A Day On the Porch

Today was unlike any other day since our FPC Mission Team arrived at Nazareth Hospital.  It was a warm, sunny and dry day. Several team members, as designated, had gone on home visits to counsel with HIV/AIDS patients from the Holy Family Center at Nazareth Hospital.  Other team members met with the Pastoral Counseling Team, observed surgery in the theater (operating room), etc.  So, with the others gone, I deviated from the activity schedule and decided to sit on the porch, thus, becoming a “porch person.”

Sitting on the porch in the warm sun, I began to write in my journal of daily activities.  Soon, a parade (as it seemed) of visitors began to come up to the porch and talk with me. The people who visited the porch included Dr. Salvador De La Torre (NKatha’s boss) from the Catholic Medical Mission Board Administration who has served in several African communities and in Haiti. Later, Dr. James, Chief of Surgery at Nazareth Hospital, came up to the porch, followed by Dr. Mary, Internal Medicine.  After they left and a few quiet moments, NKatha, former Director of Holy Family Center.  Along with her were Ruth, Director of Counseling at the Holy Family Center and Mary Mwaungi.  Soon after, Counselor George in the Pastoral Counseling Department arrived. He was followed by Teacher George, Head Primary School Teacher at Nazareth Hospital.  Later, Michael, the current Director of Holy Family Center came.  Each person who sat with me on the porch has demonstrated a commitment to providing health care, wellness and educational services to the less fortunate of society, both in this area and other places.  Was the FACE OF GOD present in the faces of these servants?  I believe so!  I believe they are living in the Spirit of Christ.  Each is living for a daily encounter with God through service to His people.  While they live in the present, their hope and work are centered on plans for a better future for those with the greatest needs (people who are viewed as expendable).

Why were all of these people coming to the porch?  To see me?  Not a chance! These servant leaders who came to the porch have two things in common:  (1) solving a problem and (2) enlisting the aid of Pastor Jim Wood to discuss some ideas to improve service options for the children and adults whose lives have been adversely affected by HIV/AIDS.

Later, the children came from school.  A new drama began!  Today was a great day to be a porch person.  While I will not be on the porch tomorrow, it will still be a great day because it will be a day that God has made and I look forward to the encounters He provides.

by Winston Whitehurst, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Yesu, Ninakuamini is Swahili for: Jesus, I trust in him.

 

At bustling Nazareth Hospital the patients lie on pastel printed sheets in maternity wards with ten beds, and some of them hold babies. A few do not. In a small grace today, a young mother whose baby died in a complicated delivery lay in the corner bed of an empty ward. Catherine escaped with her own life, but her uterus had been removed. In Kenya, Africa, this is a complete ravishment. Yet she already has a four-year-old child, so although barren, she will still be a mother. I could hardy believe that God had placed me by her side to tell her about life with just one child. More importantly, a pastoral counselor leaned on the bed next to her, hands folded casually, bestowing a compassionate gaze, and discussed the hard truth with her. “I’m O.K.,” she said, though tearful, and then she asked for prayer.

Three pastoral counselors are funded by Tree of Lives, and George Nderere has worked since the program’s inception, five years ago, despite the obvious sadness that comes with facing suffering at close range, as on a razor’s edge. I felt like time stood still in those moments. Yet he more than anyone, perhaps, knows when it is time to joke and to laugh and to take a rest – later in his day. To face the morning rounds again and meet new problems, he said he tries to think about how Christ is following him, even revealing his very face, as he enters into the emotional world of a patient.

So I spent much of the day with one tough cookie, but we both knew where real strength comes from.

by Ann Burrows, member of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Do You Want To Be Made Well?

Do you want to be made well?  Jim Wood asked the team to contemplate this question in our after dinner devotion.

By today most of our team has experienced the deep privilege of home visits.  As we trek in small groups across Kenya entering into homes of dirt floors, tin and potato sack walls we can’t help but think to ourselves: can anyone be made well?  There are times I’m sure, where the mission-hearted ones of us contemplate living in Africa.  I think ultimately that would be the easy route as far as creating a comfort zone.

