20 years ago

A long time ago in a land far away, a young missionary woman lived in Kenya's bustling wild-west town of Narok.  It might have looked slightly like Dr. Quinn Medicine woman's setting. I wore long skirts and was a bit "out of pocket".  (slang translator: unexpected) I was one of the only or occasionally the only white resident in town.  Though it was easy to be noticeable, it was still lonesome at times.  Kenyan friends would often ensure I was kept company. But the company most enjoyed was when was a certain strapping young hero with messy curly hair would make his way across the world to come visit. Whenever he had to fly away home thegoodbyes and long-distance agonized my 23 year old heart.  We wrote actual paper letters every week for 2 years while he was still in school back in Georgia.  I would walk a dusty mile each way every day to the post office until that week's letter arrived.  Our love story was built on mission and calling in spite of distance and difficulties. The Lord was our shepherd.  He called me to follow his lead and I knew that was where I had to be.  Airport goodbyes were the hardest part for me.  I hated the scrolling escalators ascending up with his feet fading from view into the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport terminal. Why must it be called a "terminal"?

Thankfully the terminal also allows for a continuation of stories beyond what is visible to the eye.  I returned home and our story continued up the chapel stairs to a blissful wedding at the Berry College on New Year's Day 2005. We promptly entered a new phase of life with his first-year medical school resuming on Monday after the wedding.  People said medical school years are hard on relationships, but I was just glad we were finally in the same county!  In 18.5 years of marriage now we have seldom let much time or distance get between us again.  

The path God led us on as a family then went through 4 years of med-school, 3 years of internal medicine residency,  2 years of Infectious Disease fellowship, seminary, a bouncing baby boy, and a gorgeous girl born, a few graduations, and then all four of us got on a big metal bird to fly away to Kenya all together in 2013.  The mission and calling were still active and the story line was filling out in new dimensions.

That was where the Daktari-Life stories come from. We had 2.5 year old Little Miss and 5 year old Man-Cub 10 years ago. You do the math.  Those were some happy golden years we poured out at Tenwek Mission Hospital in Bomet, Kenya.  Sometimes we were living like sheep in green grass beside quiet waters, other times it was a darkest valley. U usually it was a little bit of both at the same time.  But the Lord was our Shepherd continually. 

We moved to Chattanooga in July 2015 and have never fully collected all the scattered parts of our heart that remained behind.  Amazingly, Michael has the chance with his job to go back for medical work in Kenya every year. And it's time for our annual migration now. Like the African Wildebeast who cross the Mara River in July or August to find greener grass too, we get to experience some challenges and some blessings through adventuring to Kenya. Theirs is a migration of survival instinct.  Maybe ours is similar...

 Note: When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it's usually just because of lighting or maybe because of yard chemicals.  But for us and the migratory wildebeasts, it's more like a visceral response or a calling to just up and go not because we can see greener grass with our eyes or a better deal on the horizon, but because the Lord is our Shepherd and he is authoring our story.

We are doing our Kenya-venturing in a new way this year.  Michael went ahead without me this week.  I rode with him to our quaint little Chattanooga airport and he asked if I wanted to drop him off at the curb or go inside. A rush of sadness barraged my thoughts.  I couldn't think straight.   Kiss goodbye, and up the escalator he went, and out the door I went.  It was a bit  disorienting for me at first. So I have cracked open the old blog to reorient myself and my friends on our story.  

It's going to be a good chapter coming this month, so stay tuned!  

Michael and a resident are working in Masai clinics this week. Our family will travel to meet up with them later in a few days.  Check out the link to where they are in the world!

We are still happy. I hope the next update won't be so sappy.  For now, here's a little mappy!

Wiki tatu (week 3)

The third week of our journey was up to hot Egypt.  We could title that week either "Standing Outside the Fire"or as our friend that lives there as a hospital volunteer calls it "Hairdryer in your Eyeballs". This episode is dedicated to processing the events at Sinai just from last Sunday, Aug7- Tuesday, Aug9 2022.  

I. Bush Fire:

George McDonald on Divine Burning:  "He will shake heaven and earth, that only the unshakeable may remain: He is a consuming fire, that only that which cannot be consumed may stand forth eternal....He will have purity...the fire will go on burning in us after all that is foreign to it has yielded to its force, not with pain and consuming but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God." (1).

