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!