What's Left

for news. The plaintiffs were also here. Gimbo Zubda, the mother of Tlali, was in the courtyard speaking with her lawyers, and Kakai Rose, the other mother in the case, was sitting in a corner by herself. I waved hello and she gave me a smile. I had met Kakai a couple of times by then. In the beginning, she was shy and didn't open up very easy way, but over the course of that year she became a bit more

friendly with me. We didn't speak the same language, but she always waved and greeted me when she saw me, asked me how I was doing that day. No one was interpreting for her, but she seemed glad to be there, to just be present. Sitting on a wooden bench outside the courtroom, I couldn't help but think about the first time I was here, about the energy that Kelsey and Olivia brought with them into this courthouse when they joined the lawyers who were filing a civil suit against Renee

and serving his children back in twenty nine. So this is what I want to see right now. For me, this is so important, you know, it will help me more forward. This is historical. It's going down the books of history in my country, in Uganda and the world as well, that this is the first time that someone is looking into work that is done by a white person. More feels that they're helping so much, like we compass of Africa and we're sacrificing. To Livia, I just wanted

to show the wall that it's not sacrifice. She was not doing us any sacrifice, but she was just humming us like she was destroying our society. A lot had changed since those early days when I used to think that No Waite Saviors was our story. It had gotten so much bigger. It was about a whole system of international aid and injustice, the trauma of people affected by it, and the moral dilemma of doing the right thing. Renee and no White Saviors began to seem like small characters

in a much larger saga. Eventually we made our way into the courtroom. After an hour of hearing news on other local cases, the judge finally mentioned Renee's case in association with iHeart Media, I'm ROGI Gola, I'm Hee make Con, I'm Malcolm Burnley and this is the missionary Episode eight. What's left? Media interest in Renee Bach and serving his

children has ebbed and flowed throughout the past year. One of the only things I found to be consistent in the story was the lawyer representing the women in the case. Her name is Prima qua Gala. She runs the Women's pro bono initiative in Uganda, and she was one of the very first people I interviewed for this story last year. Even then, she seemed pretty confident about the case she

had in hand. Perhaps every lawyer feels that way, but Prima is one of the few health rights lawyers in Uganda, and she had taken people bigger than Renee to court, even litigated against the Ugandan government. So Prima had guts and experience. I thought it was crazy, according to much doing something like that taking place in our country, especially I mean from a white person. We look at white people as very good people. They have very good intentions

for us. So when someone told me that, I said, oh my god. I have been doing cases in the health sector for almost tamyas now I had never come across anything like that. By early two thousand nineteen, Prima had the testimonies of these two women. She also had clear evidence that serving his children had been an unlicensed health facility and was still providing advanced medicine to children like tolal A. That alone is illegal in Uganda, as we've said, in the same way that it is in

the US, where it's a felony. Keep in mind, medical malpractice and fraud isn't a uniquely Ugandan problem. Imagine finding out your doctor didn't have a license to practice. Like so many other fake health care workers in Colorado, this one is also accused of tending to be someone she's not to treat some of our state's most vulnerable people. Police say they got an anonymous tip that Golden was

practicing as a medical doctor but with no license. In North Carolina, state regulators are letting dozens of these impostors go unlicensed and unpunished. The system is flawed. She's able to slip through these cracks like this over and over again.

Over the past year. I would check in on and off with Prima and her partner, Beatrice Kayaga to see if they had made any other breakthroughs in this case, found any new witnesses that we hadn't, or any outstanding piece of evidence, maybe a video of Renee performing surgery or something like that, And for the most part, there wasn't, but they didn't need it. My cass is not really about her character who she is. A case is very simple. It's just that she was not licensed to do any

medical work. Her facility did not have license. Prima's focused, simple and narrow approach to this case always struck me because it was such a stark contrast from the full range and volume of accusations against Renee that Renee had stolen babies from hospitals, experimented on children, and bribed Ugandan officials. An unlicensed facility seems like a rather minor, albeit still illegal fact, and that's been the most frustrating and challenging

part of reporting this story. The more complex the accusations became, the harder it was to be able to know factually was it true or not, because they relied on conflicting anecdotal evidence and interpretations of Renee's actions. I learned this as I went to track down more than a dozen Ugandan health workers who had worked at serving his children, as well as senior health officials. So I can see

why Prima kept her case so narrow to her. Those other questions are besides the point her cases that you gone and women like Kakai had a basic right for themselves and their children to be treated at legitimate health facilities within Uganda's health care system by licensed professionals, the right to dignity for me to ask for what has given my child, and you can't give me answers because I don't deserve any. But you took my child away with the promise that you're going to help them, but

