...oh my God
sometimes I just don't know what to say besides "maranatha."
Friday, December 14, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
World AIDS day
I have many opinions and (probably unwanted) things to say about HIV/AIDS on today, World AIDS day, but instead of sharing them (gotta study) I'm going to reprint my essay "Valley of the Shadow" about an experience I had during my second summer in Kenya. And if you don't know anything about the global AIDS pandemic, please educate yourself. Especially if you claim to follow Jesus.
“If the Christian community will respond compassionately and effectively to the global AIDS crisis, it will be the most powerful apologetic the church has ever offered to the watching world.” -Ravi Zacharias
----------------
We approached Kibera some time in the morning, carrying medical supplies on our shoulders as we came. We turned a corner and were confronted with its stark reality once again. Kibera is one of those places you wish had never existed and wish you could make go away. It’s intimidating enough from a distance, whether that distance is from the road where you can see it stretching into the distance or if it’s another continent where you just hear statistics - a million people in two square kilometers, one in three of those million HIV-positive, on and on they go like the dimensions of an iron maiden, the numbers and lengths of the spikes. It becomes more intimidating the closer you get.
We had to cross the bridge. Just about a dozen sticks nailed into two thicker sticks, stretched across the river. The river’s the first thing about Kibera that hits you as you get close enough. You don’t even see it first, you smell it - a putrid stench that you’re always afraid to breathe. You get closer and see it, about ten feet wide of muddy gray sewage that you hear burns if you touch it. Your mind draws comparison to the River Styx, knowing that once you cross it you’ll be in the valley of the shadow of death. By now the smell is overpowering in its disgust and shock and you decide that you have to breathe deeper if you want to make it any longer.
The bridge shakes and trembles as we cross it, with many from the medical team reaching out with both hands for a hand to steady them as they cross. Every time you cross you wonder if this will be the time it gives and you’ll plunge into the river. It’s probably only two or three feet deep but you never want to test it. We stood and waited for our team to cross. One by one they did, each one hesitant and careful. Those of us who had crossed before were quicker, maybe even too quick to try to prove we were okay with it all and brave enough to deal with it all. We weren’t.
People began to notice us as we walked through. We were mzungu, after all. Our skin color instantly gave Kibera’s inhabitants a predisposition toward us that was more than enough for them. Most stereotypes are that way, I guess. A few whispered or giggled as we passed. We were spectacles and celebrities like movie stars who did crack and dressed in ridiculous clothes—rich and powerful but too ignorant for own good, too far removed from the people we passed. We couldn’t even tell what they were saying in Kiswahili, but every now and then we heard snatches and heard “mzungu” - they had to be talking about us as we passed. Children chanted the only English words they knew in a parody of Kenyan culture’s politeness - “Mzungu! How-are-you? How-are-you?” Their tone rose on “are,” lending a sing-song playground teasing to their calls. Some even included the response they were used to hearing from the white people, shouting “how-are-you-fine!” in one breathless taunt. When we greeted them in Kiswahili most would simply start giggling in befuddlement.
We passed through the labyrinthine passages of Kibera, through alleyways and mazes made of sticks and mud and tin. We leapt over more open sewers and clung to the sides of houses as we crossed ledges. We reached the church eventually.
Once we were there, we started setting up the medical clinic. It was as if the medical team had imported an American sense of haste along with the stethoscopes and medicines. Those of us who hadn’t come with the medical team stood confused, not sure how to help or what to do. They invited me to come on a home visit for a child who was too sick to be brought to the church. It felt good to be useful instead of standing in the back of the church, wondering what was going to happen next.
We set out from the church a little later. We passed under a doorway made from sticks and stepped onto a concrete slab placed above the sewer. Kibera thrust itself into our faces, once again overwhelming us with its sights, smells, and sounds. I let my eyes wander to just beyond my feet where filthy water ran slowly, impeded by the trash that people threw down there. I stepped carefully onto the dirt ramp and ducked underneath the clotheslines stretched across the sewer and the dirt path. To my right was a pile of trash nearly as high as my chest heaped against the side of another dirt building, layer upon layer of discarded waste scooped from the sewer to allow the water to keep flowing. To my left were the homes that the clotheslines stretched from the roofs of - tiny buildings made from mud and sticks with tin roofs thrown on almost carelessly, completely dark from the inside.
