A Visit to the Pearl of Africa

Before we left, there were tears, fear and anxiety.

 

It wasn’t that we wanted to turn back and not go- no, it wasn’t like that. But the voices were so loud, they crowded out the seedlings of faith, trust and hope, threatening to choke them out. Before we left, there was an unspoken tension between us, even as we packed clothes, medication, and books into our luggage. This would be an exploratory trip as a stepping stone to our serving longer term, at least a year, from later this year in a country so different from where we each had grown up in.

 

What if we hated the place? What if the local people didn’t like us? What if all our planning in taking no-pay leave and getting new tenants for our place and turning down job offers in preparation for missions all went to waste? What if we couldn’t pick up the local language? What if, like people cautioned, we were eyed as targets for theft and robbery all the time?

 

In the quiet of the night in Singapore, we would sometimes toss and turn in bed, only to find each other still awake, too, asking the other, “Are you scared?”

 

God’s grace kept those seedlings alive.

 

 

Because there, in the early morning quietness in Uganda, which they affectionately call the Pearl of Africa, where we awoke each morning to watch the sunrise peek humbly over the languid waters of Lake Victoria, against the backdrop of a magnificent sky of billowing clouds, with more than fifteen different kinds of birds singing their own songs while feeding by the shore, we were overwhelmed in His embrace of peace.

 

 

There, in that pure solitude, where there was just the two of us overlooking a clear horizon, we felt, strangely, at home. 

 

 

Every fear, every tension and every doubt left us. No one could tell us we were being fool-hardy. No one could respond to me in a tone that suggested I was doing my husband, who has had a liver transplant before, a disservice in health by allowing him to go to Africa, a land whose healthcare system might be a maze to wade through. No one could put the burdensome weight of lost status, lost prestige and lost wealth upon us.

 

There, just watching the lake teeming with activity, unjudged, untold and unassuming, our hearts pulsed into life.

 

There, we felt free, and alive. 

 

 

We were at the centre of God’s will and we knew it.

 

The eleven days passed by, slowly and yet all too quickly. But they were enough to grow our seedlings of faith and hope into something bigger, something which could take root and stand against the harsh winds of condescension and isolation which we sometimes felt on unexpected occasions. The waters of the lake soothed our battered souls, after long days of visiting widows, preaching, teaching and ministering at the different primary schools, bible school, churches and villages. There, in the pearl of Africa, we felt at peace.

 

It was not always quiet of course- there is never a dull moment in Africa. Children’s faces glowing with the most radiant smiles, little bellies bulging with remorseless parasites, village people waving gleefully at us “mzungus” ( a term used to describe foreigners – literally, it also means “an aimless wanderer”, which isn’t too inaccurate), elderly widows forgotten in cramped shacks…

 

Schoolchildren waving madly at my husband, Cliff, at the sight of  foreign visitors

 

… These images shutter past the sensations of a scorching African sun, the cool breeze blowing over Lake Victoria, the dust and smoke from unforgiving dirt roads, the relief of cold bottled water finding its way down a parched throat. And this kinaesthetic drama somehow mixes itself into a warm meal, a plate of tasteless steamed bananas, kicked to life by salty bean stew boiled with juicy meat, mashed with a side of thirty-cent avocados the size of a football and guzzled down with a comforting groundnut stew cooked with fresh tilapia, over polite, measured conversation, which the Ugandans are so used to, amidst the rattle of a half-naked baby crying in the background, or a belligerent driver yelling at another on the road.

 

Uganda is full of sights and sounds and tastes. In the evening, when all the activity of the day dies down to a quiet ebb and flow of the lake’s waves, nightfall comes, with its host of unending stars and fireflies and mayflies, all giggling to life in the dark night. 

 

There, we visited the elderly widows with bags of bread and sugar. Under the scalding sun, were tiny lonely wooden tin shacks roasting like ovens, with undiscovered old men or ladies huddled alone in their abodes, which were either filled with the stench of urine or the choking smell of burning cinder. They were elated to have company. One elderly lady in her nineties was so delighted to have visitors, that she hugged Cliff tightly, barely before he even crouched through her door, and started jumping for joy. For a bag of salt, sugar, bread and a cake of soap, she burst forth unspeakable joy and unimaginable hospitality, in a dark house with nobody else.

 

A quite prayer, sealed with held hands in a circle, sent us on our way to the next lonely soul whose smile was waiting to be lit ablaze.

 

 Her camera-shy smile belies her exuberance!

 

There, we visited two primary schools affiliated with our church, where Cliff and I shared stories and games with the children. It was surreal to see the children we had been sponsoring for years in person!

 

 

 

There, we took a long road trip and boat ride to a faraway village (which was near, by their standards), to visit a potential village livelihood project which we were exploring to start. 

The sun-soaked fertile landscape in the village areas

 

The beautiful but un-schooled and malnourished village children who couldn’t stop giggling as they saw us drive in

 

There, Cliff preached on one Sunday, while I did another, which happened to be International Women’s Day. Cliff found his niche in training the Kenyan, Rwandan and Ugandan bible students at the bible school in IT and theology, while I found a niche in supporting him and contributing at a national public health institute. 

 

 Couldn’t help but feel proud of Cliff for preaching so well

to a crowd who spontaneously burst into applause and hearty shouts of “Amen!”

 

It seemed like so much had happened.

 

Yet, at the end of every day, after we were drenched in perspiration or sun-baked like a grilled lobster, we could return to the lake and our Living Water residing in each of us, knowing full well that God had called, and we were right to heed it.

 

Months ago, we were anxious we might be found redundant in a foreign land, after having gone through the process of “giving up” and “laying down” our earthly treasures; Weeks ago, I struggled so much with the worry of Cliff’s poor transfer of care to a new land, a developing country at that; Days ago, I wondered if I would ever get used to the culture. Having a medical background, I remember sitting in my Senior Pastor’s office one day last year, burdened with the warnings my medical colleagues had given me about going to an impoverished land with a husband who was unable to take the yellow fever vaccine (a requirement for Uganda) and needed ongoing specialist care for his liver transplant.

 

“Trust God,” was my pastor’s unshakeable reply. I was confused.

 

Yet, we all knew, that if it was God’s way, He would make a way.

 

And there we were, sitting by the lake on the last day of our trip, recollecting how God had, at once, answered so many of our prayers, and yours too. A Christian medical professor of mine got in touch with me shortly. It must have only been God’s grace that she should “happen to be” an international expert in travel vaccination and gave my husband the medical advice he needed, and a medical waiver that would permit him to pass through Ugandan Customs.

 

There, in the Pearl of Africa, we found a plethora of ministries we could be involved in; there, we “accidentally” met the Medical Director of the best, internationally-certified hospital in the city, who gave me his personal contact in case of emergencies and offered to give Cliff quality care; there, we enjoyed the local food and I picked up enough Lugandan language within 11 days to greet, compliment, bargain and start a conversation with a local.

 

There, by the lake, the seedlings grew tall and strong. I was overwhelmed with how God had provided for us, and felt Him ask me gently- if I could possibly ever love myself or my husband more than He does?

 

 

And we have returned, full of faith, hope and trust,

which took root and grew strong in those 11 days.

 

In spite of what people say, we can be sure that God has called.

 

And it is well with our souls. 

 

 

* Cliff and Wai Jia will be returning to Uganda in a few months to serve for at least a year among underprivileged communities. They so appreciate your prayers and love for them.

 

…”But when the sun had risen, they were scorched;

and because they had no root, they withered away.

Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out.

And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop,

some a hundredfold,

some sixty, and some thirty.…”

– Matthew 13:6-8