Fish Bones (or, Things Are More Complicated Than You MIght Think)

During each of the years 2010, 2011, and 2012 I endured at least four weeks with very little sleep.  The heat was impossible here in the Caribbean, and what you can work with during the day is not the same as what you can sleep with at night.  I would pass the nights going from my bed – where the mattress and pillows seemed to be radiating heat – to the cooler floor, where my 40+-year-old bones couldn't take the pain.  I racked my brain, thinking of what I could do.  The fan (when the electricity worked, which thankfully was more often than not) cooled the parts of my body that were exposed.  But I couldn't sleep in my birthday suit since my bed is right next to a large window that other residents walk by.  I enlisted the help of friends, but we couldn't figure out a way to cover the windows adequately while still allowing air in.

I kept fantasizing about ice, but the refrigerator at my pension's lodgings was frequently on the fritz, and ice was, well, a hot commodity (heh-heh).  However, at the end of last year we bought a dorm-style refrigerator for our office.  It has a teeny freezer, and this summer my co-workers started freezing drinking water in bags to take home to their families.  I bought a small cooler and started taking a small block of ice to my room every night.

Passing the block of ice over me turned out to be a little wet – which is not as cooling in a humid climate as it would be in Arizona.  So I splurged on Amazon.com and ordered ice packs.  However, they wouldn't actually freeze in our dinky little freezer in just one day.  So since my pension had recently bought a new refrigerator I put them in its freezer. 

Ouch!  I wrapped the ice packs in a plastic bag (the freezer isn't so clean) and the first day I went to get them I grabbed the wrong bag – it had fish bones in it!  Bleeding only slightly, I found and retrieved the right bag.  But the cold packs were only barely cold, and definitely not frozen.  “Oh, yes,” said an employee of the pension, “The freezer doesn't really work anymore.”

So I'm back to a block of ice in a bag in my cooler.  But it actually works like a charm!  I put my burning feet on the block of ice every time I get too hot during the night.  Problem solved, with only a few hiccups (and three years) along the way.

Stories of change in Miniere

My last post was about some of the fun we had while traveling to Miniere.   Below you'll see just four of the amazing stories of transformation that we heard -- definitely worth a little mud on my shoes! 

Jaudner Altidor, community health evangelist since 2009

What I would like to say about CHE, about myself – well, I didn't start right away. The CHEs used to come to my house to talk with me about cleanliness and about spiritual things. They talked about cleanliness, and we saw that some of the things we were doing weren't right. We changed those things. We realized that if they came to give us advice about cleanliness – well, we could see that it was because they wanted to help us. It wasn't really that difficult to change.

The biggest change we made was with regard to latrines. Where we were living it wasn't all that easy to dig a hole because we have a lot of rock. And when it rained the hole got messed up. But we knew we had to dig a hole anyway, and so we did.

CHE has brought a lot of change to the community. When I was a child I used to see pigs running all over the street [Translator's note:  pigs excrete parasites which children then pick up through their bare feet.  CHE encourages people to keep their pigs penned away from where children are playing.] People didn't drink clean water. (I'm 20-years-old right now.)

The most important change for us was spiritually. You see, we weren't used to praying, we weren't used to going to church often. Prayer heals people. Prayer is communication with God. If you have a problem, God can help you. You communicate with God. When people pray they aren't worried.  When I go to church I find a lot of principles that are in the Bible and I learn a lot. This allows me to feel that I am growing closer to God so that when Jesus comes back I will be ready for his kingdom.

(c) copyright Jaudner Altidor. Used with author's permission.

 

Madame Onorise Deravine, community health evangelist

I went to the bank and a woman asked me to write my name. I didn't know how to and I was really embarrassed. But thanks to CHE I started going to school, even if I'm already an old woman. Now I can write my name. I'm 73-years-old.
 

I accepted Christ one year and one month ago, and I was baptized. I used to go to the vodou priest's house. I have six children that died. I went to the feet of the saints [paintings of saints in some Catholic churches] but my children were still sick. Then they invited a man to preach to us. He confessed what he used to do to people when he was a vodou priest – he confessed that he took their money and sometimes didn't do anything for them. I stopped following the vodou priests and accepted Christ.

Now when I have money I buy farm animals or I buy food. . . I've become younger, too – I used to be stressed, and any little bit of money I had I would save it to then take it to the vodou priest. I didn't have enough to eat. Now I have security.

