Grief and Fruits of Consolation

Once again, the end of the month has snuck up on me and I want to get one more entry in for May. I admit it is getting harder by the day to feel that the posts are relevant to the blog's title, the longer we are away: Paul and Rebeca Mosley in Tanzania? Not so much. This marks the end of our second month out of the country on a completely unscheduled stint back in the US. And yet, it hardly feels anything like our annual summer home leave as we live in a kind of limbo between worlds. Although truly this limbo can feel like a kind of paradise, isolated in an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay to watch the arrival of spring and summer, it really does not feel anything like a return 'home.' We really don't go out to public venues at all, and only allow ourselves visits to the home of Rebecca's parents. 

It is a strange time here, as the weather finally begins to warm, there is a temptation to look at the slowly downward sloping death toll from COVID-19 here as a sign that, with the return to life in nature, we will all be able to emerge from our hibernation and go about business as usual once again. And many Americans clearly want to embrace this myth, to believe it was all a bad dream or some political mischief that put us in this predicament in the first place. And yet for us, it has been a fell season. We know several people personally who have been afflicted and even died of COVID-19, here and in Arusha. As some restrictions are lifting in Maryland we have allowed ourselves to visit more regularly with grandparents, but still are quite strict about social distancing in public, and have not made any trips as a family to a mall or restaurant, and are not likely to do so in the near future. Thankfully the Sack grandparents recently offered us a 24-hour overnight to process all that is going on, taking the kids for a sleepover. Later, we had a fun, spontaneous afternoon gathering with both sets of grandparents (outdoor, distanced) on Memorial Day. But we have had a lot to discuss and digest...

We have had several big events transpire in the past 2 weeks that need to be documented. The lesser of the two was a move 2 weeks ago to a new house. We had been staying in a lodge at a retreat center owned by a group of families from Rebecca's parents' church. It is usually quite busy with rentals from April through the end of the year. All these bookings had been canceled at the time of our return to the US (fortuitously for us) . With the approach of Memorial Day and the loosening of restrictions in Maryland, we knew that we had to find other accommodations--groups would start to want to use it again. We were very happy to find that a property just a half kilometer down the coast was available --  it was primarily a summer vacation house for a family living in Pennsylvania, who weren't planning to spend time here til later in the season. 

We talked to the owner and made arrangements to rent it until the end of June. (Actually, we are going to do some painting in exchange for use of the house.) The house is not quite as big as the 8-bedroom lodge we were in, but is quite comfortable. It has a Swiss chalet kind of feel-- a large A-frame with a vaulted ceiling over the open plan living room, dining room, kitchen, and 2 bedrooms in a loft space accessed by a spiral stairway. There is also an office, master bedroom, and a large enclosed sunporch. The Bay-facing wall of the A-frame is all windows top to bottom, so it has a great view. It was built in the late 1970s and is well appointed for the era. Notably, every square inch of it is carpeted in deep shag. This includes the bathrooms. With the spiral stairway and the furnishings, it feels like the house one sees in the Brady Bunch. I know I would have envied this place when I was a teenager.

Despite the retro decor, it is all in really good condition, probably because it was mainly a vacation home. Sadly, the dock over the bay was beaten up pretty badly in the last two squalls we had this spring, and several sections are missing. 

We moved in and set up places for kids to do school. We also found that the internet connection (through our phone hotspots) is not as good as our former residence; some connections for school have been a challenge. We were lucky that we have only had one week of classes in the past two weeks: we just finished a week of half-term break. We start up again Monday for the final 4-week push. I will confess that doing school online from home is very exhausting for parents and puts a considerable amount of stress on our family emotionally. (Lots of arguments and coercion to motivate kids to work.) We really dread the thought that this might still be necessary when we return to Tanzania in the fall. But we are beyond the point of planning ahead at this stage of unpredictability in life.

There is news of another move to share, this one far more significant and frankly shocking. It has been a major focus of our work in the past month, but not one I could speak about publicly. The official word is out now so I am at liberty to explain, but before I can, I need to back up and give some context.

Last year, Sharon, our country Director (Rep), let MCC know she would be ending her term this summer. MCC started a search process at the end of last year, and after much prayer and discernment, Rebecca and I put our hats in the ring and applied for her position. Long story short, we were selected to succeed Sharon when she finished her term in June. This was an additional three-year commitment to being in Tanzania for Rebecca and me. There were a number of factors to weigh, including stability in the kids' school situation. It meant Oren would graduate in TZ with the Cambridge system before going to the US for college on our return after year 3. The fact that Oren and David really seemed to feel at home at St. Constantine's International School was a great weight on the balance in favor of continuing to work in Tanzania. Our involvement in our small group and church, where we were finally making a community were also factors in favor of staying. Most importantly, we already knew the MCC program and partners very well and understood how to work within the program that had already been built. We would require no in-country orientation or language study to switch into a leadership role.

