Lost in Translation

One of the great privileges Dan Carlson and I had was the opportunity to help lead a retreat for the Nehemiah Committees, which are part of HEAL Africa's multifaceted ministry. As their name implies these teams are committed to rebuilding their communities. They started their work after Mount Nyiragongo, the VOLCANO that is just north of Goma, ERUPTED in January 2002. Seeing that they could not look to the outside world for the degree of assistance they would need they made the decision to build partnerships among the churches in Goma to do the work of rebuilding their city. Five and a half years later that work continues.

Dan and I were invited to lead what turned into a prayer retreat with these men and women. After discussing the format with Pastor Bolingo, the chaplain for HEAL Africa, we decided to walk the committees through the Lord's Prayer, praying the prayer as we went. "Lord, in Goma, in eastern Congo, may you character, your heart, your Name be known. May your kingdom come and let your will be done in this city, in North Kivu, in the hearts and lives of the Congolese, the Interahamwe, the other rebel forces. Give to the people all that they need to be your people. Grant to them the grace to receive forgiveness and to forgive. And when they are tested protect them from the Evil One who wants to get them not to trust you." It was a remarkable experience to think through the prayer and pray through the prayer with these courageous men and women.

There was a moment of comedy while I was teaching the fourth petition, "Give us this day our daily bread." In an attempt to lighten the mood a little bit I decided to tell a story that had been pretty funny when I told it in Berkeley. I did not get the same reaction in Goma, at least not at first. Instead of smiles and laughter I got furrowed brows and anxious glances at Pastor Bolingo. In a somewhat weak attempt to get people to think about our uncontrollable wants and desires (in relationship to our prayer for daily bread) I told the story of what happened in July when I was car-camping with a group of young adults in Lake Tahoe. A HUGE bear got into the church van in the middle of the night and started eating a cheesecake that we had mistakenly left in the cooler which was inside the van. How that happened and how I got the bear out of the van is another story.

All of our teaching to the Nehemiah committees was translated from English into French (one of the languages of the Congo). As I told the bear story I was met with blank stares. Fortunately, Paul Yeager interrupted my teaching to inquire whether they knew what a bear was? Maybe the fact that they had no reaction to what I was saying was because they didn't understand how big and intimidating a bear living in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California can be. It soon became clear that it wasn't because they were unfamiliar with bears. It was because the translator thought I said "BEER", not "BEAR". So my story, when translated into French, was about a HUGE BEER in the back of the church van and the BEER was eating cheesecake. No wonder they looked at me like I was psychotic. Once they understood that there was a BEAR in the back of the van they were with me. That was a talk that was almost lost in translation.

Peace,

Tim

Pictures... and some technical stuff...

Hi all!

(from Melissa)

Check out my photos from Goma on flickr, including some pictures of our adventures putting up the wireless routers to link the hospital to the learning center (and Internet room and library) across the street.

I'm so incredibly blessed to be here at the end of a very busy three months in Africa. Where most of the time I'm very occupied by my various research projects and consumed by the need to produce publishable data, here I have the freedom to just do whatever's needed. But more importantly, I'm getting a chance to do what I love as part of my church. It's so exciting to work with everyone on this team, to see another member preach at morning chapel every day, and to see God at work in this place, using our variety of gifts and skills to really serve HEAL Africa and to learn about how we might be able to continue serving in the future. Tomorrow/Sunday we're splitting our resources - our team will be preaching at three different churches after we attend the 7am service at HEAL Africa together.

Internet access is mostly okay - it works best in the mornings and in the late evenings, whereas it pretty much grinds to a halt in the late afternoons. During the day most of us just use the Internet room in the hospital, but for evenings when we are at home, I picked up a wireless modem that uses RwandaTel (a mobile phone company) to provide internet connectivity. (For you technophiles, it uses EVDO over CDMA.) I'm using ad hoc wireless routers from meraki.net to share my Internet connection so everyone else can just connect via WiFi. I'm using the same routers to set up networking for the hospital, and already have a link spanning the ~300 meter (I haven't actually measured it) distance between the Internet/Library room and the hospital. We have about 6 routers with us on this trip, so I could just try it out to make sure it works. To cover the entire hospital, we'll need quite a bit more... (btw if anyone is interested in getting wireless routers for their homes, the meraki routers are quite good and fairly inexpensive - $50 each for the indoor routers).

