Today was a day I have been anticipating for nearly two months, and it went even better than I could have hoped.

Henry met us at our hotel at 7:15 a.m. and rode with us to his church, which actually started with a time of worship at 7:00 a.m.  When we walked in, the place was hopping.  Literally.  The song leader was hopping up and down as he sang about raising Jesus higher.  There was also a mother with a baby in her arms jumping around between the front row and concrete stage.  The song leader had a microphone that kept cutting in and out and two female background singers dancing behind him.  To the side was a keyboard player who was doing a good job adjusting to the leader’s irregular improvisations.  We were ushered to the front row, presumably so the congregants could watch us struggle to keep up and keep the rhythm.  I went 0 for 2.

After the praise time, the pastor asked if anyone had something for which they were thankful that they wanted to share.  Henry was third person to take the microphone.  He was kind in his words of gratitude to us and in his welcome for his “visitors.”  When he handed the microphone back, the pastor feigned confusion about the “visitors” and pretended to search the audience for the elusive guests.  Everyone had a good laugh about that.  And yes, we were the only mzungus at church on Sunday. (In fact, I didn’t see a single mzungu in Hoima the entire weekend, but Joline and the others saw and talked to an American missionary girl they met at the hotel while I was with Tango and Henry searching for Elsie, Bessie, and Bevo).

Henry’s mom got up next and also thanked God for her guests, with special emphasis on the possessory element.  A few minutes later, it was go-time.  The pastor moved the podium to the center of the stage and invited Joline, Henry, and I to come forward.  Even though this was the “English language service,” the pastor wisely called upon Henry to interpret our mzungu English for the congregants.  In fact, I started out with a quick attempt at humor regarding having an interpreter for the mzungu at the English language service.  Half of the laughter came when I delivered the punch line, and the other half came when Henry interpreted it.

After I introduced myself and Joline and brought greetings to them from Pepperdine and the University Church of Christ, Joline introduced our family, and called Jay Gregston up to bring greetings from his church in Oklahoma, to introduce his family, and to briefly describe the medical missionary work he and his family are doing in Uganda.  Joline then brought greetings on behalf of the Community Bible Study in Malibu and told them that this group of women prayed often for Henry, Joseph, and their father while they were in prison.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, Joline and I alternated as we shared some scriptures and words of encouragement.  It was a good thing Henry was interpreting because the periodic pauses allowed me to (barely) keep my composure.  I choked up a couple times, but avoided any on-stage sobbing.  I couldn’t help but think back to one of the first reports Henry gave me after he had been released – he had taken the same stage and poured his heart out with gratitude to God for sustaining him during his two-year imprisonment.  Toward the end of the service, the pastor encouraged the congregants to say a blessing over us.  It was quite special to have a handful of total strangers fervently praying (in Runyoro) while gently touching our heads, faces, and hands.  We won’t soon forget this.

After church ended, a make-shift receiving line formed as many members of the congregation filed past us greeting and welcoming us.  As we walked out, we had a chance to approach some little kids and interact with them.  Only a couple of them ran away screaming at the sight of our white faces.

From church, we dropped off the Gregstons, Joline, and the kids at the hotel.  Tango (the driver who is originally from Hoima District), Henry, and I then set out in search of some Grade A Ugandan beef.

Wisely, Tango had targeted the butcher of his home village (which was nearby) the day before and let him know we were looking to buy cows.  Naturally, the butcher had a pretty good sense of the expendable cows within a 10 kilometer radius.  The day before, this butcher had put us in touch with a local farmer and we had agreed to pay 750,000 shillings for a medium-sized cow (about $350 at the current exchange rate).  Since it didn’t make sense to buy and transport one cow yesterday, we agreed to come back today and complete the deal.  In exchange, the farmer agreed to ask around for others interested in selling cows to a mzungu with a wad of cash.  My cover had been blown on Saturday, so I no longer pretended to be invisible.

When we arrived in the village at around 10:00 a.m., we had several interested sellers waiting for us.  Since Tango had transported us and Gregstons from Kampala in a van, and since we had dropped everyone but me and Henry at the hotel, we had plenty of room in the van for the numerous villagers who kept jumping in to direct us to their farms, or those of friends.  Several just came along for the adventure of it all.  The first farm had only one fairly young cow, but it looked healthy so we entered negotiations.  I use “we” somewhat loosely.  I simply bounced my gaze back and forth between Tango and Henry on the one hand, and the would-be seller on the other as they verbally jousted in Runyoro.  After a few minutes, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked where things were.  We were at 600,000 and he was at 700,000.  Since Tango had told us that there were going to be three other cows for us to look at where the one we had agreed to buy on Saturday was, and since my expectation was that we would buy three or four today, I stepped in and forthrightly declared that either we bought the cow for 600,000, or we left to look at others.  We were on a strict timeline and I made that clear.  Unsurprisingly, we got the cow for 600,000.

