prequel to a pizza party

one day in the dreamcenter i visited a group of young ladies sharing a room. they were all between 23-28 years old and seemed as healthy as one could be staying in a hospice. i met them and tried to start conversation with a lady named stinbille.

i made the embarrassing and typical mistake a western, white, healthy, shallow kid makes and asked the question,

"how are you?"

as it exited my mouth i mentally reached for the words with open fingers to grab them before they did any damage. i couldn't get them back. she shot her eyes at me coldly and said,

"im laying her in an aids hospice. how do you think im feeling?"

her words hit home. "im so sorry" i stammered, but she turned away and looked at the wall. my buddy and translator came to the rescue...

"do you want to get out of here?" he asked.

i looked at him like he was crazy. this question may have been worse than mine, but he knew what he was doing. she fired back angrily, "what do you think?! of course i want out of this terribly place. are you going to get me out?" he asked again, "do you pray to be out of here? do you wish and dream and hope to be out of here?" and when she quietly said yes he smiled the biggest smile ive ever seen, plopped down on her little bed and asked, "and what would be the first thing you would do?"

"i would hug my baby girl."

when we saw the picture of her little daughter in braids and beads we both laughed and told her she was beautiful. the picture being passed between us even helped her forget my stupid asinine question. i asked what she would do next thinking she might kiss her mother or jump up and down or watch her favorite movie. but her answer was better. her answer connected us forever.

"i would eat a pizza."

i nearly jumped up and yelled back, "me too!! thats EXACTLY what i would do!!" she grinned and asked me how much i liked pizza and thus started the 15 minute discussion of pizza loves, joys, and intregues. it was great. i asked what kind of pizza she would order and her response was simple. "cheese pizza... so much cheese you can't tell its a pizza!" and so we began a friendship through pizza.

after 10 more minutes of food talk she asked me what i was doing visiting them. i explained that we just wanted to enjoy thier company and let them know they weren't alone. i told her we were also telling stories about our hope, the person Jesus. she asked me to tell her a story before i left and we talked about mary and martha. she was great. she exclaimed with a frustrated face, "why was she doing the dishes?! Jesus is in her house! you must sit and listen if Jesus is in your house!" i agreed, laughed, and tried to explain Jesus's presence in the dreamcenter. honestly, i didn't do a very good job explaining, but she asked if i could visit again and bring her a bible in zulu. when i told her yes and got up to leave she looked me right in the eyes, kindof into me if thats possible and said,

"do not forget to come again, and don't forget the bible. people say they will do things and they forget. do not forget."

so i haven't. and i can't.

refocus

my mentor and boss came to guam last week. i really needed to be refocused and find my love for students and ministry again. we ate great food, snorkeled, toured guam a bit, and laughed a ton. a vision for collegiate ministry here on guam is forming in my brain and i'm starting to fianlly think about someone other than myself.

thanks a ton john.

grape sodas and hope... the last conversation

the last time i saw phumzille she was laying in bed on her back looking through me while i read to her in broken zulu. she had asked me to come by and read, so i did. she couldn't speak. she couldn't smile. her breathing was labored beyond what i thought her little body could perform. i hate to write this because im ashamed i noticed, but she smelled like bile and old urine. the room felt and smelled and looked like hopelessness... but we didn't let it swallow us. we read together. we read of Jesus and his hope. we read about a man who came to save and not condemn. we read a story that changed our lives. we read in broken zulu but not in minor tone. i cried a little and held her hand while she breathed and tried to whisper.

she died a few days later. i hope i wasn't the only one who cried. i walked in her room and the bed was made. the sheets were pulled tightly around the matress. i was told she had died like one might be told a friends pet had run away, and only after she started to walk away did the nurse stop and talk about phuzille like she was a person. and she wasn't just a person. she was a girl. and she was a funny girl. and she was a funny girl who liked to be read to. and she was a funny girl who liked to be read to while having lotion rubbed on her feet. and she was found. and she liked who she was becoming more than she hated who she used to be. and she was pretty. and she didn't eat her dinner because the smell made her sick. and her story is still beginning. and she liked grape soda.