I spent some time earlier today speaking with Dr. Vindu in the pediatric HIV clinic about electronic medical records and how she wants to use computers in the hospital. Almost immediately she suggested OpenMRS, an open source project in collaboration with Partners in Health and already in use in major projects in Kenya (hi rachel!), as well as the Millenium Village Project in Rwanda. At the close of our conversation I asked her what she thought was her most pressing need for the clinic. I expected her to say something like more doctors, more medicines, or even to ask for more computers and better data management. Instead, she said the most pressing need was for the families that were caring for the HIV-infected orphans. About 240 of the 360-some children in the clinic are orphans, being cared for by relatives or other community members, who are often quite poor themselves, and cannot afford the school fees (including books, uniforms, and supplies) for the orphans. Indeed they often cannot afford the fees for all of their own children. Not only am I amazed by the selflessness of this request, but also heartbroken that such a basic need is not being filled. Of course there's a whole list of other needs to be filled at this hospital as well... we just have to decide where to start. In the meantime, Naomi's working very hard on a mural to cheer up the children in the clinic.

Okay early church tomorrow and I need to get to bed. Thanks for reading and please keep praying! Pray especially for the teaching at the three churches tomorrow, and for Rebecca, the 7 day old premie in the incubator at HEAL Africa.

Melissa

Life In Goma

Saturday, August 18, 2007

The time here in the DRC is flying by just as I expected it would once we reached this point in the trip. We have just 3 full days left (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). We head back to Rwanda on Wednesday at about noon. It’s Saturday and I’m finished for the day, having gone to chapel early this morning where we saw Timo deliver the sermon. It was very well done. He has a remarkable capacity to make connections with people. Out of all of us, he has mastered the most Swahili and uses what he knows with great effectiveness. All five of the men on the team (Timo, Dan, Paul, Ryan and I) have had the opportunity to preach a sermon at the 7 AM chapel service the hospital holds most mornings for patients and staff. All of these guys have done a great job behind the pulpit! Every morning there are a couple of choirs that sing, interspersed with congregational singing (some of these moments have been captured on video and if you get the chance to watch these videos I think you’ll be able to get a sense of the utter joy and worship that flows from the patients, doctors and staff). Tomorrow morning all five of us will be in four different congregations. Dan and Ryan are teaming up to preach at one church, Timo is on his way to a Pentecostal church service which lasts 3 hours, Paul will be speaking at the worship service for the patients of HEAL Africa at 7 AM (the whole team will be attending that service together) and I will speak at the French church’s worship service that is held in the HEAL Africa chapel at 9 AM.

What we’ve done the last couple of days is a good example of the way our work has developed over the week. Melissa, with the help of the IT staff at HEAL Africa, took an rolling, adjustable IV bottle stand, cut off the top and bottom of it and used the pole to mount a wireless antenna on top of the hospital. They then walked across the street to the Jubilee Center, climbed the stairs to the second floor, wrapped a shirt of some kind around one of the IT guys and held him as he leaned out the window and nailed the other wireless antenna to the side of the building. Melissa tells me that she is getting a solid connection between the two antennas which will help HEAL Africa create a communication link between the buildings. She’s in conversations this afternoon with one of the doctors about their database needs.

Naomi hopped on the back of a “moto” (one of the hundreds if not thousands of motorcycles in Goma that function like a taxi) to buy paint for the mural she is painting in the pediatric HIV clinic. She is painting a wonderful African scene filled with animal in the jungle. She’s using oil-based paints so the windows are kept wide open while she works. Sarah has been helping her with that project as well as assessing some of the educational needs of the children at the hospital.

Timo has been discussing many of the engineering needs of the hospital with the staff and will be heading off with Ryan to join a soccer (that is football) ministry on Sunday afternoon. HEAL Africa sponsors sports clubs in Goma and the surrounding region. They bring a football team from the hospital to play another local team and before the game and during half-time the HEAL Africa leaders talk to those who are playing and those who have gathered to watch about respect for women and about HIV. Recently they had a woman referee the match.

Paul has been working with the counselors and staff of the hospital, exploring issues of spiritual care for patients. He had a room packed with doctors, nurses and hospital staff on Friday afternoon. Paul also helped Dan and me as we led a day and half retreat with the people from the Nehemiah Committees which were formed to help rebuild the communities of Goma after the volcano devastated the city. The founders of the Nehemiah Committees knew that they could not wait for assistance to come from outside the country. So they acted to provide a wide range of services to hurting people. Dan did a great job leading the Nehemiah Committees through a discussion of "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors." Yes, we to are teaching through the Lord's Prayer here in Goma. To lead a discussion on the question of forgiveness with people who have been through what has gone on here is not an easy thing to do. It was an amazing discussion.

