letter from Mukinge to a friend

Dear Jim (DiPisa a psychologist friend and fellow climber/ backpacker),

I remain alive and well! Some of my patients can also say the same. Today is Easter and it is something else to celebrate it in Africa. I was on call all night & finished a delivery (my 1st in 28 yrs) and then got up to go to a sunrise service. The nursing students singing going up the hill behind the hospital in the dark. On the horizon bright Venus, overhead the Moon and Mars and to the right the milky way and southern cross. Several of us stayed to have a bit of breakfast in the beautiful weather. I had a tour thru the Tb (read AIDS) ward this pm. So little I could do except ask what was bothering them, how well they ate and whether they slept or not. Leprosy, snake bites (spitting cobra, which are the short (4' vs 8') brown ones---> eye injuries.
I think your comments about being open with the experiences of faith is on the money. It is one thing to believe something; it is another to put all your weight on the one anchor. If you really don't weight that single anchor, it really wasn't there to begin with.

I'm tired. Me go bed.
Mesanta Awhanni (thanks and good bye)