Are you still with me?  St. Catherine's Monastery in the south of Sinai peninsula is the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the world.  It was built in 548 during the reign of Emperor Justinian (the official name of it is worth the click on the above link).  The only human inhabitant we saw was a gatekeeper who kept out ill dressed tourists*.  The main attraction inside the walls is actually a bush.  Tradition says that this is The Bush, the burning bush of Moses's first meeting with God.  It is still living and green and watered from the well said to be the "Well of Girls" where Moses met the girl he would marry.  I noticed that the bush, still vivaciously alive is not charred or brittle or most notably, dead. Even though God is a consuming fire, whatever is pure and of Him will remain. ( Hebrews 12:29)

    Also at St. Catherine's Monastery is a library, the oldest continually operating library in the world and home of one of the oldest original and complete manuscripts of the Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) and another in Syriac.  These ancient documents testify to the veracity and accuracy of the Bible over 1,000's of years.  They were not on public display sadly.  The monks are very private about their books and the Codex has been mostly annexed to the British Museum in London anyways. (Thank you, Indiana Jones) But we know that what is true will remain ultimately.

II. Rocks:

There are very unique rocks in the vicinity of Mt. Sinai and the Burning Bush.  There is a burning bush leaf-like print that is indelibly tattooed in the rocks.  It is like a testimony in stone of the Holy God-Trodden place.  You can almost hear them crying out with organic graffiti "Remember: God was here".  Even when the rocks are hammered and split apart, the print is there within it's essence.  

Just think: stone tablets of the covenant that God gave to Moses and His people were written on this mountain.  But because Law never penetrates the human heart, only love does, when the base people betrayed their Liberator- Lover God and broke his heart, those stone tablets were broken too.  And then Moses went up again and got another hand written copy of the Law for God's people.  My knees were sore from one trip down the 750 stairs. Good thing I didn't have to go right back up again. **

Can you see the wee lad in the lead running like a hobbit down the mountain?

III. Mountain:

We went up the Mount Sinai (jebel Musa) just one time, thankfully.  It was a journey that began at 10 pm from the hippy beach town of Dahab.  In order to drive in the Sinai, vehicles must go in police escorted caravans.  If you want to go somewhere, get to the police checkpoint in time and wait until the caravan comes.  We had our airbnb pillows in the air-conditioned van and a very knowledgeable tour guide teaching us along the way so we could get education, rest, safety, and adventure all at once.  After a small lecture on the archeological evidences of the Exodus, everyone went to sleep in the van until midnight.  As we drove through the night, red taillights guided in a remote wildernesses.  I thought about the rods and cones in the human eye (Purkinje effect) and the gracious gift of God in guiding His people with a fire by night instead of LED white light.  Maybe He did have a white hot fire leading them, but I think warm red or orange is gentler in the darkness, like the taillights we keep following.  

We reached the end of the road at 12:30 a.m. and met up with our Bedouin guided camel journey. The kids went first and second up on the giant animal's backs with sadly teeny tiny saddles. We rode tall through the star strewn darkness. There are no sweet crickets in the desert.  It was so very quiet.  For two hours we rode up the rocky trail.  Occasionally we'd round a corner that exposed a military grade LED  streetlight somewhere far below.  In the darkness with zero trees, zero plant life, it was stark.  After 2 hours we had to walk.  The rocky upward stacks of rocks was illuminated only by our handheld devices.  It was not built by the same people who engineered the pyramids lets just say.  The kids again were leading the way further up and further in.  We reached the summit in plenty of time to watch the 5am sunrise.  We read Exodus 19 and 20.  How did we get up here if all that is true? Then we read Ephesians 2 about how Christ's purpose is to bring us who were far away and had no business in the presence of a Holy God near to the Father and make us one.  

IV. Dryness:

George McDonald has much to say about the Divine Burning and also about spiritual dryness. 

"That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, 'Thou art my refuge'" (1).

In the Sinai, we constantly sought refuge in the shade and water bottles. When we are stripped bare of every last pretense, we only have faith that God is our refuge or we have desolation.  I am left amazed at the realization that it is perhaps in very dry and barren places, the magnanimous mountains of dryness that a holy ember of faith could create prime conditions for a wild fire.  There is nothing else to be consumed by a blaze out here though. The red tipped cigarette held by the man with the camel isn't going to hurt anything because there is nothing for it to consume aside from his lungs.  Dryness and desolation- why did God chose this place to make Himself known instead of that lovely lush end of the very same Great Rift Valley in Kenya? We hiked down and talked about Egypt in the Bible and the complex relationship it represents with God's people and how Jesus was a child there too for a purpose.

