Torn (Cognitive Dissonance)

Storm at sea
torn with so many uncertainties
ravaged by confusing loyalties
battling to find some solid ground
between action and reaction
between compassion and creation of dependency
between help and hindrance
between rationalization and reality

I'm in a raging sea
and as the rain pours
this cognitive dissonance
feels like it could be drowning me


There's a struggle that happens, probably in some ways for many people who work in situations like we do. There's that dissonance caused by the gulf between 'my life' and the lives of those we seek to help and all the questions that that disparity raises when the divide confronts one daily. Here Jesus' words, "The poor you will always have with you" really fit. There will be no end to the situations where we can be involved in people's lives here, and that is rewarding, but very challenging. The dilemma is, to do the 'right' thing or just to do and not worry about it so much. I'm really stuck with the idea that I don't want to create dependency or something not sustainable, yet often times this may be an obstacle to just doing...

For instance, just tonight we had a call from one of the Mustard Seed (Benno's organization) girls. It is pouring rain out and the house that she and her three siblings are living in is not fit for habitation in the best weather--certainly not in the rain. They were 'farmed out' to various families in the village but those families were getting exhausted and sent them back home as soon as the weather improved a bit...but then it's started raining again.

This gal is only 17, and she's just a toughy--but then she really doesn't have a choice, does she? And she is just sweet. Whenever we have done any small thing to help, her response is always, "God bless you".

So tonight she phones in desperation because they simply cannot stay in this mud puddle called a house. What do we do? Do we invite them to stay with us? How does that make sense? We are far away from their schools? How long would it be for? How does this fit with the 'not creating dependency/creating something sustainable' scenario? Am I crazy to even ask that? Shouldn't I just DO IT? Am I just rationalizing to maintain my own little comfort zone? Do I have a right to a comfort zone? What GIVES me the right to a comfort zone? Dear God, it is all so confusing...

But if I just reacted every time someone was in desperate need here--even just our friends and people we are trying to help, well I'd have had every one of them living with us! Yet I feel so guilty. We have so much compared to what most of these particular people have. How can we NOT invite them? I mean, it's not that I'm being selfish or heartless, I don't think... We DO already have a person living with us, helping her out... But, again, am I just rationalizing to maintain my comfort zone?

It's a HUGE dilemma and we really need wisdom in this... Part of me just wants to go and take this family of orphans and wrap them in my arms and give them warm clothing and blankets and food and love and a home ... and part of me just wants to run away, overwhelmed with the responsibilities that all of that would entail--in the long run. Did I already say, it's a huge dilemma...I REALLY NEED WISDOM IN THIS.

Anyway, what Benno did was to phone another family that we are helping, that live close by her place and he asked them if they could help out by taking the family in for a couple of days until a better solution is reached. Craziness in its own way. This family already has six people in it and another toddler they are caring for, and they are very poor--another orphan family--and their resources are limited and their home is small. This will be adding at least three more people to their situation, for a couple of days... If they can do it, why can't we?

Then there's me--just me, not Benno--torn again between this world and the world I face each day at school. Sure, I have some students who have very difficult circumstances, but not many and none as severe. They at least have hope of getting a good education and making a difference for their families. But MOST of my students are from the wealthy families of the country, and each day I see them--just like in North America--consume. Have. Not need. Not even really understand the needs right around them in their own communities. Somehow this just makes it even more crazy. Somehow it's easier to deal with the disparity when it is 'a world apart issue' but when the severe poverty and need is juxtaposed with the affluence we and most of my students enjoy it just makes it crazier.

It's like here, seeing someone wheeling a wheelbarrow to transport goods, or carrying a huge pail of water on the head and seeing a BMW drive alongside on the road...

...or driving along Pioneer Road here and seeing on one side of the road the big new American- type mall and directly across the street seeing the shabby market stalls. I really DO need to get a picture of this. The disparity is quite astonishing!

Goodbye...for a while, dear Melissa

This morning we wake up and Benno reads the emails...Melissa is in the hospital...

We chat with Linda on Skype and wait, and reflect...

We go to church, and reflect...

As a congregation, we are standing and singing.

Pastor David has spontaneously begun to sing a worship song...

Oh oh oh oh... here we stand,

arms open wide;

I am yours, and you are mine ...

