Excerpt from a Missionary E-Mail

Recently my friends, Greg aqnd Cathy Letherer took their two children to Africa on a missionary trip. This is an excerpt from their last update.

We truly felt your prayers and God's protection as we entered a mob situation on our last day in Uganda while on our way to visit missionaries at the Rafiki Village. We passed by a large group of local villagers surrounding a man seated on the ground with his head cut open. We turned the car around and on the second time around, we saw that this man was tied up with a rope. Shannon got out of the car and entered the crowd to ask what was going on with this man. The locals said that the man was caught stealing some items from a woman's home. We found out from missionaries at the Rafiki later that this is typically how they deal with wrongs called "mob justice" where they beat and possibly kill the offender. I felt rather nervous with Noah sleeping in the car along with Denice who was sick. Shannon and Greg got the man with the gaping head wound into the back of the car along with a couple other villagers. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my doctor's bag on this outing (big mistake where medical needs abound). We asked for for directions to the local counsel who wasn't there then proceeded to take him to the police dept. then to the "hospital" which in our equivalency would be less than 10 times our clinics. I examined the patient and asked the nurses for sterile equipment to stich his scalp which needed about 30 stiches. They looked at me dumb-founded because they had no sterile instruments. By that time, the local counsel arrived. I asked the nurses how they'd treat the man. They said that they'd take care of him. I wondered which was worse, leaving him with the mob or at the clinic. Greg and Shannon then wrote the man a note to share with him that God shows him mercy.

I thought that truly, the Lord has shown us mercy as He himself came in the flesh to pull us out of our death sentence. I always seem to leave with the question, "Have I done enough?" Even as I ask that question, I realize that so much of my identity lies in what I do rather than who I am in Christ. Like this man with a big gaping head wound which he could not repair, I despair in myself when it comes to missions. John 1:14 as it says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." This message is my hope as we seek to live out each day in Upland or Uganda.