From the Majority World to the Minority World

(Written last Saturday)

As I sit here in the Amsterdam airport all I can think about is Uganda (as tears come streaming down my face for the millionth time I clearly should have invested in tissues for this past week of my life!)  I'm thinking about all of the people that I just left behind.  How does one say goodbye to someone?  I absolutely hate goodbyes!  (I much prefer saying hello with a big hug after not seeing someone for a while!)  Have you ever said goodbye to someone and physically felt your heart ache?  Well I have many times and this is one of those times.  I've cried almost every day this past week just thinking about Friday, the day of departure.  Time has not been my friend this week.  Don't get me wrong I'm very excited to see my family and close friends soon I just wish I could bring them over to Uganda with me so I can be with all the people I love in one place.  (But since I can't I'm really thankful for airplanes.)

Thursday afternoon I finalized the packing of my bins and picked at all the food Bonnie was busy making all day.  Around 5:30 Risa asked me to come and help her "fix a computer" in the office.  So into the new office I went and everyone was surrounding the cake and ice cream.  I stood there for about 5 seconds before I just lost it.  The whole staff surrounding me and hugged me for a while.  These Ugandans have become a part of my family.  I have learned so much about their culture from them and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them more so.  What a privilege it has been to physically see with my own eyes the care that they exhibit for all of the children who are sponsored.  After they all went home we had my "Last Supper".  Mike had asked me if I wanted to go out to eat and of course said no, nothing in Jinja compares to the food that Bonnie makes.  Seriously, I'm not exaggerating!  So we had fresh tilapia from Lake Victoria, guacamole, mango salsa, rice pilaf with sweet potatoes and pumpkin, and pumpkin bread.  Wow after having cake at 5:30 I wasn't that hungry for dinner at 8pm but I ate regardless, who can resist that yummy food?

Friday morning came all too quickly and I worked on finishing some last minute packing.  Godfrey, the driver, came around 10 am and Risa and I went into town to do some last minute errands.  After those we swung by my new favorite place…Welcome Home.  As if my week of goodbyes wasn't hard enough it was time for me to do one more difficult goodbye-George and Esther.  I really hope and pray it wasn't my final goodbye.  They were both looking better than they were the week before when I had seen them.  I held Esther's hands and she walked across the room with me! WOW!  She has gained enough strength in her scrawny legs to do that?!  She'll totally be walking in the next few months!  And George, my goodness.  His little belly is just solid, so filled with food!  I can now hold him without feeling like I'm going to break him.  (Pastor Godfrey, the one who brought the kids to us really enjoyed seeing them again.  He hadn't seen them since we first received them.  He couldn't believe the difference.)  The highlight of seeing them was the fact that George and Esther totally recognized us.  George was crying when we walked in and he heard us and looked at us and stopped.  I picked him up to give him lots of kisses on his cheeks and he just grinned ear to ear.  That boy has the cutest smile ever!  I think I'm really starting to believe that he is actually 2 years old.  I look forward to having Teo go see them in a month or two and send me updated pictures of their progress!  I pray God puts those two into my life again.  They are forever engrained in my heart and mind.

We drove by the office one last time and Teo and Sam had arranged all the kids involved in the Holiday Bible Program (40 total) to come out on the porch and sing a song called, Goodbye Kerri, Kerri Goodbye, May God Bless You.  (They recited this over and over for a few minutes).  Then the staff all came and gave me our last hug goodbyes and I just lost it again (as I'm doing now as I write this).

How does one who has experienced what I've experienced and lived in the Majority World re enter into the craziness of the Minority World.  What lessons learned can I transfer over into the world that I've reentered into?  How do I stop talking in the Ugandan English that I've grown accustomed to?  Someone in the airport just asked me for the time and I told him it was 8:30am and he asked did you say 8:30am and I just responded by lifting my eyebrows (that's how Ugandans say yes haha).  So please bear with me if I respond to you in that way instead of verbally saying yes. 

