and when speaking of time, they point to the sky and say, for example, we’ll meet when the sun is about there.  Everyone walks, a lot, so there is much time between their one or two “events” in a day.  Long periods of silence in conversation are comfortable because there is plenty of time and no rush to be somewhere.  To wait is normal and people are very comfortable with waiting for long periods.  There are no appointments and people come to the clinic at sunup and are served in the order of arrival, many waiting until afternoon and exhibiting no frustration or anger (!).  One woman patiently waited today (fasting) until after 2:00p to have her tooth pulled.

 

The beauty of what I’m describing challenges me greatly, as the hurry that is characteristic of so many of our lives (mine) reveals such a poverty of faith.  We say that God is sovereign and in control, yet our anxious pace validates that we really believe that everything is up to us.  We say that we will live forever in heaven, but we anxiously live daily as though there is nothing after this, our one and only shot at life.  Our fear of loss reveals our clinging grip on this life.  When we do trust, we find our white-knuckled grip on our relationships and events is loosened, and our anxiety dissipates.  Then we restore our grip and scheme to hold tightly to what is pleasurable and good, unable to truly trust God’s care for us.  It’s one thing to trust that God is good and loving.  It’s quite another (and life-transforming) to believe that He is good to me, that He loves me!  

 

As we gain trust in our Father’s Kingdom (it is a process, requiring much time and practice), we lose the fear of losing or missing something good in this life, because we know we have all of eternity to experience the fullness of joy and all things good.

 

We had a very dangerous, very beautiful Spitting Zebra Cobra in our front yard, under our car, yesterday.  It had a bad day!  It ended up with quite a beating with a stick and tossed in the fire.  Ben has seen others while faithfully working on his garden, a challenging endeavor battling so many hungry insects.

 

At precisely 6:00p every night, as the sun beautifully sets over the Cunene River valley over the cliffs on which our adobe house sits, a shrill whine begins and can be heard over the whole valley.  It is a thick, descending (or ascending) cloud of very small anopheles mosquitoes, many harboring the malaria parasite within.  The whine is loud and within minutes, the mosquitoes are so thick that one must cover his/her nose to breath.  We nightly finish our language lesson at that time and head into our house, where only a few of these insects find their way in.  We all sleep peacefully under nets.  The temperatures at night are on their way down, usually a pleasant 60-65 degrees at night, while still 85-90 during the day.  We have no power at night so the cool temperatures help us rest.  It’s nice to no longer sweat through the night.

 

Our humidity yesterday was 12% and is usually around 15-25% during the day and 20-30% during the night.  I’m not sure that I’ve ever experienced such.

 

Our passports are “lost” in Luanda, and have been for 10 weeks, after we sent them in for a mandatory, yearly, visa renewal.  This is so common and so typical in the very inefficient, developing countries.  We contacted our Embassy and they said they have so many US passports lost in Luanda that they feel helpless to intervene.

 

This morning as I walked along the river and cliffs below our house, hundreds of small dragon flies flitted and danced around me for the whole hour.  They seemed to exhibit such joy in escorting me among the ancient baobab trees and rocks.  Their apparent joy and passionate energy challenged me to choose joy today and to pour myself more joyfully into serving my King and those He loves.

 

I so often feel inadequate to be in this place of intense privilege, living where I am and doing what I’m doing.  Peter essentially told the lame man in Acts 3, “There is much that I don’t have and much that I cannot do, but what I do have, I freely give you.”  I want this to be my anthem.  We can each say the same so many times each day as our Father directs us to encounters with various people.  Are we focused on what we can’t do and on what we don’t have, or rather on what we can do and what we do have to give?  EVERY benign interaction is an opportunity to love with Jesus’ love, to encourage, to share what His Spirit puts in our hearts to share…  “What I have, I give you”…

 

When confronted with a need or opportunity to love or to serve, if we find ourselves thinking that we can’t help because of our inadequacy, or that someone else could help better, we dishonor the One who has made us, who has directed our journey and who has led us to that very encounter.  We must trust that HE has prepared us for each interaction so that we can give “what we have” to give.  Like Peter, we can give what we have been given, to bless, to build up, to encourage, or to serve another.  We must remember that our Father loves using screwed up, incomplete people to serve, love and bless other screwed up, flawed people.

 

Often, when I’m tired or not feeling motivated to serve, I am reminded that I can either focus on how blessed I am or am not (me, me, me)… or I can be a blessing with what I have, and let Jesus multiply my measly loaves and fishes.

 

Last week in Cavango (5-8hr from hospital/doctor), the day before I was scheduled to arrive, more than 50 people arrived and slept on the ground, under the trees, around small fires, outside the clinic.  They entered the small clinic building @ 7:30a for worship and a word from the visiting doctor (me), who spoke on how Enoch walked with God (Gen 5) and how this is God’s heart for us today (Heb 11: 5-6), and that He is most pleased by our trust and our seeking relationship with Him.  Those ill were then seen in consultation, embraced, provided tools to help their pain or illness, and brought to our Father as I put my arm around them and asked Him to touch them, encourage them, and reveal Himself to them.

 

Our first patient of the day was a young woman in a coma, carried for hours by her loved ones to arrive at the clinic the night before and join the many sleeping outside waiting for the doctor to arrive the following day.  I cannot imagine having a loved one in a coma and having virtually nowhere close by to go for help.  We just “happened” to be there for clinic the day after she goes into a coma.  How He loves!  Who can know the Wind of God?  If only we would believe that our every interaction can be His holy breeze, using His beloved child to touch, to embrace and to draw someone to Himself.