I immediately have a picture of Melissa, standing before her savior, arms stretched out, as His are stretched to her... Arms open wide--as He is receiving her into His presence, His arms open wide, where she can finally rest from this so arduous journey, from all the sadness, all the loss, all the physical and emotional pain that she has endured--all the mental confusion; and as His arms enfold her, she can finally be at peace.

To Melissa (on your leaving)

Together we have all traveled with you

on your path of pain

This arduous journey now closing

The path so long and difficult

Together through all the rough and rocky places

we have held each other up

each in our own way

some close by,

hands holding

lifting each other up

feeling love’s burden so heavily

directly upon them

but carrying it

and we, so far away feeling the pain

in a different way

but knowing that God hears all the same

And now we all come to this place

standing at the very edge of eternity

with you

as you wait to be released

into this other reality

at this place

where our paths now diverge

from yours

for a time

we know, at this place,

it is the time to let you go

to say our farewells

for a time …

For we know that when

this earthly tent

we live in is taken down

we will have a house in heaven,

an eternal body made for us

by God himself…

Corinthians 15:1-2

Wendy

12:50 p.m. our time we hear that Benno's 22 year old niece, Melissa, has passed on, six years after being diagnosed with cancer. We mourn, but not like those who have no hope...

Pathos

Over April 01-04 we held a successful workshop for our Mustard Seed girls. It was a wonderful four days for the girls. They really took in the teaching about self worth, God’s desire for good in their lives, and making wise choices. Additionally they laughed and played together and ate until their little tummies squeaked. But, … but for me and a couple of them the weekend was framed in pathos.

As Wendy had noted in a previous entry, one of our Mustard Seed girls arrived at our house after her school day on March 31. She was worried, anxious. Her grandmother, her caregiver, had been admitted to hospital the day previously.

She had visited the grandmother the following morning, the 31^st, to find her grandmother unresponsive. Now it was past visiting hours, and she was worried about her grandmother. What could she do? All hope would be lost for her family she said, if something happened to her grandmother.

We made a plan. We would go to the hospital, visit the ward despite it not being visiting hours, and ask for an update.

Semi-private, or even Canadian style ‘ward’ care does not exist at the Queen 2 hospital in Maseru. A ‘ward’ is a long narrow room, beds lining each wall, and stretching away to a distant end wall. My best reckoning was that there was a least fifteen beds lined up on each side with a narrow space to walk between the two rows. All the beds were filled, and here and there between the beds was a foam mattress on the floor with yet another patient lying on it. We need not have worried about visiting hours because there seemed to be many visitors. Mapulane, the girl, led me about a quarter of the way down the aisle to where her grandmother lay, on her side, covered with a blanket, on a foam mattress, on the floor. Unstirring, untended, uncared for, alone, silent.

We went back to the desk and asked the nurse if she might provide us an update. She found the grandmother’s chart, left us, made her way down the same narrow aisle, checked the patient and returned. The nurse then invited us into a small consultation room where she spoke briefly to Mapulane and then sent her to phone her older brother. She then turned to me, and simply and quietly said the grandmother was ‘late’. She added that the chart indicated that a couple of hours prior the grandmother had been breathing. She had sent Mapulane to call her brother and when they returned she would advise them together.

Thirty or forty minutes later the brother arrived. Together we made our way back to the ward. The nurse was occupied for a further ten to fifteen minutes before being able to speak to the brother and sister. The grandmother’s body continued to lie on the mattress on the floor. The patients in the beds on either side had visitors. They carried on with their conversations. It was dinner time. Patients were being served. They ate. They chatted. A dead body lay on the floor. A brother and sister, no parents and now no caregiver, grieved.

Then, on the day after the workshop I had reason to visit one of the other girls at her ‘home’. Her home, at its best, is an old, run down and decrepit building with an earthen floor. The family had been chased from it earlier this year by heavy rain, but had been able to return when it had dried up. But now … , now the local water authority has a broken water line just above the house. The leaking water has turned the yard into a swamp. The house, its earthen floor covered in 6 inches of water, is again totally uninhabitable. So what is 'home' for this just turned 17 year old young woman with three younger siblings?