It makes me think of a Rich Mullins song(as much of life does) "He was a boy like I was once, was he a boy like me?  I grew up around [Tennessee] he grew up around Galilee..." Back home in green Chattanooga, rain has been so voluminous that our grass grew 10 feet and my porch pillows grew mildew.  Guess how I get rid of that?  Blazing sunshine.  The light and the heat is purifying.   I'm so thankful for green, trees, rain, the gentle hills of East Tennessee.  And I am also thankful for the desert wilderness of rocks and heat and mountains you wouldn't believe they are so stunning.  But I do hope you believe, and especially what happened on that mountain and how God came to not just give a law, but to be with His people particularly in that very dry and desolate place.  He still does that.

Thanks for reading or listening to my story.  I hope you enjoyed it a little bit and next time I will tell you a story about Typhoid, Tetanus, and a Lady from Khartoum...

*see photo.  One of us, clothed persistently in athletic shorts had to wrap a rental covering over his bare knees in order to enter.  Oddly enough, we were not asked to remove shoes. 

** Wonder upon wonder!  Michael had knee surgery in April and was healed up enough to make this trek!

1. C.S. Lewis George MacDonald: an Anthology 365 readings p.1, 2

Wiki mbili (week 2 in Kiswahili)/ Down to Earth

   Time in Kenya is like honey. It is viscous and fluid to a fault, sweet and golden at its best.  It is flowing for sure but one must keep pace, not with the impatience of hurry, but appreciation for the sweetness that comes with slowing down.  Here, the thoughts have time to catch up.  The mind can defragment by walking instead of running.  We are brought back down to earth by experiencing the strength of all 5 senses once again and finding our tiny place on earth. 

    There's a hot little technique in counseling called "grounding exercise" in which a person re-orients from anxieties by naming 5 things seen, 4 things felt, 3 things heard, 2 things smelled, and 1 tasted.  I will take a stab at a little grounding not to overcome anxiety here but because its a way to organize sensory overload.  I won't complete the 5-4-3-2-1 for sake of time today. ;-)

    Sight1 : Early in the morning, looking out the window at an angel trumpet tree, its quiet beauty is blaring out the glory of its Creator.  Holy, Holy, Holy. The visiting neonatologist in her white coat comes down a staircase behind the tree to go up and see her baby patients first thing in the morning.  

    Sight 2: Our big bright green bag was packed up here with some things that are more useful on this side than at home.  One of those is a gaudy bright pink dress I had made here. Another is the electric tennis racket that is used to hunt mosquitos at night.  I love this big bright green bag because it holds a little place for us on a storage shelf while we are away.

    Sight 3: Gigantic black dog.  We are dog sitting a Great Dane puppy named Nova for friends this week.  The sight of this dog is pretty amazing.  Also we are keeping a Golden Retriever named Rugby and a little fluffy dog named Maizie.  We like having the sight of good dogs around us.  Rugby reminds us so much of our dear Dandy dog back home.

    Sight 4:  My favorite sight is of the 25 or so house helpers gathered together who came for afternoon chai last Thursday.  We just wanted to sing a few praise choruses in Kipsigis and thank God together and share some words of encouragement with each other after the long time of distancing. Everyone was really happy.  They told us how the house churches popped up when the buildings were closed and large groups became 2 or 3 family groups.  They told how the church never stopped meeting, they just multiplied under the pressure and adapted.  But they remained faithful.  What a precious sight.

    Sight 5: Daktari coming home with the medical ward team of 8 for lunch one day.  They are Kenyan trainees that are the sight of hope for the bright future.  

    Touch 1: You feel your feet molding over the stones in the road.  You are aware of where you step and take not for granted the fact that the path will be smooth.  The dust swells up under heavy feet.  The dust of the dry earth swells up and finds a way to touch every part of you again, reminding you from whence you cometh.  We get re-grounded literally.

