the fam

carla and benjamin...
mom and benjamin...
and 2 week old jillian....

Oil in Jugs

NRSV: 2 Kings 4, vs 1-7
Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.” He said, “Go outside borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not just a few. The go in, and shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside.” So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” But he said to her, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest.”

Current Socially Applied Version (CSAV)—2 Kings 4, vs 1-7
Now a woman who had just become a widow, losing her husband to AIDS, came to a pastor in a church and said, “Pastor, my husband is now dead. You know that my husband loved God and people with all his heart. You also know that I am a servant of God. You also know that I, too, have HIV. Now that my husband is dead many of the relatives and neighbors have come to my house and have stripped us of our possessions and are putting pressure on my family to move away so they can take the house we are staying in. Some have spoken their interest in taking my two children to become their hired workers or slaves. Some have even demanded that I should give them my young daughter in marriage. I am even afraid that my daughter will be raped or become a prostitute people say it is the only means to make a little money without a good education and no jobs in sight. Right now we are so poor we can’t even buy food. Every day and night I worry about the safety of my children. My landlord is also threatening to evict me because I have not been able to pay rent since my husband’s death. What shall I do?” The pastor said to her “What can I do for you? Tell me what do you have in your house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house, and no food, except a small jug of cooking oil. But I don’t even have a few pieces of charcoal to cook with.” He said, “Go outside and borrow empty containers from all your neighbors, and not just a few. Then go in, and shut the curtain behind you and your children, and start pouring into all the containers; when each is full, set it aside.” So she left him and gathered all kinds of containers—discarded coke bottles, old cans of tea or coffee, broken plastic jugs and anything else she could find. She then shut the shabby curtain in her two roomed house made of sticks and dry cracked mud. Her children would pass her containers under the curtain and she began to pour. When the containers were full she said to her son, “Bring me another container.” And he said, “There are no more.” Then the cooking oil stopped flowing. She then came and told the pastor and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live off the rest.


Last week when we were pouring cooking oil into plastic jugs at the Kikuyu Dispensary to be distributed I remembered this story (actually have a distinct memory of my mom telling this story when she was teaching or preaching at a camp when I was 8 or 9). And then after hearing about the situations and some stories from some women we visited this week, I created a similar story and version. Here are some thoughts on it that I am chewing on, would welcome any feedback; I think there are some important elements: God’s provision, idea of self-sustaining projects, trusting person in action, and an assisting vehicle/person of direction, guidance, help.

This is the message of hope we can know and experience:
1) The provision and power of God happens in every day life and needs. Miracles of healing and provision do occur.
2) The prophet encourages God intervening-self-sustaining income generation projects so that the needs of her family can be met: all their debts are paid, and they can make enough profit so that they can live off the business.
3) The oil stops flowing after all the needs and a bit more were met. God meets the need and filled to the degree of trust or faith (the amount of containers she collected). Although God remains faithful even when we are faithless for he can't disown himself. 4) The prophet of God provides assistance, direction, and guidance: But the person in need takes action, trusting the instruction, showing faith, and God intervenes and provides.
5) Although the woman has very little, she has something which she can offer (some capital—a little oil) which becomes abundance and enables self-sufficiency. It doesn’t matter what you have, God can use it.
6) Even in exile of sin, injustice and economic bondage—God provides, openening up new doors or sometimes in ways we dont expect. In times of drought, God can bring sustenance. In times of disease and suffering, God brings healing.

Saturday, October 8, 2005
A woman came to our house today who knows my housemate Jane. She was asking for help because she has no money and is finding little work. Her name was Rose Joan, and I told her those were important family names in my family…Joan is my grandma, and Rose was my great-grandma, and I was named after great grandma Rose, and great-grandpa John: therefore Johanna Rose (and my mom and dad just liked those names)…

Joan lost her husband to HIV last year and has three children. She is not positive because they had separated before he became infected. Now they are living with her parents because she needs help. They have little food, but her parents are helping to send the kids so school (secondary). So she was asking if there was any way we could help her. I am going to talk to the pastor today. We might be able to give her some food each month from the church. She is strong and healthy, and makes most money washing clothes if she finds people to wash for. So since we were about to wash our clothes this morning we had tea with her and then gave her some money to wash our clothes. She was overjoyed. At first she wouldn’t take any tea knowing that her children didn’t have any food, even yesterday, but when we told her we would pay her to wash today she was happy to take tea because she could go and buy food today. I hope we can help her find more means of employment.

Thursday, October 6, 2005
“Ruth” came in today, after receiving the news this morning, she was devastated. She had been crying a lot Mrs. K told me when she heard the news from her at the hospital. She came to the church so that she could be counseled some more. She had said that her husband had mistreated her. Her husband passed away last year I believe, and she said people had come and taken things from her house after he died so they were left with nothing.

