christmas star light.

I'll bet baby Jesus was cold. December nights and mornings are cold
in Africa. This morning I found myself huddled around a tiny
metal-wired whicker basket with a girl named Grace. Inside the
basket are about 6 really hot coals that just send out this circle of
heat. We kind of create a circle with our bodies around this and
trap all the heat between the two of us.
I think about Joseph leading Mary on their donkey (that must have
been a very uncomfortable ride) and just knowing that the birthing
pains were happening and Mary needed to get somewhere where she could
have the baby....and quick! A mother came in the other day to have
her baby and there just wasn't time. She delivered right in the
ER. The garbage can was placed under her to catch all the fluids.
The baby came out screaming like he'd been breathing air all nine
months in there. I got to run the wet little bundle over to the
Maternity ward where we could rub him up, tie off his umbilical cord,
put some cream in his eyes, and take all his measurements. Birthing
can happen so fast. I'll bet Joseph was a little
panicked. Another man came in with his wife and for some reason
didn't go to the ER but came to the Medicine ward where I was
working. He said, "Please mam, my wife is about to give birth,"
and he motioned to his wife who was round-bellied. The maternity
ward room was locked and so we laid her down on a bed. I think
because I don't exactly know a ton about births and I don't exactly
have ANY training in midwifery, I always think the baby is going to
come in the next 3 minutes after they arrive at the hospital and I
hurry around, calling the midwife, finding the key and getting the
things ready....then the baby won't come for like another 6
hours. :) The husband was so worried about his wife. Sweet. She
delivered a few hours later just fine. A curly headed little boy.
Mary had to have been scared. This was her first baby! First
births are hard. I'll bet it was painful and I'll bet she wondered,
"Why in the world did I say yes to that angel!".
The neat thing about Christmas is that whatever the details of the
story, Jesus changed His world, and continues to change it
today. What crazy story for us nowadays...bit people are still
giving birth in mud huts here in Africa. Mothers still arrive at
this hospital on donkeys asking for a place to have their baby.
So here at Christmas I want to say Happy Holidays. Thanks so much
to everyone who sent things for the kids and families here in
Bere. Especially to my mom who sent a Santa suit! :) Tomorrow
morning my plan is to have our mango tree all decked out with paper
snowflakes and presents under it. Then I'll come in dressed in the
suit. I think the kids will cry. Some of them haven't ever seen a
Santa. I'll have a little explaining to do. hehe! Seriously, the
notes and emails I get from you guys sometimes are JUST what I need
for encouragement to keep sinking in here where I'm at. You have no
idea what they mean. Love you all and Merry Christmas. Love, Emily Star.

rainbow.

