How Time Flies

Time passes absurdly quickly sometimes. Or maybe David and I just cram more into a given chunk of time than people might generally choose to do.

In February, he proposed (I truly thought he was never going to ask…).

One week later, we set the wedding date for June 8^th.

But then we found the perfect reception place, only their only opening was for May 11^th.

So we moved the wedding up.

Then we planned a wedding. In about 12 weeks. Don’t ever do that to yourself.

Of course, the reception spot was too good to be true, and it ended up being moved to an entirely different location after a lot of frustrated conversations. That’s okay. The second spot was even more perfect.

On May 4^th, we graduated. One week later, we got married.

David  repeated after the preacher…
“For better or for worse,

For richer or… well, probably for poorer…”

Preacher Len told David to stick to the script.

I tried to keep my eyes open really wide for all of the wedding pictures, because I was very tired and emotional and hormonal and had cried for a good bit of the morning, so I was afraid they were puffy…

The next morning we had Mother’s Day lunch with David’s family before jetting off to Massachusetts for a week long escape/honeymoon. We weren’t watching the time and nearly missed the plane. No worries. We flew United—they delayed every single flight that we even looked at. We made it in plenty of time.

We landed in New England very late that night. Have you ever rented a car in the dark when you’re exhausted? Don’t. Also don’t ever drive a rented car for 3 hours through mountain roads after your phone (which is also your GPS…) dies, because all you will be able to hear is the car-rental guy’s warnings about how much insurance you should have bought from them. It was so dark and impossible to see.

But if you do, and if you get pulled over for making a U-turn in the process, DEFINITELY act lost and Southern and mention that it’s your honeymoon. Anyway, the cop probably only pulled you over because you had turned on only your parking lights instead of headlights.

It was a little less difficult to see after that.

We finally made it to our little mountain ski lodge and slept for an exceptionally long amount of time. At the end of a week of tennis and hiking and too much eating out, we drove to Yale Children’s Hospital to hang out with Abner’s family. Guess what?! None of the restaurants in New Haven have Spanish menus! And I have no idea how to say most sea foods in Spanish!

We eventually wandered back to Nashville, moved in together, and worked our way through the summer. A couple of months later, we found out that sometime next February the two of us would become the three of us.

It’s a girl! Teresa Leone. We’re pretty excited. I hope Africa is preparing itself for the Suell invasion.

I took the NCLEX and passed it in 75 questions (that’s a good thing), which was nice.

I applied for about three million jobs and finally found three part-time positions that melted into full-time employment.

David folded a lot of shirts at Brooks Brothers.

I applied for and received an RN license in TN, which was really easy and took about 10 days total.

Then I applied for and (eventually) received an RN license in IL, which was absurdly complicated and took about 3 months.

Then life got boring so we moved to Chicago. David’s grad school program might have had something to do with it too. Have you ever lived in a studio apartment? With another human? And a tiny human on the way?

We like adventures.

Although I would be okay if some of the more… ahem… “exciting” parts of our adventure would resolve, like our current unemployment…

Our toilet was clogged up when we moved in. And the carpet would be much easier to look at if we could put an area rug over it so we wouldn’t have to look at it. We got a new fridge! But only after our other one quit working. At 10pm. The day we bought $200 of groceries. Our maintenance worker is on a first name basis with us. He’s a lovely man.

Now, we’re sitting at Cafe53 just down the road from our humble abode. They sell gelato here. I highly recommend the turkey Panini and the iced chai. David spent the morning in a class about African colonialism and post-colonialism, which has us both pretty excited. The weather is wonderful and fall and crisp. I filled out so many job applications today that I now have a series of otherwise useless facts memorized—like the phone numbers of every employer I’ve had for the past 6 years, and the address of my high school… Lorna mailed me some baby yarn so I can make more baby booties, and it should be in tomorrow.  I made some baby bunny slippers. They’re incredibly cute. Hopefully we’ll have internet at the apartment by early next week. We found a church (wasn’t hard… it’s three doors down from home…) that we adore and will definitely keep attending.

AND a new grocery store just opened up RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET, so we don’t have to walk a mile to buy milk from CVS anymore.

Let me tell you, folks: This is the good life, right here. And we’re loving every second of it.