I think although she may have suspected she was positive, it came as a huge shock. The reality of the impact on ones state is hard to grasp. So we are assisting her with some testing, and medication fund, and a bit of rent money. But she needs prayer. She does not want to tell her mother because she is afraid it would add to her own anxiety, because her mother would be so worried and devastated if she found out. They are so poor right now and struggling to find work even just to pay rent.

Visit to Regisla’s project…
I finally went to visit Regisla’s project today. She is one of my Swahili teachers. She assists 6 widows and 6 orphans from AIDS. She trains them in tailoring so that they will be able to sell clothes and make money. She as well had some sad stories about the women. The 6 orphans are the heads of their household now, and are struggling to buy food. Some have even prostituted themselves to get money to feed their siblings, or some were raped and given nothing. It’s just horrible. But now many of them have a place they can come and learn some skills and also be with people who love them, and hear the word of God.

Provided Regisla’s project gets more funding, they hope to increase their tailoring training and generate enough to live on. Regisla is amazing. She is a devoted Roman Catholic committed to helping orphans and widows. She has been trying to build this building in her backyard to house some of the orphans and create a training center so that others will come and pay for training (increasing her funds) and then she will train the other orphans and widows for free. She is inspiring, and we hope that we can figure out a way that the church ministry can support her ministry in the future…

Kikuyu Dispensary

Saturday October 1, 2005
Group meeting at the Kikuyu Dispensary...
Mrs K and I went on Friday to pick up someone who would hopefully take us to visit 10 families/people living with HIV. We had prepared all that we could from our food supply—about 6 bags of rice, beans, ugali and cooking oil. I finally found some 1 L containers at the market that morning. When we arrived at the dispensary though we were told that most of the people with HIV were coming to meet the following morning and to pick up some food donated by the government (which comes every 3-6 months); when we arrived we went to the office which had the food stored there. There was only enough for 10 people (of two items-ugali and sugar). So we decided to go to the market and use some of our funds to supply what would be needed to give the 25 people with HIV some more adequate food for the following day. This turned out to be the group Manese had met with a week back and discussed how we could work together, help each other. This was the group whose chairperson committed suicide this summer out of despair—(I wrote about this in a previous blog).

In the car Mrs. K and another teacher talked about the situation of one of their friends. There is a girl who is being taken care of by her aunt because her parents died (from HIV-AIDS) and she is now in Standard 7 (age 13)—the last year of primary school before Secondary school (Form 1-6). She is very bright and her teachers want her to pursue secondary school. The problem is, she has HIV and they don’t want to tell her because they are afraid of her reaction and that she might commit suicide----but they are afraid if they don’t tell her and she goes to secondary school, there is a chance she could spread the virus especially if she doesn’t even know she is a carrier. So they are in a very difficult position. What if I was 13 years old and one day my aunt told me that I had HIV? What would I do? They asked me my advice and I told them they should inform the girl. One woman thought no way, it’s too difficult.

Somehow though, they will need to tell her…from a loving, trusting person, who can convey the support and care that they will continue to give her, and counseling to help her know how to take care of herself. The time has to come eventually, and I think it is always going to be difficult to tell the girl. I can’t imagine what I would be thinking if that’s what I was told tomorrow…some of these situations are way too difficult.

Today, Saturday, we went to Kikuyu area to meet with some people in the community who are living with HIV/AIDS or are taking care of orphans. They are a group that came into existence two years ago. Their aim is to help and support each other. All members except for a few are HIV positive. Their total number is about 25. They decided to meet together to try and figure out how they may assist each other and solve some of their problems. Every month they contribute 400 shillings for a fund to pay for the things that they need. (that’s 40 cents each---that’s under 5000 shillings-5 bucks). They are trying to contact donors but haven’t really been connected yet. They receive some money from the government (and some food). The group is trying to encourage those they know to be tested for HIV so that they can be treated if necessary.

One of the main problems that they talked about was the inability to get food. For many people this was an even greater struggle as they were taking care of AIDS orphans (an old grandmother who came is taking care of 6 children). If people can’t get food and eat, then they can’t pay school fees for their children or orphans, and the children remain at home. Although primary school is free---there are always things that need payment—clothes-uniform, shoes, exercise books, other school fees—etc.

They stated that when they receive food, they are able to send their kids to school—they do not have to worry as much about making ends meet. It’s very important that when one is infected with HIV they need a good diet to help them fight off health problems. When they have little food and their children can’t go to school, they said some people express how they would rather die than go through the despair and humiliation of their situation---they themselves and their families can suffer from severe psychological problems because of the weight of their difficulties…

So now this group is looking for ways to be trained in becoming more self-sufficient, hoping to start some projects (chickens and cows) so that they can increase their funds, and have a more balanced diet, and their children can go to school. Now they are looking for donors to help them start these projects….

