Out Walking

What People Said

Hey, how was your vacation?

Incredible. Difficult.

What’d you do?

We went to Uganda on a missions trip.

That’s nice.

That word “nice,” the epitome of innocuousity (I know, that’s probably not a word, but you know what I mean), should be excised from the English language. Here it likely means “that sounds awful,” or “I’m not interested in hearing about it,” or even “end of conversation because I don’t want you telling me that I should go.” I want to say our trip to Uganda was a lot of things but it wasn’t just nice, but that wouldn’t have been. . . well. . . nice.

How was your trip to Uganda?

Great.

What did you do?

Srape, paint, put in a library, feed 800 people, and play with kids. Lots of kids. We’re hoping we can start an agricultural co-op or something so that they can become more self-sufficient.

They’ll just end up taking each other’s stuff.

No, these people work really hard and really seem honest.

I’m sure they do, but if one gets ahead, that’ll change. They’re always fighting over there.

I was prepared for that kind of conversation. Paige said she was angry for three months after she first came back. And yet it’s still frustrating. I’m well aware that our Ugandan friends are sinners just like us, but I reject the hopeless kind of thinking this person exemplifies, the sense that there’s really no sense helping these people because nothing will change.

Whenever I leave for some significant period of time, and particularly when I come back from often life-changing experiences like our trip to Uganda (I’ve had two or three), I’m reminded again of several things: some people don’t know I ever left, I am not indispensable (that is, nothing fell apart while I was gone), and many people, while polite, are not really interested in hearing about your life-changing experience. Besides, Africa is far, far away and the intense feelings you have cannot easily be communicated. Actually, you may sound a little nutty. I know, because I’ve heard people like me before.

And yet others do care. In my place of work, many of my co-workers read everything on the blog and want me to show pictures and talk about my experience at lunch one day. They may even make Kaihura, Uganda a Christmas project. Then there is the African-American woman who I talked with who, only a minute into the conversation, had tears in her eyes and told me she had always wanted to go to Africa. We can only testify and tell our stories and let God do the rest. He has to open hearts.

The most surprising reaction? That’s easy. Wednesday I’m negotiating a settlement with an attorney, normally a give-and-take process, and surprisingly he accepts my price right away, saying “I’m not going to argue with anyone who’s been in Uganda for two weeks doing what you did.” Now that’s miraculous and undeserved. (And right then I knew I should have started with a higher price!)

I don’t have to convince anyone. I don’t need to change the world. We’re all of us storytellers, that’s all, and we can’t help ourselves. It doesn’t matter so much what they said. It matters what we say. Just tell the truth and someone might just surprise you.

Steve West

Coming Home to Joy (Notes from Kaihura)

[I wrote these recollections of our recent mission trip to Uganda while on the long plane trip coming home. They are by no means all I have to say about the wonderful people of Kaihura, but they begin to tell about what it is like there, and what it is like to leave. Please continue to read the Embrace Uganda blog to hear more.]

When I walked down the loading bridge to the plane in Entebbe, a blast of cold air hit me. Air conditioning. Settling into my seat, I realized that I had suddenly crossed over, from a mostly pre-modern world to a very modern world. It made me sad.

I am still trying to hold in my mind specific images of Kaihura, particularly the faces of our friends. Saturday morning they met us at Faith’s home, the orphan children from Home Again and the children from the Dorcas Vocational School, as well as pastors and adults who had welcomed and assisted us, and we walked the quarter mile down dirt roads to the tiny business district of Kaihura, the children insisting on carrying our luggage.

Our bus came. We boarded. As we looked out the window of the bus, our Ugandan friends were weeping. My friend Sam, a gifted 18 year-old young man, was standing in the back, wiping tears from behind his sunglasses. Joanne, with whom I played many games at Home Again, was her usual placid self, but tears were in her eyes. Daniel did not cry but stood right in front looking at me. He wrote me a letter, and drew a picture of flowers for me, but at 15 was too concerned at becoming emotional to deliver it himself. Stephen, who has broken his arm, was looking on. I pointed to each of them and waved, wanting them to know that I was saying good bye to them as individuals, that I would miss them, that there were no little people in Kaihura. When you look out and see 400 kids looking intently at you, it’s sometimes overwhelming to realize that each one is made in God’s image, that each one is a soul in need of redemption, that each one has dreams and troubles of their own.