Bus Protests

Perhaps my greatest weakness is my rashness. Or maybe it’s recklessness. I prefer the term “passion.” Described by coaches, friends, and jr. high teacher as “fire-cracker,” “hot-headed,” “strong-willed,” “spit-fire”…. Sometimes manifested (in my slightly more redeeming moments) through intervention on behalf of the helpless. If I’m honest though, the fire-themed descriptions mentioned above are a more accurate representation of the dangerous and damaging potential of a temper untamed.

The Peace Soldier bus may be my least favorite form of transportation in Zambia. Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure there are worse. The overnight bus from Kazembe to Lusaka isn’t exactly a barrel of pure joy. I think my issue with the Peace Soldier bus is that since it’s just a “short” trip, I still feel obligated to be functional when I get to wherever I’m going, but the trip is so exhausting that I just want to curl up and groan myself to sleep.

This last summer, several of us were on our way back from Mansa via the Peace Soldier bus. Much fun. After David successfully warded off a local man who wanted one of the other volunteers to marry him (she happens to be Chinese… he kept saying, “I like her breed.” *shudder*), I traded seats with a rather portly gentleman so that I could sit in the back seat next to David. On my other side was a mother with 2 young children.  The back row had 4 seats. The woman held the littlest boy on her lap while the preschooler occupied the last seat.  She seemed terrified of inconveniencing me and kept apologizing profusely while scooting the child closer to her to give me more room.

Just before the bus was about to leave, the scrawny pushy guy who takes the tickets opened the door at the demand of an angry and blustering man on the outside. The exchange was in Bemba, but it was obvious that the man wanted on the bus. He did not have a ticket but was offering the ticket man money.

Just one problem. The bus was full.

The ticket man stepped back on the bus, glanced around, and zoned in on the woman with two children sitting beside me. He yelled something at her, and she responded similarly. The back-and-forth quickly became heated, and the woman whipped her tickets out of her purse and began frantically waving them at the man while holding her other arm protectively in front of her preschooler in the seat next to me.

Unable to keep my mouth shut, I joined the conversation.

“What is the problem?” I asked.

“Ah! This woman, she has two children. The children can sit on her lap or on the floor. This man needs a seat.”

Never mind that it would have been physically impossible for even the skinniest of children to wedge themselves between the seats to sit on the disgusting floor, or the fact that the woman’s lap could not possibly have held both children, OR the obvious issue that she had purchased TWO seats and was only occupying TWO seats.

“How many seats did she purchase?”

“My friend, they are just small children.”

Ohhhhhhhh that was soooo not a good direction for him to go with this argument.

“Answer the question. How many seats did she purchase?”

The man decided to switch tactics.

“Ah, my friend! 5 people can sit in the back row! There are 5 seats in the back row!”

Let me interject and point out that he made two different statements. On one hand, 5 skinny people could probably have fit in the back row. We were not 5 skinny people. We were a large David, Meg, a 5-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a well-fed mother. His other assertion—that there are 5 seats in the back row—was simply wrong.

“You are wrong. There are 4 seats in the back row.”

The entire bus was now chortling their amusement as they watched the display.

“Musungu, you are blind!”

Spit-fire tendency triggered. I flew to my feet and my voice amplified a bit as smoke and brimstone poured out of my eyes.

“Count them with me! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!” I gestured wildly at each seat as I numbered it. “Four seats! If there is not room for your friend outside, then he should have bought a ticket. The back seat is full.”

And with an air of finality I sat back down.

The bus ringing from the laughter of its passengers, the door finally shut and we pulled away down the dusty road.

Back in the good ol’ U.S. of A., I ride a different kind of bus. It’s actually a 15-passenger van, and I pack it full of homeless kids each weekday to shuttle back and forth from various summer camps.

Some of those kids are a little rough around the edges. As in, really rough. An 8-year-old made me cry last week. Sometimes I have to be a little more firm/harsh with them than I would be with the average kid.

Today, I had a rather humbling and heartbreaking realization. Somewhere along the line, the “fire-cracker” part of me that makes me capable of not just handling but also loving on and positively interacting with these kids kind of took over and mutated. Firm and harsh became my default. This became glaringly obvious when I barked at a first grader with a stutter (because he was drumming on the seat in front of him and I had asked him to stop twice) but then caught his hurt and fearful expression in the rear-view mirror.

So the second time in living memory that I stood up and addressed a bus full of people, it wasn’t to blow my top. It was to apologize.