 

I’m reminded this morning that, like the apostles, we are witnesses that Jesus is alive today.  We must remember that we are primarily witnesses, not teachers.  The words of a witness are only as good as his character and life’s behavior.  It is our lives and our love that validate our message, and that there is no Kingdom message apart from a Kingdom life.  The Kingdom isn’t spoken or taught as much as it is lived, and it is only in the context of a life of love and grace, that teaching bears any eternal fruit.  The church wonders why so many people don’t believe its true kingdom message but I don’t listen to people who I don’t think care for me and either do you.  We also dismiss people whose lives are not consistent with their message.  Though teaching is important, it must always be secondary to care and real concern for those with whom we speak.  So much harm has been done in Jesus‘ name and to those He loves through the speaking of truth in the absence of love and care.

 

We place so much emphasis in our churches on learning kingdom truth and telling others about this truth, yet all kingdom truth spoken without love is worthless (1Cor 13).  Jesus said that loving our neighbor must be our primary life’s emphasis (“I give you a new commandment”), and no preaching is valid in it’s absence.  Where is the emphasis in our churches on abandoning our lives, selling all we have, leaving our comforts, and hating our own lives for the sake of another (none of which need instruction or words)?

 

Sacrificial love, losing our lives and pleasure for another, seeking another’s blessing, humbling ourselves so another can be exalted, living in poverty so that others might be rich, and relating to others with gentleness, kindness and sensitivity are prerequisites in the Kingdom of God for speaking His truth.  There really is a cart and horse in the Kingdom and we wonder why we appear foolish as we try to pull a horse with a cart!  Yes, we christians are sometimes persecuted for our faith, but many times we deserve to be mocked and ridiculed for our cold, arrogant, self-serving, and self-righteous preaching in the absence of gentle, sensitive love and concern.

 

Our lives and nonverbal behavior “witness” that Jesus is indeed alive far more than our words.  In the same way, our Father communicates His presence with us far more nonverbally than He does verbally and we must appreciate this Kingdom reality and apply it to our lives.  He communicates His love, His power and His joy in us constantly, in SO many ways, apart from words.  Like our Father, what we communicate with our lives, behavior, tone of voice, etc, apart from our words, has far more impact for the Kingdom than our words will ever have.  For example, one angry or insensitive interchange from us can ruin a year’s worth of teaching and speaking truth…

 

When we leave Shangalala, no one will remember any of our spoken words.  But they will remember our hearts, our attitudes, and whether or not we loved, enjoyed and valued them.  If their memory is that we cared for them, their memories of our allegiance to Jesus will continue to bear longterm fruit.  If they did not see love and the fruit of God’s spirit in our behavior (Gal 5:22), any seeds we tried to plant with words won’t even germinate, and our work will have no lasting value.  Let us love, honor, embrace, and only in this context speak about Jesus and His kingdom.  If we cannot sensitively and consistently love, let’s be quiet about Jesus.

 

Let’s pour our lives into serving and building up others today, giving what we have to give, without hurry, with utter disregard for our own pleasure and care, knowing that we ARE cared for dearly and we have forever to experience anything we miss or lose in our abandonment of this life for our King.

 

Tyavikwa, Wind, Grace, Us and Him…

 

I traveled to Tyavikwa (chaveekwah) this week with Ben and three local folks to investigate the health care and Kingdom need in this mountainous, desert region southwest of Shangalala.  We left Shangalala @ 2:00a and drove through the cool desert night, stopping at several health posts on the way which were crowded at sunrise with prostrate adults and children with Cholera.  The region hasn’t had rain for over two years and the water sources are scarce and quite unclean.  There have been many deaths in the region and the workers (beautiful people who knew virtually nothing) at the gov’t health care posts (2-3 rooms, no meds, cement floor, covered with very ill people) were so desperate for help, describing the recent deaths in their area and their inability to treat those ill.  We stayed, helped, and gave them medicines and instruction, for which they were so grateful.

 

Who can know the Wind?  This epidemic has been going for weeks in this remote region where there is virtually no health care.  But, this day in each of these little adobe health posts, many people received medicine for their illness because we stopped by on our way somewhere.  Many likely recovered that day where many have died without care.  Who can explain?  Is this raining and shining on the just and the unjust?  Did one of these Himbas pray to a yet unknown god, and He responded by bringing us on this day to this place, with these supplies?  I decided to throw my med bag into the car on my way out the door in my 2:00a fog, with no idea why (we weren’t doing clinics on this trip, only surveying the area).  There was no logical reason for our presence at these remote clinics on this day, in the middle of, to us, an unknown, deadly epidemic.  He gave us (and all who support us) the privilege again of being participants in HIS loving hurting people and HIS planting seeds of His love and grace.

 

Tyavikwa is nestled in a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains, so hot (>100 F), with little shade or breeze and teeming with gnats that made it difficult to breathe.  Several people groups live in the area, among them the Himba, who number 50,000 – 100,000, living in northwest Namibia and southwest Angola, and who have characteristically rejected the gospel message.  There are very few believers among them.  They are a fascinating group – see pictures ( http://www.american-pictures.com/gallery/namibia/index.namibia.himba.htm , http://www.on-the-matrix.com/africa/himba.asp , http://www.pbase.com/marielou/himba_people ) and one of the people groups that we would love to serve with health care.  We will return in May to serve them and others in the region with a couple days of clinics and we’ll further survey the region’s health care needs and how we might best serve these rural people going forward, no strings.