We walked again through Kibera, another walk that seemed like an eternity going back and forth through alleys and over sewers, traveling fifteen minutes to reach a distance that a crow could have hopped. We reached the house - a one-room hovel made from mud with a rusted tin roof thrown on top - and ducked inside. There was only a thin sheet in the doorway. Old couches and hard chairs were crowded around the room and I squeezed myself into the corner at the end of one couch. All of the light came from the doorway, barely illuminating the faces of the occupants.
There was a nursing student, a PA student, a PA, and a translator from the church with me. They crowded around the table that my knees were jammed against, observing a child named Vera who looked to be about six. She could have been ten. I’d seen children look young for their age here, scarred by consistent malnutrition and illness. I don’t remember her speaking a word while we were in there, only occasionally nodding her head or shaking it in response to the PA’s questions passed to her through the translator.
They had me read the Bible and pray first, I guess because I was used to doing that in the Kenyan households. I really liked it and was happy that I could share with them. I read from John 15, about abiding in God, speaking each sentence one at a time so that they could be translated. In the darkness of the room it was hard to see the faces of the people listening and even if I could have seen them I doubt I would have been able to tell how it affected them. The words had to be spoken, though, and perhaps they brought them some encouragement that day. We moved on quickly to examining Vera after we prayed.
The PA student, Megan, relayed some of the things they were discussing to me, pointing out some of her symptoms. She had thrush, an indication that her immune system couldn’t fight off the common bacteria in her mouth. She shivered because her immune system had been rendered incapable of raising a fever. On and on it went, like the legend on the architectural plans for hell. All the signs pointed to full-blown AIDS. Not just HIV-positive. AIDS. It looked as if it had not just destroyed her immune system, but any sense of childhood and happiness too. Perhaps I was only there at the wrong day at the wrong time. I’m sure that there were times when she and her friends played barefoot with toys they’d assembled from wire and sticks they’d found or kicked around soccer balls made from plastic bags bound together. Not on this day, though. She just sat in front of us, shivering. Megan whispered to me about how badly she wanted to cry. It wasn’t appropriate, though. If Vera really did have full-blown AIDS, there was nothing we could do. We could ease her pain some, help her fight off an infection. If she were taken back to one of the best hospitals and given the best care that very instant, we couldn’t save her. My earlier gladness to be “of use” lay crumpled against the brick wall of the reality that I didn’t even have the medical knowledge to help. I felt weak and useless. As Vera slowly drifted to sleep in Megan’s arms, I whispered to her one of the few Swahili phrases I knew, certain that it was all I could give her.
“Yesu anakupenda sana.” Jesus loves you very much. I think I said it more for me than for her, since she was probably already asleep when I spoke. It was the only comfort I could have arrayed against the cruel, crushing hands of sickness, death, and poverty that grasped Kibera and choked it mercilessly. Even if I had all the medical knowledge in the world, I could still ultimately offer her nothing of eternal value but Jesus.
We finished the visit and walked outside, huddling under a tin roof, which reached out a little from the house it was nailed to as rain started to fall. I wished it was the sort of rain like in the movies at the finale, when the hero kisses the heroine and all the evil they fought against is wiped away as the earth itself gets baptized. It wasn’t like that. It was just making the roofs rust more and the dirt beneath our feet turn to mud. We would be slipping and sliding and holding on to each other as we walked back through this valley of the shadow of death.
I leaned against another wall made of dirt and sticks, listening to the others discuss plans and which houses we would visit next over the sound of the rain slapping against the roofs like bullets. I kept thinking about Vera. How wretched it seemed that she probably had AIDS because her father had slept around and infected her mother. And now she was getting a few antibiotics and children’s Tylenol. The closer I got to Kibera, the more intimidating and confusing and frustrating it became. Oh, I had nothing to offer her besides telling her that Jesus loved her. Nothing else I could do.
