It's Thursday night in Rackoko, Uganda- a small town in the Northern part of the country. The city is actually a former Internally Displaced Persons(IDP) camp that housed people escaping the violence of war in their villages. We are currently living amongst former child soldiers, women who were repeatedly raped, people with multiple bullet wounds…a place where EVERYONE lost someone. There is pain, anger, regret, fear, depression, PTSD…lying just beneath the surface.
There is a veneer here- a very beautiful one, but still a veneer. Everywhere you turn there are babies and children playing and laughing. The women joke and talk as they cook outside their huts. The young men play soccer and the kids run through the streets with kites. You'll see some of thee cutest goats jumping and playing on top of dirthills or taking a nap in the sun. You have not truly seen a gorgeous starry sky unless you've stood outside at night in Rackoko and looked up. However, you know that what lies just beneath is much darker, much heavier, much more.
In a room stuffed with people from a few months old to full-grown adults we began watching Blood Diamond by request. My teammate Peter and I were extremely uneasy with showing this real-life-turned-Hollywood thriller to them. As chuckles bounced off the wall during the scenes of the training of child soldiers we both quickly decided the kids needed to leave. I then asked the remaining handful of teens/adults why they wanted to watch what they have lived already. No one said anything. They kept watching. There were a few "TSK! TSK!" when the rebels attacked the city, but there were more "Oohs!" and "Aahhhs!" at the pyrotechnics and CGI- as it if were just another action flick. When Djimon Hansou emotionally erupted after finding out his son was taken as a soldier by the rebels some of the teenage boys laughed.
Am I crazy? Maybe I'm reading too much into it. After meeting and praying with a disabled woman who was raped during the war and seeing multiple legs in church last Sunday riddled with bullet wounds, I feel fairly confident that I'm not overreacting. This city where I currently live was teeming with 10,000+ people who had to flee from their village homes to safety due to rebel attacks. How are they just enjoying this like any other film?Well I'm writing this realtime, so hopefully once it's over we can have some conversation and I can get some understanding. Right now- I'm at a loss.
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Everyone left pretty quickly after the movie ended. Our contact and 2 of the young men walked me home so I was able to speak with them. We discussed what they thought, how they were able to watch, if it bothers them, etc. The boys laughed and said it was just a movie to them. That it did not bring up old memories or cause them stress. They said watching Hotel Rwanda however was very hard and that they cannot look at that again. So the feelings are there, they are raw and they can be triggered. Maybe Blood Diamonds just wasn't close enough to what they experienced.
Throughout this month I talked to the teens and heard passing- almost flippant- comments about nights spent in the bush in the cold rain under gunfire. I learned that many of the people these teens call mom/dad/ aunt/grandfather…are not. These are people who have taken them in to care for them post-war as they did not have anyone else to do so. However, my contact made a poignant comment on that walk home. He stated that Jesus has really done a work here. That although there are indeed hurting hearts, anger, fear, PTSD, etc. that a LOT of healing has come. That the presence of God has changed things dramatically and in a short time. He is right.
There is true joy here. True love. True compassion. The kids still have the ability to dream. The land is regenerating itself. While our team was there, preparations for something called AfriCamp, a multi-day prayer revival, were being made. One of the collective prayers we prayed was for rain and boy did the Lord bless! The farmers got an abundance and their land shall prosper. A few days after leaving Uganda, I received an email from our contact rejoicing that one of the boys I had spent a lot of time with accepted Christ and that another had asked for prayer. God loves Rackoko. Jesus' love is all over that place! The Holy Spirit is indeed moving.
This month was a reminder to me that even the darkest dark is no match for a single beam of God's radiant light!
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This month, we felt God calling us to serve our contact in different ways. We felt pulled to use our various individual talents to help build this fairly new ministry. New worship music was printed and taught, a Bible study curriculum was developed, informal group/individual "counseling" took place, beauty workshops for teens/women were given and a website was even developed. Please take a moment to check out!
Kingdom Pearl Ministries
www.kingdompearl.org