The Minority World and the Majority world are so different.  As I sit here I can't help but think of the differences.  I'm leaving a family that I got to be a part of in the house (Ugandans are very relationship focused and we mzungus really embraced that living there).  I absolutely love being around people so living with 3 mzungus and a Ugandan (plus more Ugandans at different times) has been incredibly rewarding.  We have experienced many joys and sorrows together.  We've learned something new almost every day about Uganda.  We didn't have a television in the house (some Ugandans were shocked when they found that out).  It's been quite nice to not have a television.  Every night was a dinner where we would all be seated around the table and would talk about our day (imagine that happening in America nowadays).  Dinner usually took about 2 hours with cleaning the dishes as well.  When I first got to Uganda in September I really missed the freedom I had in Virginia to go out at night and be social.  But I quickly grew to love our family dinners every night.  Another difference…I can't tell you how many pieces of clothing I have but a Ugandan could probably tell you off the top of their head because they wash their clothes so often since they only have a handful of clothes.    I'm not looking forward to stepping back into the consumerism in America.  The amount of stuff we have at our disposal is something that has affected me every since my first visit to Uganda.  The choices we have at the grocery store can be overwhelming after living somewhere where there are two kinds of bread, white and brown.  I'm going back to big malls filled with tons of stores and people buying things that they really don't need (I'm definitely guilty of this).  What are we as American Christians doing to share our resources with the rest of the world?  Do our pocket books reflect the Lord who we love?  Are we really caring for the widows and orphans as we are told over and over again in the Scriptures to do?  If you are not already sponsoring an orphan to go to school I implore you to think and pray about starting that relationship that will forever change your life. 

How will God use this experience in my life to change me and shape me?  How has He used it in the lives of those who have read my blog?  As I start to reflect on all God has done over this past year I just wanted to thank all of you who have prayed for me and financially support me on this journey that God had me on.  I wouldn't have gotten to experience what I did without you all.  I hope you have been able to sort of experience it all along with me.  I don't have any idea what God has next for me.  What will my future involvement look like in Uganda?  I don't know but I do know my heart is buried deep in the soil there so it will be a place that I know God will continue to bring me back to.

(Two books I highly recommend are The Hole in our Gospel and When Helping Hurts, they have both been very eye opening and convicting for me to read this year.)

World AIDS Orphan Day

Last Friday was World AIDS Orphan Day. We had 17 children practice for about a week in order to be able to perform two songs and a poem. An organization called Phoebe organized the march and the performances at the government center. I walked along the parade and then sat with our children as we watched many other children perform various songs and skits all having to do with AIDS orphans.

The parade downtown.

17 of our students performing two songs and one poem.

They provided lunch. And this was my first time eating Ugandan style (no silverware) so Teo just HAD to take a picture of me.


The poem that Marion wrote and recited (typed up by Risa):

O, O, O
what a child, my God
whose life is full of nothing but sorrow

a victim of all circumstances

the poor African child
there are many fights for rights
among children in this continent
who are neglected and rejected
depressed and dispersed
misused and abused
yet there are children in the same world
whose rights are highly respected
with no question about good life
for education food and good care
but the poor African child
ever on streets
sleeping rough and dressing in rags
like stray dogs
they go wondering
there are children in the same homes
whose stories are never told
whose voices are never heard
and their songs are never sung
as a child sacrifice is a serious threat
let us rise children and fight for their rights
let us form a voice
a globally sound voice
and a voice reaching far
Until we conquer the fall
- Mukyala Marion
A Children of Grace Sponsored Student

FURNITURE!

Last Thursday the furniture was scheduled to arrive at the new office. So Thursday morning the staff helped to clean the floors and then we spent a good part of the day organizing all of the bins. Then around 5pm in to the gate came a big truck!!! The furniture company only sent ONE worker to assemble around 14 desks/tables and a whole bunch of stackable chairs. It would have taken him two days to finish all of that by himself! Joseph, Joseph, and Allan stayed late to help set up the chairs and desks. We finished helping the worker around 9pm to eat dinner. He continued to work and even slept a little before he left in the morning! WOW. We now have an office full of very nice desks!!!!!!!

I'm attempting to dance Calypso while assembling chairs.

Moving Day for COG last Wednesday

Last Wednesday we "shifted" (that's Ugandan English for moving) to our new office! It's unbelievable to be here for this momentous occasion. Almost every day that I've been here I've been watching this new building being built. COG has been renting out the previous office on Kiira Road for a long time now. And now we are rent free from that place! It's so exciting! The day we moved we were determine to take everything out of that office. And when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING.