The great thing about kids is that if you’ll just level with them, look them in the eye, and acknowledge you were wrong, their hearts are usually still soft enough to forgive and forget. They hugged me like always as they got off the bus. One of the teenage boys who usually rides with us but whose mom had dropped him off that morning stepped out of his basketball game to shout my name, flash a grin, and wave. The pre-teen girl that has become like my little sister dodged three counselors on her way to launch herself onto the bus and give me a hug (her mom had also dropped her off, so she hadn’t ridden with us—also, we did have a discussion about obeying the counselors as a result).

I have thought a lot in the past week about doing right things the wrong way, particularly in regards to my speech and whether I consider my words before they come rocketing out of my overactive mouth. I think I could have handled both bus situations better. It was right of me to stand up for the woman on the Peace Soldier bus (the first time I rode the overnight bus from Lusaka to Kazembe, the bus operator made a woman with two toddlers sit on the rancid floor so she wouldn’t be “in my way.” I was new to the culture and the country and a little bit paralyzed, so I didn’t speak up. I vowed it would never happen again…). I think it was also appropriate to shut down the blooming percussionist this morning.

But in both situations, I failed to speak in love, and so I failed to represent my King or set an example that the children watching would have done well to emulate. I became just one more self-entitled bullying Musungu and one more authoritarian adult. I do not wish to be either.

The words of my stuttering drummer left me with a smile as he departed the bus so very early this morning: “Don’t worry, Miss Meg. Your day will get better. You’re always nicer in the afternoon. Maybe you just need a nap.”

It seems there is hope for me yet.

All in a Daze Work

On Mondays, I work at the refugee clinic.

This week I spent the morning shirking my duties in favor of wooing a 4-year-old Nepali girl into becoming my best friend.

She was not impressed.

I offered stickers, and she snatched them and crumpled them up. I gave her crayons and a coloring sheet and she shredded the crayon wrappers onto the floor. I made faces at her. I animatedly bit the heads off of animal crackers.

She just sat sullenly in her chair and stared at me, the wild-haired slightly disheveled mess of a blonde white girl hopping around on one foot like a complete idiot in my attempt to make her smile.

But I noticed that no matter what I did, she watched me.

So I hid from her.

I stepped behind a door, and she leaned to the side to find me. I slipped beneath a table, and she found me there too. Luckily she was at the age where all I really had to hide was my face, so this game wasn’t too difficult. Finally she had to slip off of her father’s lap and take three full steps to the side to find me. And then another step. And then one more closer. Before long, she was four feet away from me, giggling and chattering in Nepali. I made a movement toward her and she panicked, so I just stayed where I was and tried to hide behind my own hands. She started to get nervous. I grabbed a hair elastic off of my wrist and gently shot it at her. She startled, but then picked it up and shot it back at me. Of course this was terrifying and I tumbled over dramatically.

The next half hour was full of giggles and laughter and all the joy that one little conference room could hold. The Cuban couple in the corner delighted in watching this little one play. The little boy having his blood pressure taken stopped crying. The whole room was transfixed by the joy of a child.

Afterwards, a translator I have never met before came up and introduced herself. "You did wonderfully today," she said. "You're a natural. Keep it up."

Mondays are good days.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I work at a family homeless shelter.
My job is to hang out with the kids and transport them to whichever camp they are going to that week. Quotes from our journeys:

Chloe, age 11: “Miss Meg, you’re gonna be a good momma.”
Me: *flattered* “Well thank you. I hope so.”
Chloe: “Yeah. Remember when you yelled at us for choking each other on the bus the other day?! You were just like a mom.”
Me: ……….

Imani, age 8: “Wow Miss Meg, you work 3 jobs?! You must be so rich!”
 
Me: “Dayon, are you wearing a seatbelt?”
Dayon, age 13: “mumblemumblemumble….”
Me: *hits the breaks slightly harder than necessary *
Dayon: “OKAY! I’LL PUT A SEATBELT ON!!”

On Thursday and Friday, I nanny for a 9-month-old.

She’s pretty great. She’s just learning to talk and will mimic literally any sound I make.

So I taught her to say “dada” while simultaneously growling.

She sounds just like Darth Vader.


So that’s my week, over and over again. Never boring. Sometimes exhausting. And occasionally interrupted by something marvelous, like today’s phone call from Zambia. A dear friend is there right now and let the village boys use his phone to call us. I may or may not have cried a little. 

