Critique: Getting the Help You Need

Paty Jager and I presented "Critique:Getting the Help You Need" to the Central Oregon Writers Guild monthly meeting on February 28. Critique is one of the most important things a writer can do to improve his/her work, yet it is one of the things we all dread! Paty and I had fun sharing our years of collective experience to a group of writers, starting with a skit demonstrating how not to critique.

Man From Uganda Arrives in a Snowstorm

Felix Omodi, February 2008

Snow had fallen steadily for days across the Cascades. My husband and I hoped the airport wouldn't close preventing our houseguest from making the flight over the mountains from Portland the next day. As it was, Felix Omadi, the country director in Uganda for Medical Teams International had only twenty-four hours in Central Oregon as part of his month-long visit to the states to update donors and encourage volunteers. My husband Randy is a doctor who worked with Felix when he went to Northern Uganda for a month of medical mission, an experience that changed his heart. He really hoped his friend would be able to make the scheduled presentation to health professionals at the clinic plus we had invited friends from church and the medical community for a dinner. Over thirty people were planning to come hear the Ugandan pastor and medical director. It would be a shame if his visit were cancelled. But, Sunday morning we saw the sun for the first time in five days.

Felix had never seen snow before, and arrived in a cotton shirt his wife had made for him. It was seventeen degrees, but Felix was beaming. "You have to wear a lot of clothes here," he laughed, accepting the ski coat and boots Randy brought to the airport. I prepared brisket, an American dinner, which Felix pronounced "very good". I wanted to repay Felix for the hospitality he and his wife had shown Randy in their town of Lira--in the home they share with ten children and twelve foster children who have lost their parents.

The room grew quiet as Felix told how his people have been ravaged by twenty years of civil war, most recently at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army. Felix himself was abducted by the L.R.A. as they tried to get thousands to join them. They took children as young as six years old and made them kill their parents to keep them in the army. More than once, Felix thought he too would die and told God he was ready if it was God's will. But, Felix escaped after nine months. The violence has subsided, but Felix says the people of Uganda are still vulnerable. Many of the displaced want to return to farming, but their structures have been destroyed. But recovery is happening, Felix says. Clinics are being rehabilitated, and a new community health center offers counseling to the youth to prevent HIV infection. Young girls who were forced to travel with the L.R.A. as sex slaves are being treated and given occupational training. Felix showed photographs of Medical Teams doctors treating patients with malaria, AIDS and river blindness and said the healing touch of those who have traveled around the world to care for them is "healing them in their mind as well as their bodies, giving them hope."

Randy checks a patient in Uganda. November, 2007
Felix asked that we pray for forgiveness in his country, and that God would open eyes of the world to the needs of the Ugandans. "We need to train people to help administer drugs and give effective treatment in Uganda. " The following day Felix made a formal presentation to the health professionals at our local clinic, which was covered by local news networks, then returned to Portland where he would meet with another medical group. In the days since he left, I've thought about the power one faithful and single-minded person has to change hearts and open eyes.

"....You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8