 

Brennan Manning died this week.  Read His books, if you dare see the world through eyes of God’s wondrous grace.  He is now experiencing all He dreamed of, spoke of, wrote of, for so many years.  This man of failure, man of grace, had a huge impact on me and I can’t wait to meet him.

 

I’m thinking today that our love and sacrifices may have an eternal impact and may not.  After all Jesus did (we remember this Easter season), most will still only know the broad, more traveled path.  Like our Father and Jesus before us, we must love with no strings, no agenda, no requirement that those we love will believe or even make wise choices.  How our Father loves!  He knows that most will reject Him, yet He loves, He cherishes, He serves, He encourages, He embraces, He blesses, He pursues.  We love, cherish and serve these rural folks because they are made and loved by our Father and, therefore, have immense value.  We mustn’t love in order that they see Jesus (ulterior motive); we love because of their value to our Father, who loves and died for every one (1Tim 2:3-6).  He blesses those who appreciate Him as well as those who reject Him, those who obey and those who mock (He is no respecter of persons and shows no partiality).  Even with His last breath, He loved and forgave those who killed Him.  Can His spirit within me love like this today?

 

Jesus died to make us free (1Tim 2:6, Gal 5:1), and will compel no one to believe, but will rejoice in everyone who chooses to trust Him and walk with Him.  We must love in the same manner, without compulsion, expectation or condition.  It is tempting to desire even only their gratitude when we serve them, but even this can taint our love and service.  Why and how we work is much more important than the work itself.  Do we work and serve so we feel better about ourselves or because each of these people has eternal value and is worthy of our life and service?  Do we love them so they will love us or love Jesus, or because they are worthy of our lives and service?  Do we love and serve because if we were in their place, we would appreciate someone’s help?  Do we consider their lives as more important than our own?  Do we love them to glorify the only One who truly loves?  Are we available to Him to love through us, in whatever manner He chooses or do WE want to choose who and how we will love?

 

Ultimately Jesus reduced everything down to us and Him.  He said if we serve them, we serve Him.  If we love them, we love Him.  We love and serve them because we love Him.  And we love Him as a response to His wondrous love for us.  All of life comes down to our relationship with our Father.  This relationship will affect our every motive, every act, every choice, every look.  Walking with Him in relationship has been God’s call to man since Adam and it is the gospel message of Jesus.  We must remember that our intimacy with our Father will affect every nonverbal message we send, how we serve, what we say, what we devote ourselves to throughout the day, our time management, where we live, what work we choose to do, what we smile at and how often we smile, what passages of the bible we refer to, who we hang out with, etc, etc.  All of life springs from this, our relationship with our Father.  If this spring is dry, our life’s interactions will be superficial and of no eternal significance.  If this spring is full, however, all of life, every action, every word, every look, and every little trip into the desert, has the potential to be a part of someone’s eternal story.

 

Rural Folks, Lights, Church Bells, Eternity…

 

It’s not unusual to see ants crawling on the body of one of these rural folks while I examine them.  They live close to the earth and often are comfortably lying in the dirt (there’s no grass here) while waiting to be seen by the doctor.  They don’t wear shoes, rarely change their clothes, and live in grass-roof houses with dirt floors.  Living in this desert climate with a rainy season of less than a month, they rarely bathe, and when I need to sterilize an area of skin, it might take several minutes of scrubbing before the cotton remains clean after wiping with alcohol.  Most only bathe when they swim in a river (almost never as they age) and rivers and streams are rare here.  I wonder if our hyper-emphasis on cleanliness in the west might be more of a preference than a health necessity.  It is certainly healthy to avoid contagions (influenza, strep, mosquitos transmitting malaria, etc) and to properly separate our waste from our food and water, but exposing our bodies to dirt and most insects is harmless, as demonstrated by these beautiful (dirty) folks.

 

I pass the same rail thin man every morning on my walk at dawn along the river floodplain, below the cliffs on which our house sits.  He is always wearing the same tattered clothes and standing in his crude, dugout canoe, tending to his fishing nets, and SINGING.  I don’t know him and haven’t spoken more than a simple greeting to him, as he is always off shore, sometimes pulling a few, small fish out of his nets.  His is a difficult, tedious, hungry life, that to this passer-by radiates JOY.  Joy, especially demonstrated in a setting of difficulty, is so strikingly beautiful and stimulates wonder in the observer.  If we would only remember that suffering in this life is the absolute best setting for our joy and pleasure in Him to impact those around us.  Father, please send us difficulty and hardship, so that our joy in you would even more magnify your beauty.

 

After about 9:00p (when the mission generator is turned off), there are no electric lights for miles in every direction.  It is dark.  The desert sky is beyond spectacular.  About once a week during the night, the hospital guard shows up in front of our house, calling for the doctor.  During my ten minute walk to the hospital, I often stop and marvel at the profound stillness, the rich darkness and the sheer number of lights in the sky.  I arrive to a dark hospital where only I have a flashlight, the patient having arrived by foot, sometimes walking for several hours in the dark because of a perceived emergency.  It is always strange to walk up to our dark nurses station, where I see only empty shadows as I approach, and see multiple eyes looking back at me when I shine my flashlight in their direction.  We’ll then discuss the situation and perform an exam by candlelight (if we can find a candle) and then round up the necessary instruments and medications for treatment.

 

The church building is empty at 8:55a on Sunday morning and there is no activity in the surrounding area.  At 9:00a, the church bell is rung and people are then seen heading toward the church building on walking paths from every direction.  By 9:15a, the building is close to full (perhaps 100-150 people) and the second hymn is finishing and the service begins.  The church bell calls the church to come to the service.  How long has this been a practice?  Where in the world is the bell actually used to call the people, as it is here?  No one here wears a watch, so the clanging bell tells people not when the service begins, but rather when it is time to leave home to walk to the service!  There are no cars or motorbikes parked outside and those who walk an hour or two (many) arrive early and visit friends until the clanging of the bell.

