I’m not sure anyone should read this post. This is FAR from a happy post.
It starts inside the gates of a Ugandan hospital. It starts getting out of the car and looking around convinced I must be in the wrong spot. It couldn’t be a hospital. It looked like a slum. And I now know what a slum looks like.
The building that my friend was walking towards looked like a long-neglected homeless center – a dirt colored and dirt covered single story building with peeling paint and people lying on the improbably lush grass. I asked where she was going – “to the cancer ward.”
I walked up a tattered, rain-eroded, former concrete ramp carrying a box full of bottled water wondering what sort of thing I’d wandered into. I walked through the door and into bodies strewn here and there and into crying and into blank faces and into contorted faces. I tucked the box in a tattered office and turned the corner and found myself facing even more faces… and bodies… and my mind tried to assimilate it all… the mass of people… the children lying listlessly… the child with an open tumor on her face and neck so large it seemed almost a second head – something from a really, really scary horror film… the different colored blankets on each bed… the worn blankets… the complete absence of any medical personnel… the scent in the air that I could not name but that made my stomach turn…
…the children and the caregivers looked at me expectantly. Surely, their eyes seemed to be saying, I was there to give relief to the moaning and crying children. I had empty hands.
I winked at the girl with the huge tumor and she smiled back… she scared me… I didn’t really want to be near here… I didn’t want to be there. But she sidled up to me and grabbed my hand and I looked down into her bright eyes and started making silly faces and she smiled and she grabbed my other hand.
Give her some water, my friend suggested.
Then it dawned on me. Water. They had no clean water there. No clean water in a hospital. We went to get the water and to mix it up with some Emergen-C that Kim had packed for me to take. I gave her a bottle and poured some of the vitamin mix into it and showed her how to shake it up and watch it fizz. She giggled.
Other kids came around – they wanted water. They wanted food. I heard one say excitedly that he had eaten today. “I had a banana!!”
People pressed in for bottles of water. But I didn’t want to give them out to the adults. I wanted to give them to the kids. And every time a parent took one I was secretly very angry.
The little girl, named Grace… again, started moaning and crying a bit. Someone said she said it hurt when the flies were in her tumor.
There was a little boy named Peter in with a particularly aggressive lymphoma – the tumor cells were taking over his bone marrow, were competing with red and white blood cells, were causing pressure to build in his bones, were causing great pain. No one had shown up to give him pain killers. No one had shown up to treat him. He just cried softly.
A waterless, doctor-less, medicine-less, dirty, over crowded cancer ward for children. If it wasn’t hell it was a suburb.
I talked to someone who said, “The hospital,it was actually better under Idi Amin.” And so it is true from having talked to others. There were clean sheets, pillows, and blankets. Food was served. There was water. Today there are none of those things.
I gave every bit of money I had to anyone who asked. I had to say no to others because I had nothing else. I’d have given my camera and phone had I thought it would help.
Never have I felt so completely, totally and utterly helpless and hopeless as I do right now.
Where does this hell end?
Where is the hope for these people?
I would be ranting against God save for the fact that the people in that room were not ranting against God. They clung to God.
“Jesus,” one woman said, “he promised it was easier for a poor man to enter heaven than a rich man. That is what the Bible says.”
For us? For us rich Americans? Oh man. All I can think is that God cannot be pleased. He cannot be pleased by the suffering. He cannot be pleased that we allow it to happen.
And make no mistake we do let it happen. We let it happen when we make paltry, pitiful contributions to charities that are making a difference. We let it happen every time we let our politicians fly through elections without making them answer questions about what they will do about poverty. We let it happen by living lives where we focus more on Britney Spears and other ridiculous celebrities. We let it happen and one day God will make us answer for it. I’m not looking forward to that day.
For all who say, “Oh no, I’m saved, I’ll be fine,” I will simply point to those very disturbing passages in the New Testament where Jesus says the judgment day will bring some really big surprises.
Somewhere there is hope. Somewhere there is a way to make a difference. Somewhere there are answers. I just have no idea where somewhere is right now.
posted February 15, 2008 at 5:50 pm
wow … O, wow.
posted February 15, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Heartbreaking.
I myself am an ex-Christian for precisely this sort of thing, I just don’t see how a loving, caring God could allow His creatures to suffer so much. Now I am an atheist. My Christian friends try to tell me that the world is as full as suffering as it is because we live in a fallen world, a world ruled over by the devil and that it is up to us to overcome it and find salvation from it. I can only respond by saying that the rapture can’t get here soon enough, bring it on already, enough is enough. Come back and take back the earth, take your poor souls up to Heaven and cast the rest of us down to Hell, just get it over with, I can’t bear it anymore. What’s taking so long? I’m not being facetious, I mean it.