Jolie my mother seems to be very very perceptive. Sometimes while
we are all hanging out around the little coal fire at night, I let my
mind drift. It's easy to do because I don't understand enough
Nangjere to catch their conversation. So I just let my eyes watch
the stars and my mind roll around in my head. But Jolie will catch
me and say, "Emily, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking
about your boyfriend?" She gets a really sweet smile on her
face. "Maybe." I respond. She asks me if I've gotten a letter from
him lately....if he is coming to visit. They think Alex is really
good looking. Which he is.
Then she asks me if I'm thinking about my family. She'll ask me
how they are doing. If they are healthy. I believe my worlds would
crash into eachother and produce a rainbow if my parents and brothers
came here and got to meet my African family. It would be that
good. It's something special.
The parents of my house haven't asked me to give them
anything. Nothing. This is really something incredible for this
culture and I've felt so respected by them. People ask me for
things all the time. "Give me your shirt." "Give me your
water-bottle." "Give me your banana." "Give me your hair." The
little kids like to ask for toys, balloons, or pencils.
I've made it my mission to teach the kids that asking for things is
not polite. :) I explain to them that "I want to be your
friend. But when you only say, give me this , give me that, I just
don't feel like I'm a friend. It's not good for me." The
lightbulb just went on in the adorable boy to whom I explained this
to the other day. He said, "Oh! Qui, Qui!" and he very seriously
said to all the other kids, "We shouldn't ask for things," and
grabbed my hand. Sweet.
I was washing my laundry at the well the other day and after I had
finished, a couple of the boys came over. They picked up the soap
bars (thank-you Holiday Inn) that I had been using and said they
liked them. I told the boys they could have them. The older boy
snatched the littler boys away from him and gave him the littler bar
of soap. This irritated me. I said, "Hey, why did you do
that. That was his." He said, "He's younger, he gets the smaller
one." I argued for a bit with the older boy and said, "It's better
when you give the bigger thing to the other person and take the
smaller one for yourself." He just kept shaking his head.
So, I pulled out a whole other bar of soap and placed it in the
hands of the littlest boy. The older boy instantly started reaching
for the brand new bar of soap! I said, "NO! That is for him. I
want to give this to him." Finally after I called him selfish he got
the hint. :)
The other day I was at the market and I had purchased a bag of dried
figs. They are so good...they have a seed in the middle but the
outer layer is like fruit leather. I was snacking on them on the
walk home as I passed one woman carrying a huge bowl of rice on her
head. She said, "Give me some!" I reached in and gave her a small
handful. Then I responded, "You give ME some!" She, without a
second thought and with a very serious face, reached up and took out
a handful of rice kernals and poured them into my palms. I was
slightly kidding with her, but she took me seriously.
Maybe there is something they are trying to say when they ask for
something. Like, "Show me we are friends, give me something of
yourself." Everytime I give without a second thought, I make a new
friend. And what is it to me after all? A few figs that I won't
get to eat. An attitude of selflessness is like a bowl of
onions. It gets in the air and effects everyone. It's easy to be
defensive and be paranoid that you are being taken advantage
of. Sometimes I feel stingy. :)
If someone asks for your tunic, give them your cloak as well. Did
Jesus really mean that? I think He just might have. Yikers. What
if our store houses run out! What if we give everything we
have! What if our baskets of loaves and fish don't multiply?
Then Jesus reminds us.....store up your treasures in heaven. The
moths and rats and cochroaches are going to eat things that we hoard
in our closets. I'm attached to alot of things. Certain clothes,
certain books, certain times of the day. I just don't want to give
them up. Chad challenges us kids to give freely...without second thought.

Sick...but not yet sick of africa.

 

I'm sitting next to Ansley looking at her green polka dotted sheets
covering her little burning body.  Her fever has been up to 104 and
even though it has dropped a bit now, the Quinine perfusion running
through her "Junk for Jesus" (that is what they call the bad quality
supplies that often gets sent to Africa) IV catheter just gives her
this little-girl-helpless-look.  Don't get me wrong.   Ansley is a
real trooper.  She rode on a moto with her perfusion in hand, cleaned
our SM room, and even sang hymns while battling malaria.  But still,
when people get sick, it seems that some innocent child-like side
seems to shine through.
The room we are sitting in is a side room of the hospital.   The
hospital has a policy that even employees must be hospitalized if
they are going to have an IV perfusion.   You are not allowed to take
all the supplies home and rest there.   So the side room is
completely made of cement.   The only thing in the room is a sink
(where we get clean drinking water).  So its so drab.   We carried a
bed mattress over and laid it in the corner and hung her IV perfusion
from the window slats.   "Ansley, I'm a little jealous of you right
now," I told her.   "This is a Chadian experience!"

Still, if we wanted to get the real experience, it would go a little
more like this.

Arrive at the gate and be welcomed by John Jac, the hospital guard,
with this black stick (he's so nice I don't think he'd actually hit
anyone with it).  Then we'd go to Urgence where we'd pay 1000
francs....2 dollars....for a consultation where they would take your
vitals, palpate your tummy, feel for your spleen (malaria enlarges
your spleen), check your eyes for anemia and ask you questions like,
"Have you had diahrrea?" and "Are you vomiting?"  After this little
session, they might hospitalize you if you need more than just
pills.   So Ansley would take her little box of perfusion bottles and
IV supplies and be taken across the courtyard to the women's
ward.   The full beds line the walls and if you hadn't vomited yet,
the stench might just send you over the edge.  Anyway, you'd be given
a bed.  If your lucky, the mattress was cleaned by our  housekeeping crew.  But even so, the mattresses are often urinated on, bled on, or sweated on and these fluids probably soaked deep into
the mattress before anyone got a chance to clean them.  Thus, we
advise each patient to bring a sheet to lay down on top of the
mattress (many disregard this advice).  You are allowed to have two
people who can act as "the guards of the malade", the caregivers of
the sick.   These people are supposed to sleep out in the courtyard
and be in charge of making food and bringing water for their friend
or relative.   One nurse will care for 40 patients and this would be
impossible if we were giving total care like in the states.
Ansley would probably get to know the problems of each of the ladies
around her and sometimes I wonder if the patients know more about the
other patients than the nurse does.  Afterall, each time someone
vomits, has alot of pain, goes to the bathroom, or takes a pill, the
neighbor in the next bed knows.
Being sick in Chad is hard.   It's a physically hard place to
be.   But, Ansley will be spunky again.  As I type, the malaria is
being killed off in her blood.  