 

A mother brought her two adorable little girls (4 and 7) to see me because of fever (malaria).  They were at the hospital between 9:00a and noon, when we have generator power, and the ceiling light in my consultation room was on.  The girls couldn’t take their eyes off of the florescent bulbs and they expressed over and over how they were so beautiful.  They apparently couldn’t quite comprehend what they were and asked their mother how they could give off such beautiful light.  Their mother tried to explain, but they just stared in wonder.  I’m sure they had seen lights before, but likely rarely and perhaps only from a distance.  Perhaps it was the florescent lighting that was so attractive?  They live in such simple settings that even an electric light is a wonder.  Isn’t the pure, wonder of a child so beautiful to behold?  I watched and listened to their exchange in amazement that, in 2013, I could witness such an honest reaction to electric lighting, so uncommon in the rural, grass-roof, dirt-floor, Angolan home, yet something that, in the US, even the poorest don’t live without.  Yet, even in this crude and simple environment, these girls will likely grow up, bear children, raise a family, work hard, experience love and loss and, just like every little girl living in the US, India, Russia, Egypt, Iran, China, Denmark, etc, be pursued by the One who created each of them in love with purpose and forethought, the One who died for them, and the One who invites them to walk with Him for eternity, in His kingdom.

 

I was interviewing a very pleasant, barefoot man my age (through a translator – a nurse who fluently speaks 7-8 languages) with severe knee arthritis and asked him where he was from, what language he spoke, etc.  He began to count the languages that he spoke and stopped at seven.  And these rural people are commonly characterized as simple or less intelligent!  They do, however, have so little exposure to opportunity to learn skills and gain knowledge.  I wonder how many Albert Einsteins, Isaac Newtons, Corrie Ten Booms, JR Tolkeins, Jane Austens, Mark Twains, etc are hidden in the African outback?  Of course, in God’s economy, fame, earthly opportunity, success and prosperity hold little significance, as many of these folks will have an eternity to develop, learn and seek out opportunity in His Kingdom.  I think we may be quite surprised at the racial diversity of heaven, as well as the number of people there who never used an electrical appliance during their life on earth.

 

I often need reminded to see our work and this world from an eternal perspective. As we read and study God’s truth and promises, we so often forget that all of God’s word is authored from an eternal “world view”.  Seen from only a temporal perspective, earthly life is utterly unfair, by any definition of “fairness” or “justice”.  Consider the millions of children that die before the age of five every year, the socioeconomic disparity of the world’s population at birth, the congenital disabilities, the millions of innocent war casualties, the tsunamis and earthquakes, the earthly experiences available to a middle class teen in the US today compared to a Calcutta teen in 1630, etc, etc.

 

But eternity is the great equalizer.  It will matter little to Caesar in ten thousand years that he ruled in wealth for the duration of his short life on the earth.  Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps will care little about their sports successes in just a few hundred years.  In fifty or so years, Obama, Bush, and Clinton, will not care one iota that they were once in positions of influence.  It will matter little to the child, who has feasted at her Father’s banqueting table every day for two thousand years, that she died on the earth of hunger at age eleven.  The smiling youth bowed in worship at the throne hardly remembers the gunshot that killed him in the drug war in the Rio favela.  That my brief earthly life was pleasant or tragic will matter little to me in the year 3013.  That I accomplished some success or accomplished little noteworthy here won’t matter when I hear Him call my name.  A couple hours after his conversation with Jesus, the thief who died next to him was not preoccupied with his life of failure and regret.  The severely malnourished and dehydrated 10 month old girl that I saw yesterday in the clinic will likely not survive the week.  We set her up in the hospital with rehydration and a nutrition paste to take orally, but her caregiver left the premises to not return.  There is no way here to track her or rescue her.  That this cachectic little girl was born in the dirt in rural Angola to a drunk father and a mother who died of malaria when she was seven months old and that she was neglected by her mother’s sister to the point of death is simply not fair by any definition, but it will matter little to her after daily running and skipping in her father’s meadows, eating from His bountiful garden and having her every need met for the next thousand years.

 

We have such hope.  We live this hope in every circumstance, with every breath.  We share this hope with every person we meet. “Everyone… who trusts in Him…  will know eternal life…  For God so loved… that He gave…  so that whosoever trusts in Him…  will have eternal life…”

 

Let us make this our message, our passion, our life and breath, again today… in Angola and wherever we live, at our place of work, at home with our family, at the marketplace or store, on FB, with our neighbors…

 

He is alive today… He knows us and cherishes us, every one… We can know Him, trust Him, walk with Him… beyond the curtain… forever…

 

We can see this life, this world, every circumstance and relationship from an eternal perspective…

 

…and the things of earth will grow strangely dim… in the light of His glory and grace.

 

Mines, Prayer, Apple Seeds, Relationship…

Fernando is a 55 year old regional leader of churches in the eastern province of Angola called Moxico.  When we were recently in Luena, Moxico for two months, we traveled with him several times to the interior to visit remote villages to explore the possibility of our visits with the plane health ministry.  He is a beautiful, genuine Jesus-lover and it’s so cool to see someone in a leadership role of his character and passion for God and people.  He reminds me of Clenildo in Brazil.  Last week he was driving a car full of people to minister in some remote villages and he unknowingly drove over a land mine.  Four people in the car were killed and several others sustained life-threatening injuries.  Because they were in the interior, many hours from anywhere, they didn’t receive any help for more than a day and a half.  He was minimally injured and is trying to recover emotionally, and help the others and their families recover, from the whole event.  If you think of it, please mention him to our Father and ask Him to comfort Fernando and lead him in wisdom.

