I just recently finished a book about stories. It left me daydreaming about the stories I will tell my children or grandchildren. My mind then wondered to all the stories I have been collecting on the World Race and, specifically, those from this month in Lira, Uganda. This has been my favorite location, by far! Nothing compares to Africa – to the beauty, the faith of these people, the hospitatity, the joy, etc – I have loved it here and am grieving the fact that I must leave on Monday for Niarobi!
One my favorite days involves my dear friend, Brandy. As squad leader, she gets to travel amongst different teams and, to my joy, was with my team for the first two weeks of January. She sponsors a child, Gladys, through Compassion International and knew that Gladys was somewhere in Uganda. Since our race route changes so often, she was hesitant to tell the Compassion offices that she was coming (for fear of plans changing) and didn’t really have much hope of seeing Gladys.
When we got to the orientation meeting with our host pastor, he explained that one of the Compassion projects was run out of this church and it contains 280 children. So Brandy, not really expecting anything, mentions the name of her sponsor child to the pastor. The pastor said that the family name was from this region and asked Brandy to go online and find more information. It turned out that Gladys is from the very district we were staying in!! She was in a different village, but it was only a few miles away. Brandy then very quickly started to fill out the paperwork and we began to pray that things could be speedily processed so she could meet Gladys. Praise the Lord, all was cleared in under a week! So Brandy, Dan, and myself crammed into a tiny Toyota and headed to Autibaton.
I am so grateful that I was able to share this with Brandy and that God wrote that memory into my story. Seeing Brandy and Gladys introduced was one of my favorite World Race moments. However, it was topped later, when, just before it was time to leave, Gladys brought out a huge Rooster, bound by the feet, and presented it to Brandy. They also presented her with this branch full of banana-like fruit. I will never forget the look on Brandy’s face when Gladys came out with a crowing Rooster and handed it to her! It was funny in the moment (and still is!) but once we started to reflect on the significance, it is incredible.
The family is very poor and they had to sacrifice much to give these gifts. Gladys is one of four children and lives in a tiny hut with her parents. Though her family has little earthy posessions, she is considered very lucky because both of her parents are living – many have lost parents to HIV/Aids or to the conflict that recently tormented Northern Uganda. Also, she is blessed by the Compassion program that provides food, school fees, and Christian education.
(Allow me to put in a small plug here for Compassion and World Vision. Both of these organizations, and I’m sure many others, are doing incredible work in the lives of children around the world….if you don’t already sponsor a child, I suggest you pray about adopting a child! And if you do have a sponsor child, be sure to write letters and send pictures – Gladys, and other children I have met here, cherish these items! Ok, I will get off my soap box now!)
Later that afternoon, we were scheduled to attend a small group. We debated just going back to our house because well, what were we going to do with a live rooster?! But, I had a feeling that the cell group was important so we came up with a plan to lock the Rooster in the church and come back for it after (thankfully, the pastor ended up taking it home for us!).
So Brandy, Hope and I headed to another adventure and had no idea what to expect. What we were met with, we could not have imagined! The ‘small group’ consisted of about 150 people, 100 of which were children! And, we were not just attending, we were the ‘honored guests!’ The children had music and skits ready for us! Also, they served us tea and biscuits (which is hard when you are the only one eating in an impoverished village and all the children are looking at you….but you can’t not eat and offend….talk about being between a rock and a hard place!). The evening demonstrates how loving and hospitable this culture is. They humbled me and my view of the body of Christ and how God calls us to love one another.