The real challenge for us is going to and returning from Kenya and figuring out how to move from one life to the next.  How do we cope with the crisis situations we sit next to on a plastic stool or lace-covered cushion in each home visit?  How do we love with our entire selves and not bring a child home with us?

Today we all learned about an American trance we are lured into, a trance that causes us not to be ready at the moment Jesus wants us to do something we don’t think we can do or

“get up and walk.”

We learned how to heal ourselves from this trance through the story of Jesus healing the paralytic beginning in John 5:1.  We have to want to be made well.  We have to tell Jesus “I want to be made well” and as a group member pointed out this evening, one thing we have in common with each African, each starving child, is that we want to be made well.

by Morgan Burrows, college student and member of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Glimpses of Victory

Jim Wood often shares a favorite quote from Trevor Hudson;

“everyone sits next to their own pool of tears.”

Some people’s pools, however, are more immediately visible than others.

Today I accompanied Zacchaeus, one of the health care workers at the Holy Family Center, on his home visits in the Kaiwaida neighborhood.  Each client (patient) we visited was HIV positive, and our mission was to check on their health, determine whether they were taking their medicines, and offer support related to their disease.

For every family we met, HIV/AIDS was their least pressing concern.

The first client, Elizabeth, was not able to afford her hypertension medication ($10 a month).  Her blood pressure was 220/120.  After explaining the seriousness of her situation, we left her with instructions to go to Nazareth Hospital immediately.

Peter and Lois, the second family we met, were both HIV positive, as is their 3-year-old son Martin.  Henry, the adorable 14-month-old who sat on my lap, is testing negative but  that’s still tentative until he’s 18 months.  Peter is unemployed and unable to provide food for his wife and five children, and they are two months behind in rent on their tiny, dirt-floor home.

Esther is a single mom of four; her husband left when he found out she was HIV positive and he was not.  Her home is a single room with no bed, so she has constant health issues from sleeping on the floor.  Like Peter, she expected that her family would have nothing to eat tonight.

The last client, Lois, was perhaps the most secure financially.  However, her husband, who was just released from prison, has taken a second wife, and spends most of his time with his new family (in Kenya, polygamy is not uncommon).  Between caring for her four-month-old, managing her disease, and trying to talk to her husband about HIV (a topic he refuses to discuss), her situation was every bit as overwhelming as each of the others.

The brightest spot on a bleak day was the extraordinary witness of Zacchaeus and Jin, the volunteer worker who accompanied us.  Like everyone I’ve met here at Nazareth, their ministry was bigger than their mission.  They treat people, not diseases, and that makes all the difference.  Because of their ministry, two families will have dinner tonight for the first time in days; a woman has bus fare to reach the hospital, and a support group in Kaiwaida will welcome a new member at their next meeting.  Not a victory – tomorrow will be a new set of life-threatening challenges for each of those families – but perhaps a glimpse of one.

by Jim Gates, Associate Pastor for Evangelism at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Discordant Couples

THIS MORNING I READ A SIGN ON THE DOOR:

“DISCORDANT COUPLES” SMALL GROUP

Wow! I think.

“DISCORDANT COUPLES”

Now, as a pastor, I’ve had my share of experience with discordant couples but I’ve never seen it advertised. Where I come from, in fact, even when things are about to really pop, most couples keep their discordancy to themselves. That’s why we so often say, “Why, of all the couples that this could have happened to, I never thought…”

This must be one heck of a small group. Metal detectors at the door, hide the plates and projectile objects, rubber walls, sound proofing, I can only imagine.

The small group leader, Nancy, approaches as I pass, “Pastor Jim. Do you have a minute?”

“Ummmm.  I’m not sure. Why?”

Would you come and give an opening devotion to my small group – she points to the door as she grabs my arm and tugs me toward, “Discordant Couples.”

I approach realizing that my morning devotion when I awoke was Paul’s encouragement to “fight the good fight.” (I’m not making this up.)  No, that won’t work… My mind is racing…No more time…I’m dragged into the room.