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This happened in a remote area exactly like where the people live that we wish to serve.  The area around Shangalala, for example, is known to be mined, how extensively no one knows.  After this event with Fernando and our recent, unsettling plane trip from Mukuando, the risks associated with working in the interior of post-war Angola have become more clear.  It is estimated that it will take over 100 years to de-mine the entire country and we will continue to fly in the small planes and drive many hours to access the most remote peoples.   We humbly seek our Father’s wisdom and His Spirit’s leading to continue to travel and spend ourselves without being fearful and/or overly cautious.

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We recently had our SIM day of prayer together.  The SIM missionaries (about 20-25 adults) meet together on a Saturday every six weeks for a day of prayer.  We  pray together through the morning and then have lunch and leisurely fellowship together for a couple hours.  In Angola, SIM has missionaries from the US, Canada, Germany and Brazil, and we pray in several languages.  Every missionary voices current needs and praise reports and we divide into groups of 3-4 and each group prays for each SIM missionary in Angola and each ministry work and location in Angola.  There were tears and laughter and much conversation during a sober 4-5 hours of prayer.  Jesus was so clearly among us and the humble hearts of those present encouraged me greatly.

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How often do we, as Jesus-followers, gather only for the purpose of sitting at our Father’s feet in conversation?  We value prayer and yet struggle to pray individually, and we rarely pray together.  As christians, we claim to believe many things that our lives simply don’t support.  Saying we believe is easy and sometimes false (I’ve been there!).  We claim that God is worthy of our worship, yet how often do we worship Him when no one else sees?  We say that we value love, yet cannot abide with (let alone work alongside) brothers with whom we disagree.  We say that we trust only Jesus to provide and then work ourselves to the bone to gain financial security.  We claim to believe all of God’s word, yet devote ourselves to certain doctrines and rationalize away others (two masters, forsake this life, “go”, “I was naked and hungry”, love your enemy, desire spiritual gifts, be thankful always, pray without ceasing, etc).  We claim that God is all we need, yet our bathroom scales indicate that, in fact, we are addicted to food and other “appetites”.  We say that we care about those in need, yet with a world full of the hungry, thirsty and naked, we watch TV.  We say that we value God over money, yet can’t give away even 10% of “our” income to His work around the world.   O Lord, break us, strip us (me) and humble us so that we are completely genuine and never claim to believe anything that our lives don’t support.  We want to glorify You and stop seeking to satisfy and glorify ourselves.  Please make us genuine, Father, inside and out, and eliminate anything false or fake in us…

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I had such a humbling experience recently at Mukuando, the isolated and very poor people group living in the dormant volcano.  We hiked about two miles from our plane to the village, then about two miles up a pretty steep mountain to a water source, back to the village and, after a couple hours of clinic, hiked back to the plane.  The whole time I walked behind Baya, a 25 year old man who was born with one healthy leg.  He had a home-made crutch (made from a tree branch) under his arm on the side of his withered, unused leg and I couldn’t keep up with him as he literally bounded up the rocky mountainside.  He insisted that he carry my heavy medical bag while I carried nothing.  He talked the whole time and was an absolute pleasure, so courteous and humble.  At one point while we walked, I had a vision of him bounding up a mountainside with two healthy legs and an ear-to-ear grin.  I hope to see him one day with “hind’s feet”.  We are here because of people like Baya.

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But my heart-stopping experience with Baya was when we stopped at the top of the mountain to eat lunch.  We sat on some rocks with a beautiful view and I ate an orange, an apple, and some snacks.  As I ate, I tossed my apple core on the ground in front of me.  As soon as it hit the ground, Baya began walking toward us.  He bent over his crutch and picked up the core, separated out the 5-6 seeds and wrapped them in his skirt.  He said the seeds would be planted that day, while it is still raining now and then.  The men in this tribe wear loose skirts and no shirts.

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At about 1:00a last night, I was called in to see a flailing, agitated, unresponsive, 3 year old who has cerebral malaria.  When I saw him again at 6:00a, he hadn’t slept all night and the beautiful mom was still rocking the boy, having done so all night.  This morning, I gave a man a ride 30 minutes to town and on the way back saw a family walking along the road and asked where they were heading.  They said they were going to the hospital at Shangalala to bring their sick, 4 year old little boy to see the doctor.  I introduced myself, gave them a ride, and will see them in clinic this morning.  They were about a six mile walk from the hospital when I picked them up at 6:30a and they’d already been walking “for a while”.

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Please know that these posts are chronicles of some of our experiences and my processing of these experiences.  They are written as much to me as they are to you.  Some of my recent statements may be misinterpreted as expressing a lack of love and appreciation for God’s most precious communication to man.  I love God’s word and am so grateful to be able to drink daily from His rich, deep well.  My point is one of emphasis.  What we emphasize in our lives is a pretty good indication of where our hearts and passions lie.  Is our passion and priority knowing God, or knowing about God?  Jesus indicated that love of God will always cause love of His word, but we can love His word and have no relationship with Him (the pharisees, for example).  We must remember that we are quite capable of idolizing good things at the expense of our relationship with our Father.  Jesus said that many will tell Him all the good things that they did/emphasized in their lives and He will accept or reject them based on His relationship with them (“I never knew you”), rather than on what they did, what they knew, how they lived, etc.