David and I spend a lot of time thinking about last summer and dreaming about the future, which is hurtling towards us at the speed of light. I certainly get my fill of kids here—refugees, inner-city homeless, and 9-month-olds enticed by the Dark Side. But my heart still drifts to those dusty red streets at night. I dream about them—about the ones who have passed away, and the ones who are growing up without me, and the ones on the streets who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. A few years can seem like a lifetime to a child, and so I wonder what it will be like when we return. Some of them we may never get to see again. Allan has moved to Chipata. Gift is in Lusaka. Others are still there and probably always will be, like Albert and Nicholas. Some were so young that they won’t even remember us—little Mercy and Eunice.

I dream about learning their language, living alongside them, stepping out of time and into a different world where life is terribly hard and beautiful. I dream about the clinic and the mission hospital, and I wonder where my place will be. I dream of a classroom packed with 9^th graders and I know where David’s place will be. I run my hand over the rough cover of our Bemba Bible, and my heart aches for a people who have heard of Christ but scarcely see His hands and feet.

Oh, I have so very many dreams.

But they will have to wait for another day, because it’s time to pick up Chloe from camp now.

Gotta go put my mom voice on.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

 

I’m a bit of an adventurist. That’s a diplomatic way to put it… “adrenaline junky” might be more accurate. I thrive on the excitement of the chase, the challenge of an unsolvable puzzle, and the dare imbedded in the doubter’s scoff. Love, I think, is the greatest adventure I have ever embarked upon.

It’s a many-faceted and devilishly tricky endeavor, to love another person. The more I learn and experience about what it is to love, the more I discover about what it is to be loved (because sometimes letting that happen is even harder) and how little I know about the whole process after all. And I’m not just talking about that wonderful man I just married (though I am head-over-heels stupid crazy in love with him…). I mean all kinds of love: The love that delights in holding a screaming Salvadorian toddler and considers the 10 seconds of dancing with him to be the highlight of this century. The love that lies in wait in the back of my mind for nighttime to come, that it might grace my sleep with the most vivid and tactile dreams of familiar brown faces, tiny dirty hands, playground romps, and time-out tantrums. The love that longs for love-thirsty places—understaffed hospitals and refugee clinic and the orphan’s heart—that it might plant and grow and fight and defend and catalyze. The love that agonizes needlessly over its requite while two young adventurist fools waltz around each other for a couple of years until they wake up married one day. That kind of love.

C.S. Lewis described the New Narnia as being something like an onion, except beneath each layer was found a layer even greater and deeper and more mysterious than the one before. It is somehow fitting that love is kind of the same way.

I was speaking with a first-time mom the other day, and the topic turned to whether she wanted to have more children. “I know this sounds ridiculous, and I know that I would, but I just can’t imagine loving another child as much as I do her,” she said, referring to the cackling 8-month-old who had just accidentally wedged herself between a shelf and a dresser. “It’s like your world grows somehow… like your capacity for adoration swells to a level that you could not have previously imagined.” Love changes you, grows you, stretches you.

And so that’s my thought for the day. No grand moral; no tantalizingly intriguing query.

But hey. I’m a newlywed. I should get at least one free pass to gush about love and mushy things.

In related news, I hope that you enjoy these love-inspired photos as much as I have.

The aforementioned wonderful man...

And the aforementioned screaming Salvadorian.

Five More Days

 

I will tell the story in time, but for now, this is all you need know: the transplant has been approved, and the 12-hour surgery takes place Monday.

It has been a whirlwind of activity since I first became connected with this family in January. I have hoped; I have laughed; I have feared; I have fought passionately on their behalf—sometimes against foreseen foes, and sometimes to defend them against those who should have been on their side but had deferred to fear, cynicism, or utilitarianism. I have been totally in my element at times and completely clueless as to what to do at other times. I have learned a lot of Spanish, including the phrase “señales de humo,” which is how Hector jokes we will communicate when we meet each other face to face. Hopefully that will be more effective than language has been. Our miscommunications are comical in retrospect but were certainly less than humorous at the time.

My heart overflows and my spirit swells with joy, for God has been faithful. Hector, Tere, and Abner are all safe and enjoying the sights of New Haven, CT, in the company of a church family that has been nothing short of a Godsend, wrapped protectively in a blanket of prayers pouring in from all over the world. I have learned so much from them. I have learned what it is to be joyful in hope. I was reminded what it is to fight in the face of impossibility. I have wrestled at length with the admonition that perfect love drives out fear, and indeed I have been convicted to adopt that statement into my day-to-day actions.