There are also a lot of people who are clean – it's CHE that has made them clean.  Thank you.

(c) copyright Madame Onorise Deravine. Used with author's permission.

Philisma Joseph, secretary, CHE committee

What CHE has done is opened our eyes. There are so many things we now do. When other NGOs come they can tell. Our community, the environment – everywhere you look it is clean. This is due to the efforts of the groups that work in the community. We go to people's houses. When you have knowledge you don't get sick so easily.

When you boil water, if you look away for a little bit, dirt or trash can get in the water. SODIS [solar disinfection, a method of making water safe to drink] is the best water. It's the reason why we aren't sick anymore.

We have seen that the CHE movement has taught us so many things that we didn't know, but now we know.

We talk with people who don't yet know God. With the brochure, “Steps to Peace With God,” you see that that there is a separation between us and God. Sin makes it so that we cannot get close to God. We are rebellious, but God keeps telling us to come to him.

When things are clean, it's better for everyone. You don't have problems when you live in a clean environment.

(c) copyright Philisma Joseph. Used with author's permission.

Tertilia Alexis,community health evangelist

CHE has done a lot for me. Everyone used to be involved with CHE but I wasn't. And I had fevers now and then. My husband got fevers sometimes, too. Sometimes we went to the hospital. Once they gave my husband a medication that he had to take for six months. We had taken him to the hospital because his fever was so high that he cried out. Everyone thought he'd died. But right before you get saved is when there is the most darkness. At the hospital they told me to boil water and put it in clean containers.

I am Catholic, and I thought that CHE wasn't for Catholics. [Then I found out it was for everyone, and] I started with CHE in 2010.

When I started with CHE, they taught me what to do to prevent different diseases. Since I've been with CHE I haven't had a fever. My husband hasn't had a fever, and neither have I. Now we do SODIS [solar disinfection, a free process to make water safe to drink by using the sun's UV rays], we don't boil water anymore – for that you always needed [to buy] charcoal or wood.

(c) copyright Tertilia Alexis. Used with author's permission.

A special thanks to the organization World Challenge for sponsoring our travels to get these stories!

Traveling Mercies -- Trip to Miniere

One of my tasks this summer has been to collect stories from people.  Here's one of my own stories about our adventures in accomplishing this goal:

I really loved the colors of this rooster next to the grass -- keep reading to find out why I had a lot of time to look around me on this trip!

Saturday, June 30:
It rained two days ago and there are still several muddy patches on our drive to Miniere. A few times I have to get off the motorcycle and pick my way through as best I can. At one part, a girl walking by helps me put a small log down to cross a particularly tricky patch.  There are cactus hedges lining the road so it is impossible to try to sidestep a mud puddle by going through an adjacent field. At one point we arrive at a really large muddy section – a half-finished, poorly planned project by a big NGO has made the road situation far worse there by inhibiting water drainage. I get off the motorcycle. As Osse is preparing to try to cross the mud, he realizes that his back tire is flat. He tells me he used to have a kit with him to fix tires, but since he never ended up using it and it took up space, he's quit traveling with it.

A man comes by on his horse and tells us that we should leave our motorcycle at a certain house down the road. “That's what everyone does,” he says.  Another man in typical farmer attire -- rubber boots on his feet and a machete in his hand -- stops to agree. A motorcycle with three passengers also pauses to assess the situation. Osse calls Madame Philisma, our contact in Miniere. He asks her to find a mechanic to come out and fix the tire. He pushes the motorcycle back to the nearby house and we leave it there.

Now to cross the mud. This section is perhaps 30 feet long. Osse has boots on, but I am wearing dress flats (don't judge me:  this is typical shoe attire for a woman here, even in the rural areas). There's nothing for it but to plunge in. The flats stick to the mud, making it really hard to lift my feet up. I try to take large steps to avoid the worst of the mud but can't balance to unstick my feet that way. Osse comes back and gives me a hand, but I still have to take small steps and “un-suction” my feet each step.  I ask if I shouldn't just take my shoes off but he reminds me that there are cacti and pricker bushes all around and it would't be wise, since I would likely step on a thorn.  We make it across and then I try to walk in my super-muddy shoes. I had rinsed off a bit in the last puddle, but there was too much mud and not enough water in it.  My shoes keep wanting to fall off, widened by the moisture. We soon pass a stream and I wash off a bit better.