Behind me I hear the uncharacteristic sobbing of my 13-year old daughter Anna. In front of me, my 16-year old son Stephen was crying. And so was I. Not only because I would miss them but because unlike us they could not leave behind the relentless hardship of life, a life they lived, however, with faith, hope, and love. But then as sad as it was to say goodbye to them, just as sad were those faces of the countless other adults and many children of the community who stood outside their homes and shops and alongside dirt streets and the main road and sadly watched us leave, most of whom I had not been able to get to know, leaving them to substandard, often unaffordable health care, poor education (despite the dedication of some teachers), and with neither running water nor electricity. We were leaving.

During the course of the two weeks, Stephen and I interviewed all 25 teenagers that went on the trip, in addition to some others. These kids raised their own support and often more in order to come. Some were curious. Some felt called by God. None were prepared for the overwhelming love they experienced and the work God did in them and through them in a relatively short time --- exposing self-centeredness, teaching them how to worship freely, and meeting their need for phileo love, the deep love of authentic friendship that the children and adults here gave to them. They also grew in their love for one another --- helping, loving, and sharing with each other. Practically all of them wanted to stay. Several of them cried at the mention of leaving or when they began to talk of how being there had affected them.

We adults have said many goodbyes. We forget what it is to be a teenager, where goodbyes seem for a time to be the end of life as we know it and we cannot imagine a world without whatever it is we leave behind. We have also had mountaintop experiences only to return to the mundane plain of life. We know that life will go on, that we will return to the familiar patterns of life on the other side. We say we have perspective. And yet we too easily guard our emotions, steeling ourselves against disappointment. Maybe deep down we are tainted by a cultural cynicism. And yet what these young people give us is a sense of the intensity of experience because they are less guarded, more engaged emotionally, and more in touch with the present moment. Can you remember that time in your life? It’s worth trying to remember, worth letting go of talk of perspective and letting the intensity of the moment, whether of sadness or happiness, wash over you. Then you will go on, but you will not be the same.

I don’t want to be the same. Perspective tells me that I live in a different world than my Ugandan friends, and yet my heart tells me we are the same. I find myself already adapting my conversation and attitudes to the world I live in, and yet I feel a bit estranged. I am home, and yet ill at ease, aware that something is amiss. Something is. To use scriptural words, being an “alien and stranger” on the earth takes on new meaning. I’m feeling alienated. It feels strange. And yet it feels better. I have a better sense that this world is not my home, that my citizenship is not here.

I don’t want to be the same. I don’t want to forget. I plan on surrounding myself with pictures of my Ugandan friends, visible reminders of faith, hope, and love, and talking about what I heard, saw, and learned. If I can remember the faces of my friends standing on that roadside in Kaihura, I can change. God can do a work in me too. We may have had tears, but God promises that “those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy,” shall “come home with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:5-6). I’m not happy about leaving. I’m not completely happy about being home. But there is joy knowing that God is at work in Kaihura. . . and in me.

For Prayer (Embrace Uganda)

Well, we are almost ready to leave, and today my attention turns outward from home to travel.  We're all a bit excited about what is upcoming in our trip to Uganda.  Please continue to check the blog for updates on our team.  But there's another thing you can do as well.  You can pray for us.  Here are some good prayers:

• That will have safe travel.  We go by van to Washington Dulles, and then 7 hours by plane to Amsterdam, and then after a 4-hour layover, another 7 hours to Uganda.  No bed in between!
• That we will all have good health while we are there.  We have all the necessary immunizations, will be on anti-malaria medication, and have the usual over the counter medicines with us, but pray for our health. 
• That we would think not of ourselves and our inconveniences but of those we are there to serve.  Pray we might serve them joyfully.
• That God would change us all while we are there, making us more aware and grateful for his provision for us and more aware of the needs of others.
• That, as we are able, we would have opportunity to share the hope of the Gospel with others.

Today's post on the blog, by Dirk Hamp, is both encouraging and sobering, about the promise and peril in Uganda.  I think some of the folks already there are overcome at times with the needs.  We do what we can, and we rely on God to ultimately carry all of the suffering.

Thank you for your prayers.  Enjoy the blog.  And come back here after June 30th to hear more about my perspective on the trip.

On Leaving (Embrace Uganda)

I am going far away.  On Monday my family and I join 30 other parents, students, and teachers for a two-week mission trip to the village of Kaihura, Uganda.  You can imagine what getting ready for this trip has been like, and what a week of anticipation, packing, and last-minute details this has been.

But mostly, like the eve of every long trip I have ever taken, today has not been about that far away place, largely unknown to me, unexplored, full of uncertainty, but about this place, about home, about the familiar and certain places and sounds that are as second nature to me as breathing.  Today I've been walking through this place and saying goodbye.

I don't think we were meant to be wanderers.  I cannot imagine a person or a people who do not want a home and homeland, who move through life as transients.  We're meant to put down roots, to find our promised land, a place and life that in its best moments anticipates a true Home and Homeland to come.  When I'm leaving, I'm reminded of this.