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The spiritual disciplines are beautiful, God-given tools to help us walk more closely with Jesus.  They can, however, become idols as we can try to receive life from them rather than from Life Himself.  Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  This applies to intake of God’s word, worship, prayer, evangelism, serving, learning, solitude, fellowship, fasting, etc.  These spiritual disciplines are gifts to man, to draw us closer to Him in relationship.   None of these is to be our primary focus.  They are means to the end of walking out our lives in union with Jesus (His passion and prayer for relationship with us is recorded in Jn 17).  God’s beautiful, rich word to us is a God-given means to know about Him and His Kingdom and to learn to walk with Him more closely, more surrendered, more humbly.

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God’s word is not Life but it points to Life (“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!  Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.” ).  Learning and knowing His word can enhance our relationship with Him but our union with Him is Life.  After He rose, did Jesus say He must go away so that we could study and know His words, principles, stories and do’s and don’t’s (the law)?  Or was it so that we could personally know Him and be known, for eternity?  We must remember that our unseen God is alive and interactive and is not promises, commandments, principles, and stories.  WWJD, imitation and living by rules and principles are cheap imitations of walking with the living, interactive Spirit of God.  Our joy is walking with and following after our living Lord.

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If the enemy can keep us studying and focused on our own spiritual growth, we become beautiful, shiny tools in the carpenter’s shed.  If we focus on loving our Father and those around us (their lives having more value than ours), we become scuffed, dented, and bent tools in His belt and in His hands, used by the carpenter in His pursuit and molding of those He loves.  The cost is great.  To love and to be used is so painful to self.  To follow rules and gain knowledge will help you feel good about yourself.  To love (nothing to do with emotions or feelings) Jesus and people will daily cost you your life and everything you hold dear.

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Our house in Shangalala is simple, but now functional.  It’s hot here (90-100+ days and 80+ nights) and we’ve had so little rain.  Would you please ask God to send rain to this region, for our drinking water and for the people’s crops?  They plant little and desperately need a small harvest and some green grass for their few cattle.

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The language is a challenge as less than half of the folks at the hospital speak Portuguese so I am constantly speaking with the help of a couple translators.  I will soon begin to daily study Cuanyama and try to tackle what we’ve heard is a pretty complicated language.  Learn another language when we may only be here a year?  Yet any Kingdom conversation is so much better in their “heart” language.  To love isolated people just isn’t easy, natural, or “fun”.   I don’t think I could continue without my sober conversations with our Father on my early walks, where, sometimes with great effort, I renew my vision and desire to love these rural folks, to stay the course, to consider their lives as more important than how I feel, their relationship with my Father a greater priority than mine, and their health of more significance than my enjoyment of life.

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Jesus was clear in His call for us to love Him and others and that there is always cost and risk for the one who loves, but others benefit!  Our sacrifices and yours are so worth it if only a few might realize the joy of knowing Him who so passionately loves them.  To be participants in our Father loving and drawing men to Himself is such a privilege, though we will become bruised, dented and bent.  Despite the cost and risk, we must be about our Father’s business of loving, serving, and introducing people to the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Thank you for helping us…

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Let’s renew our vision today to together run hard after Jesus, with disregard for our time and leisure, passionately and energetically using every tool He has provided (His word, worship, prayer, our brothers…), to love Him and our brothers more…

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For those who have inquired about sending simple toys, thank you!  So many little kids will be blessed.  Simple is best, for example frisbees, matchbox cars, balloons, balls, etc.   Please unwrap all so they don’t appear new and send to:

Tim Kubacki

IELA 

CP 222

Lubango, Angola

Africa

Shangalala, Mukuando, Cavango…

My first week at the Shangalala hospital has featured about 15 patients/day.  The people in surrounding villages all live quite simply in grass-roof houses.  One couple, however, drove several hours when they heard a doctor was here.  The husband and wife both had severe knee arthritis and we gave each an injection which should help for several months.  I’ve already seen several cases of TB and Leprosy.

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I was walking home at the end of the day and a man came running up the hill to the hospital, yelling for me to please wait.  When he arrived, he explained, out of breath, that he had just brought his 70+ year old father to the hospital from several hours away (on a motorbike) because of abdominal pain and urinary incontinence for months that had become intolerable in the past days.  After examining the father, I found a bladder tumor and helped the symptoms of this 80+ year old man by putting a catheter into his bladder.  We recommended where to further receive treatment (at our mission hospital in Lubango) and he left symptom-free for the first time in a long time.  Sometimes our help isn’t so extravagant…

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While not working at the clinic, I am building a second generator building with Ben.  It is a small brick building to minimize the sound and we are building a second because the noise of our generator in our first bothers a long-term missionary here.  Our house in Shangalala overall has been quite more of a project than I envisioned.  We have worked for two full weeks to make it livable.  So many little things come up.  We just found out that one of our containers for collecting rainwater (our only source of drinking water) has a leak and we’ve lost much water that we thought we had collected.  We are blessed, however, in that the rains have begun in earnest!  Many local people have come by to greet us and one family has offered to help (for about an hour).  This is in contrast to the missionary community from Lubango who came for a full weekend and worked tirelessly helping us get started.  The Fox family of four stayed for a whole week to help!  Without all of the help, this house would have been too much.

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The Lutheran church at the Shangalala mission is full on Sundays (perhaps about 100 people) and there is a brief prayer time and bible study frequently during the week at the clinic.  There are so many many pastors and leaders as it seems everyone has a title.  The people here are nice, always smiling and greeting.  It seems they don’t hesitate to attend a religious service or go to a church activity.  Even a going-away celebration for a Finnish missionary (here for two years) was a mini-service with hymns, a message, and prayer.