Madame Philisma and another trainer meet us on the road. She says she hasn't been able to get ahold of a mechanic yet, but she'll keep trying. We get to the school where we'll be meeting and she pumps water for me to wash off my shoes and feet and then insists that I put her sandals on, leaving my shoes to dry in the sun. She sends someone back to her house to get another pair of shoes for her.

The Community Health Evangelism (CHE) committee in this area is really active, and I hear some great stories of people's lives that have changed through the CHE work in this community. Several hours later we are done meeting, but no one has been found to fix our tire. One of the two mechanics isn't in town and the other doesn't have any tools. We go to Madame Philisma's house and she gives us some grilled corn, mmm. We then walk up to the road – she has planned for us to see the site where, until last year, the CHE group made “akasan” (a corn flour drink) and sold it to people on Sunday mornings before church.

Off to the right is where they made the akasan.  I thought the shadow of this palm tree was prettier.  ;-)

On our way back to her house, Madame Philisma made sure to show us the inside of the local church.  Osse sat on top of this percussion instrument and started to play.

We get back to Madame Philisma's house where her daughters are dressed for a funeral the whole family is planning to go to. No one has been found to work on our bike yet, though, so we all sit down for a bit. Madame Philisma brings out a sack of oranges and starts to peel them for us. The cicadas are buzzing and I'm mentally transported back to summers in the American Midwest – then three women pass by, riding their donkeys sidesaddle.  They greet us with a "Mesyèdam" (literally "gentleman and ladies," a common salutation for mixed company) and I'm back in the present. 

Madame Philisma was using the only small knife to peel oranges, so one of her daughters started using this ginormous thing so that she could help, too.  Haitian-style orange eating involves peeling off the very outer layer, leaving the white part.  The orange is then cut nearly in half and ready for the consumer to split the halves fully in two and suck out the juice.  These oranges were incredibly flavorful and the family gave Osse a bag of them to take home.

Osse asked the couple if they have been making any soap lately.  Turns out they are out of lye -- which is required to make soap.  They asked Osse if he can get some from the Dominican Republic.  Our team has never been able to find lye in Haiti -- but as of this writing, I'm sitting in the DR with four dozen bottles of lye next to me, ready to take back! Here Mr. Philisma is showing me the maskreti plant, from which they extract an oil for the soap.

Here are the seeds from the maskreti plant.  You cook them and then mash them to extract the oil. 

Madame Philisma's daughters head off to the funeral and she and her husband accompany us back to the motorcycle, even though we don't know anything yet about the mechanic. We stop at someone's house on the way to pick up a pump. Once this is in hand we call the tool-less mechanic and ask him to meet us at the bike.

It's a beautiful walk back to where we left the bike, perhaps only 30 minutes on foot now that some of the mud has dried. Yellow and orange butterflies flit by.

Here is Madame Philisma, with Osse, and Mr. Philisma in front.  You can see the flowering flamboyant tree ahead with its petals scattered on the ground. She's carrying my helmet for me and her husband is carrying Osse's.

  We get back to the bike. No tools, remember? So he fixes the hole by tying the innertube around it with string. I'm not kidding, here's the picture:

I ask Osse if the string will hold for our entire trip back. He says, “Oh, sure, if you are on good roads a repair like that can even last two or three days.” The tire is re-mounted, the innertube filled with air and checked for leaks. It is still leaking – the string is holding well but it turns out the mechanic perforated the innertube with the screwdriver he used to pry it off. Unfortunately, this second hole is near the valve, meaning that we cannot fix it in the same way. The mechanic stops a passing motorcyclist to send him to Miniere to pick up some wrenches, while he starts walking off in the other direction to try to find a patch.

It's been over an hour and the mechanic is still not back. We call our friend and fellow trainer Anias, who is originally from Miniere and has a motorcycle. He is a nearby city, Fort Liberte, so we ask him to buy an innertube for us and come out to meet us. It's a good thing we called him, because although the mechanic eventually returned he wasn't able to find a patch. Osse says, for perhaps the fifth time, “You know, I used to travel with a repair kit. . . “

As we're sitting around waiting, Madame Philisma spies a cashew tree.  She said that Osse had told her I loved cashews and she had meant to prepare some for me but she'd forgotten.  She asks a little boy to scale the tree so that she can show me the fruit.