'Home' is one neighbor offering a small building where she can cook and keep what little food the family has. Another neighbor offers a place on the floor come bedtime, where she and her siblings sleep. During the day, when not in school, she and her siblings hang about, essentially homeless. And where are her relatives?

The local chief is holding them at bay. Their desire is simply to grab the land and house, such as it is, kick the children out, and make it their own. So the girl is afraid to leave her ‘home’ lest she have nothing to ever come back to. And the water authority?? Neighbors, the local chief, others, have repeatedly contacted the water authority to fix the leak and the repeated response is, “Tomorrow. We will be there tomorrow,” but tomorrow has yet to come.

I stood by this frail young girl. I would go home to my warm comfortable house, to hot water, to food in the fridge, and she, what did she have to look forward to. I cannot imagine the burden she carries. She stoically confirmed how difficult it is, especially the responsibility for her younger sibling. Her hope, what keeps despair from overwhelming her? “I have to trust in God,” she said. And then SHE blessed me. “God bless you,” she said, for my concern and for the few shekels I had given her. In her desperate need she remains grateful, grateful for her neighbors’ support and what little they are able to provide, grateful for the little that we at the Mustard Seed have provided, grateful that a white ‘stranger’ would visit.

My God, why? Why such disparity in our world? Why such pain and suffering for innocent children? Why?

Maybe I cannot answer why, but what I do know is that the wonderful Basotho I work with at the Mustard Seed will 'make a plan" and we will find a way to do something to foster hope from the pathos in these young lives.

~ Benno ~

Buns and bribery

Ever done something you THOUGHT was good, only to find you were totally misunderstood?

Well, this is an old story, but one I’d like to share, just to give balance to the last entry. See, that’s the thing here. Life just goes on. We see and feel the tragedies and also the joys. We weep with those who weep and laugh with those who have cause for happiness. We celebrate life in ALL of its fullness—each aspect…

Coming back from Raphalane’s village a while back we were stopped at road construction. It was a hot day…

I’ve just pulled out some fresh buns I’d made and am enjoying the taste... Hmm. That poor flag fellow, out there in the hot sun. He’s probably hungry. Why don’t I offer him a bun?

Without hesitating I jump out of the truck and head over, hands outstretched with my offering.

He begins to speak—fast—in Sesotho. All I can get is that, no, we can’t get through on the road. There is traffic coming from the other direction, and, no, he does not seem to want a bun.

Well, I’m feeling abashed and slightly affronted. I make good buns! But, hey…whatever. I raise my eyebrows, shrug my shoulders and head back to the truck, head down and shaking side to side, bewildered.

When I get back to the truck, a young man from the vehicle waiting behind us grins and says he’ll take a bun. I give him one…

Back in the truck, I express my surprise and effrontery. Rap’s sister, ‘M’e Seabi and Benno just listen. Benno begins to chuckle and shake his head. ‘M’e Seabi is too gracious. Then Benno fills me in...in one of those 'Really, how could you be that naive tones'. The gist of his comments:

“Do you realize you just offered the guy a bribe and that is why he refused?”

Me: “What? No. Seriously!”

Oh, seriously! So much for good hearted me and my BEST intentions! Talk about being totally misunderstood. Just goes to show how operating in a different cultural context can cause lots of…interesting…experiences!

Passages

Just last evening as we were sitting and visiting a guest from Jo'burg (who is here to do a four-day workshop on Self-esteem with Benno's Mustard Seed gals) one of the gals, Mapulane, came by.

It was surprising to see her, and I'd only just met her once before. She's a new member of the group. Very soon after her arrival last night, we discovered that she was deeply--deeply--concerned. Her grandmother, the sole adult support for this orphaned family of three siblings, had entered the hospital the evening before. Yesterday morning when Mapulane stopped in to see her, the grandma was unresponsive... Mapulane had gone on to her day of school, but dropped by our home afterwards, concerned. What could we do?

The short of it is that I suggested even if visiting hours were over, that Benno take her to the hospital and just talk to someone there about her concern, to find out what her grandmother’s condition was. Me, being the optimist, figured she was just being an overly concerned young gal, and that she would hear more reassuring news if she dropped by QII.