Rice and Mice

 

Subject: Rice and Mice.

It's after midnight and I'm sitting in the nurses station.   I'm
sitting down for the first time in 9 hours.   Tonight has been
absolutely insane.  But,  at the same time, there were moments that
were absolutely charged with God's presence and I felt alive and
connected to those around me.    I just gave my last midnight
medicine to one of the Cheif's daughters.   She is pregnant and
dressed in a sparkling (almost tinsel-ish) red top and a red
skirt.   When I came to give her IV Ampicillin she told me, "I kind
of need to pee."   I said, "Ok, well ,can you wait just a
minute?"   She agreed kind of hesitantly.   I mixed the water in with
the antibiotic and started shaking when she so cutely said, "I really
kind of have to go," and started crossing her legs a bit.  We both
laughed a bit as we realized the urgency that somehow sprung up.  I
was like, "Alright I'm hurrying!"   We were laughing so much but both
of us knew that was laughing was not good either!   She was really
sqealing by now and so I finished giving the Ampi, clamped her IV,
and told her, "GO!"   :)   So funny.   She ran out back to use the
hospital public bathroom.
She came back laughing still and said she felt so much better.   So
she sat back down and as I was hooking her IV back up and hanging the
new perfusion, a mouse went running across the back metal headboard
of her bed!
Here is where I confess.   Earlier in the night I chased a mouse out
of my nurses station into the patients ward. :)   I felt bad about it
but it's the only exit and I was not letting the mouse stay with me
all night long.    All the patients relatives were sleeping out there
on the cement floor and thought maybe he'd just run through them and
not wake any of them up.   Anyway, this was no doubt the same mouse.
She screamed!  We all started dancing around after it ran down the
bed post and around our feet!   Her mom grabbed my arm and we all
just waited to feel some awful bite.   I think everything started
being funny at this point.  It was late and noone could stop
laughing.   Then we started talking about eating mice.   They said I
could eat it with rice...that it's really good.   I've been offered
mice on a couple of different occasions....just roasted over the
fire....I've never accepted any of the offers.  But we agreed that
maybe if I ever catch that mouse here at the hospital, that I'll come
to their house (he's the chief, I know where he lives) and we'll eat
it.   But then we got to talking again and we were like, ok, this is
probably not the best mouse to eat.  "There are mice of better
quality."  At this point in the conversation I realized that we were
talking about the quality of mouse meat.  You know, when you are in
Rome...you should just talk about the things that the Romans talk about.

A crying child connected the dots.

 

 A crying child connected the dots.