It might be a sign that a repair isn't going well when baby chicks feel safe enough to start exploring your motorcycle.

Anias arrives with a new innertube as well as sodapop, water, and “pate,” a meat-filled pastry. Turns out that Madame Philisma, sorry that she hadn't given us lunch, had asked Anias to pick up some goodies for us! I had used up my water awhile earlier and was really grateful for the drinks.

The innertube gets changed and we follow Anias back out the dirt roads to the national highway.  He heads to the right, back to Fort Liberte, and we head left to Cap Haitien.  On the return trip I decide my job is to look out for the “donkey backs/sleeping policeman” (French/Kreyol). The many speed bumps can be difficult to see, especially as the sun is setting. We are able to go quite fast on this well-paved road, and it would be dangerous to hit one unaware at those speeds. What speed, you ask? Well, I have often wondered, but since I have yet to ride a motorcycle with a working speedometer, I don't yet know!

As we arrive at the last turnoff before getting into Cap Haitien, I sigh softly, “Mèsi, Bondye. nou rive Kalfou Lanmò.” Then I laugh to myself since this translates literally as, “Thank you, Lord, we got to the Crossroads of Death.” (There are various stories as to why this intersection has that name, but no one seems to know for sure.) A moment later Osse stops to adjust something on his motorcycle and says essentially the same thing. Traveling here is fraught with difficulty, and the nearly universal response is to be relieved at the end of a journey and to give thanks to God.

Conversations

A couple of days ago several of us were waiting in the hospital as the owner of my lodgings had surgery. I was struck by the way so many of our conversations went different ways than they would have in the US, with our “first-world problems”:

M: I really don't feel comfortable in hospitals.
Me: Why not? Oh, right, from the time you had a C-section?
M: Yes – it's just so horrible, having all these other women in labor next to you and people dying all around.

. . . . . . . . .


Y: I love to stop at different churches and pray after work. I pray all the time.
Me: I read a book by a monk from centuries ago, called Practicing the Presence of God. He would try to pray without ceasing especially while doing manual labor – he often baked bread or broke rock. [Okay, I think I melded Brother Lawrence's bread-baking with Henri Nouwen's carrying rocks at a monastery.  So I also think it might be time to re-read those books.]
M: Wow, breaking rock is really hard!
Me: Have you done it?
M: No, but a friend of mine, after her husband died, she couldn't take care of their six children. She started breaking rock. It's really hard on your hands, they get terribly cut up.
Y: Yes, that's true. You use a tool that really hurts your hands.


. . . . . . . . . . . .


Y: I was always scared to take care of babies, so my sister helped me out with mine. But then her husband died, and then she died, so I took care of her children.


. . . . . . . . . .


But maybe I was really in some alternate universe, because one of our other conversations started out like this:


M: I really wish that I had a flat stomach like you, Elizabeth.
Y: Yes, me, too.


Bwahahahaha! ;-)

Thursday

My friend Evelyne's elderly mother died on Sunday morning.  It has been a long, hard road for both Evelyne and her mother, and the last two years her mother was confined to bed and non-verbal.  The funeral was scheduled for Thursday at 3 pm in the cathedral.

I've traveled so much the past few years that I've actually been out of town every time a friend's loved one has died, so I hadn't yet been to a memorial service in Haiti.  I asked a co-worker about appropriate attire and she suggested white, or, barring that, black. I should wear heels if I had them, although after the funeral I would need to walk several blocks to the cemetery. I asked if I could wear my hat (I have a skin condition on my face which is aggravated by the sun). She said, “The big one?” Apparently my floppy Target hat is not fancy enough to wear to a funeral. A pillbox type, or even a big Easter-type hat would be fine, though.

