This is a summary of the first part of my month in Mukono, Uganda. Sorry if it seems a little repetitive….
Uganda.
A year ago, I would have laughed if someone told me that’s where I’d be in June of 2011. Teaching soccer skills, music classes, guitar lessons and Sunday School – to children in a country I’d heard so much about for years.
I’d heard of ruthless child-sacrifices, kidnappings, murder, rape, AIDS, witchcraft, pure evil. Maybe you’ve heard of these things too.
But a year ago, as much as I wanted to someday visit Uganda, I figured it would only maybe possibly somehow happen, sometime in my lifetime, someday.
I figured that if it ever did happen, it wouldn’t happen now (this is a view very similar to my view of the World Race, prior to going on the World Race, by the way).
God likes to surprise us. June of 2011, Uganda is exactly where I found myself.
In Kenya, our contacts told us a joke about the Swahili language – “It was healthy in Tanzania, got sick in Kenya, and died in Uganda.” Something like that. And it’s true, Swahili is pretty dead in Uganda. They speak Lugandan, which is a language that I failed to pick up in the time I spent in Uganda. But many people, including the children, speak english – so communication was relatively easy.
I fell in love with the kids at Champions Christian Primary School. The school has 200-some students but is also home to 22 children who sleep there at night.
This part of the month stretched me. Grew me. I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed teaching when it was my days to teach; it was SO difficult and far out of my comfort zone. And I can’t say that waking up around 5am to help pick up the children for school in the “school bus” was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. And I can’t tell you that I didn’t complain about the heat, or the sun being SO hot, or the water cutting out all the time; I’m not a saint.
But I can tell you that I wouldn’t trade the time I had with the kids for anything. My heart would swell with pride when the kids would see me and shout my name; all my troubles would melt away when 8 kids would run at me and nearly tackle me in a hug – even though I’d just seen them the day before. I loved it when the children would sit next to me and ask me to sing them something…loved being able to teach them songs. I loved telling them how much I loved them and thought they were beautiful. I can tell you that their smiles, their hugs, their laughter, and their ability to freely love inspired me and makes them irreplaceable in my mind. In my heart, I dream of returning to Champions Christian Primary school, someday, somehow.
But it wasn’t just the children who planted that dream for me. No, it was Pastor Joseph and his wife and their unconditional, unexplainable love for children. It was the men and women who taught at the school and were more than just teachers; the students really loved them. It was the leadership team in Christ Ambassadors Church, the one that meets at the school; people who are hungry to learn and be challenged and not afraid to challenge others. It was even the people who served us at the guest house we stayed in – people who took care of us like we were family to them.
Truly incredible people.
The ministry we worked with was very organized, well thought-out, and effective from what I could tell. They are, like many other ministries, in need of all the help they can get. But by no means are they weak. They’re fighters, and it was an honor to fight along with them.
I learned much more from them than I would be able to ever put into words…in the small and the big things, they showed me God’s love, kindness, and grace.
And THAT was just the beginning.
The second half of the month, I was with a different ministry and it seemed like it was a world away from where we’d been. Read part two of the month HERE!