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Meredith and I joined six people and flew out in our small plane to an isolated people group, the Mukuando people, this past Friday to continue to build relationships, to inspect their water supply, and to hold a clinic.  This people group has their own language and it takes them two or three days of walking and hitching rides to reach the nearest city.  The people were warm and were so glad for our visit.  The water supply is a spring on the mountain top, brought down to the village in one inch flexible PVC, about two miles, installed by the MAF missionaries seven years ago.  The source was clean and still well-protected and the water was arriving in the village in a constant flow, about the same volume as a standard faucet in the states.  It supplies clean water for a village of several hundred people.

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There are several villages in the beautiful inactive volcano’s crater, with a total estimated population of about 2000-3000 people.  Historically, they have had very sporadic and short-term church and healthcare outreach but no healthcare or church presence for years.  We were surrounded by mountains covered in clouds the whole day.  It was gorgeous.

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We held clinic in a small adobe (mud) home with a flat, steel roof.  We had to stop seeing patients while it rained because we couldn’t hear each other while the rain hit the roof.  We saw about 20 people in the afternoon and most had not seen a doctor for their problem because of their isolation.  It was a good visit and continued to hopefully help them begin to trust us as we plan monthly medical visits this year.  My translator was a man who lives in the volcano and calls himself an “evangelist”.  He is an obviously self-confident, gifted communicator, who helped us immensely.  He giggled (was quite embarrassed) every time I asked him to tell the person that only God can heal and that I would like to pray for the patient.  Religious christianity can be a long way from practical christianity!  He was challenged, as we all often are, as to whether Jesus is alive and interactive or a god of doctrine, religion, principles, and words (he was quite a talker!).  Are we to live by the Spirit or by teachings, words and “truth”?  Do we follow the bible (as this man does) or live by a moment-by-moment interaction with His Spirit?  Is Kingdom life about walking with Jesus or about learning and walking out the bible?  Do we obey Jesus or obey the bible?  Is there a difference?

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Why are the charismatic, gifted communicators leading Jesus’ church today when He indicated that the greatest among us (worthy to be followed) should be those who sacrificially serve?  We focus in our churches on teaching, oration and knowledge.  Do our leaders serve and love or teach and instruct?  What does our Father desire in HIS church?  Are we hearers AND doers or hearers only?

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We flew out of Mukuando while locked in by thick clouds and had quite a flight home.  Our plane did quite a bit of dancing as our pilot, Brent Mudde, flew by instruments for thirty minutes.  There was no sense of up or down as we were enveloped by the storm.  It was a great site when we emerged above the storm to blue sky and we had a sense of which direction was up!  He then navigated us around the storm and we arrived to the Lubango airport safely.  I admired Brent’s skills and knowledge and thanked my Father for our safe arrival.  I’m reminded that our aviation ministry is not without risk, but each rural Angolan that we are able to love is worthy of any personal risk, while our trust remains in our Father for weather, engine mechanics, and human abilities.  We can risk simply because we know whose we are and where we are going.

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Two days later, we flew out to Cavango, a very isolated area 5-6 hours (off-road) from any small city having available health care.  We are holding monthly clinics here where there was a small mission from the 1950s to the 1990s, when it was destroyed, brick by brick, during the civil wars.  It had Leprosy and TB treatment centers, along with a 40 bed hospital and operating room.  It now has an 8-bed hospital and outpatient clinic, built by Samaritan’s Purse in 2006.  It’s always nice to stay a few days with Peter and Shelley, the missionary couple serving these isolated people.

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We saw about 25 people the first day as it rained and dripped water on my writing table throughout our patient interviews.  We set a bowl where the water hit the table.  We saw a variety of interesting and sad cases including, TB, leprosy, a little girl born without a vagina, chorea, strangulated hernia with peritonitis (sent to the city for surgery), disseminated cysticercosis (hundreds of cysts in a man’s skin and muscles from pork tapeworm), severe heart failure with atrial fibrillation, incompetent cervix who had lost six pregnancies…

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It was nice to see a woman, who I saw several months ago with over a year of epilepsy, now have no seizures for three months after we treated her for a suspected tapeworm larva in her brain.

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The workers at the clinic seemed so pleased that 50+ people came over the two days and many people walked miles “from across the river”.  We saw some significant illnesses and were able to provide some help.  We prayed for each and introduced them to the love of a Father who holds them so dear and seeks relationship with them.  Who knows the temporary and eternal impact?

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I fly to Lubango today (it’s been pouring all night!) to shop for medications and then, hopefully home tomorrow to Shangalala for a couple of weeks.  Traveling with me is Diane Lui, a wonderful, bright, enthusiastic fourth-year medical student from my former medical school at Ohio University.  Our next trip is in two weeks, Lord-willing, when we are flying to the south-eastern corner of Angola for an exploration/survey trip to evaluate the Kingdom and health care presence there.  Most people in this very poor country of Angola see this region as the most desperate from both perspectives.  We’ll see!