then you can't give me feedback. That's in human, it's degrading. It's for years on end. She can't get any answers until we by the case. She says Renee had violated the rights of the most vulnerable women. Rights given are Uganda's Constitution. Most of these women are illiterate. They've never been to school, they can't speak a word but English. They don't have jobs, they can't and even fifty dollars

in a year they can't. Someone who is vulnerable, very poor, and is looking at her child dying, when someone tells her that Rainie's hope and Rainy is doing this, they go because they're looking for help. And then here's a white person saying, oh, I'm going to give your food. I mean, you go to her home. There's a bed, there is porridge, there is tea, you can use the bathroom, you can wash your clothes. It seems like heaven to them. Wouldn't you gone and have gone that long without oversight?

They wouldn't last a year, not even five months. People would say where are you getting that money? Who are you? You know, even those illiterate women would ask are you qualified to do this? They stand up to you and ask that. But this is a white person that's intimate dating already that you're white, and we assume that the white people are educated people. In fact, in May two thousand fifteen, only two months after serving his children, was

shut down. Health clinics in northern Uganda were shut down for nearly the same reasons. Officials say the clinics at the level of health center to are being operated by underqualified people. The aim of the operation is to protect the public from home. Those who are arrested will be changed in court. Seven people were arrested and while serving his children was shut down. Renee was never arrested, nor were any members of her staff, and they were able

to reopen, albeit in a different district. Now, whether that was due to pour oversight, bribes or genuine reform, we still don't know. The wise in the house. In both Uganda and in the US, people have gone to jail for these violations or faced other repercussions were it's still in Virginia. Oh. There is no such thing as running away from the law in this world, especially in a civil case. WHOA that can be enforced anywhere. It can

even be enforced on us soil. We just have to forward the judgment to the authorities in the U s and they'll get her. Prina also told me that whether they win or lose the case, it will have still made a difference. I see people are becoming more alive to challenging the system. People are starting to say, no, we can't do better, start questioning the system and the services.

So it is through cases like this I like to say, sometimes it's not that we want to win, but we want to cause people to learn to question because maybe I will lose. But next time a white person comes around, they're going to think about the expenses they have to to incur if someone came up with a suit against them, because you would say, oh, you lost, No I did not. Really has spent money defending herself, so she is aware that she can't get away with what she's doing anymore.

So it's a stut. We always have to start from somewhere. This story has tapped into a much bigger conversation about the role of white people in Africa more broadly, a discussion that Africans and black people have been having for decades. In the past, the conversation was about colonizers, missionaries, imperialists. These days it extends to white journalists, aid workers, humanitarians, activists,

and social entrepreneurs. Why do white journalists have certain privileges, Why are white people called expats instead of immigrants, Why do white aid workers have these six figure salaries? Well, you've gone an experts get pennies on the dollar. Why do white entrepreneurs get so much more venture capital compared to local African startups. These are all questions that I hear constantly, and Serving his Children and Renee were smack in the middle of this conversation. But the question that

remains is what's next? Do white foreigners have a role in contemporary Africa at all? Months into reporting this story, I finally went to Serving his Children's current facility in Chi Gondolo. Remember now, it's operating within a government facility, and from what we could tell, was operating by the books. It's run by Ugandan health professionals, but is funded by Serving his Children. Inside there's a small sign with the logos of Serving His Children on one side and Uganda's

Ministry of Health on the other. The staff invited me into the children's ward, so I took off my shoes and entered. It looked like an ordinary clinic with child sized hospital beds lining both sides of the room, cartoons on the walls. But when I saw the children, I was shocked. By then, I had passed through countless photos of emaciated, bloated and utterly sick children who had been posted on Serving His Children's website over the years, or

on the blogs of other missionaries and volunteers. Standing in that room, I was struck with such a strong sense of deja vu. In the center, there were mothers sitting on the floor with their babies whose skin was peeling off due to infections related to severe malnutrition. The mothers were bathing their children in a brownish liquid that nurses said was an iodine solution to help their skin heal.

