Mud Huts and Bare Baby Butts

It’s always an adventure going to villages where “muzungu” sightings are rare.  It’s even more of an adventure when you are staying in that village for a week with a native family you have never met before. 

Patrick and Joy are the proud parents of 5 boys (now all young men) and have spent their entire lives in the area of Kapchorwa.  Patrick is the headmaster of a school about 30 minutes (walking distance) from their home, while Joy teaches at a school roughly 45 minutes away if you cut through the coffee beans and cow fields.  While teaching is their career, Patrick and Joy are also subsistence farmers along with 80% of Ugandans. 

You may wonder why Patrick and Joy walk so far to go to work, but having a car is obsolete when you live on the side of a mountain with very few roads. 

Several times over the course of the week I found myself asking “Is this real life”?  Like when I woke up in the middle of the night, climbed out of my mosquito net, walked around the cows, and through the coffee beans to go to the latrine.  Like when I walked half-way up a mountain to fill up a jerry can of water from a small spring flowing off a cliff.  Like when I milked a cow (and got chased by one!).  Like when I walked and walked and walked with two of the neighbor girls that spoke absolutely no English, not knowing where they were taking me until we made it to the top of this incredible rock that over looks the entire city…..I could go on and on about the past week of my life and how adventurous it has been, but that’s not the point at all.  The point is that there are hundreds of beautiful people in a beautiful, mountainous city near Kenya that matter to God.

You may be wondering by now why we went to Kapchowra to begin with, and the answer to that is life.  To live life with these people and share The Life with them.  As I have said before, and I am sure I will say again, God is already present in Uganda.  I did not come to tell them about Jesus, for they already know.  I have come to give, experience, and live Love.  The kind of love that only comes from the Father and His Church. 

The title of this post is what most think of in relation to Africa, and it’s true, there are mud huts (I lived in one this week), and seeing naked babies is like seeing mosquitoes in Arkansas, but there is much more to Africa; just as there is much more to the gospel than simply knowing about Jesus. 

May we never underestimate the value of a person or the richness of the Gospel. 

There's Always Hope

Meet Margaret.  She is a 19 year old University student from Luweero, Uganda, and she is HIV+.  Maggie was born into AIDS and her family had no hope in her surviving.  You see, having a child with AIDS means another mouth to feed, but it's a mouth that won't last.  Most children like Maggie are abandoned by their parents at birth due to their limiting illness, but Margaret was different.  Since both parents were infected, they kept Maggie around along with her four other siblings.
          Maggie's father died "of a long illness" (AIDS) when she was 7.  Unaware of her condition until the age of 10, Maggie faced a challenging and sickly childhood.  Maggie realized that she was HIV+ when her mother was on her death bed.....as her mom lay dying, she instructed Maggie's older sister to "(don't) let her suffer and die in the way I did".  But Maggie's sister was only 21 and already had two children of her own to tend to.  Money was tight, and hospital visits and medications were far too expensive.  In the same year that her mother died, Maggie became exceedingly ill, losing an extreme amount of weight, but the financial demand to tend to Maggie was far too much.  Her sister knew she was going to die soon and decided to toss her off to someone else.
           Father Jerry has been a catholic priest in the Luweero area for the past 17 years, and took Maggie in as his own at the age of 11.  He took her to the clinics, paid for the needed medications, and got her back in school.  "Without him, I would have been dead 8 years ago, but he gave me hope" Maggie claimed.
            Being HIV+ is an embarrassment to Maggie, and she feels that life is very unfair in this manner considering that she inherited it from her parents.  She often found herself wondering why God would allow her to be infected while her four siblings are completely healthy, but she continued in saying "There's always hope".......I am overcoming AIDS and others can too.

Uganda is ranked 14th in the AIDS nation, this is due to lack of knowledge, resources, and people like Father Jerry.  There is hope for Maggie and there is hope for thousands of others suffering from the same cause.  When talking to Father Jerry, he explained why he did what he did.  He looked us in the eyes and told us that that little girl deserved a life, and now she has one...."to me that's all that matters".  He continued in saying that "AIDS victims just want someone to care-someone to look them in the eye and smile-that is what makes life worth it; what makes paying for the drugs and surviving worth it".

