Where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

I write to you now as one who is exhausted. It seems I have lived a year since I wrote last.

The past two weeks have been perhaps the most stretching weeks in my entire life. Not necessarily the most “life-changing,” or “eye-opening” – but the most stretching. Physically, in the past ten days I have bicycled nearly two hundred kilometers around the small village of Adak – on trails that hardly deserve the name, small lines of dirt snaking through the long grass of the bush; through villages and compounds; across creeks and swamps; over enormous columns of marching safari ants; past huts, goats, and empty lands. It is impossible to summarize the experience – I can only give you glimpses.

I have seen enormous fields of rice and tobacco; I have seen children squirming in agony from preventable tetanus infection.

I have seen buildings steadily rising out of the bush; I have seen bullet-scarred homes disintegrate in the mud and rain.

I have seen the delighted grins of children coming to meet a visitor; I have seen the utter fear in children who had never before seen a white person.

I have met people who generously presented me with their best chickens; I have met people who pleaded with me for a pittance of money with which to buy alcohol.

I have gone days eating nothing but cassava and beans; I have stuffed myself on choice roast pork and goat.

I have praised the LORD for his awesome Creation; I have cried out angrily to God for the horrendous evils He allows.

I have partaken in the blessed fellowship of communal living; I have felt the bitter division of clashing beliefs.

I have enjoyed the challenge of learning a new language; I have been driven to anger over the frustrations of miscommunications.

I have heard joyful shouts of worship; I have heard the mournful wail of screaming children.

I have blessed Africa; I have cursed her.

I have bargained with a teenage interpreter. I have slaughtered a chicken. I have questioned a drunken village president. I have prayed over sick children. I have been pained from eating bad meat. I have cleaned latrines. I have ridden on a motorcycle with two other people, 50lbs of supplies, and a puppy.

I have been led through the countryside by a local pastor – countryside so beautiful and lush that one wonders how a war could ever have been fought there. That same pastor showed me the home where he was abducted by armed rebels; where he was allowed to rest with other child soldiers and slaves; where everyone but he was slaughtered in cold blood; where government soldiers would hide the bodies of villagers they killed; where the LRA would ambush cars along the road.

I met Denise, an HIV+ woman who struggles to care for 15 children – her own, her co-wife’s, and orphans – by herself, while her husband lives 23 kilometers away with the other wife.

I met Nancy, a child of about 8, who carries a festering, multiple-year-old burn upon her forehead – a burn which has been treated (poorly) and refuses to heal, a burn that may very well carry a death-sentence.

I have learned to say “no.”

In my travels through the bush, countless people have brought their problems to me in hopes that I, a mono, a powerful white American man, might solve them. They have asked me for mosquito nets, new wells, closer schools, medications, school fees, food, plant seeds, farm equipment, animal medicines, alcohol, clothing, shoes, agricultural training, jobs, tool repair.

I said no to every single one. I helped no one. And every single “no” was a pain in my side, just as it was in theirs. Every time I uttered the word, it drove the nails of despair deeper into my soul, deeper into my cross.

I turned away all requests with a lengthy and somewhat guilt-ridden explanation that help would eventually come. I had nothing to give but my time and my ears. And even if I were to give, it would not free them from their poverty – it would merely perpetuate the aid-addiction that cripples this region. For, though they saw me as a redeemer, I was and am not.

“Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, but behold, darkness, for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men, we grope like those who have no eyes… All of us growl like bears, and moan sadly like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us.” – Isaiah 59:9-11

The whole business of mapping, counting, and surveying the land of Gulu becomes suddenly meaningless when the beauty of the place peels back to reveal the deep injustice and suffering that lies below.

I thank God and the TTWU GUTS team for reminding me of the lights in the darkness, the glimmers of a coming Kingdom.

I thank them for reminding me of Rose, an ancient widow who has nothing, but lives in utter joy, praising God perpetually, giving us – the richest people she had ever met – one of her few chickens.

I thank them for reminding me of the construction of the Touch the World Health Clinic, which steadily proceeds day by day.

I thank them for reminding me of all the individuals in Adak who are dedicated to rebuilding their homes.

And I thank God for his weakness, the weakness of Christ - which I now share - a weakness that will be revealed as glorious beyond all compare.

After all, the greatest of goods are always revealed in the greatest of suffering…

"Horrendous evils can be overcome only by the goodness of God" – Marilyn Adams