Staying in a hostel is the best way I’ve found to avoid loneliness when traveling alone. Whenever I get a hotel room to myself and spend any time there, I find the isolation to be the most acute. We are not solitary creatures.

I have two short-term roommates in my three bed room; one from Italy and one from South Korea.  Kam’man and I struck up a conversation about Korea and America, and also about Mongolia; a land of mutual interest.  He and I set out to see what there is to see in Malta early yesterday morning.

The ancient coastal village of Marsaxlokk is located on the southeast of Malta’s main island.  On Sundays there is a market that seemingly goes on forever with fresh fish as the exclamation point at the end of one’s walking past table after table of cheap housewares, cheap clothing, cheap jewelry, cheap memorabilia, and cheap snack food.  It’s like Maltese Walmart out of doors.

Kam’man was curious about a number of foods and delicacies which he must find exotic.  In my case, it was only the seafood that I found fascinating.  Of course I wouldn’t know how to prepare any of it, so how interesting could it really be?  Malta is a place where people come to get from one form of wealth to a slightly less familiar form of wealth.  It is like Cancun for Brits, where the migrant workers are mostly Italian and Latvian.

The Maltese are tolerant hosts to the throngs like me; the travelers, the curious, and the bored.  I wonder what the archipelago is like in the off-season, when the principle language spoken is Maltese, and not so many forms of poor to perfect English.  It’s probably even more lovely.

If you’ve ever seen black-and-white video footage of Patton’s army as he pushed the young men at his disposal to the breaking point from one battle field to the next, that is what many of the children of Uganda mirror in my mind’s eye.  If a human, any human, could know strife, hunger, sleep deprivation, worry, and stress (perhaps stress above all) they might look the same as any other person under those conditions.  

Ugandan kids can smile as they march from one grave to the next; such lovely spirited youth they are.  The second of my two days with Kamye we visited a school for 175 children, 60 of whom are orphans from one cause or other; so often from AIDS.  The school has five teachers, a single roofed structure about the size of a one car garage, and three skeletal, open air structures with benches, chairs and a chalk board.  If I didn’t mention something, it’s because it isn’t there to mention.

There is not a single toilet, or washroom, no housing for the staff, no housing for the kids; just five dedicated people in a really tough situation doing what they can to help kids without a past try and build a future.  Jesus said “wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also.”  We need to make sure these kids have “Jesus,” on their lips and Jesus in their hearts as they grow into adulthood, and it’s going to take more than five tenacious teachers.

Dear reader, I in no way want to imply that this trip was in anyway a hardship for me.  I had the best of everything at all times as I would, being a man of some meager means in the States; which places me fiscally somewhere at the top of the Ugandan financial elite.  The care I was shown was absolute, paramount, the best.  If any of you has a heart to help the ones who are hurting, I have a plan, and would love to hear from you.  In any case, I will be writing about it here.  Love,

Joshua

On the largest of the three small islands which compose the Maltese nation, is a city called Rabat.  It is an interesting and ancient place.  It’s where the grotto or cave system where the Apostle Paul is said to have lived after his ship bound for Rome crash landed here in 60 A.D. (Acts 28)

The church is called St. Paul’s Church, not to be confused with St. Paul’s Cathedral which is nearby in a sub-city called Mdina.  The lights are kept off, and the whole place is dedicated to meditative prayer and reflection.  In the twenty minutes I stayed inside, there were fewer than five other visitors.

The exterior has the trappings of an old world circus tent.  Ceramic saints line the sidewalks, and it looks like something from an episode of Boardwalk Empire.

Below, there is a number of secret and blocked walkways, passages too narrow to navigate safely, and dark staircases, often leading up into what is now the floor of the church overhead.  Seattle has a city underneath of it, perhaps Rabat was it’s founder’s inspiration.

At the end of the day I could see the grand rose and cream dome of the cathedral, but I wasn’t able to go inside.  Malta is a bit like the city of Rome in that it feels both historically and culturally inexhaustible.  I am as lost as a pastry lover with access to a case with thousands of unique and delicate sweet breads, who has only on plate on which to heap his chosen delights.

I know, poor me.

Waiting at the airport in Entebbe was Bishop Kamye and his friend-in-Christ Sa’ara.  With there help I arrived safely at my hostel accommodation in Kampala after first walking about a mile, then taking a mini-bus, a second mini-bus, and going the last bit by motorbike.  Before saying goodbye I was told that I would be addressing three congregations the next day, and that I should have a sermon prepared.

Thee next morning Kamye picked me up around 8AM and we began our two day tour.  Uganda has many contrasts to Ethiopia which sounds obvious, but might surprise some who think of Africa more as a single country than a collection of 47 contiguous nation states.  In fact, it is probably even more advantageous to conceive of it as a continent with thousands of people groups, each with their own unique history, present position, and future needs.

Two of the three boys shown here on this bench have lost their parent to the AIDS epidemic, for example.  Their needs are unique, though not exceptional.  A quick web search will show that there are somewhere between 2,500,000 and 2,700,000 orphans in Uganda alone.  If these two were to find a family, there would be between 2,499,998 and 2,699,998 who still need to be as fortunate.  It will take courage in millions of people to face this crisis, not least of all in the children themselves.

I preached Psalm 139, because it is the passage I know the best.  The ramifications of this song of David are probably as difficult to believe for me, and my audience as they were for their author; a man who was betrayed, hunted, hated and persecuted; a man who would see many of his own children die before him; a man for whom death was very familiar.  In the States we tend to look at our technology and our hospitals and medicines and think “the world is a different place than it was in biblical times.”

