Allee and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

Psalm 23: 4

This week was very much like every other week here in that it was full of new experiences that made me so thankful to be here, but it was unlike any other in terms of the specific events that took place. 

In June, while the team from Texas and Oklahoma was here, we visited two Maasai villages, Mtipule and Mangae, and held vacation bible school for over 300 warriors, women, and children.  It was an incredible two days spent with people who are experts at wearing their heart on their sleeves and expressing their gratitude.  Each village has one teacher who instructs between 20 and 50 students on any given day who don’t speak Swahili let alone English and they are doing this work without translators, chalkboards, or supplies of any kind.  I talked with one of the teachers in depth about his needs and he expressed the main concerns he had for his community.  We discussed bringing a team from our church and school in town out to the village once a month to talk about different issues and bring supplies.  After returning from our visit I talked with Frank more about this idea.  Frank is the biggest advocate for the Maasai people in these villages.  He has so much respect for them and passion for addressing their needs.  We fleshed out a plan to visit Mtipule, Mangae, and a third village called Mkambalani, each once per month.  We would go on a school day when the children would normally be at the school and we would invite the entire village to come.  Each month we would discuss a different issue concerning the villages, spend time in conversation with them about their needs, spend time in prayer and in song, play games with the children, and share a bible story together. We agreed that we wanted these visits to be community oriented.  We didn’t want it to be us coming in and telling them what they should do because it’s what we believe is best.  Tuesday of this week was our first visit and our topic was the importance of education.  Frank, our friends Baraka and Moses, bus driver Hobby, and I loaded up the school bus with 3 boxes of “Tasty Glucose Biscuits” and five cases of mango juice and headed to Mtipule.  I spent the hour long bus ride reviewing our talking points and praying that God would speak through me and speak to the hearts of those listening, that he would guide our conversation and that his will would be done. 

As per usual African style, when we arrived there were very few people present.  The children who were attending school were meeting with their teacher underneath the shade of a small tree.  We greeted them and began singing songs as more people started to appear from the bush.  Within an hour the church was full of women, children and warriors.  We started to sing and pray together and the church came alive.  I’ve experienced Maasai worship many times, but this day the energy felt different.  I had chills all over and I couldn’t stop smiling.  We cracked open the biscuits and juice and watched as the children’s smiles grew with delight at the sweet treats.  As they enjoyed, we began discussing the importance of education.  Frank and I traded off leading the conversation and with every point we raised the men and women shouted “Amen!” and waved scarves in the air.  We talked about the need for their children to be educated so that they are able to communicate confidently with people outside of the Maasai community, so that they can best use the abundant resources they have, and to be educated about their rights not as Maasai, but as citizens of Tanzania and as human beings.  Lastly we talked about the fear that education will take their children away from their cultural values.  We talked about fully incorporating education into the Maasai culture so that their children are brought up with both strong cultural values as well as a strong academic education.  Several men and women contributed to the conversation with strong agreement and voiced the issues they are facing in their pursuit of education for their children.  Frank took notes on these issues so that between now and our next visit we can begin addressing these concerns.  One of the issues they addressed was not having a chalkboard in their classroom.  As soon as we returned we spoke with a carpenter in town, got him the money for supplies, and he is currently working on the project.  While the adults continued discussing, Baraka and I took the kids outside to play “Alien Tag” using rocks and sticks instead of beanbags and pool noodles, and then sang some songs together.  We closed our time all together by telling the story of The Good Shepherd.  The community was very familiar with this story.  We closed the story by saying “Jesus said, I am the good shepherd and you are my sheep.  I know you my name and I will lead you where you need to go.  I will never leave you behind.”  The whole church burst into cheers.  It was an incredible day. 

Frank and I know that simply discussing these issues is not enough to build a strong relationship for change.  We have to follow through.  And we will. The idea of this partnership and the real changes that can take place for the betterment of these peoples’ lives gave me so much hope and excitement.  Because this is a new ministry, I am using my personal money to fund our trips. Each of our three visits per month for gas, snacks, and juice will cost around $150.00. If this is something you would like to help support, please leave a comment or send me an email. 

This amazing spiritual high we experienced on Tuesday was met with a stark contrasting low on Wednesday.  Last Friday night our pastor’s 13-year-old son didn’t come home.  Our other pastors and watchmen went looking for him for hours with no success.  Saturday morning they searched again and went to the police station in town.  The police said that the boy had slept there the night before and seemed very confused.  When he woke up in the morning he managed to escape from the police station.  There was no sign of him all day and night on Saturday.  Sunday morning they received a call from the police department that he was there again and was acting strange.  The pastor and his wife went immediately and took him directly from the police station to the hospital where he has been staying in the ward for patients with mental illness.

Frank and I were in town running some errands on Wednesday and we went to the hospital to visit him.  As I wrote a couple weeks ago, I spend most of my time in the small community of my street, home, and church, and I don’t know what I anticipated the mental illness ward of an African hospital to be like, but I was at all not prepared for what I saw.  Men and women, obviously drugged out of their minds were sprawled out everywhere in the open-air wing of the hospital.  Some laid on foam mats, others on the concrete covered in flies, some on the grass.  One man was just standing in the middle of the grassy area staring straight ahead the entire time we were there.  Many were pacing back and forth.  The rooms had six beds each, most of them full of sleeping people.  I didn’t see any nurses or doctors administering care to anyone.  And there, in this sad, scary place was the thirteen-year-old boy who I had previously known exclusively as a happy, smart, talkative kid.  He was surrounded by his parents, another pastor, and two other women from our church.  One was trying to get him to drink water, though his eyes and mouth were shut and he was unable to hold up his own head.  “Madam Allee is here to see you.” His dad said.  Immediately, his eyes shot open and he sat up, extending his hand.  “Good morning madam, how are you?” he said, in a completely clear voice.  I shook his hand back, very surprised, and told him it was so good to see him.  As soon as I let go of his hand his body went limp, his eyes closed and he was out of it again.  The woman continued to pour water in his mouth telling him that if he wanted to come home, he had to eat and drink.  He mumbled back inaudibly and she continued giving him water.  I suddenly felt the room getting fuzzy and knew I was either going to throw up or pass out.  I took slow breaths and walked outside to the open area, surrounded by patients who began staring at me.  Hobby came out and whispered that it wasn’t safe for me to be by myself.  I told him that I was sick and we walked outside where I crumbled onto the concrete and burst into tears before I could make it to the bus. 