    Touch 2: The kids and I went out to pick beans with our local friend when she had only 1 day to harvest.  We got to experience a few hours of being field hands.  The neighbors who were there the whole time helping were happy to have us join and they popped up from bending at the waist, smiling, heads wrapped up, welcome to the field.  Toughened by time and tenderized by gathering the spilled beans.  The rains did not come so the plants became brown and dry.  We learn to uproot the plant from the soft dry earth.  They are gathered in large gunny sacks and even the weeds are gathered up for the time being.  She just wants to get those beans out and will sort the useful from useless later.  Our blessed job is just picking the beans someone else planted and helping a little to complete a task.   But there are also burrs in the field.  They cling to all the cotton clothing and make me look like a porcupine! They feel like they look too. Tiny straight quills prickle through the sleeves and legs of our clothing.  If we stayed on doing this, imagine how in tune we would be with the earth and its needs and appreciation of each and every bean. But as time flows on we turn to our chai break and lunch break and time to go back home- sore and scratchy and plum tuckered out.  

    Touch 3: Cold L-shaped door handles loudly squeaking betray early morning sneaking through any bathroom door.  The doors are heavy and solid, no hollow core will last here.

    Touch 4: The touch of clean water is noticeable.  We used to have silty river water in the tap.  A new water treatment plant has made it possible to even drink from the tap now.  (I'm admittedly a bit too chicken to try it still so we drink from another filtration system). But the feel of the water is different. It's clearer, and cleaner.

    Sound 1: Ka-wonk u-wooonk! Ka-wonk u-wooonk!  2 magnificent crowned cranes trumpet praise for being alive and flying.  They wake me up and call me out of the house to look for this oddly large and graceful bird and its life-mate.  They fly in with head hunched down and perch atop the tallest tree around.  "It looks like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree" she says.  And there is a pair of haloed angels balancing on the droopy tip top.  I watch them a while but they are quiet now that they've landed  (and think, I might have totally missed them if I had had AirPods in).  This regal bird is a lavish display of God's handiwork.  It's golden plum crown makes me think of a holy saint.  This icon of Africa adorns Uganda's flag.  

    Sound 2:  But it's the lower, tiny birds who sing the loveliest songs. The big birds are awesome but the small ones give music to make the heart happy.  

    Sound 3: Chainsaws.  The music of Mordor. They are the sound of developing farmland and much needed housing.  They buzz and whine through the day in the distance where Eucalyptus trees are taken down to stumps.  This is not the good sound I want to hear but it too reminds us that we are here on planet earth only for a short while.

    Smell 1: Trash burning.  Too sad to describe. Noxious even in the memories.

    Smell 2: Rain. They love it.  Best smell is rain.  He used to run home racing the rain.  This time he just sits here and enjoys it and texts his friends at home.

    Taste 1: "It's different. Not bad."  I tell her the foods just aren't what she's used to.  They don't have to be the very best or our most favorite foods, but they are different.  Everyone loves the taste of mandazi that we eat with chai.  It's like a beignet or doughnut hole shaped like a triangle or square.  The taste of friendship shared.  We met with 6 different friends in Narok yesterday to eat a meal, drink chai, have mandazi, or just a soda.  This tastes of friendship and weight gain.

That is quite a sensory overload for week 2.  Thank you for reading and helping me feel back "down to earth".

    

Wiki moja (Kiswahili for Week 1)

 Wiki Moja-  I hope to post 3 weeks of Dakatari Life for the first time back online for the first time since, well, a long time ago.  

    We are so blessed to have this opportunity to be back in Kenya serving at Tenwek Mission Hospital again.  Daktari was allowed to bring a UT medicine resident for an away rotation.  Kenya has general elections in August and it is recommended that visitors make their way out beforehand, so we are only able to work in the hospital for a week.  Therefore, he hit the ground running at 7 a.m. for ICU rounds on Friday and is covering call for the medical ward this weekend.

    Here is a very dry little take on the medicine rounds so far:

ICU patient 1- Rheumatic Heart Disease, atrial fabulation, history of stroke.

patient 2- Lady with probable Lupus, very sick, respiratory failure, on vasopressor, chest tube for fluid on lungs.  She coded Sunday morning.

patient 3- Old mad with diabetes, hypertension, DKA, new renal failure, needs dialysis.

patient 4-  heart failure, getting a little better.

Medical ward, 40 patients to see, a noticeable lack of HIV this time.  There's more non-communicable diseases and a handful of Covid patients (which is a communicable disease) in a cohort isolation unit.