When I tried to count out the money into the seller’s hand — one 50,000 note at a time — he waived me off.  Tango grinned and explained that they have their traditions (meaning superstitions), so Tango counted the money in his own hand, and then gave it to seller, who did the same.  Lesson learned.  Once word got out that the mzungu was definitely paying cash (and likely overpaying), those in our growing entourage started dialing and their phones started ringing.

Next we headed way off the beaten path (which is saying something because the path we had been on was only lightly trodden to begin with) and tracked down a guy way out in the bush who had two female cows and one young bull.  He also wanted 700,000 for each.  Since they were young and relatively small, I told him I would give him 1.1 million for the bigger of the two cows and the bull.  Deal.  The problem, however, was that he was a good five kilometers (three miles) from the village center and we were on a timeline.  For 20,000, he agreed to run the cows to the village, cash on delivery, including the 1.1 million.  I wasn’t about to hand this guy that kind of money on the promise that he would bring them.

(Parental guidance suggested for this next paragraph.)  We knew we needed a big bull who was fond of cows so we could grow the herd.  Accordingly, we headed back to town and across the main road to look at such a bull.  He must have sensed our interest in his virility because as we approached him, he approached a nearby cow and unsheathed his manhood.  It would be unforgivably unfair to him to describe what he had as a baseball bat.  It was more like a jousting pole.  He reared up on his hind legs and buried his lance.  “I’ll take him!” I exclaimed.  Needless to say, this probably undercut my bargaining position, but I didn’t care.  I got him for 900,000 and he was worth every inch, I mean shilling.  At the risk of being accused of, well, compensating, I named him “Big Jim.”

We now had four locked up and we were on a roll.  We finally headed back to original place we started the day before.  When we arrived, there were four cows waiting for us, including the one we had verbally bargained for the day before.  After some dickering, we had the lot.  In fact, one of the sellers asked us to wait while he fetched another cow.  This confirmed what I thought – we were likely overpaying for cows, but both Tango and Henry thought we were getting good prices so I didn’t feel too ripped off.  It was also clear that the sellers had virtually nothing other than their cows so if they got a few extra shillings in their pockets for their families, then it wasn’t the end of the world.

It turned out to be more of a challenge than we had hoped to secure a truck to haul the cattle from the village to Henry’s house.  Additionally, we were informed that we needed to get the village chairman’s permission to take the cows from the village.  Really?  Yep, but it was as much for our protection as anything because he gave us a stamped letter that traveled with us so that if we were stopped by the police and questioned about why we had a truck full of cattle, we could show them the “official” letter.  This set me back 45,000 shillings.  While we were getting the certificate, the other cow one of the earlier sellers set off to fetch showed up and we bought her also.  This gave us nine cows (two of which were purportedly pregnant) for a grand total of just over 7 million shillings (including transportation, loading, and other commissions and fees).

When the truck arrived to transport the cows, I learned how to load cattle in Uganda.  As pictured below, the truck has a skeletal cage of sorts over the top that allows the cattle to be tied in place during the transport over the rather uneven roads.  But that assumes the cattle are in the truck.  How tough can that be?  Just walk them up the ramp.  What?  No ramp?  You are going to lift them into the back of the truck?  With your hands?  Seriously?

Four dudes.  Two in the truck, two on the ground pinning the cow against the back of the truck.  One in the truck gets a death grip on the tail, while the other in the truck pulls with all of his might on the rope tied around the huge horns.  Meanwhile, the two dudes on the ground with the huge quadriceps deadlift the cow until it skids onto the bed of the truck on its side.  As you might expect, the cow doth protest much.  None as much as Big Jim, but when they finally got him into the truck, he soon discovered his awaiting harem and sought to, well, introduce himself more formally right then and there.  After a bit of wrestling (and lots of rope), Big Jim was tied down in a prone position such that the introductions ceased.

