I have made a lot of friends on the World Race thus far. This blog is meant to introduce you to 5 friends that I made in Uganda. My hope is to give a brief picture of each person based on all I learned from talking to them. My goal is to focus on their life to give you a picture of some of the real friends I’m making.
Emmanuel
Emmanuel is a 17 year old student at Wakiso school of hope which is the location we were at the majority of the month. He is extremely bright and consistenly finishes toward the top of his class. He wants to become a pharmacist some day. His hope is that he can also provide a better life for his mother and help support his younger sister’s education.
Emmanuel is a born again Christian and I was greatly encouraged by his dedication to growing in the Lord. Emmanuel translated for us during some of the house visits and evangelism that we did. I asked him what his favorite Bible story was and he told me the story of Joseph (pretty much the entire story). With the new year coming his prayer for 2015 is simple, “Lord, put me in your hands this year”. Emmanuel also told me that one thing he is thankful to God for is that he has never been sick outside of a small cold or flu. He has never had to have an IV like so many of his classmates.
God is with Emmanuel (no pun intended) but his life, like any, has not been without difficulty. Emmanuel’s mother is a farmer and she does not make enough to provide school fees (school is not free in Uganda) for her 6 children. Emmanuel has not seen his father in over 6 years and to my knowledge his dad does not provide any type of support to him. (One consistent theme our team saw this month was children who came from a family where their father either died, left the family, or simply did not provide.) I don’t know a lot more about Emmanuel’s family except that his mother and father are actually from Rwanda. They moved to Uganda during the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
One blessing that Emmanuel has received is that he is sponsored by a family in the UK who pays for his school fees. He is very thankful for this but said that he has struggled with getting school fee money stolen. Their is not a truly safe place to keep money at the school and his gets taken at times. When it does, he does not have parents he can just call to send me money. He is basically out of luck until the next time support comes in.
In addition, Emmanuel has a great love for soccer and he finds a lot of joy in playing. His team is very good and won the tournament in Uganda for their age group in December.
Loviseh
“She is next to me in the picture”
Loviseh is 88 years young and she has quite a personality. She lives with her sister-in-law in a home near the school. Loviseh loves to joke and she was always asking tongue and cheek if we were going to take her back to America or Canada with us.
Loviseh used to work as a nurse at a hostipal. Her father was in the road construction business and she comes from a realatively wealthy family by Ugandan standards. She said that many of her nieces and nephews are doctors and lawyers so it sounds like her family has continued a string of success (at least financially).
Loviseh’s family has been in the same house just outside the town of Wakiso since 1962. One interesting fact is that she has never left the country of Uganda, which is not necessarily uncommon among Ugandans.
Loviseh is Catholic and her nursing aid said that she spends a lot of time praying with her rosary. She is very open to prayer and wanted us to pray to Jesus for her every time that we visited. Her family was extremely generous to us and treated us very well.
Sampson
Sampson is 19 years old and he is done with secondary school (the Ugandan equivalent of high school). Just being done with school gives Sampson a leg up in Uganda as only 1 in 10 children completely finish secondary school. Sampson used to play a lot of soccer but recently has been doing a job/internship learning how to be an auto engineer. His dream is to one day open up his own parts shop and he also has a dream of going to Japan.
Sampson has 1 sister and 4 brothers. His mother passed away when he was 8 years old. Sampson’s father is an evangelist in Uganda. He said his father was a good dad and that he also provided school fees for him and treated him well. Sampson himself is not a Christian. He said that sometimes he prays but that he isn’t sure if he believes in Jesus. In my discussions with Sampson I found that he was turned off to the church in a similar way that many people in the US are turned off to the church. He felt that many people in the churches he’d been in were hypocritical in that their lives looked very different on Monday-Saturday than compared to what they proclaimed on Sunday (although he stated his father is not a hypocrite). Sampson also talked to me about how science and what he has learned about evolution and the origin of life have made him question the Bible’s authority and authenticity. Lastly, Sampson said he has been turned off to the church in that they always want him to donate money or tithe if he attends service.
Joseph
Joseph is 20 years old and he has completed secondary school and would like to go to university. He was originally planning to enroll in university in Kampala in February of 2015 but now he may work until 2016 to build up some money. Joseph’s mom owns a small shop in Wakiso. The shop specialized in selling second hand women’s clothing that has been imported from other continents/countries. The clothing generally comes from Europe, China, and the Americas. Joseph often works at the shop.
Joseph lives with his mother, 3 siblings, and his step father. Josephs father died when he was very young and his mother had him at 17 years of age so she was still quite young. (it is becoming less common, but generally women in villages in Uganda will get married as teens if they are not attending school) Joseph loves his mother very much and said she is a great mom. He thinks she will be very sad when he goes to university but said that she has always loved him and made sure to pay his school fees even when money was tight. Joseph also has a girlfriend that he has dated for almost 2 years.
