A reflection on getting immunized

Last week, in preparation for a trip to Uganda, my family and I went to a travel medical clinic for shots. The well-meaning nurse told me over and over how important it was for me to protect myself and the children. Her chorus sounded like a nagging mother: “Don't drink the water, put on mosquito repellent, stay away from dogs. The animals 'there' are not immunized you know.” She quizzed me about the health status of the host family and their household help. Have 'they' been tested for tuberculosis?

While she was trying to be helpful, the crudeness of the "us-and-them", "here-versus-there" mentality affected me more than the shots themselves.

I trust my host family. James has been to our home and my husband has been to his in Kampala. We broke bread together at a picnic by the Potomac river last spring. James is an engineer from Northern Uganda who got involved in peace work about ten years ago and now works for an international aid agency. He and his wife have five beautiful children ranging in age from 6 months to 19 years. James and my husband have worked and prayed together across the world. We have, in Anglican speak, "bonds of affection" between our families.

As I shadow various female clergy and mother's union leaders while I am in Uganda, I hope to build more bonds of affection. I am going on this immersion with a desire to learn from sisters and brothers in Christ, in a place where the Anglican Church is vibrantly alive, and faith is costly.

I am sad that in our Anglican family there is such brokenness. I am also grieved that many, like this nurse, still look at Africa as a land of danger rather than a place where Christ is powerfully at work building his kingdom.

I hope in my six weeks there, to un-learn cultural hedge of protection that we all too easily erect between ourselves and the unknown. We call people “them,” obsess about our own safety, and de-personalize the other. I go to re-learn what Christian fellowship and what the Anglican Communion can mean.

God, vaccinate me against my self, that my Ugandan brothers and sisters may infect me with patience, kindness and generosity.

This was originally posted here: http://www.vts.edu/cacs/welcome/commentary.asp