The disruption of our voluntary evacuation because of COVID-19 was disappointing in terms of timing since it fell during the transition period when Sharon would be working most closely with us on the hand-over of the program. 

We watched, from isolation in Maryland, the effect of lock-down orders in the US on the economy and were warned by MCC that we should expect to make cuts in our programs as deep as 25%. But it was not until we were asked to join a Zoom call with our International Program Director that we understood just how bad things were.

We were told at the end of April, on that call, that MCC needed to make deeper, longer-term, cuts to its international programs. One of the hardest decisions was to 'consolidate' the MCC Kenya and Tanzania programs and run all projects in both countries out of the Nairobi office. This would mean closing down our office, selling all assets, and terminating all MCC staff positions (including our own) by the end of the calendar year. We were also told that our programs and partnerships needed to be reduced by about 75% in order to be manageable for the Kenya Reps. 

I have to say, the news was so devastating that I was not even able to experience it in the moment it was being told us. It was like a strange bad dream that I believed I would awaken from. We had just put a new roof over our front porch and set up a basketball goal at our home in Arusha in preparation for a longer stay. How could we be leaving? And most grievous was the thought that we were just stepping into the role as country Reps., bristling with fresh ideas and vision only to be told that our new mandate as Reps would be to terminate all staff, close the office, sell off everything MCC owned, including our household goods, tell most of our partners that we were precipitously ending their projects, and leave by December. 

We made a strong plea with as many influential people as we could to save the program, but were plainly able to see that the decision was not made lightly and the financial position of MCC did not leave them with a lot of choices. Not everything could be saved. 

MCC did, however, have something to offer us, given that they do try to reassign service workers who are laid-off due to a cut in position. The role of MCC Rep. for Ethiopia was coming open in February, and they asked if we would be interested in taking it. 

I will say that at first, the idea sounded almost repugnant. To leave a 'lived-assignment' -- not merely a job -- where we had invested years to build a new community, and be transplanted into an entirely new context to do 'the same job' in a new place, seemed callous to say the least. But that was not at all how it was presented to us, and in truth, I am very grateful that MCC makes such efforts for its staff.

Rebecca and I needed prayer, and the discernment of others to make this decision. Fortunately, we have a prayer chain and many people who could speak into this. What was important to me, was that accepting this new assignment needed to be done with an attitude of excitement and enthusiasm. It could not be seen psychologically as a 'consolation prize', especially because the Ethiopia program is huge and will require a tremendous amount of energy and commitment on our part to offer it good leadership.

I am happy to say that God did work in our hearts. Once we had done all we could to try to save the Tanzania program, we came to peace with the decision to close it, and with that peace came a slow willingness to look beyond. After two weeks, we were able to accept the offer with integrity and gratitude. 

We realize that there will be enormous challenges ahead in the next 12 months. Many are logistical:

When can we fly back to TZ? Our tickets on Qatar Airlines are for mid-August. Will they fly then?

How do we dispose equitably of MCC assets; many will want to acquire them?

How do we help our national staff have a soft landing when their positions end?

What do we do about school? We need to start enrollment for the Ethiopian International School ASAP to begin in  2021. We have permission to finish the school year in Tanzania, but one of us will have to be going to Addis for months at a time between Feb. and June while we are in transition between our two roles. 

These, as well as other questions, need to be answered in the months ahead. We are already in regular communication with our partners sharing the very difficult news of the consolidation of our program with Kenya, and the end of most of their projects. There is a lot of work to be done in the days ahead, and more unknowns than knowns it seems. Still, I am glad that even, amidst the thorns of grief, we can see early blooms of some fruits of consolation. 

I leave you with  one of Rilke's poems from Sonnets to Orpheus:

XVII

WHERE, in what ever-blissfully watered gardens, upon what

trees, out of, oh, what gently dispetalled flower-cups do these

so strange-looking fruits of consolation mature?

 

Delicious, when, now and then, you pick one up in the poor

trampled field of your poverty.

 

Time and again you find yourself lost in wonder over the size of the fruit,

over its wholesomeness, over its smooth, soft rind,

and that neither the heedless bird above nor jealous worm at

the root has been before you.

 

Are there, then, trees where angels will congregate,

trees invisible leisurely gardeners so curiously cultivate,

that, without being ours, they bear for us fruits like those?

 

Have, we, then, never been able, we shadows and shades,

with our doing that ripens too early and then as suddenly fades,

to disturb that even-tempered summer’s repose?