What are we doing in response to this?  How can we impact the fight with AIDS?  How can we offer hope?

Decisions, or lack there of....

Life is so different here in Uganda compared to the way a typical day pans out back in the States.  When i wake up in the morning here I spend 5 seconds at the most-picking from my 8 shirts-which one I want to wear for the day.  Back home I would have my clothing picked out the night before and proceed to change my mind at least 4 times the next morning.  Of course having less options makes the decision making process much easier (and shorter), but my limits here are by choice.  I have way too much stuff back home, but that's just it....back home.

For the Ugandans this is home, what you see is all there is: no more, no less.  While living here for the semester even when I miss an abundance of items, I have the comforting reminder that I will return to all my un-needed accessories within a few months..... I guess that is exactly how an American is expected to respond to poverty.

Being here has changed my thoughts on the "necessities" of life.  After being here for over a month simplicity has become a beautiful thing.  Even food options are limited here. During lunch at school we have the choice of rice and beans or rice and beef flavored soup.  I can tell you the variety of foods we have at home in a week on one hand.  If I were back at Williams this semester I wouldn't even eat the same thing within a two week span of time.

Instead of spending so much time deciding on what to wear, or eat or where to go this weekend, I am spending my time trying to figure out how to serve God more, how to love these people more, how to make every day worth while.

"He must become greater and greater and I must become less and less" John 3:30

Relationship, Relationship, Relationship

People matter everywhere, but in Uganda everyone seems to matter just a little bit more.  Community is the number one priority here.  Where the West says "I think, therefore I am" Uganda says "I participate, therefore I am".  In all aspects of life your fellow man still matters more than your own needs. Your purpose in life is to improve the community as a whole, therefore if you have nothing to contribute, you have no sense of belonging....maybe Uganda has a better picture of the Church than we do.

A man is not considered complete until he has a wife.  A marriage is not established until they have a child.  When someone dies there is a time of mourning followed by a community wide celebration of the life lived. The entire community raises a child, not just his father and mother.  If one store does not have what you need, the owner will personally walk you down to someone else's that has what you are looking for.

When looking for a place to live in the West we are told it's all about 'location, location, location', but here you would be told 'relationship, relationship, relationship'.  How does the community show that they care for one another?

These relationships go all across the board.  "Bro-mance" is a popular phrase some of the missions students here has labeled Uganda as due to the affection and care shown by the men for the fellow man.  It's so encouraging to see individuals take a genuine interest in their fellow man.  Even casual acquaintances are more valued.  You greet everyone, because everyone matters.

Uganda has some much more to give me than what I could ever offer them.

Life Is Worth The Living

Today was my first full day at CHAIN and it was absolutely precious!  For the first half of the day I helped teach the creation story and after prayer time and a 30 minute lunch break, we resumed class. The next subject to cover was mathematics.  The class I am helping with is Primary three, which is (roughly) ages 7-10.  In this class of 54 children there are 10 blind children, so I spent the afternoon reading out fractal word problems and helping them solve the questions once they had the problem written out in brail. 

As I mentioned, before lunch time there is an hour set aside for worship and prayer.  The service in predominately in Luganda, but the kids sang a few songs in English.  One of the songs they sang was Because He Lives.  It was so moving to listen to over 100 precious, abandoned orphans sing of hope in the future and life being worth living even though their parents labeled them as worthless. 

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone;

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives!

 It's days like this that make life worth the living to me. 

Word Vomit

The following are incomplete thoughts that somehow explain my exacts feelings (and life) right now:

 If you can't afford the postage, place it in their hands. 

 Peace.  Rejoice.  He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes. 

 My Portion.  Every second counts.  Intentionality.  

Cling to what is good.  Be transformed.

Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

My Favorite Part

This week began the best and most precious aspect of my semester.  CHAIN is an organization that offers a home for orphans and the blind while also giving them a quality education. 

Children

Health

Advocacy

Intervention

Network

Every Thursday for the next 10 weeks I will be spending the day with over 100 precious children.  Children with disabilities are often overlooked in Ugandan society, even more so than orphans, so CHAIN has the goal of speaking worth into these children while offering life skills.  They want to ingrain these children with the fact that they matter to God and to society, for we all have something to offer.  I am looking forward to the time we are going to spend together and investing in these precious kids. J