Below in the pictures you will see what I mean. We recently came in contact with the brother of the girl that I met the previous Sunday. Damalee started the orphanage over in Njeru and then her brother also started an orphange right down the street from the old office. Risa and I walked to the place where 23 young boys are living. They were living on the streets but now a young Ugandan has taken them in. He grew up in an orphanage outside of Kampala and simply wants to give back for the great care that he received. We asked them if they'd like some desks and chairs and within 10 minutes a whole bunch of them showed up to start carrying everything away. It brought me so much joy to have these boys come and take whatever they thought they could use!

A few loads in the truck.

The boys carrying some of their new treasures home. And below: the boys cut down a couple of the banana (matoke) trees in order to get the bananas down.

The boys were SO excited to get all of the things from the office. They got a few desks, some chairs, some matoke, a big piece of plexy glass, and they even took all the light blubs! We gave them some of the casava that had grown in the back and they immediately just started eating it raw!

The boys walking home with their new treasures!

Babies Home started by a Ugandan woman!

This woman is incredible! Saturday afternoon I went out to visit her. She started this orphanage about 8 months ago because she grew up in an orphanage. She has about 17 children right now. She goes through like 2 tins of formula a day! Formula and diapers are really expensive here! She just received two week old twins who's mother died in child birth, and who's father is a drunkard. The grandmother can't afford to care for them either.

Teo and I thoroughly enjoyed holding these little ones and loving on them for the hour plus that we were there! If I spent anymore time there I might just stay there or adopt some kids! They were super cute! I'm so thankful for this woman who is caring for these children. I pray God would give her the strength and resources she needs to continue to do what she's doing!

Always Enough

This is a song that I have continually been listening to over and over again in the past few months.  Many times it has brought tears to my eyes.  As I sit here working for an organization who cares for orphans and as I have formed relationships with many orphans in my time here, my heart loves the line in the song that says "Your love is hope for the orphan".  I pray that the many orphans that we encounter really do feel loved by God through us!

 

Casting Crowns- Always Enough lyrics

In the drying weary land LORD You are the rain
In the sea of shattered ones Your love comes rushing in
You hold the world within Your hands
And see each tear that falls
Through every fire and every storm
You're Always Enough
Always Enough

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow
Hope for the orphan
Strength for the weak

Your love is the anthem of nations
Brings out to the ages
And You're Always Enough for me

In the watches of the night
LORD You are my song
Hope is in the morning light
Your love shines like the dawn

You keep my heart in perfect peace
My life is in Your hands
When confusion hides my way
You're Always Enough
Always Enough

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow
Hope for the orphan
Strength for the weak

Your love is the anthem of nations
Brings out to the ages
And You're Always Enough for me

And rejoice for my for my Saviour reigns reigns
And rejoice for the lives
God on how set me free and
Worthy is the LORD

And rejoice for my Saviour reigns
And rejoice for the lives in me
God on how set me free and
Worthy is the LORD

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow
Hope for the orphan
Strength for the weak

Your love is the anthem of nations
Brings out to the ages
And You're Always Enough for me

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow
Hope for the orphan
Strength for the weak

Your love is the anthem of nations
Brings out to the ages
And You're Always Enough

And rejoice for my Saviour reigns
And rejoice for the lives in me
God on how set me free and
Worthy is the LORD

In the drying weary land
LORD You are the rain

Thoughts on Gulu

I do not know how to rightly put into words yet all that I saw with my two eyes, the things that I heard with my ears, the things I've learned with my mind, and the things I've felt in my heart on Thursday.  I'm so overwhelmed by all of it.  I was asked that night at dinner what stuck out to me the most from that day.  I said the pictures of the art therapy because they really tell the story of what those 14,000 kids experienced.  It is unfathomable.  I just about lost it while I looked through the drawings and tried taking pictures of a lot of them.  This one pictured below is one that is forever etched into my heart and mind.  At the top of it the child wrote "Remember you are not alone."  If I were any one of those kids I would have needed to recite that to myself hourly.  I can't imagine the extreme feeling of loneliness those kids must have felt.  The things these kids were made to do and the things they saw are things I have only seen in movies, if that.  Some of the things they have lived through are horrendous to even think about.  Though there is so much despair all around me and though at times it felt so surreal to be there I was glad to be able to see firsthand what NGO's like World Vision are doing up there.  They are truly being Jesus' hands and feet to these kids.  At the end of the day as I sat there and journaled about all this and just cried all I could think of was how ready I am for senseless violence like this to end and be no more – Heaven!

