Lui dust

With all of the trucks roaring through Lui while we were there (container trucks, dump trucks, pick up trucks), and the cars and the motor cycles, there was always a certain amount of dust in the air. You could see it settling on the leaves of trees and plants alongside the road. I had a white tee shirt hanging on a line in my room of the mud guest house. When I took it down to pack for our return trip, I noticed a red line of dust where the shirt had been folded over the line. The toes of my boots pretty much remained covered with a reddish-orange patina the whole time we were in Lui. When I got home and unloaded everything into the washing machine, I caught the distinctive smell of Lui dust on pretty much everything I brought back, including the suitcase.

I noticed with some regret on the trip home, that my boots were loosing their coating of Lui dust. Walking through airports, sitting on airplanes, being wrapped under airline blankets against the unexpected cold (funny how ambient temperature becomes relative), the dust was coming off. Jesus instructed his disciples, when he sent them out two by two, that if a town or village did not welcome them, they should shake the dust of that town off their feet as they left, nevertheless warning them that the kingdom had come near. So, if a town had welcomed them, were they to keep the dust on their feet? We were certainly welcomed, we ate what was set before us, and we really didn't have to tell anyone that the kingdom was near -- it was pretty obvious.

The Moru are not all good, and we Americans tend to romanticize people who live simply. That would be a mistake. We met plenty of people with the sophistication to "work the system" and there are plenty of systems to work. It would be easy to get sucked into that good liberal guilt that tells us we should just give lots and lots of money, but that isn't relationship. Walking around the cathedral our second or third day in Lui, Deb and I were invited to sit on good chairs in someone's compound and offered "first pour" coffee, in small shot glasses. We sat and talked and laughed and were generally well entertained. No one asked us for money, they were just delighted that we would sit. There were many moments like that, which helped me to see what interdependence and community really look like. I'm sorry to see my boots loosing their coating of reddish-orange dust.