And today, I wept for them. I mean, there have been moments of tears—generally out of frustration or the fear that my inadequacey would result in failure of the whole mission—but I never truly wept. Today I did. I crumpled on the floor and sobbed for 45 minutes, and tears of joy and relief and thankfulness and praise spilled together onto the furry green rug on my floor that so desperately needs vaccuumed.

Against all odds. Despite all doubts. In light of a father’s persistent hope.

And so I sit here with a bowl of ramen, my fingers stuttering hesitantly over the keyboard, aching with the inability to express in words the emotion erupting from my soul. I savor the chance to fight on behalf of the least of these, and I cannot help but glance at the pictures hanging on my wall of all of the little ones I have loved who did not get the second chance Abner is getting and whisper a prayer of thanks, for they are the ones through whom I was taught to love this way, and thus how to fight this way.

And so all things work together for good in the end, and I rejoice in the gift of one child’s second chance.

Five more days.

Child of Light

To whom it may concern:


My name is Meg McKechnie. I am a senior nursing student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.  I am writing on behalf of friends of mine who are citizens and residents of El Salvador, Héctor Abdulio Moreno Martínez and Mirna Teresa Linares de Moreno, in regards to their son, Abner Isaac Moreno Linares, born 01/04/2012. The family speaks only Spanish. Abner has a history of cholangitis and biliary atresia. His doctors in El Salvador say he is in need of a liver transplant in order to survive, which cannot be provided in country.

I have contact information for Abner's family, PCP, and the children's hospital in El Salvador, as well as his medical records (in Spanish), photographs, and videos of the child showing his decline in the past few months. His parents sent it to me with permission to give it to anyone who might be able to help.

Héctor qualifies as a donor for Abner. At this point, I believe the family’s only hope is to procure an emergency visa for both father and son to travel to the States for treatment. I am tirelessly working to coordinate that end of the situation. Four requirements must be met in order for the family to apply for the visa:

1. Official letter from U.S. hospital and doctors, accepting patient for treatment and providing estimated cost and length of medical treatment;

2. Evidence regarding ability to pay for the treatment;

3. Proof of social, economic and professional ties in El Salvador that will compel the applicant to return to his/her home country following completion of the medical treatment; and

4. A professional diagnosis of the illness and evidence that it cannot be treated in El Salvador.    

Requirements 3 and 4 are easily attainable. Requirements 1 and 2 are much more difficult.

Our experience thus far has been an inability and unwillingness of US hospitals to accept Abner and Héctor as patients until funding has been established. We are working to expand the already significant network of families and churches across the United States willing to invest in the cost of long-term post-transplant drugs. However, the family is poor and simply cannot pay for the transplant themselves. Their only hope is for a hospital or organization to donate the cost of the procedure and immediate follow-up care.

If you had any idea how many times I have sent that letter-- or some permutation thereof, with differing endings depending on what I was begging that particular person or organization for-- in the last three days...


A friend sent me a text late Thursday night asking if I was awake. I laughed a little... I was at practicum, which for me is night shift at Vandy's pediatric hematology and oncology unit, so yes, I was awake and would be until well after the sun rose the next morning. She told me about Abner and asked for my help.

We talked and schemed and prayed-- oh, how we have prayed!-- and at some point both of us probably promised God that this kid could have pieces of our livers if that was what he needed. And all the while we have been so acutely aware of the ocean of obstacles between this child and a chance at life. His parents are poor. And they live in the third world. There is no way they can do this by themselves. 



So I did a few hundred Google searches and spammed half of the northern hemisphere with emails, begging for help. I found a lawyer in Texas who coordinated a liver transplant for a little boy out of El Salvador just a few years ago, and he connected me with an organization in El Salvador that might be able to help coordinate the bureaucracy on that end. I stalked Abner's daddy's facebook and wept as I read his status saying that he is confident God will make a way for his son, while in the same breath saying that no matter what happens, he will give all glory and praise to Him-- and asking his facebook friends to pray that he will have the strength to continue in his faith "no matter what happens," because God will still be God (and all of this weeks ago, before anything was in motion on this continent). Then I felt the weight of a father's hope last night as I personally chatted with this man, and he thanked me for being a part of God's answer.