In the meantime I make the occasional donation to MSF (Doctors Without Borders) but apparently they’re not in this hospital helping out. The worst part is that all the aid money in the world won’t get to these people, their politicians will siphon it off to Swiss bank accounts. Private charities like MSF are the only thing that can help these people.
Thanks for setting me up for a gloomy weekend
posted February 15, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Thin places aren’t always beautiful, are they?
posted February 15, 2008 at 6:03 pm
David, please be gentle with yourself. Nothing you’ve ever experienced before has prepared you for what you are encountering. It is very easy to be overwhelmed.
posted February 15, 2008 at 6:11 pm
David:
I’ve been sitting with friends-one whose wife has gone thru 2 rounds of chemo for a cancer they can’t determine the origin of. I hear the bad reports. Then I read your post. There really is a despair that is greater than we in the West face. Daily. Good. God is.
posted February 15, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I really appreciate Phil’s comments and increasingly find myself in a similar boat. My faith used to be the source of my passion for fighting poverty–but the more I have seen and learned about true suffering in this world, the less I am able to accept trivial Christian responses to it…and the less able I am to maintain my belief in a just and loving God. I understand John’s encouragement to be gentle with yourself, but the truth is I think it’s poor advice–for all of us. Our problem is precisely that we are only willing to take the pain of the world in small doses: We read a friend’s blog; we take a short trip; we swear to witness to others the horrors we’ve seen. We have powerful experiences that feel like they’ll change our lives forever–and they may–but the poverty of wealth is insidious, and sickening. I can no longer bear to listen to wealthy Christians talk about their “blessings” in a way that suggests that their own righteousness is somehow being rewarded. And I cannot be part of a church that suggests it’s OK to continue living in affluence and daily comfort as we do in spite of the need all around us.
Good luck to you as you try to reconcile what you’ve seen with what you believe.
posted February 15, 2008 at 8:06 pm
OK, pediatric cancer ward – hell no matter what – no matter what. Spent about three years in one as a parent. Recall the hell and simply cannot imagine it as bigger hell than the one that exists just because your child is suffering. I recall the child from Guatemala – the one who had undergone chemo – without any of the nice drugs to combat the pain, the nausea, the infections. He came to our lovely sterile hospital and died in the room next door. However, he had been adopted by then, died in the arms of love. My kid had the huge tumor – so big on her neck that people turned away and gagged. There was a wonderful surgeon who took care of it. The scars are huge, but “nice”. The words – flies in the tumor – were the ones that made it real. I’ve cared for poor old men who came in with flies and maggots. I’ve spent hours and gallons of water and soap making them “nice” and clean. I’m trying to imagine a hospital where that cannot happen.
You are talking about a kind of suffering we have ceased to believe can be real. I keep thinking about the parents of these children. I had this ability to make sure the care my daughter received was pristine, the best. Real suffering must be around not being able to do anything.
I’m sure it feels as if you can do nothing. But for a minute – a child had water – we want big solutions – perhaps all we get is the comfort of knowing we made a minute’s difference in suffering. Perhaps that is all we can do, except change the way we live.
posted February 15, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Thank you for all you are doing to bring more awareness to the world for these people, children of God. My heart aches for their suffering and always has. I have prayed so much for them and to send my love and God’s to their hearts and spirits. When I was a child I felt for their suffering and would sometimes cry for them when I was told there were children starving and dying in Africa and to finish my supper. I feel so strongly that God is there for them as I looked at their beautiful faces. Though I do believe faith and prayer are very powerful, I believe that is why God has led you there and all others who have been there to bring support, aid and awareness to the world. This is a time of change in the world and even as you cry for them at times continue to give them the love that comes from your heart & spirit and the Divine, God and universal love that is very much real. There is a song by Josh Groban that he sang with the African Children’s Choir called You Raise Me Up and also by himself he sings You Are Loved(Don’t Give Up) which I believe is a message to everyone. So know, really know that what you are doing right now has meaning for them, for you, your family and everyone. Sending my love in prayer and I wish I could tell them that their courage and faith in God also sends strength, more hope and faith back to me. They are truly the example of God is Love.
posted February 15, 2008 at 10:51 pm
David, this post just broke my heart. I know that situations like this exist, but once again, your description captured the reality of poverty in a very vivid way. Though I support the mission of my church and also our local “rescue” mission for the homeless downtown, I have decided to respond to your challenge and support a child.
Yes, it will stretch my “fixed” income budget, and I’ll have to decline some invitations to “eat out” (big deal!) — but it is the very, very least I can do.
posted February 15, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I just don’t have the words. But I know who does.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people.