Art Therapy

(this is a before and after picture of the war)

At the top of this picture it says "Remember you are not alone." As I looked through about 20 of these pictures and read that I started to get really overwhelmed. If I were one of those kids I think I would have to recite that out loud to myself every single day. I can't imagine how alone they must have felt!

Two place night commuters stayed

After we drove back down the horrible pothole dirt road and stopped off at St. Mary's. This is a rather large hospital in which many of the night commuters would come to during the way. (During certain times of the war, particularly in 2003 the LRA was abducting many children from their homes during the night. So in order to be protected from being abducted the children would walk to this hospital every night and sleep there and leave the next morning to go back to school.)

(picture taken by Risa)

(picture taken by Risa)

We then went to another place in town where night commuters would come. He told us that for one whole year he would take his kids to this facility every single night and sleep there with them to ensure their safety!

(picture taken by Risa)

Invisible Children

Next we headed over to the Invisible Children headquarters. Risa worked for IC right after college and one of her coworkers and former classmates is still working for IC and so we went into this office and got to hear from him all that IC is doing now. It was incredible to hear! They are doing school to school which pairs up a school in Northern Uganda with a school somewhere else in the world. The school discusses what its needs are and then they invest 5% of their money into the project. They sponsor about 600 kids in secondary school and about 100 kids at the university level. They have also started going into the communities to find women who are skilled at tailoring. Before the war Uganda's big cash crop was cotton (40%)! So they bring these women into a production facility and give them the materials, design, and training to make bags. The women are taught how to have a loan, savings, and interests. These bags are selling lot hot cakes in the US right now with high school and college kids. The newest program they have done is the teacher program. Teachers from the US have come over for about 6 months at a time and have team taught in a classroom here. And for the first time they just had a handful of Ugandans who were selected to go over to a US school and team teach in a classroom there. (They started this because they heard that Uganda's top schools used to be up in the north before the war. So in order to really build up these schools to the standard they used to be at they started these programs.)

IDP Camp

Next James took us a little farther down an extremely bumpy dirt road to an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) Camp. Up until a year ago there were 3,000 people living at this camp. There were 14 IDP Camps created in Gulu District alone. The largest one in Gulu had 10,000 people living in it! There's a very small percentage of people still living at the IDP camps. Typically you'll find the elderly, disable, or those who have nowhere else to go still living there. These camps were started about 20 years ago so some of the kids have known this place as their home all of their lives! He told us the poeple were forced to come and live at these camps because it meant that they would be protected by the UPDF (Ugandan Army). The World Food Program would bring food to all of these people since they had no land to harvest.

This was a sign out front of the IDP camp. James told us it was a reminder to those who were returning home to be careful because there could be land mines on their property.

Keyo Secondary School

Next we went with James to the school that he teaches at. The school had just relocated the kids back to this location about a year ago after having moved them into town many years back due to the war and wanting to protect the kids from being abducted. This is one of the schools that Invisible Children is partnering with. We saw two new classrooms that had just finished being built. The next step is to hopefully build another dormitory on the school grounds as the girls are squeezed into two rooms and then the boys have to walk over to a neighboring polytechnic institute in order to sleep there. If these girls in particular do not board they have a much lower chance of actually staying in school. So the headmaster really wants them to board at the school as he is very concerned about the girls. He also told us that some of the kids at the school are sponsored by IC and if they do not perform well enough they are dropped from sponsorship so they are very motivated to do well in school.

Two new classrooms that Invisible Children built in their school program.

Their current classroom.

Inside the new classroom! WOW!

The headmaster gave us all sodas so we toasted to the good time we had touring his school.

World Vision Rehabilitation Center

Inside the facility.

Paintings some of the kids did on the building.

We stayed at the Acholi Inn which was really nice. Thursday morning we got up and left the hotel around 9am. Brenda called a friend, James, who came and met us in town and took us around all day long. He was a wealth of information and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to ask him a million questions about Gulu and the war.