After the forty-five minute loading process, we left the village on our way back to Hoima.  We stopped and picked up the Gregstons and the rest of the Gashes, then continued to Henry’s house.  We made sure the cattle truck stopped around the corner until we could set up the surprise.  We gathered the entire family and I told them that we were aware that they had lost their herd of cattle and their chickens when Henry, Joseph, and their father were unjustly imprisoned.  I explained that one of my former students named Holly had organized other former Pepperdine students and had taken up a collection, along with my parents and sister, and that Henry and I went shopping that afternoon for them.

They all looked at Henry and then back at me.  It seemed as if they sort of understood, but were not quite sure what to say or what to expect.  Cue the truck.

As the truck rumbled down the dirt road toward their house, all eyes (including about a dozen neighbors who had gathered) turned toward the truck.

As it approached, Henry’s mom saw the huge Ancholi horns over the truck’s cab and let out an “alarm,” which is a high-pitched warbling “Wa-la-la-la-la-la!”  She has high blood pressure and Henry was actually a little worried about her fainting when the truck arrived.  She didn’t faint, but her emotions were on full display.  Same for everyone else.  Including the grim weeper, me.

Henry’s whole family was overjoyed and we all watched as the unloading of the cows made the initial loading look high-tech.  One of the back legs was roped and then yanked and dragged until the cow literally plopped onto the ground from a height of about three feet.

Most quickly popped back up, pissed off and looking for someone to blame.  Big Jim fell harder than the rest and seemed to have the wind knocked out of him, but eventually recovered.

They tied him to a tree away from the others so he wouldn’t resume his enthusiastic “courting.”

After the cattle were unloaded, I brought Henry and his family into his house, closed the curtains and explained that there was still two million shillings (about $900) left over after we had purchased the cows.  I encouraged them to buy 100 chickens and all the chicken and cattle feed they needed.  I also asked them to use 300,000 shillings to pay the annual school fees of Herbert (the youngest in the family), who hadn’t yet enrolled in S1 because they couldn’t pay the necessary costs for him to start at the beginning of the term two weeks ago.  They were all elated, especially Herbert.  Henry’s mother insisted on leading a prayer then and there.  The only word I recognized in the prayer was “Jim,” but her gratitude toward God came through loud and clear.

Before I left, I reminded Henry that the big bull was to be named Big Jim and the biggest cow was to be named Rosella (after my mother).  Two other cows were to be named Holly (after Holly Phillips, who organized this shopping spree) and Julie (after my sister who paid for a full cow).  I also told Henry that the young bull that was still too small and immature to mate should be named Jeremy (after Jeremy Shatzer, who contributed to the fund and wanted to help name one of the cows – thanks for the help, Jeremy!).

We hugged it out and they sent us away with generous portions of papayas, avocados, bananas, jack fruit, and popcorn.

I am so grateful to all who contributed to this unforgettable day.  Your generosity has tremendously blessed a wonderful and God-fearing family with a Job-like restoration of all they had lost.  While it is impossible to truly make someone “whole” after what they have been through, this is as close as it gets.

We took lots of video and hope to edit it together in the coming week or so.

I had posted the names of the donors previously, but here they are again:

Mary Ellyson Buxton, Dan Coats, Wendy McGuire Coats, Julie Wainrib Connelly, RJ Cornell, Julie Dilworth Cornell, Max Czernin, Rachel Dickey Czernin, Aaron Echols, Courtney Echols, Kevin Ferguson, John and Rosella Gash, Meghan George, Chris Gaspard, Kristin Heinrich, Randy Herndon, Christie Herndon, Brent Kampe, Miles Jennings, Wes Krider, Rebecca Lee, Brian Link, Nic McGrue, Meghan Milloy, Narguess Noohi, Lexie Norge, Lisa Ottomanelli, Holly Phillips, Amy Poyer, Jeremy Shatzer, Joel Sherwin, Brian Simas, Emily Smith, Scott and Julie (Gash) Spicer, Ricky Steelman, Erin Tallent, Brett Taylor, Melissa Thornsberry, Chelsea Trotter, Matt Williams, Jeff Wyss, and Kevin “Cookies” Assemi (recent addition).

I arrived at 8:45 a.m. for the 9:30 a.m. announcement of the appellate decision in the Ribbens legal guardianship appeal.  They had been denied legal guardianship at the trial court over sweet little 20-month-old Nya not because they were not perfectly fit parents (they are), and not because Nya is not an abandoned child (she is), but because the trial court judge interpreted Ugandan law not to permit legal guardianship by non-Ugandans unless the would-be legal guardians also complied with the adoption laws.  The adoption laws require non-Ugandans to foster parent the child in Uganda for three years before an adoption can be granted.  Many trial court judges have been granting applicants legal guardianship to skirt the adoption laws, and so a split had developed among the courts.  Today, the court of appeals resolved that split.