I change and head out and see my friend Solencia just up the street. She's just left the office and is on her way to her home in Limbe. Instead of taking a taxi-moto to her bus stop she walks with me to the cathedral. We get to the cathedral and she waits there with me a bit since there's a delicious breeze coming through the large, open central doors. We don't see a casket, but Solencia says that funerals often start late. Eventually she leaves to catch her bus and I take a seat. Mass starts, but there is still no sign of a casket. After several minutes I think that perhaps the funeral was to be in the smaller chapel next door. I walk outside but the chapel is closed. Two young people standing by tell me that there are no funerals there today, but there is a funeral at the Sacre Coeur Church, “Lots of doctors and nurses were there.” I say I didn't know that that was the correct funeral (my friend's mother was a laundress). But then I remember that her daughter volunteered for the Red Cross. “Oh, yes, there were lots of Red Cross people there.” The Sacre Coeur is 17 blocks away and it's already nearly 3:30, so I go to hail a taxi-moto. I have to wait to cross the street since a marching band is passing by – Flag Day is this Saturday and the marching bands practice for weeks beforehand.

Flag Day 2011

I get to the Sacre Coeur and slip in the back. I listen attentively to the priest to see if he will say Evelyne's mother's name so that I will know that I am indeed in the right place. Nope, he just said, “Madame G--.” Oh, but then he adds, “And Madame T--, and Madame P--.” So, apparently this funeral is for three women, including my friend's mother.

At the end of the funeral I give my condolences to Evelyne's niece and also greet Michel, who works where I live and has helped with some of the arrangements. We follow the caskets out the door and stand at the entrance to the cemetery. He says he wants to wait to greet Evelyne. While waiting I see another friend – it turns out that Madame T- is his wife's great-aunt. Eventually Evelyne comes out of the cemetery and we express our condolences.

Michel hops on a moto and I start to walk back. The Sacre Coeur is near several street markets and I have a few things I want to see if I can find. Two blocks in I see someone selling nail polish. I ask if he has polish remover – check. I have no idea how much it should cost, so when he tells me 30 gourdes I say, “Isn't it always 20?” He says, “No, it was 25 but it's gone up.” He asks if I want to buy a lovely face powder. No, thanks, just the nail polish remover.

I go in further, looking for deodorant. After half a block a pre-teen boy sitting on a stoop with a woman who looks to be his mother calls out, “Foreigner!” I say, “Good afternoon.” He smiles, and his mother asks what I'm looking for. “Deodorant, but I don't see any here.” “The guy next to me has some.” The guy at the next stall looks to have only electronics, but apparently he has some deodorant in a box in the back. I see lots of no-name brands. The last one he pulls out is a tiny Avon, which I've at least heard of, so I buy it.

I go back to the main street, since I know that in a few blocks there will be a lot of peanut vendors. I meet one at 8 L and ask to try her peanuts. Bleh. I don't know what to say, so I say, “Another time,” and move on to 9 L where I'd gotten some good ones last week. Ah, there's the merchant I bought from last time. I try her peanuts, since I've not bought from her consistently and I don't yet trust the quality. (I'm looking for a new peanut seller since my last one – who never had a bad batch -- stopped selling months ago to take care of her sick husband.) The peanuts are okay today, so I buy some. She asks if I want the skin removed, which I did last week, since I was buying for some friends who were going to make peanut butter. I say no, since I've heard they stay fresh-tasting longer with the skins on and these are just for me.

Next to her is woman selling mangos, which is the last item on my list. She says they are Rosali mangos, 10 gourdes per pile. She wants to put them in the plastic bag that I already have, so I move the breakables aside and she loads them in. Her next customer helps hold the bag for me.

It's been a hot day, and I'm pretty thirsty, so I decide to stop by a juice shop. My favorite juice there is guava, but today they only have papaya and pineapple. I choose pineapple and ask them to hold the sugar – they usually add sugar even to that super-sweet fruit! The guy manning the counter says he hasn't seen me for awhile. I sit down in the air-conditioned loveliness and look up at the television, which is showing a documentary on meer cats dubbed into French. A little girl walks closer to the tv and stares. I love seeing behavior that crosses cultures like this – she's got her eyes wide and mouth open in typical childlike wonder.

I finish my pineapple juice, say good-bye to the guy at the counter, and leave for home. I tend to enjoy walking through the city – as long as I've already gotten it straight in my head that it is a public event. Moto- and car-taxis slow down and ask if I want a ride, and I now nearly-automatically give the correct head-and-hand-shake which means no. Street kids ask me for money or tell me they're hungry and I chat a little with them, giving them some crackers or peanuts if I've got some (today I do) or telling them “another time” to which they smile and say “okay.” Random people say hi, kids call out “foreigner” and smile when I greet them in response. If their parents are with them I get a smile and a greeting from them, too. If I ignore them because all of the attention is embarrassing, I miss the smiles. And if I ignore the young men – well, if I respond with a “thank you” when they tell me I'm beautiful, or say hello when they greet me, then they smile and say something funny, to which my best response is to laugh, and then everybody laughs, and all the time I've never once stopped walking. But if I forget and ignore them they can start yelling or get icky – this happened earlier today.

