It was an eventful week on our active hill near the shores of Lake Victoria.  Way too many quizzes to grade, and too little time to prep for lectures!  Classes are getting interesting as students ask the hard questions.....both a challenge and an encouragement to us!  The thinking process is in high gear.  Analysis to come next...I hope!  The most significant event that I experienced was not in the classroom, though.  I oversee 5 main teams that do outreach into Kampala.  The team that I went with this week was what we call, "The Street".  Basically, it's a focus on the kids and individuals where chaos has ruled for a very long time in their lives.  They find themselves in alleys and corners where only a sick animal would live, but here they are, barely attempting survival.  The addiction for them is not the glue they sniff or the fuel they breathe in through a rag, or the alcohol that they steal.  The addiction is the chaos, the so called freedom of avoiding anything looking like a structured life (go look up Diogenes in your history...you'll get the point).  I met a small community living practically in a deep drainage ditch, not far from the city center.  Here, I met a group of folks living in their own filth,  most of whom were in the advanced stages of HIV.   There you are, looking death straight in the face.  A devastating reminder that we are all dead without a radical surgery of  the soul!  At such times the absolute value of the Gospel is so clear, and yet as a human you feel so helpless.  "What can I do, given the radical damage and chaos shown here?"!!  The only hope is in Christ, and it is no cruelty to acknowledge certain death of the body, and yet focus on the core issue of the death of the soul. 
     The easy assumption for us as westerners is to address the logistics of behaviorism.  Meaning, "Hey, let's gather everyone up and get them to the clinic and get them on an ARV program; let's educate and encourage them on the value and need for medical care."  That is all well and good.  However, these folks are aware of the facilities available, and yet for a variety of fears and excuses, they choose to "check out" of reality and choose to quietly die somewhere, simply content to medicate the pain through some form of self abuse.  What I have just seen as the ultimate object lesson here is the spiritual rebellion that we all have.  Life is handed out freely to humanity in Christ, yet because of the disease of the soul, we reject it utterly, and would rather die in self abuse than carefully think upon our condition and embrace true Freedom and Healing.  We are truly rotten to the core, and the core is rotten too! 
    We are trying to get some of these folks to a clinic!  I may have waxed philosophical above, yet I do have compassion.  That is also a surgery of the soul!