Part I: The Dove

What better way to start the all-new content to my Long, Involved Stories blog than with a story so long that it has to be told in a series? And, to make sense of the end of this series, you really do need to read all of the installments (there will be six, I think).

Disclosure: Much of this story will talk about spiritual matters. And I look at spiritual matters through the lens of Christian faith. I’m just telling you that now in case you are really put off by that kind of thinking and/or belief and/or delusion (depending on how you view it).

But, before you quit reading, let me quote one of my favorite movies of all time, The Princess Bride. This is at the very beginning, as the grandfather is about to read the book to his grandson.

Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?

Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake.

Grandpa: Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.

So, I will tell you this. There are no sports in this story, but there is “fencing (sort of; okay, kind of a stretch, but you shall see), fighting, a murderous ancient Celt, bandits, prayer, chases, escapes, true love, and definitely miracles.”

You have been informed.

The Dove

I was with a group of women from my church (most of them young-–high school or college age–-with two older “chaperones”–-our group leader and me), visiting a large, well-organized ministry in an African nation, which I will call Mozwandania here, so as not to bring undeserved judgment on the people of the country, who have already felt the judgment of colonialism, followed by a long civil war that led to the destruction of what little infrastructure they’d once enjoyed. The war was accompanied by a decade-long drought that had destroyed not only their crops but by now had turned their fields, their livelihoods, and their dreams into dust. And then came “that awful disease” whose name they do not speak because of the way it has ravaged their population.

The people who started this ministry had been in ministry in Asia but had begun praying for God to lead them to the poorest, most hopeless place on earth. They landed in Mozwandania, which not only met their request but was also, at the time, deemed to be the most violent country in the world. (Tragically, it has now been superceded not once, but a number of times, by other countries-–most of them on the same continent.) Currently, the median age of Mozwandanian males is 16.2, which belies the male life-expectancy age, at birth, of 51 years. This discrepancy is due to the high rate of violence-related deaths among young men between the ages of about 16 to 30.

In Pemba, a large city near the country’s eastern border, the ministry’s leaders found all that they had prayed for. As they’d done in Asia, they went out to the streets and to the garbage dumps, seeking the most vulnerable of the population: the poorest of the poor, the sick, the street children, the very old (40-plus in Mozwandania would make one a candidate for AARP). They found what they were looking for. They also found land upon which to start building an orphanage and other service buildings. They located it right at the edge of the city’s worst slum. They took in orphans who picked through the garbage for food scraps, old women widowed and left childless by violence and disease. They would feed anyone who came to their gates, with no demands, expectations, or obligations. To protect the identity of the ministry, I will refer to them as La Pomba en la Pemba–Portuguese for “The Dove in Pemba”–because they prayed for it to be a place of peace, overflowing with the presence of the Spirit of God.

At the time of my visit, La Pomba had been in Pemba for about 20 years. They now had a large compound that housed about 58 orphans (who lived in age- and gender-specific compounds as regulated by the government), 32 widows who typically lived in the village on the other side of Pomba’s compound walls but who spent their days in job training or working inside the compound. A number of other ministries are taking place daily inside Pomba’s walls, and the place bustles with people and activity. On any given day, there are probably about 150 or more people—residents, staff, and visitors—inside the gates. At 6:00 p.m., anyone who does not live within the compound or is an official guest of the ministry, goes home and the gates are closed for the night.

The children who live at Pomba are free to come and go to the lake and “beach” across the street from their compound or to wander through the villages that cling to three of the compound’s walls. That is, they are free to do so when they are not in school or doing their assigned chores. Most of them have friends or family members (aunties, uncles, cousins, and such) whom they visit in the villages. Pomba children can be easily distinguished from village children, they are clean (they bathe every morning), they are in clothes that are not in rags, and they are well fed. Also, unlike about 95 percent of the country’s children, they attend school regularly.

At the risk of this sounding like a marketing piece meant to tug at your heartstrings (and open your purse strings), I will point out yet another difference between Pomba children and Pemba children. It is a subtle thing, and it doesn’t develop overnight. Make no mistake, these children have experienced every sort of privation, abuse, and pain. They do not give in quickly to daily meals, clean clothes, and baths. Last to develop–to believe that these things might last–is trust. But after they’ve been in Pomba’s care–usually for a long time–something new comes to live in their eyes. It is called hope.