Highlights: There are now 2 Kenyan full-time doctors on the ward.  One was a med student in our 1st year here, then he was an intern in our 2nd year, and now he is the consultant on staff!  The other is a Kenyan medical officer and affords the consultant a partner in the work.  These are major developments from 2014 and a big reason for doing what we do.

Another highlight: teaching at rounds and patient bedside with the team of medical staff. Teaching them about rate control for RHD, ID concepts on diagnosis and treatment of neutropenic fever (which is like the guards of the immune system all going on leave of absence at once).

There is an overwhelming volume of very sick people but it is a little bit like "Cheers" in that everybody knows his name, and they're always glad he came.  Lots of happy, warm welcomes in the community so we are encouraged.  That is the daktari update wiki moja, part 1.

The Great Rift Valley is still there. 

 In 2019 we witnessed its rifting in an earth splitting fracture of the  road.

Typical town along the 3 hour journey from Nairobi to Tenwek.  

The roads are remarkably smooth these days!

The most beautiful tree along the way

Oh, wow, that's a big pointer finger.

Our friend, Gideon is completing his 6 years of medical school now. Pray for his exam on Monday!

How to tame your dragon/ Great Dane

We get to dog sit for 3 different missionary dogs this week!

The day Josiah prayed for friends to play with, a 13 yr old named Josiah appeared and remembered him from summer camp at the gaga ball pit.  They got to rematch on the trampoline this time. God had planned to answer that prayer before it was even prayed I do believe!

The "Place of Songs": Tenwek 

Our little friend's 2nd birthday party

Christmas 2021

 Christmas Letter 2021

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2:34-35

  Simeon was always on the lookout for God’s salvation.  He was looking for Redemption and to be a part of it in Israel. He was vigilant in watching for God.  Waiting and watching. The Bible doesn’t say how old he was, but surely he had white hair!  Ok, maybe he had white hair and stooped over in his walk.  But he never gave up trusting that the Christ would come to him.  And when he did, it must have been so shocking that he was a baby! Imagine when he held that 1 week old newborn high in the air, lifting up a light for revelation to the non-Jews and a glory to Israel.  Then he turned to Mary, and said those strange words to her about a sword piercing her own soul.  

Merry Christmas, Mary and Joseph?  It could be that this is referring to a Roman soldier at the foot of the cross trying to hasten the Christ’s death by piercing his heart right there in front of his mother.  Kind of a “do not be surprised at the fiery trials you go through” type of situation. Creepy baby dedication, right?

But today, a light has dawned on me and the thoughts of my heart have been revealed in his light to show me joy and beauty.  Have you ever experienced a joy, a beauty so deep that it penetrates the soul?  There’s a rare beauty that can access something inside so deep and tender that whenever it is tapped it wells up in tears.  

It happens to me when I am alone and listening to African music sometimes.  I feel so drawn in, like a portal opens above the kitchen sink, or wherever I am,  and I am not just doing dishes anymore but like some other realm is beckoning.  It is a beautiful aching sensation from beyond ourselves.  Maybe it’s like a memory of a loved one who has gone on ahead of us.  It’s an aching beauty that is not sad to be here at port but longing to set sail.  There’s a sense of “how brief and beautiful this life was” and “how I long for it again” and also “How blessed am I that the Mighty One has done such great things for me?” 

Today, Simeon’s word became clearer to me that the sword is also Beauty, Joy, and Grace that maybe a mother feels when remembering her babies in her arms, now at her side, soon to fly away.  It is a piercing joy of beauty.

Just when washing dishes with the African Children’s Choir Christmas music  I find myself in tears saying with Mary’s old cousin Elizabeth “But who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  Who am I that this blessed life would be given to me?  How wonderful that we got to experience this kind of life and love and octaves and intervals of a capella harmony in the voices of children and friends and singing voices deep and sweet and melodious.  How much He has loved us!  The aching beauty sword pierces my soul too.

Will he send us back to Kenya this coming year?  We don’t know yet.   Will he take away the Pandemic? and make life easier? Hmm.  Will we keep trusting him either way?  Yes.

 Will you be open to receiving the Joy of Jesus even if it comes like a sword?  In the words of Old Cousin Elizabeth again “ Blessed is she [or he] who has believed that what the Lord has said to her [or him] will be accomplished”!

 Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!  May you and your children feel the Joy of Jesus calling you onward in 2022.

Our family Christmas letter update 2020

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me.  

Bless his holy name.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS

Psalm 103

Our family memorized this Psalm in October. We can look back now and gratefully say hindsight is truly 2020.  “Pivot” became a trendy word this year as paradigms shifted and the whole world was forced into new adaptations for survival.  As we pivot this Christmas, let’s look back and see  “how mightily the hand of the LORD was with us and we knew it not”.  Maybe we did see a few glimpses of his glory around us as we were led through a sort of Red Sea crossing type of year.  We haven’t yet reached the other side still, as the pandemic rages.  But we know that God is still good and he hasn't left us now, nor will he ever leave us.   Let us tell you a few of his blessings to our family this year so you may be encouraged to look back too and tell your family his salvation history in your own recent memory.

1. Michael’s work as Infectious Disease doctor really has been providentially timed for such a year as 2020.  He has charted new territory in hospital leadership and influencing decisions for a COVID-19 response to the tide rising since March.  He has become more dependent upon the LORD this year and has been blessed by a peace that surpasses understanding as the situation worsens.  There are so many terribly sick and sad people he sees every day.  Yet he has been blessed with protection for what he is called to do too.  We are so thankful to God for all he has done!  We are so excited too for the vaccines that are being wondrously produced like a Christmas present to the whole world!  Wow!

While plans were changed, postponed, cancelled, etc. (no trip to Kenya this year sadly), we are people of the cross and will go where he leads.  Looking back at February 2020, we vaguely remember that Michael went to a medical conference in Ecuador with a veteran missionary to teach in his specialty about a new upper respiratory infection called “the coronavirus”. The attendees were willing to receive that message of precaution and with great faithfulness and they were spared the worst of the outbreak that really impacted other parts of Ecuador tremendously.  Praise the Lord! Now at home in Chattanooga we are relying on the LORD to be "Another in the fire standing next to me" as Michael works double the usual load of patients this Christmas week and Christmas Day. Your prayers and your caution (mask wearing and 6' distancing) are personally appreciated!!!

2.  Katie in 2020 is full of thanksgiving for the pleasant places that the stay at home days allowed.  The Lord led us in green pastures and quiet waters quite literally.  The experiences He gave us from life overseas really helped so much in our “pivoting” to virtual school for 3 months and not going anywhere but here.  The bountiful generosity of the Lord has been staggering to me this year- a family, a house, a yard, neighbors to pray with on porches, gardening, swimming, running, music, beauty in the sky every day, college friends virtual book clubs, it goes on and on.  It has been so good to watch and search for what God wants to show us in all this pandemic.  We have read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 3x each this year to see if we can get to know Jesus a little better.  He is no stranger to suffering and he is near.  At least we’ve got that part.

A few fun ministries I’ve been allowed to pick up this year, much to my surprise have been: 1) Hosting 3 marriage retreats (with COVID precautions) through WinShape Marriage.  Super- duper- gracious goodness of God there!  Check them out: marriage.winshape.org

2) I took my first [part time] job outside of the home in who knows how many years!  I got recruited to help at our kid’s school as an assistant in the student health office.  The Lord has definitely satisfied the desires of my heart with good things! 3) A wonderful adventure came up for me in August to join in the Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine Trial!  I think I got the real deal, though it is a blind experiment.  I am confident this will be the best Christmas present for everyone to get for their families as soon as possible!

3. Now for the fun people: Josiah (12) and Annie (suddenly, she's 10).  These kids have rocked the pandemic with resilience they may have acquired in Africa.  They’ve been blessed with awesome neighborhood friends and an empty lot of woodland wonderland just behind our fence.  They played outside almost non-stop and pray for the end of the pandemic daily.  

1. Josiah has become a real sailor this year and competed in several youth regattas with the joy of a boy on a boat in the wind on his own.  He’s pretty good at it and still plays piano and trombone too.  Mainly he just likes playing with friends outside.  

2. Annie is our little equestrian now.  She was able to compete in her first Hunter/Jumper show and baby brought home 3 blue ribbons! Her violin/fiddle music has now sprung to a life of its own and she can play Christmas carols by ear and worship music together with her brother and dad when we have home church nights. She also was gifted some great neighbor friendships this year. A real answered prayer.