grape sodas and hope... part 2

as i visited Phumzille i began to notice her body deteriorating quickly. she was in the advanced stages of aids and losing weight. she had contracted tuberculosis as a result and was noticeably weaker every visit. in the dreamcenter single rooms were given to the patients most ill. the doctors did this to keep the healthier patients from losing hope, but it also isolates the most desperate patients while they are dragged slowly toward death. before too long getting a grape soda didn't make phumzille smile and she would have problems staying alert or speaking. a few visits consisted of me holding one hand and bonghani, my friend and translator, holding the other while we told her stories, put lotion on her feet, read to her, and prayed with her. she wanted to play cards once, but didn't have the strength to hold 5 cards in her hands. these were painful visits.

on one of these visits she felt like she had the energy to talk with us. she was quiet for a long time and then began with, "i told God i wanted him close to me. and he has answered my prayers. we are talking and he is near me while i lay here all day. he helps me be more happy as i look out my window." i don't really know how to type what her weak voice sounded like saying such beautiful words. bonghani and i sat mouths open while the tears welled up; i wasn't able to say much, but we gripped her hands more tightly and watched her smile. she began to explain how she had lived a life of rebellion against her mother and God and even the friends closest to her. she felt for a long time that she deserved hiv and went into a pretty serious depression before being brought to the dreamcenter. our guilt is a strange and dangerous thing. i know our guilt dealt with in healthy ways can bring us to Jesus or our families to ask for forgiveness, but our guilt fed by sickness and helplessness and shame can lead to giving up. instead of conviction leading to forgiveness, guilt led to hopelessness with phumzille.

after she told us God had been close to her lately we began to talk about his forgiveness and his willingness to clean us up. i'm sure we read some psalms to her about God separating sin as far as the east and west or maybe we read Jesus's promises to restore, but i don't really remember. i just remember getting to tell her God is a good father who wants to forgive and give hope. he didn't think she was a bad child but wanted to be close to her again. we all grinned and laughed during these light conversations because the weights were being lifted off. this conversation in particular lifted my own weights of disappointment and shame and distance form Jesus and his love for me. i realized for myself that he was indeed close and willing, he was ready to forgive and start anew with us.

grape sodas and hope... part 1

The day I met Phumzille in the hospice, she may have weighed 85 pounds. Her smile and facial expressions reminded me of my sister Lakyn. The more I visited, the more honest our conversations became, and after getting her sodas while laughing at some translation problems, the talks turned to Jesus. I told her I was visiting the hospice to learn about real friendships and love and hope. I told her I wanted to watch Jesus do great things. One afternoon she began telling me what God was starting to do in her heart the past few days. I recorded a little bit of the conversation roughly in my journal…

“she began to tell me she thought God was reaching out to her and that she should reach back. How beautiful... I got to share the acts 17 passage with her about Paul telling the areopagus that God set the places were we should live ‘so that they might SEEK HIM, for he is NOT FAR from each one of us.’ I got to tell her finding God and having him close to me was the thing that gave me joy in life and that this joy overwhelms circumstances. As we talked about Jesus in the hospice room with her bloody urine in a bag beside us and her uneaten food between us, I realized I was having one of the more meaningful and enjoyable conversations in my life. Truly Jesus pierces our helplessness with light and life. He walks in the aids hospice and meets the most tired of hearts…”

I went on to tell her that God’s presence was not far away but in the hospice room with her. The kingdom of God, the “dance of God”, I said, is happening all around us. This interaction between God and people is ready to steal us away, ready to make us new. He wants to give us hope and joy and company and rest and peace even in these dark hard places. He wants us to reach for him, because he’s certainly reaching for us. I loved telling her God wasn’t a stranger to aids hospices and broken bodies. As we talked we began to inch toward each other and our voices got lower, almost to a whisper. Its as if we were saying secret thing, things if said “from the rooftops” might evaporate or become trite or wrong. We weren’t trying to be dramatic, its almost as if we were saying delicate words. I whispered about the dance of God and its hope as she grinned and whispered back. There were no trite words shared, no minor tones, no empty hopes... just honest conversation.

I’m smiling as I type thinking about her small, emaciated body and her wide, closed eyed smile as she thought about God reaching out to her. She broke my heart and made it beat loudly in the same conversation that day. She was one of my favorite people to have a grape soda with.