Bridget has continued to be a champ. She keeps all the pieces of our mission together. She connects us with people, makes sure we have transportation, solves an incredibly wide range of practical problems and quietly comes alongside each of us to see how we’re doing. She is an enormous gift to our team. I can’t imagine doing this with out her.

As I write this we’re at the Lusi’s home on Lake Kivu and we’re experiencing an incredible wind and rainstorm. The lightening has just started with bright flashes of light and loud clashes of thunder. It’s awesome!! The waves of the lake are crashing onto the deck and there is a waterfall of water coming off the roof. I love Africa!

Thanks for your prayers!

Tim (for the entire Goma Team)

Worship in the Congo

Thursday, August 16
Hi Everybody (from Sarah)!

It's about halfway through my trip here in Goma, and it's been pretty challenging to fully grasp all of the complexities of life here, in a country that continues to be terrorized by guerrilla warfare. Certainly the war is "over", but in the eyes of the innocent Congolese people, this war is far from over, and the psychological effects will remain for generations to come.

In Goma, our team mainly spends time at two places, and they couldn't be more different. We stay at this beautiful house along Lake Kivu, a lake at least twice the size of Lake Tahoe, with a beautiful English Garden, and comfortable but simple rooms with private bathrooms. For meals we eat out on this amazing verandah that overlooks the Lake, where we enjoy the company of not only our team from Berkeley, but people from around the world, learning and listening to their respective research projects they are working on while they stay in Goma. Sometimes we have 20 people at dinner! The house is impressive, complete with it's very own obnoxious dog, and workout room in the attic so we can get our wiggles out and sleep better at night. Last night we had a lightening storm, and I sat with a friend in a hammock on the verandah as we watched the sky light up over the lake.

Outside the gates of the house, however, is a much different story. In 2003, a volcano (which you can see from the hospital if it's not super hazy and looks very majestic with smoke rising from its top), exploded and lava covered 40% of the city. Not only that, the presence of armed forces, Congolese police forces and army, are at every corner, controlling traffic, stopping people at will. The UN forces are also a presence and every time I see a truck of peacekeepers roll by I am reminded that although the civil war ended a few years ago, guerrilla groups continue to exist in force outside of the city and continue to terrorize the Congolese civilians. The city is covered in black lava, unlike the red dirt that exists in the majority Africa.

The other place (aside from the house) where we spend our time is around the hospital, HEAL Africa . Inside the walls of the hospital, (which is in desperate condition, yet is one of the best hospitals in the DR Congo), there is intense suffering. Despite all of this suffering and chaos, even in the midst of it, I see both the pain and hope of the Congolese people. Let me tell you a story. Every morning we go to chapel at 7am, a service for the entire hospital staff and it's patients. Three choirs perform each day, probably about 5 or 6 people per choir. As I was sitting there in church listening to them sing, I was comparing their songs for that day to the songs they sang on other days, acknowledging that today just wasn't "as good". I was disappointed. I laughed at myself, realizing my selfishness, and shook my head. What happened next will always stay with me, and if this is what heaven sounds like, then count me in, seriously. Luckily we have this recorded, I don't think I'm about to do it justice. The women in the church, the broken, the ones suffering from Fistulas, and some pregnant by their rapists, began signing this song about taking their bags to Canaan, because they were free. As they sang this song, people started clapping to their own rhythms, and placing whatever they had, purses, babies, Bibles, whatever up on their heads and forming a conga line around the room. As I clapped and danced along with the people, I watched the line go around the room. There was this woman singing carrying this baby with his skull twice the size of what a normal head should look like. I choked back tears and watched her love the Lord through song and dance, and all of the sudden I was amazed at the resiliency of all of these women, men, doctors and nurses. I get to come and go as I please, for my little two week stint in the Congo, and then I go home to the comfort of my home, my big bed, my mattress, my fiancé, my diet coke, my big meals, my comfortable life in Oakland. The people here are faced with this reality day after day, they face it head on, with determination, resiliency, hope, and faith in their God, who is a God of justice, a God of Healing, and a God of Life.

Whew. I know most of you are wondering what I'm actually doing on a day to day basis, and lets just suffice to say, that I'm learning TONS, and my mind is constantly being expanded to what the CONTINENT of Africa really has to offer the world. I'm investigating how HIV/AIDS education works here, what individuals are doing to keep the epidemic from taking control of this generation like it has so desperately in South Africa.