This is the first place we ventured to go to-the World Vision Rehabilitation Center. As we pulled up I though there is NO WAY we are getting into this place unless God gets us in there. (I've heard that typically they require visitors to go through a couple of months procedure before they are able to go in and see the facility.) James goes into talk to the staff on the inside of the big gate and comes out a couple of minutes later to tell us they don't normally let people who just show up like this in but the are going to bend the rules for us (Thank you Lord!).

We are all sat down in a conference room while Fulkas, the program director, shared with us what center has done in the past many year sand what they are currently doing. He told us that in 15 years they have seen 14,000 kids go through the program! It takes about 1-3 months in order for a child soldier to be rehabilitated. After they are sometimes physically cared for because of wounds they are counseled using art therapy, play therapy, and they are taught skills like carpentry, bricking and bicycle repairs. The World Vision staff does family counseling, follow up counseling with the children, and there are also community counselors. They have about 2 % relapse rate, which is extremely good! Currently the children that are still in the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) were brought to the Congo so they are not able to escape because they do not speak the local language. If they escaped in the Congo the communities there would most likely kill them. So it was a lot safer for them to escape when the LRA was in Uganda. There are supposedly UPDF (Ugandan Army) stationed in the Congo. So in order to escape they would have to surrender to the UPDF, be taken to immigration, and then to the Ugandan government, and then to World Vision. They told us that the youngest children they've had here were 2 weeks old because they come with their mothers who are young children themselves who escaped from the LRA. They used to have 40 staff members when they had a huge influx of children. But now that the numbers have gone down there are about 15 staff. He told us the perception in the community is not bad for the children who return to their families and there are only isolated cases of abuse that happen. We asked if some of the kids had a lot of anger with their parents for allowing them to be taken. He said that happens but most of the time the kids and parents are just so overjoyed to be reunited. He told us WV will continue to do what they are doing until the last child has come home! Currently they are trying to gather records of children to figure out how many are still missing. We were then able to go out and tour the facility (pictures). We met the four former abducted children who were about to be going home soon. We then go to look through many of the art therapy that the children had done.

My trip to Gulu

How does one begin to put into words all that you experience as you walk through a war torn area?

I have always wanted to go and see for myself and learn more about the war that went on in northern Uganda for 23 years. I have watched the videos that Invisible Children created over the past 6 or so years. I read the book called Girl Soldier that was all about one girl's experience of being abducted into the LRA and then her escape. It is with this tiny piece of knowledge that I have always wanted to go up there. Well, last week God gave me that opportunity.

Wednesday I traveled by car up to Gulu with Risa, Brenda, who is a psychologist and counsels some of the kids who were former child soldiers, and Steve, a volunteer from California who helped with various things for Children of Grace over the past two weeks. I know God's hand of protection was on us when we safely arrived in Gulu around 5:30 pm that night. The road going up there is quite dangerous because of the coach buses. These buses go incredibly fast down a road that barely two cars can fit by at once. They barrel down the middle of the road expecting everyone who comes into their path to move out of their way. It's all about making more money so they want to reach their next destination as fast as they possibly can. On top of that Brenda told us a lot of the drivers are high on marijuana! We had two close encounters with these buses as Risa was driving the car. One came within centimeters of running into the back of our car as it passed us. Another one was flying down the road straight at us and its two axles were completely not aligned and it barely swerved around us as it passed by! I'm glad I was sitting in the back of the car just praying and wasn't able to see some of this!

The closer we go to Gulu, the more kids we would see just walking on the road. They were rushing home from school to be able to have time before dark to do all their work around the house and do some of their homework. We saw some kids running. Brenda told us some of them walk a good 2 hours to school so they have to rush to get home at night.
Here's one baboon that we got to see as we drove home. He was just crossing the street as we were coming up on the bridge ahead.

Here's a statue that is in the middle of town. You may not be able to see it but there's a gun on the ground as apart of the statue. James told us they put this up in town to signify the end of the war that children are going back to school and putting down their guns!

Prayer

God has taught me alot about prayer in the past 7.5 years that I've been in a relationship with Him but I still have many questions and wonder about how it really works at times.  For the past couple of months I have been reading Philip Yancey's book called Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?  There are so many great things I am learning from this book but I wanted to share two of them.  This chapter talked all about the partnership that we have with God.

