Since I’ve started working at Suubi House in Uganda, I’ve been waiting to post. I was waiting for God to teach me something, that I would then process, write about, and neatly package into a well-written blog. I was waiting to be able to comprehend what God was doing here. Today I’ve realized that my idea of what God is going to do on the Race is not going to be something I can handle or even comprehend. It’s going to be messy. So here goes nothing:
A few weeks ago, I met Vanessa, a 10 year old girl with cerebral palsy. Her mom abandoned her and her three siblings a few months ago. She has a 16 year old sister, Joviah; a 11 year old sister, Sandra; and a 7 year old brother, Owen, who care for her. Together, the four of them live in a room approximately the size of a king bed. They eat almost exclusively maktooke, which is essentially boiled and mashed bananas. Because of that, and her difficulty feeding with her condition, Vanessa is severely malnourished. Most times, her siblings don’t have enough money to go to school, so they stay home with her. If they do find the money for school, Vanessa lays on the floor of their shack all day until her siblings get home. Recently, despite the fact that we feed her and care for her when she comes to Suubi House and give her family food, Vanessa is deteriorating and still losing weight.
Today, Vanessa’s siblings had gotten the money to buy books for school. When we heard that Vanessa was home alone, a couple of my teammates took a taxi to Vanessa’s home, and found her lying naked on the floor of her home, covered in her own feces. They brought her back to our house, bathed her, fed her, and bought her new clothes and diapers. We propped her up in a special wheelchair and brainstormed what we could do to help Vanessa long-term. We leave for Rwanda in 9 days.
There is no good solution. Uganda is a different place than America with different resources. In order to get her into a home for special needs kids, we would have to notify the police. If we notified the police of her condition, they would track down her mom and put her in jail. Her mom occasionally sends money from wherever she is, even though the kids’ aunt steals most of that. Then, if there were no openings for Vanessa in a home, she would be stuck in limbo, her family worse off than before. Sarah, who runs Suubi House, could take her in, but not only are there a slew of legal issues that can accompany a white person taking in a child without parental permission, but if her mom knew of this she would likely never return. We talked about getting Vanessa a caretaker while her siblings were at school, but because of the cultural perception of special needs children it would be extremely difficult to find a Ugandan willing to associate with her. On top of that, Vanessa’s malnourishment is so severe that in order for her to thrive she needs to be hospitalized and have professional, consistent, medical attention. But in Uganda, if someone is hospitalized, it is still the responsibility of the family to provide food and bathe the patient, so Joviah would have to quit school to take care of Vanessa in the hospital. Not to mention they wouldn’t be able to afford the medical bills.
I typed all of that up because as a missionary, Christian, American, and human being, it is my inclination to fix this. I came on the World Race to help people, not to witness their suffering and then leave. Today, as my team set around discussing these options, I felt so helpless. My team has a deep-seated desperation to help Vanessa, but our hands are virtually tied.
So here is my failure as a World Race blogger: This is not a story with resolution. I have not yet fixed someone. I have not changed the world. I haven’t revolutionized, revitalized, or restored anything. I’ve wiped some drool and cooked some rice and given some hugs. More than anything, I’ve realized one thing: I am not good enough, capable enough, or spiritually or emotionally mature enough to even wrap my mind around this, let alone fix this.
The world is a broken, broken place. Did you know that the amount I spend on a vanilla latte would feed Vanessa and her siblings for a week? As a Starbucks gold card member, I feel like a pretty awful person. But my guilt doesn’t even hold a candle to my desperate desire to help, and the crippling failure that I can’t figure out a solution.
I am left with only one thing: hope. Hope in a God who I know is bigger than all of this. Hope in a God who is good and can turn suffering into joy. Hope in a God who will still be in Uganda when we have moved on to the next country. Hope in a God with a plan. Hope in a God with a mighty hand, who works in mysterious ways, and who loves both me and Vanessa more that we could possibly imagine. We may be helpless, but we are not hopeless. Did I mention ‘suubi’ means hope?
—
Kinda embarrassing but mostly shameless plug:
To donate to Vanessa’s family or Suubi House go to: http://suubihouse.org/get-involved/
To support me on the World Race click on the “Support Me!” button above. Less than $2,000 to go!