Perhaps that was the point.
“If the Christian community will respond compassionately and effectively to the global AIDS crisis, it will be the most powerful apologetic the church has ever offered to the watching world.” -Ravi Zacharias
----------------
We approached Kibera some time in the morning, carrying medical supplies on our shoulders as we came. We turned a corner and were confronted with its stark reality once again. Kibera is one of those places you wish had never existed and wish you could make go away. It’s intimidating enough from a distance, whether that distance is from the road where you can see it stretching into the distance or if it’s another continent where you just hear statistics - a million people in two square kilometers, one in three of those million HIV-positive, on and on they go like the dimensions of an iron maiden, the numbers and lengths of the spikes. It becomes more intimidating the closer you get.
We had to cross the bridge. Just about a dozen sticks nailed into two thicker sticks, stretched across the river. The river’s the first thing about Kibera that hits you as you get close enough. You don’t even see it first, you smell it - a putrid stench that you’re always afraid to breathe. You get closer and see it, about ten feet wide of muddy gray sewage that you hear burns if you touch it. Your mind draws comparison to the River Styx, knowing that once you cross it you’ll be in the valley of the shadow of death. By now the smell is overpowering in its disgust and shock and you decide that you have to breathe deeper if you want to make it any longer.
The bridge shakes and trembles as we cross it, with many from the medical team reaching out with both hands for a hand to steady them as they cross. Every time you cross you wonder if this will be the time it gives and you’ll plunge into the river. It’s probably only two or three feet deep but you never want to test it. We stood and waited for our team to cross. One by one they did, each one hesitant and careful. Those of us who had crossed before were quicker, maybe even too quick to try to prove we were okay with it all and brave enough to deal with it all. We weren’t.
People began to notice us as we walked through. We were mzungu, after all. Our skin color instantly gave Kibera’s inhabitants a predisposition toward us that was more than enough for them. Most stereotypes are that way, I guess. A few whispered or giggled as we passed. We were spectacles and celebrities like movie stars who did crack and dressed in ridiculous clothes—rich and powerful but too ignorant for own good, too far removed from the people we passed. We couldn’t even tell what they were saying in Kiswahili, but every now and then we heard snatches and heard “mzungu” - they had to be talking about us as we passed. Children chanted the only English words they knew in a parody of Kenyan culture’s politeness - “Mzungu! How-are-you? How-are-you?” Their tone rose on “are,” lending a sing-song playground teasing to their calls. Some even included the response they were used to hearing from the white people, shouting “how-are-you-fine!” in one breathless taunt. When we greeted them in Kiswahili most would simply start giggling in befuddlement.
We passed through the labyrinthine passages of Kibera, through alleyways and mazes made of sticks and mud and tin. We leapt over more open sewers and clung to the sides of houses as we crossed ledges. We reached the church eventually.
Once we were there, we started setting up the medical clinic. It was as if the medical team had imported an American sense of haste along with the stethoscopes and medicines. Those of us who hadn’t come with the medical team stood confused, not sure how to help or what to do. They invited me to come on a home visit for a child who was too sick to be brought to the church. It felt good to be useful instead of standing in the back of the church, wondering what was going to happen next.
We set out from the church a little later. We passed under a doorway made from sticks and stepped onto a concrete slab placed above the sewer. Kibera thrust itself into our faces, once again overwhelming us with its sights, smells, and sounds. I let my eyes wander to just beyond my feet where filthy water ran slowly, impeded by the trash that people threw down there. I stepped carefully onto the dirt ramp and ducked underneath the clotheslines stretched across the sewer and the dirt path. To my right was a pile of trash nearly as high as my chest heaped against the side of another dirt building, layer upon layer of discarded waste scooped from the sewer to allow the water to keep flowing. To my left were the homes that the clotheslines stretched from the roofs of - tiny buildings made from mud and sticks with tin roofs thrown on almost carelessly, completely dark from the inside.