Today, I said goodbye to the still water of the lake, to the geese with their young, to pine trees and gray squirrels that inhabit my yard.  I said goodbye to the robin, the goldfinch, and the two deer that have been munching grass in the unclaimed woods behind my home.  I leave behind the music of this place, like Claire Holley's "Visit Me," a song that carries the sound of home, with its country sound and pedal steel, just a little wistful, just a little longing.  I will miss every comfortable chair, every quiet corner, every footfall of my children in our home, and the purr from contented cats.  I'm homesick for it all!

You might accuse be of being sentimental, but I don't think of it that way.  I love home.  I think the more I love home the more I know of my eternal Home.  My duty now is to love His world, to love a particular place, a particular home.  And when I go away, far away, it's in part to have my own love for home nurtured.

We're going far away.  We need to go.  We'll make new friends, have our eyes opened, be given new visions.  But I can't wait to come home.

[You can follow our trip on our blog.  Everyone is posting.  You might even see a post from me.]

Things of the World, Grow Dim (Embrace Uganda)

 

 

 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of the world look strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.

You may recall the melody of this old and shopworn praise song.  I do.  While I cannot easily sing it anymore without a slight cringe, if you divorce it from the tune for a moment, the words are right on: In the light of Jesus, the one who gives meaning to everything of the world, the things of the world do look dim by comparison, and yet by His light we better see what is true, good, and beautiful.

If your family is like mine, you are used to a significant measure of peace and prosperity as compared to the rest of the world. For many months, my wife and I have felt that we needed to be awakened --- not only for our sake but for the sake of our children.  We assume much, take for granted much.  I think and write often about the built environment and marvel at how cities work --- clean water flows via underground pipes and sewage is carried away, electricity is dependable and relatively inexpensive, streets paved an almost entirely without potholes, the grocery store has every food item I could possibly need and more, 95% of us are employed, even the worst schools give the basics and most do much better, and so on.  And yet, even marveling at all this, I cannot hold it in my mind for more than a few minutes.  Life goes on and I assume much.  I'm not confronted everyday with poverty or public infrastructure that is non-existent or substandard.

Late last year we heard of an opportunity to join other students, parents and teachers from Trinity Academy of Raleigh, our children's school, and a local organization called Embrace Uganda, on a two-week missions trip to the village of Kaihura, Uganda.  Kaihura is about three hours drive over rough road from Kampala and Entebbe Airport, a small village in the mountains with little electricity, no running water, and no healthcare.  Our entire family committed to going.  We decided we wanted to share the same experience.  We'll be helping with some additional construction at a vocational school there, working with the orphanage, doing soccer and other games, and carrying books to start the village's first library.  You can find out more about it here. 

As I prayed about going on this trip, I was confronted by a number of issues:

• Fear.  What if I or a member of my family had a major health concern while there? I confess this was the largest obstacle for me.  We did the prudent thing, making sure we have medical evacuation insurance, but we are a long way from a quality hospital.  The "what ifs" are haunting.  And yet the bottom line, the thing I return to, is that we are all in good health, have a doctor along on the trip, and have this opportunity to trust God.  "[F]or God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control" (2 Ti 1:7).  And I know better than to make decisions based on fear (even though I feel it at times).  Will I trust God?
• Calling.  As we considered whether to go, we all prayed for guidance.  And yet what are we looking for?  God has rarely hit me over a head with something, and I still cannot say I have a passion for going, but I do have a passion to be changed, to be molded by God into a shape more resembling who He made me to be.  I think that's where we all come down, putting ourselves in an uncomfortable place so God can use us.  But shouldn't I feel more passion for this mission?
• Selfishness.  Every Summer our family takes a long two-week vacation.  I love these times.  I love being together, even if the biggest arguments I have had with my children come on vacation.  We have years of shared memories from these trips.  This Summer we will not do that, or, at least we will not do it alone.  I have to share my kids with many other people.  I'll miss this.  I also miss home, familiar places and things, my books, my music, my church, my friends, and good restaurants.  And yet it's only two weeks, right?  All of this tells me how self-centered I have become, how used to having things my way.

You know, I don't want to leave home.  I don't want to do without a shower and toilet using a latrine, carrying water from a well and bathing from a bucket, interacting daily with tons of people, a stranger in a strange land.  I'm just being honest.  But I do want to change.  I'm praying that song --- that as I look to Jesus the things I love too much in this world will grow dimmer, that I'll see through them to what matters.  Pray for our preparation.  Pray for our safety.  But most of all, pray that God would transform us and conform us to the image of His Son.