In case you were wondering, I'm also learning that colonialism really sucked and continues to plague African society to this day.

I'm also learning that despite my sickness on Wednesday, my missing cell phone, and slow internet, the frustrating language barrier, it really just doesn't matter.

I love you all, keep those prayers coming!

Sarah

A Resilient People

Monday, August 13, 2007

My impressions of Goma have matured in the 24 hours since we arrived. Today was an intense day. After a wonderful breakfast at the Lusi’s home (which sits right on Lake Kivu) we drove to the HEAL Africa hospital. We were given a tour of all the wards, operating rooms, labs and offices. We met some astounding people who were caring for the hundreds and hundreds of hurting people in facilities that are far better than most medical facilities in Eastern Congo but way below what most of us would expect to find in any hospital in North America.

Goma is a relatively stable place (there are about 5000 UN troops here out of a total of 17,000 in all of Congo). But Goma is surrounded on the north, west and south by regions that continue to experience instability and conflict. HEAL Africa is a battlefield hospital. That’s the best way for me to describe it. As we walked through the wards we met people who had endured unbelievable trauma and are experiencing tremendous suffering.

You may not want to read what I’m about to write. I want you to read this. I think you should read this. I’m going to tell you a little bit of what we saw today at HEAL Africa. As we were led through the hospital by two of the male head nurses we met a woman who had been gang raped just 2 days ago. Sexual violence is a tool of war in this country that continues to experience conflict generated by rebel troops still in the Congo from a war that was supposed to be over 4 years ago. It was heartbreaking to come face to face with a person who has personally endured what we have only read about. We prayed for her as she tried to manage the excruciating pain in her abdomen. In the intensive care unit we saw a boy about 10 years old who had been shot in the head and was barely concious. Part of his brain had been pushed through his skull and was still on the outside of his head. We met a little boy in a wheel chair who after watching rebel soldiers kill his father had his own leg hacked off. In the radiology department we saw the x-rays of a woman who still had a bullet lodged in her pelvis because she had been shot through her vagina after being sexually abused. The main surgery performed on adult women at HEAL Africa is for fistulas (or tears) in a woman’s vagina that can be caused by the insertion of sticks or gun barrels, gang rape and traumatic births, causing urine to leak continually. In the pediatric ward we saw an infant with hydrocephalus (a condition where fluid on the brain causes the child’s head to be nearly twice its normal size). We also discovered that the hospital does not have a working incubator for premature babies. When we were in the operating rooms we learned that the general surgery theater is running out of stitches. Stitches!

In the middle of all this I experienced the profound gift of being held by God. It was as if he was personally walking us through the wards, showing us what has happened in Goma. At the end of the day we visited a demonstration garden that has been instrumental in showing people how they can grow crops on the volcanic rocks that covered 40% of the city. We saw amazing vegetables and seedlings that will one day become great trees, even a bush that is used to treat people with malaria. It became a metaphor of what I see God and the people here in Goma doing: re-growing life on the top of tragedy. My initial impressions of Goma were incomplete. What I now see are resourceful, intelligent, passionate, innovative, resilient people rebuilding lives that have experienced great devastation. What an honor it is for us to be here.

Grace and peace,

Tim, Bridget, Timo, Dan, Sarah, Naomi, Melissa, Paul and Ryan

Rwanda to Congo

Goma, Congo
Sunday, August 12, 2007

It has been a really, really, (did I say really) long journey to get here. It’s 10 PM on Sunday night and the trip that started at 10 AM on Thursday morning at San Francisco International Airport is finished. We’re in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo! Amazing! We arrived in Kigali, Rwanda on Saturday morning after flying overnight from SFO to London. Then overnight (again) to Nairobi, Kenya and then a short flight to Kigali where we spent the night at the Gorilla Hotel (after enjoying a platter full of goat meat - it was really good).

On Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and drove to the Genocide museum that is a memorial to the catastrophe that took place in Rwanda. The museum is more than just that. It’s also a burial ground for an estimated 280,000 people who were massacred in 1994. Our guide told us that 1.7 million people died in a little over 100 days (that is a number almost twice as high as I had ever heard before). Either number (800,000 or 1,700,000) would be (should be) staggering to us. I found the museum deeply moving. My conversation with our guide (who lost most of his family in the genocide) gave me some hope for the future of Rwanda. He is a young man with a dream for his future. I met others in Rwanda who encouraged a similar hopefulness.

