When is Enough, Enough?

Proverbs 27:20 Death and destruction are never satisfied, and neither are they eyes of man.

My cell phone rang at 6:30 this morning. I mentally checked the day's schedule before I scanned the text on my screen. Noemia's message was solemn and short. The husband of one of our activistas had just passed away. I stared at the screen wondering if the cup of suffering in Dondo screams, "FULL!" or if it just continues to overflow. Although I wanted to comfort Adelina right away, two patients from Project Life were waiting for an emergency ride to the hospital.

My translator and I stopped at Tina's Green Door house in Macharote. She walked unassisted to the car though her gait was tipsy and her pain apparent. At the hospital she was diagnosed and treated for cerebral malaria. We took her home and prayed with this widow that our Great Physician would heal her body quickly so she could care for her six children. The next patient wasn't so easy.

The message we had received was to take a relative of one of the women from PL to the hospital. When we arrived at the house the woman from PL was there but not the patient. She explained that he had become so ill the night before that he had chosen to sleep in a church in Macharote. Then, like a self-correcting processor she changed her story to say he had slept at a pastor's house. We drove to the church and found it locked. A neighbor directed us back to the woman's house confiding that it was the house of the pastor. Retracing our tracks we questioned the woman again. She gave us a different direction to the "pastor's house." We arrived at that house and thankfully were informed of the patient's presence. As we waited outside a dreadful discernment overcame us. This was not a pastor's house. We were at the house of a witchdoctor. I turned my head and noticed three men staring at us in a small hut a few yards away. I quietly prayed for God's protection. Two young men carried out our patient; a skeletal frame passing in and out of consciousness. I began to thank God that I did not know Sena, the tribal language for every bit of my being was rising up in anger like a whip. Hoisting the patient on his back, my translator hurried to the car before anyone's mind could change. Back at the car, we challenged the woman's dishonesty about "the pastor." She confessed that her family had forced this young man to go to the witchdoctor in spite of her objections. In the emergency room we laid him on a bench. We had a few minutes before the nurse could see him. His life was quickly ebbing away so I knelt down with his head next to mine and explained God's salvation plainly. He slightly nodded at me until his eyes lost focus. Another life....another death. When is enough, enough?

I stopped by Adelina's house. Women were customarily sitting beside her on the floor. She sobbed and sobbed in my arms. All of her fears of loss poured out of her heart. It was no coincidence that the week's Bible lesson had been about Ruth and Naomi. And there was no doubt in my heart that God had sent me back to Moz seasonably early for this very moment: to sit beside my friend during this difficult loss and encourage her that God had not abandoned her. Though answers to the complexities of her suffering are far beyond my grasp, I do know this, one day God will say, "Enough!" That will be all I need to hear.

Random Acts of Rotten Fate

Phil was banging on our bathroom window. He was late and had locked his keys and cell phone inside the house. Ah....it's Monday in Mozambique. Of course I was in the shower with shampoo dripping down my face. The day continued to bring Monday-like interruptions. On our way to deliver emergency food in Project Life we came upon our El Shaddai school bus....stuck in the mud. I made a u-turn with the rescued school children cramped in the back of my car and navigated through the pouring rain. I could hear little heads hit the back window each time I cautiously maneuvered through a water-filled chuck hole. On my...why do Mondays always seem like random acts of rotten fate?

Mulling this in my mind brought me back to Friday's Bible lesson. I had asked the activistas to raise their hand if they had lost a child or husband like Naomi. 100% raised their hands. I stared at them skeptically until they shared their personal stories: some had lost more than one husband, some as many as three children. Could all these tragedies be random acts of rotten fate?

I looked around at them and recognized the hand of redemption. God carefully hand-picked this group to take His compassion and comfort to those out in the bairros burdened by AIDS and poverty. No one was better qualified; I could see there was nothing random about it. The thought was comforting until my Monday continued on its course.

The left wheels of my car slipped into a muddy ditch so deep the frame sat on the ground. A crowd of men surrounded my car and demanded money for their help. A bit frightened by their presence, I was relieved when the school bus driver's brother drove by and rescued me from my plight. I was beginning to sense that nothing is random in God's hands.

My husband excitedly called me to tell me about a chance meeting in Beira. We had been praying earnestly about developing better cement block houses for less cost. We had spent Sunday afternoon drawing out designs and discussing it with the Piepers to no avail. We had concluded we needed an engineer. As Phil was exchanging money and groping for the right Portuguese phrase, a man in line offered his help...in English. He explained to my husband that he was from South Africa but had attended MIT in the United States and was an engineer. Then he casually mentioned he was currently working on a cement block house design to save money. A random act of fate? I laughed and cried at the same time. What if my husband had not locked his keys and cell phone in the house and missed this chance meeting? Now that would have been a random act of rotten fate!

Sleeping Beauty

I caught her as she fell off the bench in a slump. One more second and her head would have hit the cement floor. She didn't even wake up. It was in the mid-nineties and we were teaching the weekly Bible story at the church. The room was stifling without any breeze for relief. The fetor of fifty-three sweaty and soiled bodies saturated the air as the children sang. Each one an exhibit of paucity: threadbare and torn shirts hanging off their shoulders, swollen bellies crying malnourishment and worms, and angular arms and legs looking more like sticks. These are the children of poverty.

I held the sleeping little girl close until we were drenched in our sweat. Perhaps it was the union of hunger and heat but I had heard that two El Shaddai children had fallen asleep in class because of malaria. I prayed it wasn't her plight. As I looked at her sweet face, it was all I could do to not grab her and take her away from the big bad poverty monster. I imagined her washed and cleaned with a fitted white dress and pink ribbons, her torso filled to proportion, toys and books at her disposal, and an education to secure her future. I could do this for her...but who am I?