Here are a few random questions I asked Joseph to get his opinions:
What is your favorite part of Uganda: “It is so peaceful and beautiful. The people are very hospitable”
What would you change about Uganda if you could: “I would get rid of all the corruption”
Where would you travel if you had enough money to go anywhere: “Ecuador and the USA”
What is your favorite sport: “Soccer”
What is your favorite food: “Talapia”
Joseph is part of a Catholic family and he said he goes to church consistently. The school he went to growing up was a christian school and he said he generally enjoyed his bible classes. In addition, Joseph has a great passion for singing. He sang a few gospel songs for us and with us and he has a great voice. Joseph’s favorite song is “All of me” by John Legend. He plans to compete in a few different singing competitions this coming year.
Favour
Favour, or Aunt Favour as we affectionately call her, works at the school and was the wonderful woman who prepared meals for us this month. Favour is also a member the church and she has a very unique story.
Favour was born in a town called Kabale which is near the border of Rwanda. Her dad passed away when we was nine years old and this left the family in a predicament. In Uganda, land does not necessarily automatically go to the spouse when a man dies. It often goes to his brothers. In Favour’s case, he aunt fought hard to get the land for Favour’s uncle and succeeded. Without land, Favour’s mother had to sell a large number of cows and move to a place where she could purchase new land. Favour’s family had a place to stay but they were left in a state of poverty. Favour’s main means of making money was through planting beans and then going and selling them in Rwanda to pay for her own school fees as a teenager. She stopped going to school in SR2 (the equivalent of 10th grade) and took a course in tailoring. She became a tailor and started working.
Favour said that she and her family were Anglican growing up but she said that the gospel never hit home to her and she was never really born again as a child or teen. Most of her church experience to that point was just religious activity.
As a young woman Favour found a husband and eventually had 4 children with him (her children are wonderful by the way). He was an electronics repair man and the relationship was good at first. He began to drink and became an alcoholic. Sometimes he commited adultery when he would drink. Next he suddenly stopped paying school fees for his children despite the fact that he still made enough money to pay; he simply chose not to. The final straw came when he started to physically abuse his children. He specifically abused his boys, for some reason he generally liked his daughters but hated his boys. Favour said that he still does not talk to his boys to this day.
It was around 2004 that Favour’s life changed forever. She had just had her son Shama, who is now 10 years old. He was born very sick and had a disease where his skin would literally fall off and he would bleed profusely. Favours was devestated by this and on top of that, her family life with her husband was devastating. Favour had made plans to poison herself and her entire family to death. The night that she planned to do it, her daughter Sharina, who was quite young at the time, went over and turned on the radio which was not something she normally did. Just as she turned it on there was a pastor talking. The pastor stated “There is a lady listening who bought poison to kill her entire family but she should not do that because God is going to heal her child”. Favour was shaken by this and decided not to poison her family and herself that night. Shortly after this, one of Favour’s friends invited her to a born again church to have the pastor pray for Shama (her child). Favour took Shama to the church many times and every time the pastor would pray and Shama seemed to get a little better every time. Within a few months Shama was completely better and what the preacher had said on the radio came true. At this point Favour could not longer ignore God’s presense. She and all her children confessed belief in Jesus together on the same Sunday and she became born again. Favour said one incredible thing about Shama is that he has never been sick since he was a baby.
Despite being born again, Favour’s life did not get better right away. In fact, her husbands behavior became worse. In 2008 she was forced to leave her husband after he started hitting the entire family with a hammer one Sunday night when they got home from church. She took her children back to the church and lived there for almost 3 years sleeping on the wood benches. He husband tried to come and get her and the kids a few times at the church but each time the pastor and other church members did not allow him near the family and he eventually left them alone.
Near the end of 2010 Favour was able to move to Wakiso School of Hope where she still works. She has a place to stay there and is able to make a small amount of money. She barely talks to her husband now but is still technically married. She is extremely grateful to God and is an amazing woman of prayer. If there is anybody I know who makes demons tremble when she prays it is definitely Favour.
Favours has two prayers that she is still waiting for God to answer. The first is that she would like to have land and a house of her own again. The second is that she would like to get a school sponsorship for some or all of her 4 children. Their are 3 terms per year in school in Uganda. The terms cost about $120 USD per child. Most of Favour’s children have to take terms off from school and they end up missing long chunks of time due to not having appropriate funds.
Thanks for reading everyone! My squad leaves for Rwanda tomorrow.
-Brady