The staff told me these mothers had come from far off rural areas where severe malnutrition is still a problem and access to affordable healthcare is still limited. I still think back to that day a year later, after trying to piece together the parts of this story to figure

out the facts. The clearest thing to me still is that the problem of severe child malnutrition, this problem that a young Renee thought she could end, that the Ugandan government has been trying to tackle, is still a big problem. The news attention for this story will eventually fade, and the court case could settle, but there are still mothers who are desperately looking for care and children who are

still suffering from severe malnutrition. So When I think back to that day, I still wonder what will happen to them m Back in the summer, I was shocked that Renee ever spoke to me, But the truth is she was never fully bought into this podcast. I figured early on that the best way to keep her involved would be to indulge her point of view, to make it abundantly clear that part of my process was to see

her side of things. And I spent more than a dozen hours talking with her, but each interaction felt like meeting her all over again. The real Renee was walled off, unknowable. There was always an emotional barrier. Sometimes it was a hard time limit, a lawyer listening by phone, or the over politeness of my questions trying not to offend her. We went long gaps without speaking because Renee stopped participating at multiple points. The closest I got to a breakthrough

was a few weeks before Christmas of last year. Are good talking about well marked? It doesn't have these people that are using. Renee invited me over for lunch and what wound up being our last interview. Her place was small, a converted garage on a friend's property, surrounded by woods and farmland. When I entered, there was the aroma of fresh bread in the kitchen above a space heater. In the living room next to Renee's bed, there were a few stockings and tinsel on the wall, and the rest

to the apartment was dedicated to the baby. The younger of her two adopted daughters, less than two years old, was awake when I got there. She was scrambling around the place and smashing face first into a mirror, from which she got up giggling to look at yourself, because you're so cute. Renee left Uganda in October two thousand eighteen to finalize her daughter's adoption. The court case against her was filed three months later, and Renee hasn't returned since.

It's why there are almost no mementos in her house from her entire time in Uganda, which is we're wondering, is anything from Uganda or is it pretty much all stuff you required names. My sister made that Eileen Chrism. She's talking about a cow skull named Boris on her wall. When her daughter took a nap, Renee, her mom and I walked around outside for a bit. The property was a hundred forty acres. The trails went back for miles, but right next to Renee's apartment was a k barn.

It looked like a wedding venue with polished carriages inside, just like the how she grew up in. There were quotations inscribed throughout the property Psalm nine one. The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaimed the work of his hands. And there are far better things ahead than any we leave behind. C. S. Lewis from our very first interview, Renee used famous quotes as a way

of grounding herself amidst all this controversy. There's a really great quote on my brain now, but basically just talking about like there are so many people that will just sit and point fingers at people that are in the arena, you know of blood, sweat and tears um, but like who are they to really speak into that. She found the quote later and texted it to me. It came

from Teddy Roosevelt. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done the better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is mob Bob dustin sweat and blood, who straws valiantly, who airs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without

error and shortcoming. If he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. During the we published this, it was announced that the Teddy Roosevelt statue outside the American Museum of Natural History would be removed expressly because of its racist depiction of

black and indigenous people. Under the President's subjugation, he was a cheerleader for colonization, which he justified with poetic passages like the one Renee shared. Was it worth it? Did I hear God wrong? These were the questions Renee said she'd been asking herself lately, the things she never stopped

to ask of herself all those years in Uganda. So I'm really curious to talk about, you know, especially leading up to if there were moments that you recall of having self doubt about not so much submission of the organization, just about how are you were going about it, how much work you were doing, For example, like the workaholic thing that a I was so busy that I almost like didn't have time to probably doubt the things that

were going on. Um, whether that's like right, wrong or indifferent, But I felt with such strong certainty that like serving as children was doing what it was supposed to do. As like ignorant and like kind of pumpous as it sounds, I didn't have a lot of self doubt back then, and I think part of that was because I was like young and ignorant and ambitious, and you know, like I didn't know what I didn't know. And I think that's some more now, Like did I just like totally

waste my life and like ruin other people's lives? But doing the last decade of my life, um is more thought now. And I think I've always felt like sure of my decisions when I come to them, like all growing up and through high school and even like my decision to go to you gone to the first time, and once I made those decisions, I felt like such a strong conviction it was what I was supposed to do.

And yeah, like I missed. I missed that feeling of of being assured that like I'm on the right path in life, and um, I definitely don't have that anymore. When I first began working on this story, I thought we were going to figure out the truth. Either Renee was a monster and she'd killed those kids, or she'd been wrongly accused and she was the victim of a

tremendous injustice. But then I spent time with her and discovered what a mess this whole thing was, and I came to believe that Renee wants and has always wanted to be a force for good in this world. I really do believe that. Still, as we sat on the floor of her home, eating her mom's stew, I kept thinking about one simple fact, the same thing Helema could

