Good Grief, Not Again!

I look back at that last post and think to myself, “Dang, am I pitiful-sounding or what?!”

I used the word “grief” in the post, and it occurs to me that our family is truly grieving. It means that we’re going through the same process that we’d go through if we’d lost a loved one, or faced some other disaster. That would explain my alternating feelings of anger, depression, guilt, and resistance.

So I pulled out a small, thin book that I have carried throughout my ministry as a pastor. It’s a book called “Good Grief,” by Granger E. Westberg, with only 64 pages and large print. I re-read it and was reminded that I am going through the same exact feelings and emotions that grieving parishioners I have counseled in funeral homes and front parlors have had.

I needed desperately to hear these familiar words of comfort again.

Westberg explores ten stages of grief, which he believes are simply a normal process for anyone experiencing loss. The first five have to do with physical, rather obvious signs of grief: “We are in a state of shock,” “We express emotion,” “We feel depressed and very lonely,” “We may experience physical symptoms of distress,” and “We may become panicky.”

But the last stages hit closer to home: “We feel a sense of guilt about the loss,” “We are filled with anger and resentment,” “We resist returning” – these feelings I understand. I have spun through these stages repeatedly over the last couple of weeks.

The truth about our leaving is that we are facing a couple of matters that have made it very difficult for us to do ministry. Not only do we have ongoing residency legal issues, but we have some people actively resisting our work. The Board finally decided that it would be safer for us to leave the country and accept reassignment; instead, we have requested a leave of absence from mission work, and will be returning to the Dallas area.

So, yes, we feel guilt – guilt over not being able to handle the situation successfully, guilt over not being able to manage. And there has been anger – which we’ve turned a number of different directions. And resentment – oh yeah, plenty of that.

It’s Lent now. But Easter is coming. Right around the corner. And so are the last two stages of grief: “Gradually hope comes through.”

And “We struggle to affirm reality.”

Ashes of Grief

Ash Wednesday is an appropriate day to announce that our time in Cameroon has come to an end (see January 10 post). It’s not our choice, nor our decision. We’re not happy about it, and we’re greatly heartbroken.

Ashes represent, of course, repentance and fasting. But they can also signify loss, grief, the end.

And that’s exactly where we find ourselves at the moment. We’re at the end of a significant chapter in our life, which has come quicker than we expected. Though given a chance to accept reassignment by the Board, our plans now are to return to the Dallas area, where the children have already settled into school. Beyond that, I don’t have a clue what will happen ... I’m still in shock myself.

I plan to bring this blog to its natural end once I get back to Texas. But until then, I’ll keep it going, and try to keep all of you informed on our whereabouts, plans, and future. We ask that you simply keep praying for us, for our extended family, and for the people of the United Methodist Church of Cameroon.

Breaking the Silence

Yes, it’s been almost two months since I last posted.

No, it’s not because I a) am lazy, b) am tired of blogging, or c) have mysteriously disappeared in the rainforest.

Let’s just say that the last two months have contained a number of surprises for the Magruder family.

The biggest surprise is that I am writing this post from Dallas, where we have been for the last several weeks.

To make a very long, complicated story short, we encountered some difficulties in Cameroon related to my residence permit and legal status. To avoid the potential that I might be separated from my family, the Board (thankfully!) decided to bring us back to the States for the holidays. This enabled us to enjoy time with our extended families in Dallas and Austin, as well as remember what it means to be “cold” again!

I also traveled to New York for a meeting with the Board to discuss the future. We decided together that I should return to Cameroon to try to work out the problems, but that Leah and the girls would remain in Dallas until further notice.

I am on my way back to Cameroon at this very moment, and will start blogging again on a regular basis. Please keep us all in your prayers. I’m going to miss the family greatly … but I trust that God will take care of us all.

Online Again: Second Week of Hymnal Notes

Hooray, Internet access is back! You can't believe how difficult life can be without email, Dallas Cowboy game results, and the Methoblog ...

Anyhow, I have a lot of catching up to do. Here's the second week's worth of posts from John Thornburg concerning his work recording music with the Cameroon Hymnal editorial team:

Subject: First day of recording

Hi, friends. After the extraordinary day of opening for Gateway UMC, today was just as good. I had to start the day in the bureaucratic prison also known as the Air France office in Yaounde. I'll leave it at the fact that when I took a number (72), they were serving #46. Nuff said.

