We have one more week in Uganda before heading out to Tanzania for our last month in Africa (crazy), and I thought you might be wondering, what has Alex been doing this month in Uganda? Good question. My team is in Gulu – a town in northern Uganda heavily affected by the war. In all honesty, I’m fairly ignorant about the war here in Uganda. I just know that it went on for decades and was fought heavily with abducted child soldiers who were made to fight or die. There’s currently no war in Uganda, but the after effects are most assuredly still here. Families remain displaced, family members were lost, and people’s lives were changed forever. Every time I go into town I see a van from the United Nations, UNICEF, Invisible Children, etc. There’s a lot of work being done, but there is so much work left to be done in this area.
We’re working with a group called Child Voice International. This organization has a center that houses about 30 girls who were ex-child soldiers and now have children of their own. Each girl is here for about a year and a half and they have classes on things such as business, tailoring, hair styling and baking to help them start a successful life for themselves.
We’re definitely getting the World Race experience this month. We eat beans and rice every day. We live in the same center as the girls in awesome mud huts and hammocks. We don’t have electricity, which means we don’t have lights, and so Matt and I generally go to bed about 9 and wake up at 5 or 6. So what if we’re old. Don’t judge. Some days we also go mall walking, watch Price is Right, play shuffleboard and eat dinner at 4 p.m.
In all honesty I haven’t been able to get near as much in to this ministry as I hoped I would. After two days here I went to Kampala with my teammate Kim to the doctor where we stayed for 4 days to get her infected toe looked at. No complaints – we had a pretty good time in the big city and I enjoyed spending time with Kim and Team Shiloh who gave us a place to stay. Then I got back and three days later I got sick with a high fever that kind of put me out of service for 4 or 5 days. (There’s a separate blog coming about the blessing that was this illness hopefully tomorrow.) So God’s plan this month just hasn’t had me super involved with the girls which is a shame, but I have been able to help out some.
Most days I’ve done stuff my ministry has been to spend a few hours in the nursery watching the girls’ children while they’re in class. I’ve never held down nursery duty before, but God has blessed me. Often times I have at least 5 or 6 kids on me and at one point in time
counted 9 small children making physical contact with me simultaneously.
They love to be picked up and spun around which I love to do except
there’s one of me and 30 of them, and then to be honest I don’t
remember who I’ve spun and who I haven’t which leads to tears and hurt
feelings. One time I felt like I was in a zombie movie because they
pinned me in a corner and all had their arms outstretched toward me
saying, I’m assuming, pick me up in their native language in perfect unison. (They speak
Acholi here in case you were curious.) Other games they like to play
include: push the buttons on Alex’s watch, play Alex’s thigh like a
drum, yank Alex’s leg hair, yank Alex’s arm hair, yank Alex’s head hair
and unlock the door on their own accord and make a run from the nursery.
But as crazy as it is, it really is fun a lot of the time. Do I see myself opening a daycare when I return home? Not exactly, but it’s a blessing to see such joy in those kids and even more so when their joy doesn’t come from my physical pain.
Speaking of joy – this is what I’ll take most from this month and working with this ministry. The girls’ joy is absolutely unbelievable. I truly can’t even wrap my head around some of the experiences they’ve had in their life. They were child soldiers for goodness sake. When I was a child my struggles were my Nintendo64 broke or we ran out of Cokes in the fridge. So here these girls are after experiencing a childhood I can’t even fathom, yet their joy is absolutely remarkable. They have chapel every single morning, and most mornings we join them as they sing, dance and yell with huge, gigantic smiles on their faces. These girls love to worship, and boy do they know how. They embody a verse that has really been on my heart this month:
for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
– 2 Thessalonians 5:16
My backyard. Definitely been blessed with some beautiful ones.