There they are – sixteen couples – thirty-two people – in a small room – each a discordant couple – meaning that in each marriage one partner is HIV+ and the other is not.  Now stop just a minute and seriously consider what that means…one has HIV and the other doesn’t…do you get the implication?

A small room filled with couples who meet regularly to talk about the struggles of not communicating a deadly virus, of how to forgive, how to raise children, how, literally, to support each other in the incarnation of  “in sickness and in health.”

I look about and see bright faces, couples holding hands, smiles, welcoming hand-shakes, many with Bibles on laps, a gracious acceptance of the only Mzungo (white man) right now at the hospital.  Instantly, overwhelmingly, I experience the presence of something greater than all of us combined.

My devotion this morning is one of my most concise ever:

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.” (Paul’s words to the Philippians 1:3-5)

I thank my God for your being a living testimony to me this morning. You have, truly, humbly blessed me. Amen.

Walking home, I’m overwhelmed to have been one accord in a room filled with grace this morning. Good stuff.

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

 

Who Are Your People?

Asking an expectant mom what she is going to name her child is an irrelevant question in most of Africa. A child’s name is determined long before she or he is born, through a rigid formula of both paternal and maternal lineage. I’ve come to value this greatly, in that it communicates a deep appreciation for family. In fact, in East Africa, family is almost everything.  Who you are is more about where and whom you come from than any amount of higher education or accumulation of financial wealth.  “Who are your people?…” for all I know may even be the #1 pick-up line in our Limuru town.

So what happens if you don’t have a name, don’t come from a certain homeland? What if you were cut off from the very source of identity everyone around you shares.  In Africa it might even be akin to looking in the mirror and seeing no reflection.

Enter a story, which begins, as first we know, May 20.  A little gently wrapped bundle is found alone outside Nazareth Hospital, Limuru, Kenya.  Next to it, a plastic bag with a clean change of tiny clothes.  Yes – unbundled is a little infant boy, umbilical cord still attached with a red clamp.  Let’s unwrap the mystery as best we can.  First clue – Nazareth uses yellow clamps, the substandard government hospital in the poorest slum miles away uses red. Second clue – an umbilical cord withers and drops off within a week of birth.  Third clue – a plastic bag with clean clothes means someone expects a future, at least a little one.  Fourth clue – no one saw anything and no one, a month later, has claimed this little bundle of God’s joy.  Put the clues together yet?  Some poor frightened someone who cares enough about an infant boy to bring him to a site noted for generations as a place of love, leaves him, hoping for a new life – one with a future longer than a fresh change of clothes.

His name? Here’s where I’m clueless.

We people of Nazareth, familiar with our own family lineage, have long recognized Emmanuel, God with us.  Our ancestral family is rooted in a God who rescues, who hears every cry, who salvages good from the evil of any life, who is always present, in every labor room, on every hospital lawn, within every heart of fear and doubt.

So, as of today, it has been decided, he is to be named Emmanuel of Nazareth.

I hold him up to the mirror in the nursery; sure enough, there it is – his reflection – the very image of God Himself.

………………………..

Granted: It’s going to be hard to explain on his birth certificate.

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Heavenly Goals: Alice

One of my personal goals with each African pilgrimage is to see Alice. It actually isn’t a very lofty goal in some respects.  Alice lives about 50 meters from my back porch; if it weren’t for a stone wall, I could see her grandmother’s shanty from where I’m sitting.  Yet, in some respects it is a heavenly goal.

Alice lives with her grandmother, who sells vegetables along the roadside, because her mom and dad are no longer alive. They died from AIDS and one of the legacies they left behind is a tiny beautiful, now 14-year old girl similarly afflicted.  AIDS and TB may have thwarted Alice’s height, but her stature always seems to find its way to tower over others.  This she does to me as well – towers over me every time I come back and see her, beaming face-to-face, broad smile-to-smile, huge laugh-to-laugh.