"God chose a different style of governing the world, a partnership which relies on human agency and choice.  C.S. Lewis suggests that we best imagine the world not as a state governed by a potentate but as a work of art, something like a play, in the process of being created."

Another chapter goes on to talk about John 17.  In it Jesus is reminiscing about life before planet Earth, eternity before time.  "He gives the ultimate answer to the "Why" questions: why creation? Why free will? Why human history and the onslaught of time? From the beginning, before the beginning, God willed to share with other creatures the love and fellowship-the life-enjoyed in the godhead before creation, now, and forever."

Why am I sharing all of this?  Because last week God answered one of my prayers, I'm reading this book on prayer, and on top of that the sermon today was on prayer.  For the whole past month I have been missing the interactions I have had with students since they have been back in school.   I told God that I really missed the students and then this past Thursday He brought me one!  I first met Phiona when she was in my group at the first camp I came to in January 2008.  She is one of about 6 girls that I really connected with and kept in touch with after the camp and saw on my multiple trips back here.

Phiona came by the office on Thursday last week just to say goodbye to me.  She is going back to spend time in her village with her grandmother and wasn't sure if she would be able to come back to Jinja before I leave in May.  How precious is that!  She told me she needed to get going because she was going to walk an extremely far distance in order to get to where she was going since she didn't have any money for transport.  So I remedied that problem and asked her if I could spend some time with her and take her to lunch.  She gratefully accepted my offer and into town we went.  We went to Park Villa Restaurant and I had the opportunity to just sit and talk with her for about an hour.  She lost both of her parents right after her youngest sibling was born and has stayed with her grandmother ever since.  She plans to go to vocational school next year to be a nurse.  I told her how glad I was that she wanted to do that because I know that she will be different from the nurses that I've heard about here who could care less about their patients.   It was such a blessing to be there with her!  After we finished we went outside to see that it was pouring buckets.  And of course I had forgotten my umbrella at the office, so I was like well we'd better just walk fast.  So I started walking after the rain had lessened a little bit and then I didn't get very far before it started pouring again so I went under an overhang.  Well Phiona had apparently watched me do all of this even though we both went into two different directions.  So she came down to where I was and kept me company for another 15 minutes before it slowed down again. 

Sunday we went to a different church.  We typically go to Victory Family Center but today we went to one of their church plants which is pastored by Godfrey, who we have hired many times to be our driver to go to the airport or Kampala.  In all of our hours spent in the car we have had many great conversations with him and have learned a lot about Christianity here in Uganda.  He is a really great man and you can really tell that he really loves Jesus.  Today he spoke about praying by faith by using James 5:15-18.  In these verses Elijah is mentioned as" a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.  Then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced fruit."  When Elijah was a prophet in the Old Testament, Israel was involved in a lot of sinful things but he knew God's will for Israel and he knew his God.  Godfrey said that we are so easily prone to being deceived into thinking that the things of this world are better for us than God's will.  We turn from God just like the Israelites did.  Elijah was an ordinary person but he believed in what God said in His Word and he believed in the One he was praying to.   He encouraged us to memorize God's Word and pray God's Word over things because it is so powerful.  He said we need to know God's Word here in Uganda because we are so easily deceived. He told us about a woman who went to a pastor who was staying at a hotel in town and said I will pray for your problems for 50,000 shillings.   The woman said she only had 30,000 and the pastor said that's ok I will pray for you and your problem will be partly solved.  (WOW!)  The pastor had told Mary Ann the previous day about a young boy that came to him and wanted prayer from him because a witchdoctor had put a stone into his body.  The witchdoctor took a stone in his hand and did a (what we call in America-a magic trick) and made it disappear leaving the boy to believe that the stone was now in his body!  (WOW!)  There is a lot of deception here.  My prayer is that God would continue to build up my faith in Him and that His truth would reign here.