I get home and Madame Elias, the evening cook where I live, says she saw me at the cathedral. She had gone there for the funeral, too. She said she looked down for just a moment and then I was gone. She asked some people where I went (I was the only obviously-looking foreigner in the church) and they said out the side door. But she couldn't find me. I explained about the funeral having changed locations, and I was sorry I hadn't seen her, we could have gone there together.

I go up to my room to paint my toenails for the first time in years. I have worn toe rings ever since going to India in 1998, which, along with a monthly self-pedicure (sans polish) has always seemed to make my feet pretty enough. But now I take my toe rings off when traveling to rural villages or to trainings in other provinces, since in many places in Haiti it is not considered appropriate for Christian women to wear any rings except on the third or fourth finger of the hand or as an earring. I told this to my friend Chrissy last month, and said that my feet always look so bare to me without the toe rings. Well, on Tuesday I received a box of goodies from some friends in Arizona and Chrissy had slipped in four different nail polishes!

As I'm painting my toe nails “Pretty Petunia” I hear another marching band. Now, I've lived in several countries where the normal response to hearing any kind of commotion is to stop what you're doing and go look at whatever is happening. My North American self has tended to resist this – I'm either occupied with something else, or I don't want to gawk, or I think it won't be all that interesting anyway. But years on this has finally changed – I'm curious, I'm more relaxed, and I'm also more easily entertained. So instead of finishing my toes I go outside to watch the band. Here they come, marching proudly down the boulevard, everyone matching in white t-shirts and jeans. As they reach the curve of the street they pause and march in place while continuing to play. A girl about 6-years-old comes running up along the beach to see the band and starts dancing as soon as she gets up to them. Her bright pink shirt makes her easy to spot as a few seconds later she moves to stand in the midst of the band, imitating their movements as they continue to step in place. They start moving forward and she marches with them as they turn the corner out of sight.

Flag Day 2011

Count your blessings

Today I read a beautifully-written article about the recent bombings in Boston.  It provided me with insight into something I've been wondering about lately -- as the author writes,"Death is always unexpected in America." This week I've been reading a study on the book of Luke by N.T. Wright, and he mentions the healthiness of the "old spiritual discipline of listing one's blessings . . . especially in a world where we too often assume we have an absolute right to health, happiness and every possible creature comfort." Haiti, the country I currently live in, thankfully does not experience bombings. But death is not unexpected here, and no one seems to think they have a right to health.

One of the first things Jackson, a Haitian friend, said to me as he was picking me up from the airport last week was how sorry he was about the tragedy in Boston. (I didn't respond to him quite as graciously as Ms. Zakaria -- my response was more in this vein.)  As I re-connected with other Haitian friends and acquaintances this situation was repeated over and over, even with those whose family members had recently died due to something easily preventable in the US, or those who were frequently without food in the past weeks.  Yet they cared about what had happened in my country and wanted to express their concern.

I have a good friend in the US whose son was born with a heart defect..  She has told me that of course it is really hard to know that one day he would have to have surgery to replace one of his heart valves.  Nevertheless, she is continually thankful that she has a secure job with health insurance and the access to cardiologists and regular tests.  She says she is mindful of the situation of mothers and fathers in Haiti and elsewhere who are unable to find health care for their children.

I really appreciate her perspective.   Illness is always hard, with the terrible uncertainty, medical costs, physical pain, and often loss.  And yet, one of the blessings we have in the United States that often goes unrecognized is the security of knowing that at least we are receiving the best medical care available.  Not perfect care, since physicians and other health care providers are human, and not readily accessible to all Americans, but by the world's perspective among the best available care for 2013.  It doesn't make up for the hurt, pain, and loss, but nonetheless that assurance should be recognized for the blessing that it is, and that it is a blessing unavailable to the vast majority of human beings.

In Haiti, as in much of the world, many people do not have a hospital or even a clinic accessible to them (plug for our ministry here:  this is why our house-to-house workers, or CHEs, are so important, as they teach prevention of illness and treatment of simple maladies!).  When there is a health care center nearby, it may not be properly staffed and will have very few labs and other tests available. 