I have laughed; I have danced; I have cried; I have called friends on the other side of the continent so that I could laugh and dance and cry with company. My heart lingers somewhere between the anguish of impossibility and the hope of eternity. On one hand, to call my resources insufficient would be the greatest understatement of all time. In the United States, the transplant could cost as much as half a million dollars. But then, there are some hospitals with international charity surgery departments, and there might be hope there. We also have not ruled out the option of considering a different country where the surgery might be cheaper. Any way you dice it, we have found that we will either need $75k to cover the cost of initiating treatment and the downpayment for the surgery in the US (while we find organizations to cover the rest), or that same $75 to have the transplant done in another capable country (which while cheaper, is scary, because many of these places have much lower survival rates, and the idea is to save this baby...). So I haven't given up.

Because I know that this has been done before, and even if it had not, I know that God is big enough.

So I keep emailing, and keep asking, and keep calling, and keep knocking, in hopes that persistence might yield an open door.


Here's how you can help.

We need a hospital that can do the transplant pro-bono, OR an organization that can cover the cost along with a hospital willing to do the procedure.

 We need a pharmaceutical company willing to donate the cost of the medications that Abner will need for the rest of his life.

 We need prayer. Oh, do we need prayer.

We need people to know, and we need people to care. Maybe you don't know anyone with connections at a hospital, but perhaps someone you know happens to know someone with a compassionate heart and the right connections. So I need you to share this story. Email it. Post it on facebook. Send it to your pastor. I need you to care about Abner as if he were your own child, because someone else once asked, "Who is my neighbor?" and I do believe Christ's response, after sharing a story of a man who went out of his way and sacrificed of himself to help another in need, was "Go and do likewise." I need you to ask yourself how far you would go to fight for one of your own, and then I need you to do that. Abner needs you to do that.

Because right now, the army fighting for him consists of a ragtag group of college kids at Belmont, and ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare that we cannot do this by ourselves.

There is a video of Abner taken recently that shows the urgency of his situation. It is not easy to watch; you should probably not let children view it. His protruding liver and major abdominal vessels are clearly visible; he has massive edema in his abdomen and scrotum, but his limbs are wasting because of the malnutrition that results from liver failure.

If you would like updates on Abner and his situation, just let me know, and I'll make sure you get them. You can always contact me here by commenting on this blog. Or you can email me at meghan.mckechnie@pop.belmont.edu

The name "Abner" means  "the Father is a light." Amen and amen.

 

Please... do not forget him...

Much love.


Meg




*****UPDATE, 2/6/13*****
We have started a fundraiser to pay for Abner's transplant. We need to raise the money for his transplant, and quickly! Donate here:

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/Help-Save-Abner-s-Life/41362

Children of God

“You know,” said David, “every time I see a kid carrying around a plastic bottle, I wonder who gave it to them.”

And we both laughed as flashbacks of grubby little hands snatching at our soda bottles on the dusty winding paths through the marketplace danced fleetingly through our minds.

We were at a very different kind of market now. The little Indian girl with the Mtn. Dew bottle carried on closely behind her mother, and I breathed in deeply the aroma of curry and tzatziki and Cajun that wafted from the various restaurants at the food court at Nashville’s Farmer’s Market. I watched her with joy as she gleefully waved around that silly bottle, shaking it at the ceiling lights and putting it against her eyes to tint her whole world lime green. Never mind that her mother was carrying a pack with toys sticking out of it. The child was completely content and enthralled with that bottle.

But then, I was not surprised. Across the world a lot of fun can be had with a plastic bottle. The kids in Kazembe make trains, or cars, or dolls, or any other manner of entertainment out of them. They use them for games, and sometimes they just hoard them. The caps off of glass bottles are prized almost as highly, and David used to get a great deal of amusement out of flipping them to unsuspecting Iwes as we ambled along the road.

One day during the Mutomboko ceremony we were hanging out under a tree by the palace next to the booth where press passes and touristy t-shirts were sold. I don’t really remember now how the whole thing got started or who initiated the first flick (probably David, since his pockets were usually full of bottle caps), but suddenly David and I were sitting on the ground surrounded by a couple dozen dirty kids. We flipped the cap back and forth a few times, then innocently flipped it to a kid on the inside of the circle. He was so surprised that he didn’t even catch it.

He caught it the second time, though. And then the next kid caught it. And then the next one. And thus the most uncomplicated game of catch ever conceived came into being, and we sat there in the dirt as happy as could be, flipping bottle caps back and forth with a bunch of kids we had never met.

The palace official did not approve of our antics.

“You! You my friends, we are happy to have you here as guests! But send these children away from here.”