When Wes picked me up from my enforced captivity at Air France, we went to see the Roman Catholic basilica in Yaounde. It's a place John Paul II visited twice, and it is absolutely stunning. There are mosaics depicting the seven sacraments that are simply amazing, and the stations of the cross are just as beautiful. The architecture is meant to portray the Blessed Virgin spreading her protective arms over the 12 apostles, so the ceiling beams are like wings. But it's so hard to see the opulence of the building contrasted with the utter poverty of those who attend. Perhaps like those who went to medieval cathedrals, it stood in stark contrast to their homes. It still gives me pause, even while I stand in wonder of the beauty.

Recording began today. Here are the highlights:

-The ambient noise is a factor, but not debilitating. Just a lot of roosters, and workers digging a trench around the building for drainage.

-We had a wondrous Congolese man join us today to play the synthesizer. To say his playing was amazing would be dramatic understatement. The guy was flat out brilliant, even if the synthesizer leaves something to be desired. I wasn't keen on using the synthesizer because I was afraid the singing would be drowned out, but the team over-rode me. The proof will be in the pudding when I bring my trusty little digital recorder home and we see what we have.

-We had another Anglophone join us for the recording. Her name is Ruby, and she's a true gem (no pun intended). A wonderful voice, a great spirit and she's bilingual so the singing in French didn't bother her. Of the five singers on the recording, four are completely bilingual, and the other is close to it. It’s a gift from God.

-There were lots of great moments; their wonderful singing in Spanish on “Santo, santo, santo”; their really energetic rendering of “Siyahamba”; their passionate and rhythmically intense rendering of “We will not give up the fight.” But the greatest moment was when I felt it was time for us to allow the Anglophones to shine. They’re the more oppressed group culturally, and generally the Francophones look down their noses at them. But I asked Pastor Solomon Mbwoge and Ruby to teach us the pidgin chorus, “Big, big thing Jesus e do'am for me.” It has the wonderful line, “E butter ma bread an E sugar ma tea.” Well, the Congolese guy found licks no one had ever heard, then Ruby went to the standing drum. We practiced for a while, and then the miracle kept unfolding. Ruby realized that Alexis, one of the Francophones, was a better drummer than she, so she pulled him over to the drum, and he took her place as the song leader and enlivener. Then Pastor David realized that he knew a version of the song in his local language, and that made him so happy he started dancing. It was just one of the great moments of the trips here. The group had received two new members, and they didn’t know each other, and it was song that started forming the bonds. Wow. Like the spiritual says, “Give me Jesus.”

Subject: Second Day of Recording

Today's lesson: God even protects Luddites from themselves. We had been having an extraordinary morning, enjoying the immense talent of the Congolese keyboardist and doing songs that we enjoyed. At 12: 15, having recorded 8 songs, I was about to switch on the little digital recorder to capture "O for a thousand tongues to sing", and what appeared on the tiny display screen but "Out of memory." It might as well have said, "You stupid man."

But then, as if coming as a divine piece of forgiveness for my inability to understand my own equipment, the power went off, so we lost the keyboard. That was a Holy Spirit time out, so we quickly re-strategized our afternoon and went to lunch.

The afternoon turned out to be a vigorous and highly productive conversation about how song teaching would take place, and I have spent the last few hours drawing up an action plan and budget for the team to look at. It's an exciting prospect. And my technology hero, otherwise known as Wes Magruder, was able to transfer all the data from my recorder to his computer and put all the files on a thumb drive, so we're good to go in the morning with the remainder of the recording.

Highlight of the afternoon: having Collins Etchi, the mission's office manager and health team leader, teach me a Creole song from Sierre Leone that he had just learned on a trip to a health conference sponsored by the Board of Global Ministries. "Thankee, thankee, thankee. Tell Papa God thankee. Weti i do for me (what he does for me), I go tell am thankee." It's a sweet, wonderful melody.

Blessings to you all. Tomorrow is the final day. Keep us in your prayers.

Offline in Yaounde

Thanks to a fiber-optic cable problem 60 kilometers offshore of Douala, we have had no internet connection in Cameroon for the past week and are not expecting it to be repaired anytime soon. I am writing this short note from the office of a friend who works for the United Nations and has a satellite connection. I expect you won't hear much from us for the next two weeks or so, but I'll catch you all up on the Mission when we're back online!