never get past. Renee had run an unlicensed facility where medicine was practiced on vulnerable children, something she'd never have gotten away with in the US, And if Renee wanted to make a difference, then she should go to jail for it. That's the only way there's going to be systemic change that we might have a shot at ending white saviorism. Watching Renee be a mom the empathy I felt it was hard to reconcile with these thoughts. But as we said before, this story was about so much

more than just one woman. Renee was now a symbol. She's the monument that has to be topic and it's very hard. But I didn't say anything. I just sat there, listen. Did you even make a difference, because like, all I wanted to do was like make a difference and help people. But did I not help anyone? And did I not make a difference? Like that's why I'm being told that art by the world, you know, um, And so wrestling

through that stuff really tough. Um. Before I left, I asked Renee if she had any pictures of the early days of serving his children before this all happened. So this was at the house. I don't know if you ever seen it. I guess I don't actually think I've seen.

She pulled out an old laptop and began combing through folders and so like, this was my bedroom right here, and there's like a little small room and there were pictures of kids on pink swing sets on the porch, a photo of a camel that arrived one day at the center and never left. The day when ten baby goats were born and the staff cradled them all at once. It was a pretty happy place with the most part

people were pretty I'm sure this was. This was our kitchen, and these two rooms turned into also rooms with cribs for kids, and that was the intensive care room. Then we got to photos that we talked about a lot sick kids before coming to serving his children and happy kids going home. And this little girl was actually admitted to the center when we um closed in two thousand fifteen. She was less than a kilo. She was like a pound or something. Yeah, she was in the center. Yeah,

this was her in the ICU. So he was some before and after one. They were hung like this, so like before and after, before and after we had, you know, almost a thousand of those. They went like all the way down and all the way to the ceiling. After our center closed, these photos stayed up for a really long time. It was actually like a very emotional process for me to take. It was kind of like a morning I guess process too. That's probably a lot of

a lot of things. That was where I left Renee, sorting through the memories, taking the good ones with her, leaving the bad ones behind, while her daughter, who knew nothing of this, slept peacefully in the other room. I mean, I would love to be able to work in the like humanitarian service industry. Again, um, I don't know if that's possible for a while. I'm not super favorably looked

upon and so some of those circles. But I think this has helped remind me that like that is still my heartbeat, and I still do love that, And even though I've been so burned by it, I still a big part of my heart is still in that world. That day in the courtroom, the judge announced that after months enclosed or negotiations, both sides, Renee and the mothers still hadn't reached an agreement, so he ordered the case back to legal mediation, a last dig attempt to settle

things out of court. After a whole year, it was tough to see any ending or any answers to this whole case. It felt like things had never left the starting line. But there's one child who's been on my mind this whole time, one we haven't told you about yet. His name is Elijah Kawa Gamba, and he's the son of Kakai Annette Rose, one of the mothers involved in the court case. There's a simple reason you haven't heard

much about Kawa Gamba. Yet it's because well, we don't really know what happened to him, and neither does Kai. And then I met Kakai for the first time shortly after the case was filed at a hotel Enginer. She was shy, looking down at her feet with her hands folded in her lap. Joyce Alana, one of Herne's former social workers, helped interpret for me without any without discharge from They didn't even tell how the shell is suffering from.

What Kakai did know was that Cala Gamba passed away shortly after being discharged from serving his children's new reopened facility. But she was never told why her baby died. Reaching their home, they said, just spent three days and they said date. So she doesn't know what was done to the child. She can't now return her child back. All the hopes not there and all the hopes are gone. Yeah, she had three other children, the young one who is for us. Keep on asking them where is Cala Gande?

Doesn't know that I do what The last line of kais affidavit reads, I strongly believe that serving his children's employees did something to my child that led to his death. Here's Prima again. It's abuse of dignity. You basically stripped these women of the woman who would say that you treat them like they're not people. She asked for what had killed her child, and no explanation was given. It was until we filed the case and they fired this

response almost four or five months later. As a human being, you deserve a right to access your medical records. It doesn't matter if I'm illiterate or I paid no I stew As a human being, I have rights to dignity because you took my child a life. My child is did Renee, however, denies that Kawa Gamba was ever even admitted to serving his children. She says she knows nothing about him or Kakai. Then we started hearing rumors that this whole thing was a setup, that Kawa Gamba's death

was due to Kakai's negligence. We needed to follow up on these new revelations, so I went over to Kakai's house with Samy, the same former employee who helped me track down Nabucoz's mother. The whole bumpy motorcycle ride there, my stomach was in a not Kakai didn't know what our interview was going to be about, and the last thing I wanted to do just confront a grieving mother with a conspiracy that she killed her own child and

