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!