Jean, a co-worker's brother, had to take his four-year-old son to the hospital in town this week after he was hit by a motorcycle (traffic accidents are very common here, please remember to pray for our safety!).  He described the bloody exam tables, not cleaned from patient to patient.  He said, "One of the things I've always been grateful for is that I've never had to go to a hospital myself."  He reflected a little more and then added, "Or prison."  We all laughed at that, and joked that we were glad he'd never committed a crime!  :-)

As my mother knows, I ALWAYS wear a helmet now while riding.  This picture was taken by Rhonda Hamilton before I'd purchased one.

Passion

The first time I traveled to Germany was in 1998 to visit my good friend Eva, my roommate from 1993 to 1996.  I was in my second year of medical school and I took a few extra days on either side of the Thanksgiving holiday.  I brought my notes to study since I would get back just before an exam - we were doing gastroenterology, I believe.  Eva's community orchestra was doing Tchaikovsky's violin concerto at the time, and many days I studied while she was at rehearsals -- Tchaikovsky's gorgeous music accompanying my work.  I have often recalled this time, remembering it as one of the great blessings that I have received -- in the middle of med school craziness I was able to visit a dear friend and hear one of the loveliest pieces of all time, live.  I was even there for the concert which was held in a lovely modern hall (next to a castle).

This year Eva's orchestra is doing a staged presentation of portions of Bach's various Passions.  Tonight I sat in on a rehearsal at the same beautiful concert hall I was at nearly fifteen years ago.

As the choir started their warm-up exercises I was reading Walter Wink's Naming the Powers:  The Language of Power in the New Testament.  I was immersed in this complex text about personal and structural and institutional evil and how Jesus' death changed everything -- not just for me personally but for the whole world.  Then the house lights dimmed and rehearsal started:  beautiful choral music with painful pictures beamed onto the white panels in the back:  bombed-out buildings, crying children.

Since this is Bach's Passion, I knew we were about to hear about the event I'd just been reading about, the event that somehow "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them." (Colossians 2:15) The "already accomplished" peace and reconciliation of all things (see Colossians 1:20), even with the visible "not yet" of war and famine.

 

The Last Supper.  I think the breakdancing disciple in front of the table is Judas.

Jesus picks up the table at the end of supper and it looks remarkably like him carrying his cross.  It was a powerful image, and I wish I'd understood the words to know what the chorus was singing about at this time.

By this point in the rehearsal I'd started practicing memory verses, using flash cards I'd written out years ago.  When the stage lighting was too dim to see I held the cards close to the floor lights that were lighting up the stairs.  As this scene began I was reciting Lamentations 3:21 - 23, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  The dancer portraying Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane moved with passion -- at one point he looked like he was flying like a bird.  

I'd never before thought of this verse as referring to Jesus, but since I was reciting it at the same time as this scene started I reflected on its fuller meaning.  Last year I read Peter Enns' The Evolution of Adam, and one incredibly helpful thing he wrote was that the early New Testament writers re-evaluated everything in the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of Jesus.  This helped me to understand the (at first glance sort of wacky) way they seemed to quote the Old Testament.

So tonight, I was watching this incredibly talented dancer portraying Jesus begin to tremble, to reach up for help.  At one point his entire body was convulsing in agony as he prayed.  I continued to meditate on the fact that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases -- and manifests itself in God pouring out himself for us.

Jesus' hip-hop dancing disciples (center) start to physically engage the soldiers (right) who have come to arrest Jesus.

Jesus leads his disciples in a dance.  I love the way this shows Jesus teaching them the "third way" of creative, loving, non-violent resistance.

Here Jesus puts himself between his disciples and the soldiers and then gives himself up to the soldiers.  A disciple breaks through and cuts off a soldier's ear.  Jesus heals the man's ear.

The soldiers interrogate and torture Jesus as the soprano (left) sings a haunting aria.  At this point I was going over Philippians 2:5 - 11, which begins:  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross.  

The chorus sings part of "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded."  Later just a few instruments start the same theme and the crowd begins to shout, "Crucify him!" nearly drowning out the instruments.

"May the Lord direct [our] hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."  (2 Thessalonians 3:5)