After leaving the museum we headed for the border (about a 3-hour drive) in 2 vans. It was the Rwandan version of Mt. Toad’s Wild Ride. Melissa Ho, who is a member of our team and has been in Africa for 3 months and has had numerous experiences in vans on this continent, said that she likes riding in the back row of the van so she won’t be able to watch what’s coming at us out the front window. I could not believe how close we came to people walking along the road as our little two-van caravan hurtled across Rwanda. We arrived at the Congo-Rwanda border at about 4:30 PM and started the hour-long process of exiting Rwanda and entering the DRC. We walked across the border as our luggage was driven in one of the vans. After getting visas for two of our team members we were finally in the DRC.

We met Harper and Melissa from HEAL Africa (who came to the border to pick us up) and started our short drive to the home of Jo and Lyn Lusi (where we’ll be staying for the next 9 days). What a dramatic contrast to Rwanda, a country awash in what one person has described as “guilt money”. For the most part the roads in Rwanda are paved (not entirely as we found out on our trip to the border). The DR Congo is the size of Western Europe and has 300 miles of paved roads.

How do I describe Goma? Here are some words that came to mind in those first few minutes on this side of the border: wild, chaotic, energizing, out of control, destroyed, broken, burned. In many ways it’s similar to other developing countries I’ve been in. I’ve been on roads in Honduras that are just as rough but those roads weren’t the result of lava that flowed to the height of a one-story building. Goma is an intense place that really needs people to care about what it has experienced and continues to go through. I guess that has something to do with why we’re here. God help us have your eyes and your heart as we open our lives to the Congolese people and the city of Goma.

Kigali to Goma!

Hi Everybody!

Here are a couple of updates. The first I wrote yesterday when we first arrived:

Saturday AM (8.11.2007)
Well...40 hours later and we're here in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. It's about noon (we're 9 hours ahead of you) and most or the team is resting and in about half an hour we'll be having lunch together. It's been a long, tiring journey to get here but God has been so good to us. All our airline connections, accommodations have gone well (Kenya Airways has misplaced Dan's luggage so prayers for that would be appreciated). Paul, Bridget and I went to see Josh McPaul during our layover in London. Josh is the college pastor at First Pres and contracted malaria while he and his team of college students were in Uganda for 6 weeks and had to be hospitalized while he was in London on his way home. Josh is rapidly improving and I hope he will be on his way home in the next few days. We're all taking our malaria pills (asking each other, "Did you take it?" every morning) and will be covering ourselves in DEET. We haven't seen many mosquitos here in Rwanda. We're off to Goma midday on Sunday.

Thanks for your prayers!

Tim

Sunday AM (8.12.2007)
I'm sitting with our team at breakfast at the Gorilla Hotel in Kigali. It looks like everyone (including me) had a great night's sleep! It was hilarious at dinner last night. I watched people's eyes glaze over as each of us "hit the wall" of tiredness. When we got back to the hotel here in Kigali I think everyone immediately went to bed and slept a good 9 hours. We're off to see the Genocide museum here in Kigali that tells the horrendous story of the massacre that took place in Rwanda in 1994. Then were off to Goma (by van) where we'll be staying for the next 9 days. I'm really excited to get to Congo and begin the work we've been called here to do. I'm sure the main "work" that will be done will take place in us. Please pray for that and that God would help us make connections with the people of Goma.

Thanks again for your continuing love and support. It means everything to us.

Grace and peace,

Tim, Bridget, Dan, Naomi, Ryan, Mellisa, Paul, Sarah, Timo

One Day to Go!

This is a picture of where we're headed on Thursday: Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is situated right on the Congo-Rwandan border. This is a picture of the Goma airport. We won't be flying in here because that big mountain in the background is a volcano named Mount Nyirangongo. It erupted in 2002 and destroyed a good portion of the runway and a significant part of the city. That's just part of the painful story the people of Goma have been living. We'll be flying into Kigali in neighboring Rwanda and driving west to Goma. We leave from San Francisco on Thursday afternoon and will be in Goma on Sunday night (we're staying Saturday night in Kigali before heading to Goma). We're not sure how reliable the internet connection will be in Goma but we hope to update this blog along the way so keep checking back. You can also subscribe to our blog using the link below. Click on "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)". We deeply appreciate your love, support and prayers!

Grace and peace,

Tim, Dan, Bridget, Naomi, Timo, Sarah, Ryan, Melissa and Paul