At about 9:15 a.m., Sara and Nya arrived with a friend and we all waited together . . . until 11:10, when the Registrar called them in for their ruling.  The Registrar read the entire opinion – about twenty pages – as we hung on every word.  Ugandan appellate decisions are very thorough, and unlike those in the United States, they don’t reveal how they are ruling until the very end.  As a rule, Ugandans speak very softly, and the Registrar did not violate this rule.  We strained to hear as he read the opinion, which began by thoroughly summarizing the trial court opinion.  It then summarized in detail the arguments made by counsel during the oral argument.  Next, the opinion summarized all of the relevant principals of law.  It then turned its attention to the factual record, describing each of the exhibits, affidavits, and findings of the welfare officers in both Uganda and the United States with respect to the fitness of the parents and the eligibility of Nya under Ugandan law based upon her status as an abandon child.  Surely, we are getting the result next?  We leaned forward, strained to hear with our hearts pounding and heard very clearly . . . a description of the points of error alleged by the Ribbens’ lawyer.  C’mon dude, we are on page 18, give us a hint – did the Ribbens prevail or not?

“We declare Andy and Sara Ribbens to be the legal guardians of Nya with the full right to take her to the United States” (or words to that effect).  Tears.  Lots of them.  Nya slept through the entire thing.

The opinion was unanimous.  And not only did the Ribbens win, but another couple whose case had been consolidated with theirs also prevailed.  And not only did that couple win, but all other would-be adoptive parents in Uganda won.  The brush is now clear for legal guardianships in Uganda.  This case created the precedent necessary to open the doors of the orphanages in Uganda so that hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these orphans will finally have families.

It was such a blessing to be able to be there when Sara called Andy and told him through her tears, “She is ours, she is finally ours.”  I filmed the phone call, but will leave it to Sara to share it if she chooses to do so.

Hopefully, the visa process will run smoothly and the Ribbens family can be united in the United States within the next couple of weeks.

It was a good day.  Thanks for your prayers and well wishes.

To read Sara’s post from her blog today, click here.

As many of you know, I am involved to some degree in two appellate cases currently pending before the Ugandan Court of Appeals.  I have previously written about Henry’s case and that of Sara and Andy Ribbens.

With respect to the first case, Henry is a boy I first met during my initial visit to Uganda in January of 2010.  I have seen Henry each of my five prior visits to Uganda and we have grown rather attached to each other.  The appellate argument was originally supposed to take place in September, but was postponed to November, then to February, and now it appears that it will happen in April.

The reason for the postponements is that under the Ugandan Constitution, petitions related to national elections must take precedence over all other court work.  And since Uganda had its national elections in February of 2011, the appellate courts are now being hit with the appeals.  On the positive side of the ledger, I have been assured that my practising (that’s how they spell it here) certificate should be issued tomorrow, which will officially allow me to be appear in court on behalf of Henry.

With respect to the second case, my role has been rather limited – helping them get a hearing date and doing legal research and writing in advance of the oral argument.  I first met Sara and Andy in November when I was last here, and their story captured my heart and attention.  They have been here in Uganda for just under a year waiting for their family to be officially completed.  This past week, I was pleased to be able to introduce my family to Sara and their three kids when they came over for lunch (Andy had to fly home last week to resume work to support the family).  Sara and Andy have one biological son, one adopted Ugandan son, and one Ugandan daughter they are in the process of trying to adopt.  They were denied the adoption of the girl at the trial level and had the oral argument on their appeal in mid-December.

Earlier today, Sara received word that the decision in the appellate case will be announced on Thursday morning.  Please pray fervently for a positive ruling and for the strength and endurance to persevere if the ruling is adverse.  I will post an update on the ruling on Thursday.

At 10:00 p.m. on Friday the 27^th, our plane touched down in Entebbe.  We went through customs, looking for the person we were told to meet in the airport.  Finally, we found him and he helped up with our ten suitcases.  Exhausted, we were taken to a VIP lounge where we met Margaret.  She had visited Pepperdine a few months ago with some Ugandan Justices.  We were greeted warmly and shown to some cars.  Our luggage was put in a van, and we piled into a smaller car.  We then started the near two hour journey to Royal Suites Bugolobi.  The only words I can use to describe how I felt are ‘culture shock’.  Everything is so different in Uganda.  At night, the city is still lit up and full of music.  I don’t mean that people were using instruments; they were using radios and stereos.  It smelled like burning wood constantly, and there were some piles of burning garbage.  Though Uganda is nearly the opposite of America; for the first time, I am home.