Finally, I was encouraged by George McDonald to share this quote which I saw come true in 2020: “Everything that God makes in a man is an obligation under which God lays himself to supply the need.”

4. What about you?  What are the ways that you have seen the Lord carrying you through this year?  Who will you tell about that? Tell us!                                                                                         

Psalm 78:1. O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth.

2. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old-

3. What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us.

4. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

On Vaccines and Trials

On Vaccines and Trials…

Somehow I've found myself in the middle of a new epic adventure of scientific proportions that are so tiny no one can see it, and so large the whole world is watching. Daktari is recruiting participants for the Moderna trial for COVID-19 vaccine which is now in phase III. We like to do things together, so I called the phone number to see if I qualified to join as a trial participant.

First there was the labyrinth of office “park” parking lots.  I missed the first entrance and the second entrance only had a small walk through connection to the offices on the first entrance.  Then there was a maze of corridors inside the office called “Clin-Search”.  Are you seeing the theme here of searching?

Then came the litany of questions, measurements, marking, charting, sticking, drawing blood for antibody screening, and then the nasal “swab”, (Covid-19 test) which was perhaps really checking if any brain cells were even thinking about Covid-19.  I accidentally yelped out loud at that part.

They had me sit for 30 minutes while I got randomized and suddenly I, like Jean Valjean was just a number like 24601.  Of 30,000 participants, half of us will receive a vaccine and half of us will receive a placebo.  The reason is to compare 15,000 people over 25 months with another set of 15,000 people to see if the vaccine group has less Covid-19 infection than the placebo group. It’s a double blind study, meaning neither we nor the doctors performing the study will know who is in which group.

But I wasn’t blind to the big red BIOHAZARD sign on the door that I walked through to sit in the chair.  The nice lady with the needles in the N95 mask had a tat on her arm which says “neither reckless nor afraid” (in Latin, no less).  I asked her about it and she said it’s because she is also a paramedic who must be neither reckless nor afraid on the job. Maybe we all should take that approach to life.  Maybe I will use a Bic pen and put that on my hand. 

There’s a goofy big picture of her little dog on the wall and she tells me to look at it.  I smile while she jabs me in the shoulder with either saline solution or mRNA-1273. 

The mRNA1273 makes me think of Screwtape Letters.  It’s a new way of thinking about vaccines and it is not a live virus.  It is a playbook, so to speak, of the virus’s strategy.  They inject it so that the body will know what kind of immune response to produce when the actual virus comes in.  If you haven’t read CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters, you may want to do so now.  In it, he is showing us the playbook of the demons that would harass and depress and destroy the human soul but for being found out.  You get a peek from the opposite point of view and insight to the real enemy's tactics. Spiritual and Viral jujitsu maybe? 

I went back through the Matrix (with purple sunglasses on top of my head, not all black like Keanu Reeves) to read my little 75 page paper book by NT Wright called “God and the Pandemic”.  I had to wait 30 more minutes for observation.  I hope to be observed not on my phone every time I must wait.  Wait.  What are they observing me for anyway? I don’t know...

Professor Wright tells us in his book that whatever the Christian response to pandemic is, it should be one in which all Christians of the world can join.  Can all Christians join the vaccine trial?  No, very few can. I want to encourage more people, especially those who represent minority populations in the trial. The reason we need more representation is that there are certain populations that are much more at risk in this pandemic. Those populations need to be included in the trial so that the efficacy will be more visible and how it effects different populations must be studied. We don't want to produce a lop-sided vaccine that isn't effective among the people who need it most.

So what can all Christians do? We can all pray to end Covid-19. Pray for a vaccine. Pray for the vulnerable. We can lay down our own will, and self-determination in order to take up the cross of Christ and bear one another’s burdens in this hour, or year, or generation, for as long as it takes. As we wander through global pandemic “together apart”, let us keep our eyes up!  Look to Jesus.  Look up!  The god of Economy won’t save us.  The god of the Academy won’t save us.  The god of Your Opinion certainly won’t save you (but you may get a good buzz from it for a while). The God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, is the only one to actually save, and he calls us to be with him even through suffering and unto glory. Pray for the vaccine to be available to the vulnerable, that they don't get lost from the search.

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” I Peter 4:12,13