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A wonderful glance at life here through the eyes of a beautiful OSU medical student, Zach Rossfeld.  He visited all of the places that I’ve worked this past year and his entry “Xangalala” in February is about our move (with pictures).    http://zachrossfeld.blogspot.com

First Week in Shangalala

What a first week it has been! First, finding out that our plywood hadn’t been cut (the only lumber we could find in Lubango), then the packing of a flatbed truck piled so high, then, then the 6 hr journey for 18 people to Shangalala (with multiple stops because we couldn’t keep the tarp tied down) in six vehicles and our arrival to many people waiting for us with lunch (we arrived five hours late, @ 5:00p). The greeting by the local people was so heartwarming and every day people are constantly stopping over to greet us and see how we are doing. We crashed, sleeping on the cement floors, in bed rolls, on the flatbed truck, in the back of a pickup and in tents and a few beds.

We woke up at dawn on our first day, ate breakfast, and everyone dove in to the work with such enthusiasm. We painted the whole interior, made shelves (there is no place for storage of stuff), took down a thirteen-inch-thick adobe (mud) wall in the kitchen, began building a house for the generator, rewired the entire house and more. On the arrival night I read off the wish list of what we could accomplish in two days and we made a huge dent in the first day. Most of our friends helped us all weekend and the Fox family stayed for a week.

On the second day, I was trimming the edges of the wall that we took out in the kitchen, and was tired of using a sledge over head while standing on a ladder and decided to take a break. I walked out of the kitchen and about 15-30 seconds later, there was a huge crash. The entire ceiling of 2x6s and much lumber had crashed to the floor. There was about a meter of vertical adobe above the ceiling (where we had removed the wall) and without the support of the wall (plus all of the pounding), it simply collapsed, taking the entire ceiling with it. I would likely not have survived if the crash had occurred a few minutes sooner (I was on a step ladder under the wall that collapsed). Someone would have been seriously injured had the crash occurred in the future when we were living in the house. As it was, it occurred in an empty room and simply caused us to have to purchase a new ceiling and do a lot of cleanup.

With the crash, we saw that there had been over a foot of bat guano laying on the ceiling which was awful to clean up and remove to the outside. All we had was surgical masks for protection from the dusty piles, mixed with the dust of the collapsed adobe wall. We’ve now noticed that the rest of the ceilings in the house are bowed from the weight of the bat dung and we must consider both how to keep the bats out and how to clean up the waste. I’ve been up on the roof after dark twice trying to seal all of the openings…

It’s been a long time since I’ve been this sore, but it has been fun work and a joy to get to know some of our fellow missionaries around a hammer and saw. The Fox family stayed with us for seven days to WORK. I’ve never in my life had someone give a week of their lives to serve and help us (while sleeping on the floor or in a tent, eating so simply – and none of us feeling 100% because of the intestinal stuff, in such heat and sloppy rain). We all had diarrhea on the third and subsequent days. I awoke at 3:00a one night and there was a line at the bathroom door! Gotta love that river water. Now we are filtering AND using bleach. We need a Biosand filter! We have repaired many screens and now have fewer mosquitoes in the house. Hopefully we got it closed before becoming infected with the all-too-common malaria of the region (living on the edge of a huge river and it’s flood plain). The Cunene river is small by Amazon standards, huge for Angola). We still have so many mosquitoes in our house and will continue to work on getting rid of them.

We have accomplished so much in such a short time. Our adobe (mud-brick) house is now bright and and well lit and well wired. We can use our generator and almost have an enclosed front screened-in porch. The shelves will be completed soon and we’ll be able to organize somewhat. Our new kitchen ceiling, sink and plywood countertops are in and the paint should be dry this morning. Our challenges are that we only have water when the mission generator is running (three hours in the am and three in the pm), this is river water which we cannot drink and one of our two bathrooms is nonfunctional. Also, we have two large bins to collect rainwater for drinking and we noticed today that the water in one contains tadpoles. Perhaps it isn’t so pure! The other needs much repair. We were thrilled one night when we collected 25 gal of rainwater in a rubbermaid tub. Our internet connection is quite poor, so please excuse less frequent communication while we work on other options.

How blessed we have been to be so helped by so many. The folks who helped didn’t simply come, but they worked so hard in the heat, in less than ideal conditions, with difficult sleep. How blessed to see our kids work so hard. They learned so much about house renovation and construction. How blessed, as well, to see this old adobe house begin to look like a home.

The river view out our front porch is beautiful, the nights clear and so full of stars, with the southern cross almost overhead and laying on it’s side. The sun sets over the river and has been a daily delight for us. The landscape is full of Baobab trees with very thick trunks (we could drive through many) and little foliage above.

The hospitality and welcome by the local folks has been incredible. About every hour, someone new stops by to greet us and tell us what a joy it is to have a doctor in the region. The leaders of the Lutheran church seen very interested in reaching the people living remotely. Every one has given a first impression of humility and love. How much more important these qualities in the Kingdom of God than talent, knowledge, giftedness and charisma. We have been brought meals and even a half of a butchered goat (of which we ate part last night – it was great). The director of the hospital stops by every day and after seeing us work for a week and seeing how far we have yet to go, asked us to please take another week to settle in before beginning work (now next monday). Such grace and so honoring, even though she so looks forward to having me begin to see patients.

I’m challenged by these local and very rural folks to consider which personal characteristics I admire. So often we become what we admire. Do I admire in others and wish to personally seek after accomplishment, success, popularity, giftedness, leadership, or great bible knowledge? Or do I admire and desire humility, being a servant (like those who came to work with us), forsaking my life and happiness for another, simplicity, relationship with Jesus and others, etc? Being spent for others in love characterized Jesus’ heart and purpose and is a worthy pursuit. It is so easy to focus on ourselves and our own spiritual growth when there is so much pain all around us, such opportunity to embrace, to serve, to encourage, to love.

How can my Father spend me today? How can I bless, serve, encourage, love every person I meet today?