Frank came out a few minutes later and we started driving back to school.  We weren’t even halfway there when his phone rang.  It was a teacher from the school telling him that a child was sick and needed to go to the hospital.  We arrived at the dispensary and walked inside to find a four-year-old preschool student, Princess, sleeping with her left arm in a makeshift sling.  The teacher told us that she had fallen and that she believed her arm was broken.  Frank picked her up and she jolted awake, letting out a blood-curdling scream.  Huge tears ran down her face as we got her into the bus.  Frank and I took her to a children’s clinic near the hospital.  She sat sobbing in my lap while we waited for Frank to give the receptionist her information.  The slightest movement sent her into hysteria and when she wasn’t screaming out in pain, she was passed out from it.  I wiped her tears and kissed her cheeks, whispering in her ear that I was sorry and that she was going to be ok.  Thankfully because of her condition, the doctor didn’t make us wait long.  I carried her back to the exam room where he unwrapped her arm to reveal her severely deformed wrist.  He said that it was definitely broken and that all they could do was give her a shot for the pain and put it in a splint so it would be secure while we take her to the government hospital.  There was no table for her to sit on so I held her in my lap, carefully maneuvering her so the doctor could do what he needed to do.  Her cries were unceasing as he gave her the shot and began examining her wrist.  He went to get two plastic rulers, gauze, and tape, and positioned Princess so she was standing between my legs facing him.  I wrapped my arm around her, holding her non-broken hand so she couldn’t resist the doctor’s attempt to straighten her other arm.  “I need you to hold her elbow still while I straighten the wrist.” he said to me.  I placed my hand tightly at her elbow and pressed the side of my face against hers to brace her as he began to pull.  She let out the loudest scream and tried to squirm out of our grasp.  Her tears fell all over my face as I continued whispering in her ear, “Princess, you’re ok. You are so strong.  Sweet, sweet girl, I’m so sorry.”  For what felt like forever, I assisted the doctor in bracing her, cutting tape and securing her arm between the two rulers tightly with gauze and then wrapping a “sling” around her neck.  She sat in my lap, her sobs slowing as the doctor gave me instructions for what to do next.  I felt the room start to get fuzzy again and my hearing starting to go in and out.  I took slow inhales and exhales, trying to prevent myself from fainting as I realized I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since morning and it was now almost 2:00.  As soon as the doctor finished the instructions I asked Frank, who had been outside the exam room covering his eyes, to get some water.  We followed the doctor to another room and I realized my face was dripping wet from Princess’s tears and my own sweat.  I put her gently in a chair and slowly sat down on the ground, tucking my head between my legs. Inhale...exhale...inhale...exhale.  I heard none of the doctor’s instructions at this point.  He led us to the lobby where Frank had returned with water and I quickly downed half the bottle.  Inhale...exhale...inhale...exhale. The feeling began returning to my face and the black and white splotches dissipated. 

We loaded back onto the bus and went to pick up her father and mother before arriving at a larger dispensary in town.  We waited for two hours while they took x-rays and attempted to cast her arm.  We could hear her crying from the lobby.  When she and her parents finally came out, they announced that both bones in her arm had broken at the wrist and that the dispensary doctors weren’t able to do what needed to be done.  We needed to go to the government hospital.  It was now 4:30- time for the bus to be back at school to take the kids home.  We dropped Frank, Princess, and her parents at the hospital and I rode back to school with Hobby.  Frank remained at the hospital until 8:00 that night.  They sent Princess home even later in a hard cast, instructing them to come back in the morning for another x-ray.  Thankfully the next day the x-ray showed that the bones were already starting to move back so surgery would not be needed.  She’s going to be all right. 

Arriving home that day I felt completely numb, at a total loss for how to process the events I had just experienced. Only one day earlier I was filled with so much hope and excitement I could hardly contain it and then these tragic things happen, leaving me totally overwhelmed at the brokenness of our world.  A world where mentally ill patients don’t receive proper care and a child is being sedated rather than diagnosed.  A world where children break bones and feel pain and have to visit four separate medical centers to receive the care they need.  And here I am in the middle of it.  Here I am and here Frank is and here our school is and here our church is, just trying to make a difference one little effort at a time.  After facing a day like this, it is so tempting to say, it’s too much.  There is too much broken for us to fix.  We just can’t do this.  And yet, we are.  Our presence here is making a difference.  It made a difference to over 100 people at the Maasai village of Mtipule.  It made a difference to one boy suffering from mental illness and his family.  And it made a difference to one little girl with a broken wrist and her parents.  And that was just in one week. I feel like I write this every week but it’s so true, especially in light of such difficult events; these people, this church, and this school- they’re making a difference in my life as well.  I'm just thankful to be a part of it. 

Mungu akubariki,

Allee