Now as a sidenote, it would be an understatement to say that I have a temper. It would also be an understatement to say that said temper has a tendency to flair when innocents—particularly children—are mistreated or devalued.

So I very calmly stood up, held my hands out so my dear little urchins could cling on, then resolutely began to walk away, saying, “Come on everyone, we’ll all go somewhere else.”

“Oh no!” the official hurriedly interjected. “You,” gesturing to those of us who are white, “You are welcome! Just get rid of the children.”

“If they are not welcome to sit under a tree, then neither are we,” I replied.

The official began to protest again, when suddenly Zeger stepped in.

“But my good sir,” our resident non-Christian pleaded smoothly, “are we not all children of God? We are no better than they, and so if we can be here, than surely they can be too.”

Well now he had him. All sacrifices to the ancestors aside, this man was not about to let some random white people think that he was not a “good Christian.”

“Oh yes!” he exclaimed. “My friend! In my spare time, I am an evangelist! Of course, yes, we are all children of God! The children may stay, yes…”

As the flustered official returned to his kiosk, David, Zeger, and I returned to our game. 

(Also, I would like to point out that I don't think this official was really the "bad guy"-- he was just doing his job; part of crowd control in the village is kid control.)

Eventually the next part of the ceremony started, and we got up, brushed ourselves off, gave the caps away, and followed the crowds.

We retold the story many times in the days to come and indeed have recounted it on numerous occasions since returning home. It remains one of my favorites, because it turns out that even musungus can play the Zambian political game-- and even the lowest in society can often be protected from being devalued or shunted aside, if only someone with a voice will ally himself with them.

Even me

Les Misérables.

A thief pays the price. His scarred wrists proclaim his past, and the mantra of the righteous rings eternally: Once a thief, always a thief. Once a thief, never trustworthy again. Once a wretch, forever irredeemable.

And with that echoing in his mind, the felon makes the jailkeeper a prophet. He steals again. And as he does, we wonder if the prophecy is not true.  Once a wretch, forever irredeemable. The man of God had offered him shelter, food, safety, love… He had extended generosity. Generosity means little, though, in the eyes of one who believes what this man had been told…

Once a wretch, forever irredeemable.

And so the man called wretched behaved as his title would lead one to expect, and he stole. Again. From one who had given him so much. Many would have declared his fate sealed. Many would have condemned him here. Indeed, the Law did.  But the man of God did not.

The silver? Yes it is mine, he said.. But I have given it to him. The silver he has is his to keep, he said. Oh but wait. He has forgotten the best of all—take these silver candlesticks as well, he said. And pray child, use this silver to become an honest man.

It is not generosity or kindness alone that softened a stony heart. It was mercy. Forgiveness. And then generosity.  It was the cloak offered up once the tunic was forcefully taken. It was the man of God who would rather be without any earthly thing than pass up a chance to speak the Gospel into a man’s life—a man who would rather be wronged than be repaid—a man so concerned about the welfare of another human being that his own rights never even entered into consideration.

That man of God, I think, is the true hero of the story.

But the man of the Law still believed the prophecy.
Once a wretch, always irredeemable.

And so he pursued the wretch, seeking to punish and purify and uphold that which he believed to be holy and true. Such was his right. His responsibility, even.  His duty.

And it consumed him. His bitterness, his inability to believe in the redemption of man, his absolute conviction that the wretch was forever a thief… For passion can be misplaced, and his pulled him down to his end.

The greater message, I think, is that poverty is not all about materialism. We think it is. We act as though to toss a pair of used shoes or some hand-me-down clothes at some poor dirty street kid is significantly alleviating the problem, as if the only thing the wretch needed was food and a place to sleep. Materially, yes. That was all he needed. But man is not merely physical, and neither are his needs. Even the wretch—even the thief—is more.

Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world
This world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye!
Turn your heart into stone!
This is all I have lived for!
This is all I have known!

He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?

Redemption and her story came not through retribution and restitution, but through a willingness to be wronged and abused, if only for the chance that the thief might come to believe in the existence of his own soul.

And yet, it is just a story.

I have often wondered where the balance is between mercy and justice… forgiveness and accountability… the extension of grace and the enabling of poor behavior. I still don’t have the answer. But if I must be one or the other—the man of the Law or the man of God—I know which side I hope to fall on. For he believed that redemption could find any man, and he was willing to sell his own comfort to give that man a chance.

Even the wretch.

Even the thief.

Even me.