Colin's Graduation Party

Saturday was another day in Uganda that I will never forget. The whole office staff was invited to go to Colin's graduation party. I had no idea what to expect after just having been to his house for the family get together a month ago on the day he actually graduated. Risa and I went early to drop off some things at their house and there were already many decorations and chairs all laid out! It looked like they were getting ready for a wedding, in my eyes at least, wow! We arrived around 5pm and Mary Ann was put right up front with Colin's mother as one of the honored guests. Risa, the staff, and I took our place a few rows behind them. Colin had asked me a week ago if I had a video camera, little did I know that meant can you video tape my whole party? One of his relatives told me to just start taping. So I took the place that I love to be in...behind the camera. If you know me at all, you know that I love taking pictures so to be able to serve Colin in this way was a privilege to me. (Unfortunately this means he's going to hear me laughing many times as the MC was hilarious!) I am much much better at telling this story through pictures so here are a couple of pictures below but I will try and add some words to the experience.

A lot of Colin's relatives were there, even ones that most people would not want to invite to their graduation party. The MC announced different people over the course of the next hour to come up and give speeches about Colin. There was a teacher from his primary level there, friends from the university, relatives, and older clan members. Mary Ann was even asked to get up and give a speech. After all of the speeches Colin came up to the table full of presents, which I totally thought were for him since he's the one graduating from college. Oh no...as you can see in one of the pictures, he started handing the presents to people in his lives that have made a big impact on him and where he is today. The present that impacted me the most was when Colin got down on his knees in front of his mother to thank her and tell her how much he appreciated her for sacrificing so much for him over the years. (This shocked me because in this male dominated soceity you never ever see a man do that! You will see women and kids do that all the time but never a grown man!) His mother became a widow when Colin was about 10 years old in 1995, which means she was younger than I am when she was a widowed mother of four young kids! Through the sacrifices of his mother and later the sponsorship of Children of Grace, Colin was able to go to school and get a degree from a good university and now even have a job at a good company!

Colin and his brother Allan

(Yes that is a cake with really really big candles!)

Building Pics Update

February 9th this is what the roof started to look like from the outside.

Feb 9-the roof from the inside (you can see all the red beams up top)
Here is all the work that has happened in about two weeks, this was Feb 21st. The walls have started to be cemented all throughout the inside of the building.

And the outside has gotten cemented as well as of Feb 21st.

Wow it's really looking like a building now!

Back to school time-Feb 1st

Back to school time just happened here almost two weeks ago now.   In America our lists consist of the necessary pens, pencils, colored pencils, paper, binders, and a box of tissues to contribuite to the class.   In Uganda the list looks quite different: broom, knife, razor blades, toilet paper, a ream of paper, bathing soap, washing soap, bucket, jerrican, 1 kilo of sugar, gray socks with blue and white stripes, a cup and a plate, and 4 pairs of knickers.  Some of them are really ridiculous (what school needs 1,000 brooms when they can't even afford text books?) As we went shopping with some of the kids on a hot afternoon I found myself saying I wish there was a walmart around here somewhere!  The children here who attend boarding school gather up their few items and put them into a metal suitcase secured with padlocks. They keep the suitcases on their self-provided mattresses and sleep alongside them, hoping not to kick too hard in the night, leaving a bruise. Children of Grace provides each boarding student one mattress in their education career. Upon sponsorship each student also receives a backpack, mosquito net, school shoes, scholastics, pens, and school uniforms. When these items run out or become unusable, they are able to bring them back to the office and trade them in for new ones. Thus, as you can imagine, the beginning of a school term for the office is BUSY!! The new year started on February 1st. Getting 700 kids ready for school is quite an undertaking.

I had so much fun helping out with this undertaking!!   I got into my place of the assembly line that I love to be in-the picture taker (we want to be able to send new pictures to their sponsors).  Here I am again saying seeca (smile) or fine (jackfruit), I had some students give me some really good smiles! J  And as hard as it was for me I even said no to a guardain who wanted new shoes but instead of new new shoes I gave her child some other child's shoes that I had just taken (which by the way were in really good condition).  (We took the old shoes from the kids and Sam had such a great idea to get them fixed so we can reuse them-he saved COG SO much money!!!)  We don't provide them with each of the things on the lists they receive from their schools, but we do provide them with the things they can not attend school without. The other items, such as soap, flatware, etc., we leave for the children to provide. This enables them the sense of accomplishment in providing sometime for themselves.  What a blessing it was for me to see all of our students come by the office with big smiles on their faces :)

Back to school time in Uganda

Here is the big line of students on one of the many days that we were handing out scholastics, new shoes, and new this year water guard. We found out that we can give kids water guard in order to treat their water at boarding school, so yay to hopefully no more typhoid!