We walked again through Kibera, another walk that seemed like an eternity going back and forth through alleys and over sewers, traveling fifteen minutes to reach a distance that a crow could have hopped. We reached the house - a one-room hovel made from mud with a rusted tin roof thrown on top - and ducked inside. There was only a thin sheet in the doorway. Old couches and hard chairs were crowded around the room and I squeezed myself into the corner at the end of one couch. All of the light came from the doorway, barely illuminating the faces of the occupants.
There was a nursing student, a PA student, a PA, and a translator from the church with me. They crowded around the table that my knees were jammed against, observing a child named Vera who looked to be about six. She could have been ten. I’d seen children look young for their age here, scarred by consistent malnutrition and illness. I don’t remember her speaking a word while we were in there, only occasionally nodding her head or shaking it in response to the PA’s questions passed to her through the translator.
They had me read the Bible and pray first, I guess because I was used to doing that in the Kenyan households. I really liked it and was happy that I could share with them. I read from John 15, about abiding in God, speaking each sentence one at a time so that they could be translated. In the darkness of the room it was hard to see the faces of the people listening and even if I could have seen them I doubt I would have been able to tell how it affected them. The words had to be spoken, though, and perhaps they brought them some encouragement that day. We moved on quickly to examining Vera after we prayed.
The PA student, Megan, relayed some of the things they were discussing to me, pointing out some of her symptoms. She had thrush, an indication that her immune system couldn’t fight off the common bacteria in her mouth. She shivered because her immune system had been rendered incapable of raising a fever. On and on it went, like the legend on the architectural plans for hell. All the signs pointed to full-blown AIDS. Not just HIV-positive. AIDS. It looked as if it had not just destroyed her immune system, but any sense of childhood and happiness too. Perhaps I was only there at the wrong day at the wrong time. I’m sure that there were times when she and her friends played barefoot with toys they’d assembled from wire and sticks they’d found or kicked around soccer balls made from plastic bags bound together. Not on this day, though. She just sat in front of us, shivering. Megan whispered to me about how badly she wanted to cry. It wasn’t appropriate, though. If Vera really did have full-blown AIDS, there was nothing we could do. We could ease her pain some, help her fight off an infection. If she were taken back to one of the best hospitals and given the best care that very instant, we couldn’t save her. My earlier gladness to be “of use” lay crumpled against the brick wall of the reality that I didn’t even have the medical knowledge to help. I felt weak and useless. As Vera slowly drifted to sleep in Megan’s arms, I whispered to her one of the few Swahili phrases I knew, certain that it was all I could give her.
“Yesu anakupenda sana.” Jesus loves you very much. I think I said it more for me than for her, since she was probably already asleep when I spoke. It was the only comfort I could have arrayed against the cruel, crushing hands of sickness, death, and poverty that grasped Kibera and choked it mercilessly. Even if I had all the medical knowledge in the world, I could still ultimately offer her nothing of eternal value but Jesus.
We finished the visit and walked outside, huddling under a tin roof, which reached out a little from the house it was nailed to as rain started to fall. I wished it was the sort of rain like in the movies at the finale, when the hero kisses the heroine and all the evil they fought against is wiped away as the earth itself gets baptized. It wasn’t like that. It was just making the roofs rust more and the dirt beneath our feet turn to mud. We would be slipping and sliding and holding on to each other as we walked back through this valley of the shadow of death.
I leaned against another wall made of dirt and sticks, listening to the others discuss plans and which houses we would visit next over the sound of the rain slapping against the roofs like bullets. I kept thinking about Vera. How wretched it seemed that she probably had AIDS because her father had slept around and infected her mother. And now she was getting a few antibiotics and children’s Tylenol. The closer I got to Kibera, the more intimidating and confusing and frustrating it became. Oh, I had nothing to offer her besides telling her that Jesus loved her. Nothing else I could do.
Perhaps that was the point.
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