During the month of July, my team served with LightForce International in Lira, Uganda. Lira is a fairly rural community, but we had another team with us to keep us company. LightForce is an organization based in the UK with branches in Uganda, India, and Albania.
LightForce International focuses on education, supporting vulnerable children and creating sustainable futures; all of this is underpinned by their Christian faith. Current projects include a nursery and primary school, school sponsorship, vocational skills training, support for vulnerable children and women living with HIV, health care, and supporting church leadership.
Our teams lived in a compound (LightForce Safari Lodge) in individual huts. The compound is also home to at-risk children who are enrolled in the LightForce school through their sponsorship program. Just outside the compound is the school buildings, clinic, fields, and properties housing the livestock.
Our teams split into three groups: community, physical education, and manual labor.
For the first week and a half I served in manual labor. Here are some of the ways I was able to help:
- Composting
- Picking tomatoes and greens
- Hoeing a field
- Pruning orange trees
- Cleaning goat pens
- Moving dirt for the well diggers
- Raising a road and filling in potholes
For the second week and a half I served in the community. Here are some of the ways I was able to help:
- Visiting homes of schoolchildren with the LightForce social worker
- Carrying jerry cans to boar holes, filling them with water and delivering to homes
- Shelling beans and ground nuts
- Praying over families
- Holding babies
- Playing with kids during parent-teacher conferences
- Learning a game that is used to teach women how to manage finances
I loved getting to know the community members, helping out in practical ways, and always having children around to love on!
There were a lot of moments to find humor in this month…including spending the Fourth of July shoveling goat poop for an Englishman.
We were also able to raft the Nile river! What an unforgettable experience!
My theme for the month is patience. Our teams devoted one day a week to having a restful Sabbath, and it was beautiful to take intentional time to sit patiently and wait to hear from God. He and I had some sweet conversations this month. I also learned to be patient when things don’t go as planned or take longer than expected (which I’m learning happens a lot in Africa). There was a lot of sitting around during house visits and conversations that were in a language I don’t understand. I learned to sit and soak in every moment, reflecting and considering how my presence can communicate a lot—peace, joy, a smile.
Now on to Kenya! Only two months left in Africa, two months in Europe, and then home for Christmas!