Who am I and what is my responsibility? To bolt in as the white knight on a white horse and barrel through the path of least resistance? To sever the ties that have woven the fabric of her entire existence? To sit taller on this rubble heap and demand my assistance? Who am I?

I am a learner. I silently prayed for her and her family. I prayed that God would give me the grace, patience and wisdom to work within this poverty and not run away from it. The guidance to walk alongside the families and restore their dignity. The discernment to know when helping can hurt. And most of all, the insight of my own poverty domains.

I put the little girl back on her feet as she woke from her slumber. We joined the other children as they left the church....it was good to get a breath of fresh air!

A Courtin' We Will Go...

How did you meet your husband?

It seemed like a simple question until I heard the sound of bees swarming in the room as the women spoke rapidly to each other in Sena. Their wide-eyed expressions and self-conscious grins clued me in that I was about to cross another cultural divide.

The prep question was part of the weekly Bible study on Rachel. The story of Jacob and Rachel's first meeting always seemed a bit peculiar: Jacob meets sweaty shepherd girl; waters her sheep; kisses her and then he cries. Okay, maybe the story is a bit more involved but what happened to the rule that men are supposed to play "hard to get" in order to be more attractive to women? Though Rachel's story is mind-boggling, I was about to hear personal narratives from these women that had a similar format:

"I was approached by the grandmother of a man," began one woman. "She asked me if I would marry her grandson. My parents insisted that she bring him to meet us. He came to my door, we set a date for one year later but I got pregnant, and then we started living together."

"I was 15," offered another woman. "A man that lived in Beira sent his sister to ask me if I would marry him. He gave a dowry to my parents. We married one year later."

"My mother couldn't afford to keep me," admitted another, "so she gave me away to an older man as his third wife."

The stories in the bairros this week continued with the same narration:

"I was 16," said Eva, "when I met an older woman. We became good friends. She asked me if I would marry her son. I married him one month later."

One man shared his story. "I had a first wife that I sent away because she could not give me children. I took on a second wife. We had six children but four of them died."

Lucia met her husband on the street when she was 14. He asked her to marry him one week later. They were married for 16 years until he left her for another woman. He died shortly thereafter.

Many of these women's stories ended with abuse, betrayal, abandonment and AIDS. They suffered like Leah as the "unloved wife." They were especially attentive as they heard the story of God's compassion towards Leah and His plan for her in the lineage of Jesus. My heart is that these women will experience God's unconditional love and see His eternal plan for their lives.

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Traditionally in Mozambique, it is not uncommon for a man to see a girl and decide he wants her for his wife though he has never talked to her; not unlike Jacob's experience. Once a man decides he wants a girl he will approach her either through a friend or directly. Then he meets the family of the girl who will decide if this is agreeable. After the girl has met her future husband's family, the girl's parents set a price for a dowry. Once the dowry is paid, the man can take the girl home with him as his wife. There usually is not any formal civil ceremony.

In all the stories I heard this week, not once did I hear women initiating this process. Many women who live in dire poverty don't have the confidence of an education to sustain them. They will readily agree to a marriage for future security. Even at that, the more educated younger generation is shifting away from this custom for promiscuous relationships without parental approval. This trend is compounding the AIDS epidemic.

* * * * * * * * *

WHAT DOES A DOWRY LOOK LIKE? Out of curiosity I asked Manuel of the GD to elaborate on his dowry for his wife Ramizia. He paid 3500mt ($140), one suit and a pair of shoes for his father-in-law, a suit, purse and pair of shoes for his mother-in-law, clothes for Ramizia and a suitcase to put them in. Truly a remarkable dowry considering the average person here earns less than $2 a day. I asked my husband if he would have had to pay for me if I would still be on the auction block. He laughed and said he has been paying for me since we got married. :-)

The Baby Dedication

It was such a relief to receive a few days of rain. It brought the temperatures down to a tolerable level and moisture to the parched crops and land. So why was I praying on Sunday for God to stop the rain? I had just arrived at Luisa's small mud home to drop a load of women from the church for her baby daughter's dedication to the Lord. It was a downpour and there were many carloads of women waiting at the church.

"Please God, I am embarrassed to ask this when we have prayed so much for rain, and this is such a small matter. But...please, could you stop the rain for a couple of hours so we can go on with this baby dedication?" I left the women and headed back to the church. It was a distance to Luisa's house and the heavy rain made it too far to walk. Every space in the car was taken as the women pressed against each other. The women began singing at the top of their lungs when we passed through the open market. They were especially jovial for the recent rains, cooler weather and the ensuing celebration. My translator laughingly commented that their singing was better than the car radio. I agreed but pointed out that we could not turn them down. We both laughed but no one heard us.

When the last carload arrived at Luisa's house, I notice that the rain had stopped. Women crowded in Luisa's home singing around the baby. Noemia prayed a blessing over her little one and then stepped outside; symbolically bringing her from darkness to light. (In opposition of what the traditional witchdoctors ritualistically perform.) The women danced and sang with all their vigor, perhaps much like David when he danced before the Lord. They blessed Luisa with small gifts: soap, coins, or whatever they could give. They finished their celebration with the traditional maheu and bisquitos.

The women were quiet and spent as I drove the the last carload back to the church. It had begun to rain again. To our surprise a rainbow graced the sky as we drove back through the market. I couldn't help but wonder if someone else was singing...at the top of His lungs.