For those of you who once enjoyed my daily journal updates, I am sorry to disappoint you. I have been in Uganda six months this time and haven’t kept our blog up to date, depending instead on our Facebook and Instagram feeds and email blasts. A lot has happened in the last six months, and some of it is still happening. On July 18th, Cindy and I both went to Uganda. She spent two weeks there, visiting as many of our friends and family as she could.
More than a year after Shalom was delivered from a Voodoo witch’s curse of mental confusion, she completed Secondary Six, the last level of High School in Uganda. We visited Sharon, the young lady we sponsored for hip replacement. We delivered 50 pairs of shoes donated by the Eastside Baptist Church of Plant City. We met Walegu Vanessa, the new baby of Clinical Officer Jenifer.
The mission of this trip was to establish a Ugandan corporation that could buy land. We managed to do that. We tried several variations of TLC Uganda or Tender Loving Care, but everything we submitted was taken. Our name search landed on Tara Maleng Ministries Uganda Limited. Tara Maleng means Divine Light in Luo, the language of the northern territories, including Acholiland, where we hope to serve. Down south, the name doesn’t mean much, but those who hear it in the Luo-speaking areas are all amazed that we came up with such a great name. We filed our corporate petition with all sorts of possibilities for the future, but the emphasis was on building our health center(s) and mission outreaches. Don’t be surprised, though, if we start a “football” (soccer) league someday. We are approved for it!
All kinds of things happened in the months that followed, as it does when one lives anywhere. Prisca, our office manager, spent enough time home from business management school to get her driving license. I turned 55 and had a celebration, complete with a bathing of the birthday baby, a tradition in Uganda where the one celebrating gets showered with water.
Shortly after my own birthday, a friend of ours, an unmarried expecting mother, terrified of being alone invited me to participate in her delivery. She was so grateful for my prenatal advice and support during her labor, that she made me the child’s godfather and asked me to name him. All this happened a little less than a month after my son and daughter-in-law told me they had lost their baby. Little Joshua filled a hole in my heart and babysitting him was something I could do to be useful while waiting for the next thing. He turned four months old just as I was returning to Florida.
We got health and dental care for those we found in need. Malaria gets worse when it is accompanied with malnutrition, and we saved a few from such a predicament. We got Sharon’s second hip replacement. We helped several people get broken teeth repaired, and this was all done without opening our clinic yet.
Our house was home or a respite for several people. One night, when we had nine people in the house, we were robbed by someone with a spray bottle of chloroform and a long stick. They helped themselves to several items from the living room, including a couple of charging phones, and my trousers, which fortunately didn’t have any money in them.
I went to Entebbe to retrieve Shalom from her last day at school, and delivered her to her family in Lira, where I was honored to stay in the home of her Aunt and cousins. At church on Sunday, it was reported that I had humbled myself to stay in their village home, but I maintained that it was an honor for me to be the guest in their house. That experience might have put some Americans off with the open pit latrine, the bathing without running water, and the sleeping on the floor, but I was honored to be there. I did discover that one cannot stomp a cockroach off one’s foot when one is squatting over a latrine. One must either stand up or just let the roach be. When one has the opportunity to return to a standing position one can kick said cockroach into the pit, so it evened out.
After getting our hip replacement patient some dental treatment, I took her home deep in the village. Sharon serves as pastor of her church, and she had a special request — a solar panel and light bulbs for her church. We got a small battery system, and now her all-night prayer meetings have more than just cellphone flashlights to illuminate the church hall.
The reason for extending my tourist visa to six months was to help prepare for the traditional marriage ceremony (also known as an Introduction) of Patrick, our son and Clinical Officer student, to his wife, Nancy, one of the best nurses I have worked with. In between wedding preparations our team and I spent a lot of time checking properties and trying to find a spot for our ministry. In Uganda, there is no “list price.” Instead, someone has to meet with the selling parties, usually a whole clan, and discuss the price. If a white person shows up to one of those meetings the price skyrockets due to a misconception that all white visitors to Africa are rich. We learned to keep my ugly mug away from such conferences. This is why it was great that we have three Ugandans on our board to represent Tara Maleng Ministries. Mama Cindy and Papa Todd can stay far away from the negotiations.