pinned it on Renee. Kah Kakai's family home was on a small farm of banana trees and cassava plants, with a few chickens running around and making a racket. She smiled as soon as we wrote in and invited us inside with her elderly mother. We sat around a small wooden table and started talking. Okay, so yeah, I'm hoping to hear your story from the beginning to the end um and then from there we will discuss more. Mike Wanda m m story. Mm hmm, you're good, I go

on it. She told me the same story that she'd written in her affidavit, her back and forth journeys to serving his children, to Ginger and my Yuka, to home in the hospital, and eventually the death of her son Isa. He's trying to tell you that her child, though the child was small, the child was living a happy life, was so happy, was so lively because being small. It's not her sickness. What paining most was that, to this day she's never been told exactly what caused her son's death?

Did they give her a reason for this? Church? Back walk when the sea to energy and tell you what come? She's telling you that? Now what reason? If they even failed to present a dougment to her about the medicine that the child has been given the condition, Now what dougment? But then I had to ask the question that I'd come here to ask. The story I've heard is this

that they told her that the child has pneumonia. The doctor said that this clinic does not have the equipment or qualifications to treat pneumonia, so they gave her medicine and told her to go to a different hospital. Buddy, yeah, oh my, no what She slammed her finger on the table to make a point in a single word. But I never heard her like this. No, no, no, like to see what they she's telling you that he was not told anything about when a sickness Caba Gandia suffering from.

If they're saying like that that the child had money and she was advised to go and seek for medical treatment, theyre just liars. Go man, article see and no, I could see we didn't go on that child even better passing she began to shake with anger one and the man to south grand about I'm tears ran down her cheeks. What a man hanger, Nancy you. I pulled the microphone away and looked down at my feet. I felt like

I'd driven a knife into Kai and twisted it. I began to question what I was even doing there in the first place. And something she said earlier in the interview ray in my ears louder and louder, what is the relationship that Mr Kakai has with Kelsey and No Waight Saviors? How did she come to know them? Nea wm Zio solf has come here? When she met them, they asked her some questions and she answered to them

how she has answered you. No Wight Saviors had shown up and asked Kakai to retell the most painful moments of her life. Then they packed their bags and were off. It was the same pattern Kakai saw and every single journalist, lawyer and activists that visited, and I realized I was no different. We spoke to over a hundred people around the world to get to the bottom of the story. Well, there'd be malnourished children and then one day they've Begune

what happened? Why we dove deep in the ginger community and got caught up in the drama of it all. It was just, honestly, like mean girls on steroids. We flipped through centuries of history to understand the impact of the missionary movement. I'm doing this by virtue of a fourth greater than me. We waded through rivers of red tape to understand how the government could let something like this happen. See goed the step and say the center has been closed. We spent so much time piecing together

contradictory narratives. She wasn't a good Samaritan, She's a fraud hunting for clues the Missongus that found Nabucosa. They're saying that she was neglected and getting caught up in the nitty gritty of it. This is the city as Proceedia that I forgot what this story was actually about. This case became a symbol for white guilt. Black lives do not matter to the same level to us as white people, the failures of international aid but we can't get rid

of it, and structural racism in Africa. People galify what people seemed like everyone involved in this case was using it to make a point. I hoped to see humility to defend an idea, was watching her be literally crucified for trying to do the right thing. Somewhere along the way, this case stopped being about two mothers seeking answers the

most simple and basic reparation. And as the world debated on Twitter, on cable news, in editorial columns, the Savior Complex, five children died in an unlicensed Kakai was here alone, still searching for some comfort an answer. After she had a moment to breathe, I asked where Kawakamba's grave was. She got up and silently led the way. So I followed through the banana groves and into a small clearing and in the corner was a mound of earth. Oh, I'm gonna dick a wemma, I'm bad to Wenmer. Sit up,

it is not listen no, addie. Kakai went over and started clearing the weeds from the grave. She told me she came out here every week if she could to keep kawa Ganbe's grave clean. And then she walked to the other corner, sat down and wept to herself for a while. I just stood there until Kokai rose to her feet and brought us back to the house. She took a seat on a bench with her hands in her lap. As we packed her back acts and boarded

our motorcycles. She gave us a wave as we set off, and when I looked back a ways down the road, she was still there, hands folded, looking down at her feet as the crickets drowned on into the evening. The Missionaries produced in association with I Heart Media. It's written and reported by Roger Gola, Helene mcge Coondhi, and Malcolm Burnley. It's produced by Michelle Lands and Ryan Murdoch. Mark Lotto

is our story editor. Our executive producer is Mangishler. Our fact checker is Austin Thompson.