Amen.
posted February 16, 2008 at 12:16 am
Nicole and Phil
That there is severe suffering in the world is not God’s failure, but ours. I know there are a lot of Christians who think “you always have the poor with you” and prattle on about their own blessings as some sign of thier righteousness. In my experience it is a waste of time to fuss about such “Christians”. Even when there a lot of them. Seek those who put their time and money where it counts and there are a lot of those too.
I heard someone speaking for a think tank recently that had figured we could cure all the major problems of the world for less than the US spends making war in Iraq in one year. We have the means, the know-how — we just need the will. And no one person or group is going to do it all. We all just can do what we can do. We can do more when we decide there is alot we can do without. Personally, I would rather use that extra few dollars in my pocket today to help someone who needs it than to buy another pair of shoes for myself. The fact that a number of people have been moved to sponsor a child in need shows how a little effort can snowball.
It’s not God’s problem to fix, it’s ours.
posted February 16, 2008 at 1:54 am
Why are the words “hell” and “health” so similar when they are worlds apart?
posted February 16, 2008 at 9:38 am
If you can be there, we can surely read about it. That’s about the saddest thing I ever heard of.
posted February 16, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Stayed awake on this one. No words work. Jesus worked for the kingdom, but also relieved suffering – wasn’t doing magic tricks for the people – was working out of the immense compassion of God. We see such thing and become hopeless. Too big – too entrenched. I think I’m going with Mother Theresa on this one – she didn’t change systems – she just relieved suffering – just loved people as they died – just gave dignity to people who had their dignity taken away. And she brought every privileged person into the work. I am not hopeless about this after a night of praying and thinking. We must begin to dream – our dreams for ourselves can change – we can dream that God will use us – every one of us – to be God’s compassion in the world.
posted February 16, 2008 at 3:07 pm
>>>
I understand John’s encouragement to be gentle with yourself, but the truth is I think it’s poor advice–for all of us.
Posted by: Nicole | February 15, 2008 7:32 PM
>>>
Just being practical, Nicole. When I started my two year stint in Africa, I went through some bouts of depression before I adjusted to how different life was over there.
posted February 17, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Is Compassion International helping with this hospital?
Does Federal Express go there?
How can I/we help with that particular hospital?
posted February 17, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Wow. Thanks for writing about this. Ya’ll’s trip to Uganda has rocked my world. Thank you for being real and honest. May God bless you deeply.
posted February 17, 2008 at 11:28 pm
David, thanks for posting on this. Last year in the corner of the Congo where I sometimes work, I met a father with his daughter. They had spent the previous 9 months at Mulago, because the quality of care there is far higher than anything that’s available in the DRC. She still had a huge tumor on her eye, and he was at the end of his capacity to deal with it – they’d left his wife and other children behind without his income, all in the name of saving his precious girl. It breaks my heart to see how bad their “better” care really was.
I don’t know what to say about where to start. There is so much suffering and misery and poverty and it is overwhelming, all the time. But you’re not choosing to take the easy way out by convincing yourself that, “God’s just making me aware, not calling me to really change,” and that’s the first step. The mandates of Biblical justice are a lot harder to live by than the demands of our easy, Americanized, cultural Christianity.
posted February 19, 2008 at 5:19 am
hello and Good morning weekends…
i just wanted to share my most precious latest self discovery, i travelled quite far too! and from where i have been, i never thought that this could be real, i thought this could just be a dream to be able to share just a part, a piece with a purpose of awakening the greater good of what will serve to be a bridge for the Love of God.
Anyway, i learned that journeys are going on and on….because we are ready! God is wonderful he manage to get into the deepest! where we humans thought to be unreacheable! Bon Voyage!
posted February 26, 2008 at 6:19 am
I wish to thank you all for the contributions, sympathy and empathy you have and are still showing to our continent, Africa. God wrote that the heart of man is desperately evil and some Africans live to make that part of the scripture come to pass in the lives of their follow men. Its not your fault that some Africans make away with a whole Nation’s income and I am sure that God will not blame you for another man’s inhumanity to his follow man but I am happy you are all helping even when its not convinient and follow well-to-do Africans have refused or been afraid to do so.
Thank you very much and the good Lord who rewards shall surely meet you all in your times of need.
thanks once again.
posted April 27, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Thanks for this post. I came across your blog randomly, but it brought me to tears. I spent the summer of 2007 in Uganda, and spent a lot of time at the pediatric cancer ward at Mulago. I have to say, your post really captures exactly how I was feeling when I was there. When I came back and people asked me about it, I couldn’t put the horror into words. I know exactly how you were feeling, and it’s nice to see that someone can relate. Just when I started to get caught up in finals (I’m finishing my junior year of college), I came across this post, and was reminded about my trip and all things I learned there. Thanks again, and keep on keeping on.