Just Another Day

So what nobody told us yesterday is that the Baptists were slated to come today and teach "Discipleship" in Lui. We were not invited. The men are in the cathedral and the women are under the mango tree. The women are learning praise songs in English. That's all I know about that.

Since the rest of our team left, Deb, Dan, and I have faced a larger number of individual requests for various types of school funding. Between that and the mirror of the Baptists from Birmingham, I am struggling a bit with how I feel about our role here.

At the same time, we are now having the leisure to sit in the compound with whoever wanders in, and yesterday we experienced a first: Betty, one of the teachers the diocese of MO sponsors at Lunjini, sat with us and asked lots of questions about life in the US. Mostly she was interested in our food and how it gets to us; the conversation started with a question about whether we grow something or another -- coffee, maybe. In the end, she asked for some health information and advice, as well. It was one of the best conversations I've had here. We are also getting deeper and more subtle information about things in Lui. Yesterday Vasco explained a lot to us about the prospects of Lui Hospital and the apparent conflict between what the church wants and what the state wants. That was helpful. So on balance I think it's good that the three of us are still here.

I'm grateful to have Deb and Dan here to process it all with; we are working hard to recognize the cultural mandate or sense of desperation behind the requests and to give the moments of sharing their due weight. I guess the via media was never easy -- for us equilibrium exists only as moments of balance between two extremes.