When I was seven I made this really vivid memory.  It's a big deal
that I remember this because I'm notorious for forgetting
everything.   Lisa and Mindy (my cousins) are constantly reminding me
of stories that I can't recall (maybe they just make them up).  My
memory is just bad all-around though.  I swear if we did research
that my memory would have fewer slots than the other people in the
study.   Anyhow......
The memory that I have is breaking down, crying and running after my
parents who were leaving town for a week.   We were left at my
grandparents house, which I loved, but for some reason I just got all
panicked that they were leaving me and I literally ran after their
car as it drove down Katie Lane, away from little me.
This morning I saw it all happen again.  Jolie (my mother here) and
Samedi  (the father) were heading out to go to the market on the
moto.   Armelle (3) was going to stay home with one of the other
older girls but as the moto started up, Armelle started gushing tears
and gasping out sobs.  She ran after the departing moto and her
little naked body just reached out all abondoned-like.   I went over
and picked her up like I remember someone doing for me.   She just
buried her little head in my T-shirt and cried.  For some reason, it
just brought back that memory like I was watching it in film form.
Put something else in her mind, Emily.  So I said, "Armelle!  Come
see my hut!"   We went in (this is a special thing because the kids
don't come in my hut (they get a bit mobbish when they do) and I
found her a ball to play with.   Then, I showed her my new tent that
Jacob left for me when he went back to America.  It's completely made
out of mesh so it keeps the bugs out but you can see through the
walls and you have good ventilation.   Anyway, we climbed in the tent
and sat on the hard ground (the africans sleep on hard ground...I
thought I could too...but after three nights my back really kind of
aches).   She loved it.   I think it felt like a fort because she
kept looking up and touching the walls.  Soon, Dinga, came to my door
and so we invited her in.   Then another came in.  And then
another.   Soon people were smashed up against the walls of the tent
and i started thinking maybe we should get out.  :)  But just then
Jolie and Samedi got back from the market.  They parked the moto
right outside my hut and as they looked in they both burst into
laughter...a bit shocked at all of us in my tent.  These are the
funny little things that I believe God works through to draw lines
between his people to get them all connected again.   I can just
imagine how frustrating it would be to be a spider and have someone
walk through your web and break all the little strings that you spun
all night from branch to branch.   And God must feel the same.
It seriously has been one of my most valued lessons yet here in
Chad.   I can get through anything when my connections to my
incredibly (insert words I don't have here) God and the people He's
put around me......are in strong!  Life starts to have perfect
meaning and rich definition.   It might even explode out of the
dictionary because there wouldn't be a definition that could wrap up
all of the facets of blessings that would exist.  I've written about
connection time and time again but it just means so much to me here.

Please let this be a silent night.

 

 

Subject: Please let this be a silent night.

Tonight: December 17

Baby born without a hole between his nasal canal and his
throat.   James made one.  Baby is doing awesome thanks to awesome parents.
Cerebral malaria comma patient woke up tonight!   Commas scare
me.   He's only 20.
18 year old boy with menengitis.  He will recover.
10 year old boy with menengitis.   I honestly don't know if he'll
make it.  He's so frail and muscles are so contracted already.
Young girl with nephrotic symndrome.   Her whole body is holding
water and I'm afraid she'll die.  The last girl with this same
problem died right in front of me.
Josephine said things were "Lapia".....Good!  She seemed in good
spirits and didn't wail tonight.  Foot is still very infected.
Dressing changes twice a day now.
Sweet little man caring for his wife.  She has malaria.   He is the
best little husband.
Another woman with malaria....it's so bad  I don't think she'll make
it....and there's nothing more we can do for her.
Woman recovering from an emergency hysterectomie.   She's had no
children yet.  Her husband will probably send her back to her father
and take another wife.
Hippo bite.  Man was knocked out of his dugout and into the water by
a  Hippo.  He escaped with only big bites out of his leg.   Lucky.
PS.  This is the same river I swim in.   Ah!
Baby who had a huge portion of the skin on his  belly removed because
of infection.  His dressing change makes me cringe.

This is only a tiny spoonful of the problems that are resting in this
hospital tonight.  I'm listening to Silent Night on the computer
right now and the words are just echoing in this little nurses
station (cement room).

Sleep in heavenly peace babies.
Please sleep through the night.
All is calm and all is bright, Josephine,
....please, let your mind rest for tonight.

3 hours later:

Even as I have just written this email and prayed for this to be a
silent night, I just got back from carrying a lady to the
morgue.   The woman with really bad malaria...she just died.  What a
helpless feeling when everything you can do (all the treatments
available) are not enough.   She was 70 and this was the oldest
patient I've seen yet.  All of her family will come and get her in
the morning.  This is the first time I've actually been in the
morgue.   It still is covered in blood from the massacre in
October.  Sometimes this place feels like a real nightmare.

Goodness of Man.

Stabs through bone take immeasurable aggression.
and here in my heart I lay out this confession,
that I doubt,
and I fear,
Lord it's not clear what was ever GOOD in man.

But deep in us you called something good.
Some spirit, some desire,
I wish that we could,
reclaim the goodness that you placed in us.