Alice’s survival is a layered gift to me.  Her life-saving medications come from my US taxes; a penny or so withdrawn from my paycheck each month thousands of miles away.  She speaks beautiful English, learned in a little remedial school we help support, where the teachers were always understanding of her bouts of hospitalization, even coming to the bedside to offer tutor.  Her laugh on occasion turns to a rattling cough when she tries to run with me in the tea fields, where I offer to carry her home – she can’t weigh more than 50 pounds – but her fierce (“fierce” emphasized) independence responds with total disdain, not even attempting to couch a response in gratitude.  The clothes she wears are gifts from some of my dearest friends, who also send her to her new school down the road.  She loves to sit on my front porch, a mother hen, over the gathering brood of young chicks.   Yes, just the thought of this precocious, grace-filled, little fireball towers over me every time…

So it was today… beaming face-to-face, broad smile-to-smile, huge laugh-to-laugh.

I love it when I meet my goals, especially the ones I set so very high.

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Rainbows and Superheroes

Cool and cloudy, sitting on the porch reading the Daily Nation, I hear a bird call – sounding a bit too clear to be authentic. Sure enough, my first afternoon guest is Nguvu  – whistling, out of breath from a run from the school bell straight to welcome me on my first day back. Getting taller and more slender, with a broad toothy smile, he makes 27 hours of trains, plains and airplanes all worthwhile in a single hug.

If you know me any deeper than a hello, you know that Nguvu is one of my sons – a child of my heart.  Born into poverty, raised in suffering, he teaches me to value each day and find that with faith you can not only survive but you can thrive. And thrive Nguvu does. You can smell joy in his pores – a fragrant offering holy and acceptable, completely without pretense and guile.  Almost immediately he practices his English, though we both know the real communication is shared just in his presence; for some reason, I matter enough to earn a run from school, which makes me happy.  The markers and paper come out and his first drawing is a colorful winged boy superhero standing outside a vibrant home, all under a color-filled rainbow.  Standing as proud as a first-published novelist, I take a picture.

Hours later, as dusk settles into dark, this son of my heart slowly rises, setting out for home. Not to the one in the bright vibrant picture, more a black and white 8×10, vacant of a mom and dad, filled with three little boys and an older sister, not much more than a girl herself, who alone works and cooks and washes.

As I watch him amble down the path, I marvel that this little superhero has left the rainbow over my house, which makes me very happy.

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

2011 Summer Pilgrimage: Intro Blog

On June 25^th, a group of 13 people from our church will journey to Kenya to experience a 14-day immersion into the struggles and the joys of our brothers and sisters there.  We invite you to share their journey here.  We pray that God will use this blog to encourage each of us to listen more closely for the human cries in our midst.

The Kenya pilgrimage team covets your prayers:  Jim Wood, Jim Gates, Shelly Anuskziewicz, Liza Baker, Alex Burrows, Ann Burrows; Morgan Burrows, Becky Lyle Pinkard, Laurie Leonard, Kristine Rand, Ruthie Rand, Eunice Whitehurst, and Winston Whitehurst.

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.

Smile – Jesus Loves You

Many of us have had the honor of going on home visits with the counselors from the Holy Family Center.  There was one patient that stood out to me while on the visits.  Her name was Susan and she was HIV (+). She is  a young single mother of three children ages 9, 4, & 2 1/2 months. Susan is raising her children alone in a small shack while performing odd jobs for people making less then $2 a day.

We spent about an hour with Susan discussing her children, medicines for her illness, and other psychosocial needs.  As we sat there, in my head I thought, how can I, a young 27-year-old woman from Virginia who has an abundance of resources, relate to this to this woman? What do we really have in common?

The session wrapped up and at the end, I asked Susan if I could pray with her. I grabbed her hand and we prayed together. After the prayer, she looked up at me with a big smile on her face, the first smile I had seen from her all day.  She then told me how much that meant to her and how important her faith was.

As she was talking it finally hit me, a little whisper from God,

“Shelly, you are just like this woman”.

Though I may not know the poverty, brokenness, or sickness, I hold the same hope inside of me that Susan holds. At that moment I was humbled. Though Susan didn’t have many possessions, she was overflowing with hope, displaying the joy and peace needed to trust in the Lord.  I thanked Susan for our time spent together and as we walked out, I couldn’t help but smile knowing how much Jesus loves us all.

by Shelly Anuszkiewicz, a visitor and friend of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.