Another important comment they made was that they also needed assistance and help in having enough money for medical testing and checkups, including CD4 tests.

This community group in Kikuyu also talked about the stigma that many of them face. It was harder to find work for example if it was discovered that one had HIV. It’s very very difficult to be open at times because of the reactions from others that those suffering will face. That’s why people are silent, that’s why people deny it, that’s why people don’t always want to be tested: ignorance seems better; and if the church, or anyone else condemns you then you are bound to feel even more rejected and isolated. There were a few people who seemed uncomfortable with us newcomers being there. (Both pastors accompanied us, as well as one of our counselors, and a friend of Mrs. K). They are afraid it will attract unwanted stigma or attention to them.

We told them that we can’t solve all the problems, but we can try to support and partner with them in the future to help with some of their needs---particularly in providing food relief, and hopefully some educational assistance (creating some kind of orphan fund). I am really interested in their ideas for community projects. It’s a great idea and I would like to see how it could work and be used elsewhere. People are amazing here in their amount of resilience to find ways to solve their problems and help each other. We told them that although we cant do everything, we wanted to give the food to encourage them and make sure they know that there are people out there who want to support them, pray for them, and give what we can. Many of them expressed deep thanks, and that they were very very happy we came to give and to state our support. One woman stated that she was a widow, and HIV positive. She had come to know her situation after her husband died in 2003, 4 years after he had come to know he was positive. But she said she needed encouragement and was happy to see us to know people care. She said, “I have hope. I have hope to face the reality, and hope in God to go far.”

Housemates…
I found out today that the parents of one of the beautiful girls who stays with us died from AIDS. She is just two years younger than me, 21 years of age. She is a gorgeous and smart girl (she teaches nursery school at the church) and came to stay here with her aunt’s family after her parents died... She has never talked about it yet, I found out she was an orphan (as of a year and a half ago) in some other conversations with people. Story of the sheets.

I heard a story the other day from Zambia, about a man with HIV who received a bag of items to help him take care of himself: soap, vitamins, food, a pair of sheets…he decided to save the sheets so that he could be buried in clean sheets when he died. People are buried, wrapped in sheets when they die, so sheets are a valuable item. Some people are even dug up out of the ground in order to steal sheets because some people cannot afford to buy them. So instead of using the sheets, he decided to save them until he died.

At home...
A friend Joyce came over last night….She is wild and crazy... She works at a youth project here for HIV AIDS awareness. She told me that really, I need to marry a Tanzanian man because she thought I fit in here and in her own words, I’ve got the “woman mantles”—that means the full Bantu butt, thighs, legs, a “neck like a giraffe?”, dancing rhythm, and I move/walk like a chameleon…she said some other stuff I can’t remember but the butt comment topped the list in my memory flow chart…should I be flattered?

Rats...
We have had quite the adventure of killing the rats that live in our house the last couple days. After too much banging and crashing of pots in the kitchen like a discotheque we decided that we “got to do something about that duck.” So we added some poison to some nicely laid out rice on the floor which has caused many rats to be found dead on the floor every morning. Oh what a beautiful morning. Now we can smell a dead one but can’t find it darnit.

(for those who have ears to hear, from Cairo days remember ‘dis:
“dance to the beat of the rhythm of the Nile, Egyptians dance to the rhythm of the Nile, dance to the dance to the dance to the beat, mystical, magical….. let’s dance....)

Art Website

There is an update on the trip to Uganda (Amazing Grace Orphanage) and some poems I wrote on the trip. "Madame, Looking is free..."

www.publicpixel.com/jo

Ipagala

Wednesday, October 5, 2005
John Mwita, Mrs K and I went to Ipagala today to visit 6 families and bring some food. We first went to visit Amina to see how she was doing. She had a bad reaction (dizziness) to her first injection last week, but yesterday because she had eaten something beforehand, it was not as bad. But her first dizzy reaction caused her to fall down and cut herself, so she showed us the sores on her legs. She mentioned that she was not having a good appetite so asked if we had multi-vitamins (MV’s would be good to give if we can figure out a good way to access them. Then we visited a woman named Jeni who may have a type of epilepsy. She needs to be checked out more in hospital.