It doesn’t take particularly good vision to see the undertaker’s gravedigger busily excavating a place for the American newspaper business in the graveyard of history next to the plots occupied by the payphone, the VCR, and the 8-track player.  Modern technological advances assure that change is the only thing constant in this world.  At least in most of this world.

Unfortunately, Uganda has proven quite resistant to “modern technological advances” in many ways.  For example, shortages of financial resources and training have prevented almost all Ugandan courts from having any form of contemporaneous recording of court proceedings.  The trial “transcript” consists solely of the judge’s handwritten summaries of the witnesses’ testimony.  The only not-so-modern-technological-advance in recent years came when one courthouse in America donated a small handful of cassette-tape recorders that are being used by a few judges in one division.

Because relatively few Ugandans have access to the internet, much less a smartphone with web access, Ugandans depend almost entirely on daily newspapers for their news.  And most Ugandans (at least the portion of the population that is literate) read the paper every day.  Monkey see, monkey do.  Trying to blend in, I, the monkey, have undertaken to read the paper every day here.  But this actually means reading two papers because there are two competing daily newspapers here, and one really needs to read both in order to get the whole picture.

The New Vision is the official government newspaper.  It is not simply pro-government, it is government.  The second is the Daily Monitor.  This paper is privately owned and produced and doesn’t pull many punches.  About half of the stories each day overlap as both seek to keep the readers informed of current events, but the editorials and investigative journalism stories are quite different.

Earlier this week, both papers ran similar stories about Uganda’s #1 world ranking.  Usually, it is good to be ranked number #1 in the world.  In fact, I posted previously about Uganda’s recent ranking as the #1 tourist destination in the world.  But in the World Health Organization’s recent ranking, (as in the kingdom of heaven), being last (rather than first) would have been much preferred.  Uganda’s 478 annual cases of malaria per 1,000 people place it at the very top of this world list.  While this doesn’t necessarily mean that exactly 47.8% of Ugandans contract malaria each year (some may get it more than once), it does mean that something just short of half of Ugandans do get it each year.  A few more alarming statistics: malaria is responsible for 40% of all visits to the doctor, 25% of all hospitalizations, and 14% of all hospital deaths in Uganda.  Somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 Ugandan children die from malaria each year.

As most people who are reading this know, malaria is a parasite that is spread by mosquitos from person to another when they bite.  But only one certain type of mosquito (Anopheles) carries malaria, and that type of mosquito is active mostly at night.

This is why the Gates Foundation and many other charitable organizations have invested so much in mosquito nets under which people can sleep to avoid getting bitten.  This is also why the Gash family sleeps under mosquito nets.  The parasites enter the blood stream, travel to the liver, then reproduce and infect the red blood cells.

Malaria is a treatable disease when it is diagnosed and medications are administered within the first few days of the symptoms appearing.  Among the symptoms are anemia, bloody stools (yikes), chills, coma, convulsion, fever, vomiting, etc.  The disease manifests itself about 10-14 days after the bite.  If left untreated, the victims can look forward to brain infections, kidney failure, liver failure, respiratory failure, and ultimately a meeting with the Maker.  If properly treated with large doses of anti-malarials, the victim can feel better within two or three days.  While malaria has been basically eradicated in the United States, there are a still a number of people traveling to the United States each year who die from malaria because doctors assume that the patient simply has the flu.

Malaria can largely be avoided by taking regular small doses of anti-malarials in advance of contracting the parasite.  The Gashes are taking the daily kind (Doxycycline), which is an anti-biotic that is often used in the United States to help control acne in teenagers – a nice side benefit that makes me positively glow.  While taking Doxy for six months is pushing the recommended time limits because of the slight risk of liver damage from prolonged use, we are determined as a family not to add to the already world-leading cases of malaria in Uganda.

On brighter note, my computer has almost entirely completed its Lazarus-type resurrection and for that I am quite thankful to Pepperdine’s IT folks.  I also had a productive week of meetings and look forward to an even more full calendar this next week.  More on the specific juvenile justice work as things unfold.

The most exciting news of the week, however, is that our Twin Family arrived safely on Friday night and is now living in the apartment directly below us.