Manry Family

My friends Adam Langford and Moses Kimeze died five weeks ago when the lorrie they were hauling coffee back to Jinja in lost control and rolled over the slope of Mount Elgon.  I worked and shared life with Adam and Moses almost everyday of the past year and I don't know yet what my life will look like without them.  The tragedy of their death is far enough away that I am starting to accept it as real, but it is close enough that I still don't know how to think or feel about the loss to their families, their friends, the work in Uganda, or to me, much less how to express what I am thinking or feeling.  But I can't be silent either; I care too much about them both to not speak about their lives and our loss.

Even after five weeks, I haven't been able to write anything that better expresses my heart and mind than what I wrote in my journal on a plane from Entebbe to London three days after the accident:  I keep going back to where I was less than 72 hours ago.  Even though I was recovering from Malaria, life was still as it always is here, and I was just living it. Then Irene's call, news that kept getting worse and worse until the unimaginable reality that Moses and Adam died became too clear to deny.  I've never become aware of so much pain and grief in myself and the people around me happening at one time. I still can't let myself believe they are gone.  Not when I have so many fresh images of them alive playing in my mind.  Not after being with Adam and our team to share our life stories, or my trip with Adam on Mount Elgon, and all the unfinished ideas that we shared together - both the funny ones and the meaningful ones. It doesn't seem real or right that I will not see Adam alive again because if there is one thing I knew about Adam it was that he was truly alive.  And Moses.  I can't think of a more dependable and depended upon person in my life than Moses - Ugandan or otherwise - shouldering the burdens and hope of our movement, his family, even our team. He was a redemptive presence in all the places you placed him.  I simply don't understand how his death fits into your plan.  I saw Moses still body yesterday, but I can't reconcile that image with any experience I'd ever had with him.

Goodbye my friend Adam.  My first year in Uganda was one of the best years of my life, in many ways because I shared it with you.  We struggled, learned, laughed, dreamed, and served together.  We climbed mountains together, literally and figuratively. I count it all a priviledge.  Your contagious love of life and people continues to shape the way I see and act in this world.  You reminded me daily, everyday is the best day of your life.

Goodbye my friend Moses.  I carry with me many conversations we've had about business, woodworking, family, and Uganda all touched with your almost-irrefutable common sense and infectious laugh (usually when telling me the bad news).  Moses, you were the incarnation of integrity and impressed in me a model of honesty that I will never forget.  Wali omusadha omulunginho.

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