Then we went to see another woman (I will name her Ruth) who came in this week because she wanted some help in going to the hospital. She was diagnosed with luke-worm and received some medicine for that. But her results came in yesterday where she was seen by Mrs. K and she is HIV positive. We didn’t tell her today when we visited because her mother was present in her house during the visit---and according to Ruth, her mothers knowledge of her state would increase the difficulties. Her mother has lost three other children to HIV. Three siblings of “Ruth” have died from HIV/AIDS. And Ruth has two children she is taking care of: Standard 3 and 5. I don’t know what they were surviving on because it seemed like they had no or very little food. A friend was visiting when we popped in and when she saw that we brought food, she asked if we could help her. She is taking care of two orphans. Unfortunately we have limited resources now, so couldn’t give her anything, but perhaps in the future it would be possible to help. “Ruth” and her mother have such beautiful, gentle faces. I don’t know how she will take the news, I don’t know if she has suspected or not…

We were wondering what could happen if Ruth got really sick, who would take care of her mother, children? Now they just barely pay their rent of 5000 shillings/month—5 bucks. She hasn’t even been able to pay her last months rent. She collects and sells firewood. That is the only way she makes her living. Ruth moved to Dodoma from the village after her husband died. And she plans to stay here till her daughters finish school because transfer fees can be expensive. When Ruth became sick, her mother came to take care of her and is now staying with her.

Another woman named Esther we visited did not seem to really want to go to the hospital to get a checkup, even though she explained that she had diarrhea for two months. She has 4 daughters who have finished standard 7. She also said she didn’t have the money for tests and an examination and that’s why she hasn’t gone in. Mrs. K explained to her that one can write a letter to the ten house cell leader (local politician) who should provide a letter for exemption if they are too poor to pay for expenses like medical bills. If they go to some clinics too, they can get an exemption. So it seems

Another woman we visited named Mary can’t work very hard any more, carrying heavy loads increases the pains in her chest. She just finished some anti-TB treatment but is still suffering from chest pains. I noticed the scars on the arms of some of the women today left over from sores. So Mary also needs to go to the hospital with Happiness, who is still experiencing a lot of health problems (although her feet that were swollen previously and were more normal today). But they also didn’t think they had the money to go to the hospital and pay for medicine. Again, supposedly they should be able to get a letter from a ten cell house leader and they should be exempted. But it seems like they don’t know how to follow through with the process. *something we should do is make sure any counselors know the process so they can inform those who need help* Their mother who they were living with is exempted from paying taxes because she is a widow and doesn’t have money.

And now I am just pondering. Wondering what many of the women we met with today are feeling and experiencing deep down in their heart. They couldn’t hide some of the pain and anxiety written over their faces and spilled out thanks. For some women, especially bound in poverty and feelings of hopelessness, I wonder how if the thought crosses their mind suggesting that maybe it won’t be so bad if they die from HIV. Maybe some feel like there is nothing really to live for. Maybe some feel idle and useless because they are unable to work at times. I just wonder, remembering the times they talked and listened as their eyes looked far off and at moments seemed very distant, staring at some huge object rolling towards them, the weight of the future, threatening to take away their arms and souls from their children playing with the stools in the corner of the room, laughing and smiling...and I wondered, does it take too much energy to care about what will happen to them, and to be afraid, to really take in and digest the pain and suffering of their circumstances and most likely the suffering of their children? Or less if they just let it go and live as best they can without receiving extra help or trying....
This is why people need to feel supported, loved and encouraged. So they don’t feel this burden alone. So that they don’t feel apathetic (even if they have the right because no one is caring for them). They need to know they can live a good life even with HIV. That they can experience life and joy despite the harsh reality. That they can feel empowered to live strong and love strong. That they are supported spiritually and materially...only God can hear the inner groanings....only the power, spirit and love of God can break in and heal...

The last person that we saw today was a woman named Vase who had three children (Louie, Kristina and Jacqueline). Her husband died in 2002. She said she suffered a lot from malaria, foot sores and coughing. But each week she is able to be checked at General Hospital by a Jewish doctor who is a chest consultant. She has good medecine but still loses her voice and throat gets very dry. Her daughter Kristina is sponsored by a compassion project at Kanisa la Mungu. God Bless Compassion, I have such a respect for that organization. She gets some food each month from Compassion—but they are the only other help that she receives.In the project at our church Kanisa La Mennonite, they make sure to take care of the parents to make sure they are checked and tested for HIV and have medicine and health care if they are positive (so it’s the parents not just the children who are benefiting). She had no business at the moment since she was too sick to work. She sells tomatoes. She has been really sick the last four months and has been waiting to get strong. She tested positive for HIV and so is on some medication to help

Mrs K and I discussed creating self-sustaining income generating projects for people/families struggling with HIV. That I think may become an important, critical part of the program to maintain its support to increase availability of funds for health, educational and domestic needs.

I had dinner with a woman named Flora tonight. I was late this afternoon for lunch at her house so met her at the Wednesday service and went to her house afterwards. She had prepared some special food for me, and I just felt very touched and blessed by the visit. I am just blown away by the kindness and love people show here.