I've never been that scared. As the Sabbath closed our SM group
finished singing songs in each of the hospital wards. We walked out
into the main courtyard area and saw some commotion over in the
ER. It was getting dark and we kind of maneuvered around the bodies
that were resting under the mango trees. We stopped kind of amidst
some of them and Sarah asked somewhat urgently, "Would you guys mind
giving us a hand? We need to get these people into the ER." We
looked down at our feet and the people who we thought were simply
napping on the ground, were actually beaten and bleeding mothers,
children and men. We were a bit shocked at first but everyone just
grabbed someone. A few of them could hobble while others were
already dead. Others couldn't walk at all and still others were
unconscious. I grabbed one of the babies whose little dress was
completely covered in blood. Her eyes were wide as the Alantic and
shock kept her from crying. I laid her down on the pink ER bed and
began looking for injuries. I cut off her little dress and pulled
off her crocheted beanie that was tied up around her neck. I found
no injuries. Her eyes were tracking me well now and the shock had
seemingly worn off. The blood that covered her, I came to find out,
was from her mother who was killed.

18 patients were hospitalized that night. This doesn't count the 9
or so who were taken to our morgue.

The hardest part of this ordeal was the senselessness of it all.

One Arab decided to take his cows across the rice field of the
Nangjere. The rice fields and the wells are the sources of life
here, so I understand that this spoke volumes about how much this
Arab cared about the Nangjere. I am walking over your hard work. I
don't care if you get a good crop. But the Arab has to get his cows
to water. For the Arabs, the cows are their source of food. They
drink their milk and sell their meat. The cows pull their
wagons. If only they could have respected each other's ways of life,
this might not have taken place.
The Nangjere man yelled at the Arab to get off his field. The Arab
got angry and pulled out his bow and arrow. Having an arrow pointed
at you would be enough to make anyone panic. The Nangjere somehow
jumped on the back of the Arab trying to protect himself. the Arab
pulled out his knife from his belt and stabbed the Nangjere. He
fell and the other Nangjere women went running home to tell their
families that the Arab had killed their brother!
This is where it began. The attacks went on all night. First a
wave of Nangjere would come in. Then a wave of Arab people. Then
revenge would be had again and so it went. I've never seen such
senselessness.
Women. Beaten so badly that their whole faces were swollen. Knives
into their heads. Pregnant women! I just got so angry and
discouraged with how GOOD people were NOT.
One man was attacked while he was fishing. He was catching
fish. That's all. He was chased out of the water and his wounds
told his whole story. The knife left trails across his shoulders,
all down his back, and across his butt. Someone had just been
slashing him as he ran. Then you could see where he must have gotten
tired. He probably couldn't run anymore or was just feeling like
running couldn't save him. He must have turned around to confront
his attacker. There were deep cuts all across his wrists and hands
and arms and into his lung (he ended up with a chest tube).
The night was spent holding compresses deep into wounds until the
doctor could get to the person to stitch them up. It was spent in
anticipation of the next wave of the battle. By two AM the police
felt like they had enough of a presence that the fighting would
stop. The patients were settled and the dead were at the
morgue. The orphaned and unidentified babies had been given to
families to nurse them for the night. Things had settled a bit.

Everything except my insides-my gut.

I didn't sleep that night. I was too disappointed in
humanity. Too scared of humans. Too tired of being a human on
this earth. I went to Ansley's hut so I wouldn't have to sleep alone.

I crriiiieeed.

What kind of person strikes someone with a knife so hard that it cuts
through their bone and breaks it! I thought people were so good
deep down. But this was challenging a huge pillar of my
thinking. I love people. I always feel like something is good in
people and that you just have to find it. But that night I honestly
was just so disappointed.

The next day was tense at the hospital. A mob of Arabs came in to
pick up their dead and all of us were worried as we saw them move
across the courtyard that they were going to come and kill those who
were healing at the hospital. As the Arabs came in, we saw
Nangjere jumping the fence out of the hospital. Everyone was scared.

The patients healing side by side. Arab and Nangjere bed by
bed. It all spoke of the senselessness. The situation painted a
real ugly picture of revenge and I hope it effected everyone as it did me.

Since that time I've found good in people. REALLY deep-rooted
good. It's a mix in this world. That's all there is too
it. God's hands and the Dark's hands are both molding the same
sculpture. I can't wait for heaven. I've never wished for it like
I did that night.