a newly founded legal nonprofit called
the Women’s Probono Initiative, lists
the mothers of Twalali and another baby
as plaintiffs, and includes affidavits from
former employees of S.H.C. A gardener
who worked there for three years asserts
that Bach posed as a doctor: “She dressed
in a clinical coat, often had a stetho-
scope around her neck, and on a daily
basis I would see her medicating chil-
dren.” An American nurse who volun-
teered at S.H.C. states that Bach “felt
God would tell her what to do for a
child.” A Ugandan driver says that, for
eight years, “on average I would drive
at least seven to ten dead bodies of chil-
dren back to their villages each week.”
The story became an international
sensation. “How could a young Ameri-
can with no medical training even con-
template caring for critically ill children
in a foreign country?” NPR asked last
August. The Guardian pointed to a “grow-
ing unease about the behavior of so-called
‘white saviors’ in Africa.” A headline in
the Atlanta Black Star charged Bach with
“ ‘Playing Doctor’ for Years in Uganda.”
The local news in Virginia reported that
Bach was accused of actions “leading to
the deaths of hundreds of children.”
Bach made only one televised ap-
pearance in response, on Fox News.
Wearing a puffy cream-colored blouse,
with her blond hair half up, she was pic-
tured on a split screen with her attorney
David Gibbs, who previously led the
effort to keep Terri Schiavo on life sup-
port, and now runs the National Cen-
ter for Life and Liberty, a “legal minis-
try” that advocates for Christian causes.
Over the years, Bach said, she had as-
sisted Ugandan doctors and nurses em-
ployed by her organization in “emer-
gency settings and in crisis situations,”
but had never practiced medicine or
“represented myself as a medical profes-
sional.” Bach sounded nervous, but she
firmly denied the “tough allegation”
against her. She had used the first per-
son on her blog as an act of creative li-
cense, because a simple narrative ap-
pealed to donors; in fact, she’d had a
Ugandan medical team by her side at
all times. “I was a young American
woman boarding a plane to Africa,” she
said—inexperienced and idealistic, work-
ing on an intractable problem. “My de-
sire to go to Uganda was to help peo-
ple and to serve.”T
his winter, Bach stood on Main
Street in Bedford, Virginia, watch-
ing the Christmas parade with her par-
ents and her two daughters, one-year-
old Zuriah and ten-year-old Selah. The
sidewalks were crowded with people
wearing jeans and Carhartt work clothes,
some sitting on folding chairs with cool-
ers they’d packed for the occasion. Gar-
lands and wreaths hung from the streetlights, in front of two-story brick store-
fronts climbing a hill.
Selah, whom Bach adopted after she
was brought into Serving His Children
as a malnourished infant, had a scarf
wrapped around her neck and wore her
hair in long, neat braids. She waved at a
neighbor, who was inching up the pa-
rade path behind the wheel of a vintage
fire truck. “I know him!” she said, radi-
ant with excitement. He smiled and threw
her a handful of candy canes.
The elementary-school band marched
by, playing a clamorous carol, followed
by a Mrs. Claus on a giant tractor. The
next parade participants were on foot:
the Sons of Confederate Veterans, wear-
ing Civil War uniforms and carrying
Confederate flags. “It’s pretty conservative
for me here, and it’s not very diverse,”
Bach said quietly. She had not intended
to move back to Bedford, but she’d left
Uganda in a rush last summer; after the
accusations against her spread, she’d
started receiving death threats.
Bedford is a town of sixty-five hun-
dred, but it feels even smaller. “It’s still a
farming community, though that’s not the
primary occupation of most people any-
more,” Bach’s mother, Lauri, said. Lauri
and her husband, Marcus, a trim man
with a gray beard, ran an equine-therapy
program out of their barn while their chil-
dren were growing up. Neither of them
had ever been outside the United States
when Renée told them she was moving
to Africa, but they weren’t worried. “We
raised our children to be world-changers
and to be risktakers,” Lauri, who has been
the U.S. director of Serving His Chil-
dren since 2313, said. “I felt like, if she’s
doing what God calls her to do, she’d be
safer walking alone in a village in Uganda
than driving to the Bedford Walmart.”
As we talked, a float at the top of the
hill started slipping backward; the trans-
mission was giving out. A dozen men,
including Marcus Bach, raced up and
pushed it onto the flat road ahead. “It’s
just what you do—you go help people,”
Lauri said. “People should be driven to help
others. And, in my opinion, they shouldn’t
be judged for who they try to help.”B
efore Renée Bach went to Uganda,
her aspirations were conventional.
“I wanted to get married and have five
kids,” she told me at her parents’ house,
“Can you help me bury the groceries all over the neighborhood?” as she tried to distract Zuriah with a