In early November, Cindy was diagnosed with breast cancer. This is her second encounter with breast cancer and the two tumors were of the nature that alarms patients and doctors. The option for a bilateral mastectomy was chosen, and I changed my flight to return to Florida. After a few doctor visits, Cindy asked me to change my flight back so that I could stay for Nancy and Patrick’s Introduction. She said our kids could take care of her for the surgery, scheduled for the day before the marriage ceremony, and she would rather have me present for her chemotherapy than her surgery. I changed my flight back and remained in Uganda.
Thanksgiving is an American holiday not observed in other countries, except where Americans are. We had a dinner at home and talked about what we were thankful for. Honestly, we had a more sincere thanksgiving prayer meeting the morning we discovered we had been robbed. Christmas was great. I couldn’t afford a turkey, so I slaughtered two chickens instead. In Uganda, few know anything about Santa or even Father Christmas, so the focus is on Jesus where it belongs. I remembered the song, Do They Know It’s Christmas After All, and I laughed, because Africans know, maybe better than Americans, what Christmas is about. Still, it was the warmest Christmas I have ever witnessed.
On Christmas Day Patrick took our van to fetch his family from the town of Karuma, but after loading it up with furniture and family he was left stranded by a blown head gasket. That started a couple weeks of abuse by mechanics and ended with finding a friend in the business. In the meantime we went to a New Year’s Eve celebration, where many in our group saw fireworks close-up for the first time ever.
Once the car ran again, I went south and visited our Clinical Officer, Jenifer. There, I met her brother who raised her. He was so grateful for how we have taken care of his sister, he brought us a chicken and our first sheep. Even without a yard or farm, we are up to three goats, a sheep, and about 25 chickens. Imagine how it will go once we have a proper habitat for these animals.
Our landlady finally admitted something is wrong with our brick walls, which leak water when it rains. Now that the Dry Season was upon us, she began refurbishing the three-year-old apartment complex. One day while she was criticizing me for overcrowding my apartment, she informed me we would have to move out so she could work on our unit. That day the mad rush for a new home began. While we searched, and while the van was still being dissected by strangers, I bought a motor trike I call Pepé, my lil’ mule. As soon as I did, I got very popular with anyone who wanted to move goats and such. Nancy, our friend, neighbor, fellow missionary, and member of our board of directors, has always wanted a motor trike and offered to give ours a good home while we are gone. Just about the time we were most stressed about finding a new apartment to live in until we can build our house, our landlady changed her mind and offered us an alternate apartment for the duration of the repairs.
The Introduction was successful in that Patrick and Nancy are now married, even if not wedded (a separate thing in Uganda). It was a cultural experience I have only witnessed as a guest in the past. Being a part of the negotiation meetings it was hard not to be disappointed. It made me understand why videos of Acholi traditional marriages (Introductions) have a lot of frowning people in them. Check YouTube if you don’t believe me. Me? I cried like a baby! When we reached Gulu the twelve members of Patrick’s village explained that there is no nighttime transportation to the village in which they live. Rather than risk conflict with their very troublesome neighbors, I offered our living room as lodging until I could carry them all the next day. I broke my in-apartment record with 19 people in our house overnight.
The rest of the trip was packing and flying. We discovered that the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) would fly me to Kajjansi Airfield, between Entebbe International Airport and the capital, Kampala. This freed us to leave our van at home instead of paying for long-term airport parking and a new battery.
As the sun was setting on my stay in Uganda, our team found a perfect 7-acre piece of land, not too far from our apartment, practically across the highway from our friend’s guesthouse and conference room, and behind the World Food Programme’s depot for the area. It is near the main highway and roads that lead to several underserved villages, and there are no reputable health centers anywhere nearby. We have completed negotiations for this piece of land, but the closing is being held up by our Ugandan bank which has, this very day, returned the wire transfer of the funds for the purchase.
Yesterday, Cindy and I went to follow-up appointments with her cancer surgeon, her plastic surgeon, and her oncologist. The first two were good reviews, but the oncologist showed us where Cindy stands on his decision-making algorithm. It puts her in what he called “moderate intensity” chemotherapy treatments, though she is technically cancer-free. Next Monday she will go to Interventional Radiology to get her port implanted. A week later, she will have the first of four treatments three weeks apart. That means she should finish by June when, God willing, we can return to Uganda.