So, this they did, and her concern was--obviously--very valid. Upon arrival, Benno discovered that her grandmother had died. There she was laying on the hospital floor, on a foam mat, no sheet even, and all around her the 'everyday' carrying on. No one seemed to have even realized (or cared) that she had died. There were patients all around, eating, visiting... and there she was. What a lonely way to die.

So, here is Mapulane, her twenty-one year old unemployed and undereducated brother, and an eleven-year-old sister. What will they do? I have no idea. How will they even deal with funeral arrangements? I have no idea. I am somewhat comforted to have our good friend ‘M’e Lerato who is increasingly becoming the ‘mom’ and social worker figure at Mustard Seed who will meet with Mapulane this morning and no doubt help to ‘make a plan’…

Dreams

Recently a woman from America was here in Lesotho, her second visit. She was speaking at our church.

Sometime in 2008 she awoke from a dream, a dream that she remembered in vivid detail. In her dream a word she had never seen or read before appeared in the sky. It read, "L-E-S-O-T-H-O". In her dream there was also an African woman, with many children, who called to the American woman to come over and help them.

The American woman’s claim is that she is just a pastor’s wife. Yes, she was active in her church, but always as a support to her husband and to others. Then she has a vivid dream that she cannot get out of her thoughts. She decides to google “L-E-S-O-T-H-O” and learns that it is a small land locked country in Southern Africa. The burden of the dream remains. “What should I do?”, she asks. Her husband, it seems, was busy with his ministry as his tongue in cheek reply to her question was, “I wouldn’t have googled “L-E-S-O-T-H-O”.

But her burden wouldn’t go away and through her network of contacts and friends she ended up visiting Lesotho in early 2009. She returned home still not clear about what she was to do, but she did organize a fund-raiser, for Beautiful Gate in fact. Now, through a number of further coincidental contacts, this middle aged American woman with a mid-western drawl, black dyed hair, pasty white skin, and looking totally out of place, was back in Lesotho and speaking at our church. She noted she still didn’t know what she was supposed to do, that she didn’t have a lot of skills other than she had the “gift of the gab”, and that she knew quite a few people. If nothing else, she hoped to be an encouragement. She then said a couple of things that were very relevant to where I am at the moment.

The little organization I am part of, the Mustard Seed, is still waiting on God to provide a place, a location. We are doing what we can out of our house but it is limiting. The woman talked about Gideon (Judges 6) and God finding him hiding out in a wine pit, fairly limiting for what he was doing. The words the woman emphasized from the story were God’s words to Gideon, “Go in the strength you have. … Am I not sending you. … I will be with you.” The message to me was to not worry about what I don’t have, but to act, to move forward with what I do have, it is God who has sent me, and will go with me. The next words she said were right out of the heading to our blog. She said those who have a dream follow Jesus one step at a time.

How does God work? It is a mystery. A woman has a dream. It leads her to Africa and to a church where I am sitting. She doesn’t know what she is supposed to do in Lesotho, though she wants to encourage those with a dream or vision to continue following their dream, one step at a time. Coincidence? I don’t know, and I don’t particularly feel like someone with a dream, but in the week following that service I met two smiling faces, two young girls who talked with excitement about being in school, two of the new girls that the Mustard Seed is helping.

.

The two smiling faces ...

One step at a time.

~ Benno ~

Why?

A few weeks back I was reminded of ‘why’? Why am I here in Lesotho? Why am I doing what I am, muddling along, trying to contribute to a little effort (the Mustard Seed) to make things better for girl orphans here in Lesotho? ... Why?

One of the young women our little effort supports happened to drop by. Two years ago she was pregnant, had had to quite school as a result, was discouraged and had withdrawn from those around her. This day, two years later, she showed up, unannounced, in her bright red school sweater.

We talked about how school was going for her. She talked about what she was doing, and then she talked about her dreams. With a grin and a bright smile she said she hoped to become a nurse. She has a dream. And that is so much what we are about, why I am here, to offer hope, encouragement, and opportunity – to give girls a chance to dream of a future.

But she has more than a dream, she has a plan, and what she was particularly wanting this day was to know whether the Mustard Seed had yet been able to organize tutoring opportunities. She knows what she needs and wants to help her pursue her dream.

Her dream, her plan, her infectious smile and enthusiasm; they remind me 'why'.

~ Benno ~