The he world has not changed so very much as that.

As the three Americans prepared to leave Gambella, and soon Ethiopia, we could say with confidence the order of construction and who would see it through.  Abrham had his men; all lean masters of the pickaxe, hoe, machete and of attitude.  There is a joy in hard physical labor, it seems, and the men at our site could not hide their smiles.

For us, there was and is Jess and Isaacs.  These two will transplant from Mattar for a time; going where the work is.  I am utterly confident in the trustworthiness of these two men.  Jess will provide job-site security and oversee the daily construction progress, like my dear friend Ervis Reka had at the Fushë-Krujë church in Albania.  Isaacs will provide a second layer of over-site in Gambella and will communicate weekly with the people in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I was not sad to leave Gambella, but I had fallen in love with the people there; the men and the women.  Almost without exception, and I mean specifically that on only two occasions over the course of a few hundred interactions with the locals, did I not find a smile, and a kind word, almost a delight in the people I met.

I was delighted too.

Our visit to Mattar was brief, and done, as I came to find out, entirely for my education.  We brought Jess back with us, a good man to have on hand in Gambella.

Over coffee, any good conversation will be had in this manner, Abrham and his assistant went over the final details for building the foundation portion of  SSGMA’s first structure with us.  Once our down payment was made, Abrham’s crew could begin work in earnest.

This required another visit to the property where David Cassner learned that he was the most delightfully tasting man any mosquito had ever encountered.  So celebrated in fact that pests came from all over just for a taste, poor man.

While on the site, a 200 meter square off the beaten Gambella path, I saw some movement at the far end.  The kids in Gambella tend the flocks of livestock as is also often the case in Albania.  They began to run for the fence line as I approached, but I hollered out “Mali! Mali! Mal megwa, mal medi!”  I had assumed the children were Nuar, and it turned out that they were.  After a brief encounter, they decided to continue as before; grazing their goats on our land.

The first step for Abrham’s men was to drive in stout, more permanent marking stakes in place of mine.  I was happy to see that after reviewing the placement of my markers, the men simply copied my points exactly.

After five days in country, with a crew finally on site and ready to break ground, we were all feeling relief and excitement.  Building is an activity that puts feet to vision and speaks to the future of a place.  It’s really quite a thing.

In Mattar, a small place some three hours driving south of Gambella which you won’t find on google maps, SSGMA has many connections. The Ethiopian community there has been host to a Nuar influx of people for many years, how long is difficult to tell. Long enough that the part of the village we stayed in is well established with compounds of tribal dwellings, fences lining property borders, and a complex network of simple roads.

It is possible to tell which tribe a person’s house belongs to based on the kūm, or painted cap that sits on the crest of the roof like a Christmas tree star.  The Nuar are like the Albanian people in that they don’t have much, but what they do have is yours.

I stayed in the mud-house of Jess, a person who’s significance to the SSGMA is slowly being realized.  I was given royal treatment: a mattress pad on the floor of the house with a pillow for my head and a mosquito net for my skin.

Another man I met in Mattar, albeit briefly, was a man named Peter.  Lacking the ability to see, he has nonetheless been given the ability to write worship songs for his church community.  Peter was alone at the church we visited, having only his bent rebar cane to help guide him from place to place. Quite an amazing man.

Within the walls of Jess’s compound were a number of families who’s husbands/fathers were away either for the civil war in nearby South Sudan, or to work the current harvest of some crop or other.  It is a Nuar male tradition to spend little time at home.  These are the people we hope to help, the Nuar of South Sudan; a people who have known strife, war, abuse, racism, and want for generations.

The difference between our chosen worlds are very clear to me today.

This morning I wanted to meet the sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea, and to swim a bit.  I’d forgotten how at home I feel in water.  It was a 55 minute flight from Amman to Larnaca; the time it takes to fly from the Middle East to Europe.  And by that I mean that Jordanian men had me pegged as odd, not because I was from somewhere else, but because my hair is long, unruly, offensive, and an affront.  So I have to balance the idea with living in a place like that, with living in a place like this where my very first night I was approached by two prostitutes; business as usual.

If I were of the Islamic faith, and I believed that the choice between faiths meant the difference between keeping my daughter’s head covered and watching her sell her body to pleasure travelers, what would I choose?  Would I choose choice, or security, free will or authoritarianism, if I thought I could save my sister from abuse?

Some of the flowers on Cyprus are the same species as those in Gambella, Ethiopia.  Wherever God’s light shines there is the prospect for a thriving child of His.  Wherever two or more gather in His name, there he is also.

I’m used to looking for ways to involve people in processes.  The more people have a chance to give input, the more ownership they take.

There wasn’t much of a plan for the building the SSGMA wanted to break ground on before we got to Ethiopia.  Once we toured some neighboring sites to ours, we found a size that aught to fit our needs well: 6 meters wide, and 32 meters long.  This building will essentially have three interior dividing walls which will give us an office, a conference room, and two class rooms.  Of course all of the rooms will find their actual purpose in time.  All of them may be used to house orphaned children, but we won’t know that until later.

I was working to lay out the foundation pad, giving each man a duty: David on camera, Isaacs on machete, Abram’s assistant checking for square, Deng on measuring tape and Aragat on string line.  I didn’t realize until the end that Aragat was our taxi driver and had been helping out only because I had expected it.  There is a little Tom Sawyer in all of us.

This was one of the moments you find you’ve been living for, when everyone has a place in God’s plan.