Hey everyone!
I’ve made it safely to my Ugandan home after a 16 hour plane ride and an 8 hour car ride! We only have Internet once a week, so I won’t be able to post updates very often.
This month we are working with an organization called Child Voice International (CVI). CVI brings in women who have children and were affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). If you’ve heard of Kony 2012, then you have a small idea of the horrible things that have happened to these women and children. While we aren’t allowed to directly speak with the women about their past experiences, the staff have told us many of their heartbreaking stories. Some of the children here were trained to be child-soldiers and some of the women were the wives of the rebels. It’s crazy to see how joyful these women and their children are despite everything they have been through. It puts a lot of things into perspective for me. I can easily let one small little thing (like writing this blog twice already and it getting deleted) ruin my entire day, while they have had many traumatizing years and never show one sign of it.
CVI provides vocational training for the women such as tailoring, baking, hospitality and business training (I’ll talk more about this in my next blog). CVI is very adamant about providing sustainable solutions for these women. It’s awesome to see an organization that wants to give people a future rather than just giving handouts.
My life at CVI for the month:
Every morning and night we have worship with the women and their children..they even sing a few songs in English for us. Worship here involves a very special kind of screaming and a whole lot of dancing. Every morning after worship we also have chapel where someone from our team does a small Bible study with the women.
My team and I attend a few of the classes with the women, help them work in their garden, walk to get water from the well with them, and play with their kids.
Our goal here is to help the women and the staff form a closer relationship with the Lord by being examples of Christ’s life on Earth.
I’m so thankful for this experience already. The beautiful people, scenery and food are enough to make me wanna stay here longer than a month!
