It’s been a while!

Dear Friends in Christ;

It’s been a while since I last put my thoughts and my feelings down. Life has been crazy being back home and it has been a time of reflection on God’s mercies that are new every morning and learning more of how to reflect God’s love to those around me. I have to admit that it hasn’t been very easy being back home, being surrounded by commercials, by comfort, it’s been hard to hear God’s voice in all the crazyness that takes place on a daily basis. It’s been hard to be completely surrounded by his presence because am constantly surrounded by busy hours and traffic!

One day, I got the privilege of sitting together with an old refugee woman from africa, and enjoyed her company as she was telling me the story of her life. This made me miss my days in africa so much becasue I wanted so badly to be surrounded by people of her kind at all times. As she was going on talking about how she met her husband, how he died, how she fled from one country to another, my heart sunk, yet i was comforted by the friendship and by knowing that God has always and will always be at work in his people no matter what.

Another evening, two of my friends and I picked up some groceries and visited with an older woman that is living in the public housing here in Nashville. Again, I was overwhelmed by her warm welcoming spirit and how she was grieved that she didn’t feed us! I owe her to go back for dinner. She talked to us about her children, about her struggles of being in this country by herself, and of course how God has been good to her. She was talking about how Jesus is her only friend on, since she lives by herself, he is the only person she can talk to as a friend, he is the one that she spends time with in her lonely apartment. These are the moments that I long for, in the crazyness of my schedule, in the crazyness of work and school, in the times that I long to be in Africa working with more of these women and learning from them.

Since I have been back, I have been working with African Leadership, developing their African refugee youth programs here in Nashville. It’s been a great challenge and I have truly enjoyed it and still enjoying spending time with these youngsters, listening to their thoughts and struggles in this new environment. Please pray for this ministry as it is still in the early developing days.

More to come!

Get Involved!

                                  

There is a lot happening on the continent of Africa, some people want to be a part of it but they are scared, others just don’t know where to begin, others don’t want to spend their money without knowing where exactly and how it is going to be spent. Well, all these are just excuses! I believe that even if you touch one single person on this continent, your blessing would go along way, imagine if Mother Theresa had thought this way? Instead, she decided to work with those that were dying, with those that would not even get a chance to enjoy the services that she was providing, with those that did not have more than just a few days to live, with those that would not even be able to tell her ‘thank you’! All she did, all she wanted was for every human being to die in dignity as God intended. There are several ways you can help change the continent of Africa, there are several ways you can help the churches in Africa by coming along side the work they are already doing.

If you are interested in helping the vulnerable children of Africa for education, food and medicine, or to partner with an African church to serve communities, please contact the Outreach Foundation or visit them on the web at www.theoutreachfoundation.org.

If you are interested in AIDS projects and AIDS orphans: http://africanleadership.org

If you are interested in supporting the child soldiers: http://actioninternationalministry.org

Kampala, Uganda

Picture discription: Kampala skyline, (2) visiting the budhist temple, (3) visiting with my grandmother; my dad’s aunt, (4) With a friend from FPC standing in the Nile River, (5) Lake Tanganyika, (6 &7) visiting the khadafi mosque, the biggest mosque in eastern africa, (8) enjoy a walk on the Makerere University Campus.

In case you haven’t been in Uganda, Kampala is the capital city of this east african country. It is one of the most stressful, most crowded, and of course the most fun city I have ever visited. I hope I wont have to live there because it is a bit too much for me to handle but I have truly enjoyed it there. While in Africa, Kampala was just my transit place, I traveled to Kampala inorder to get the buses or planes to the places that I was traveling to. While in Kampala, I took a chance to visit different places, including temples and mosques. In Kampala there are several of temples, mosques and cathedrals that people can visit, I found it very fascinating. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to visit the Bahai temple which is one of the biggest temple in Kampala.

The life in Kampala was a bit interesting and frustrating, very frustrating because of the numbers of street children, interesting because of the worst traffic I have even seen in life was in Kampala; no traffic rules at all, let’s just put it that way.

Journal Entry (Jan. 3rd): Walking through the streets of Kampala is overwhelming physically, mentaly, and emotionaly. I see so many things that brake my heart and so many things that make my brain go in circles. As I turn the corner from the taxi park, there was a line of street children, one was running after a white couple (mzungus as they call them), another one is sitting on the side of the road begging. However, there is one that caught my attention longer, he was wearing a brown suit and preaching to the passers by, asking them to repent and turn away from their evil ways! This picture put me back to some of my college classes, Is it true that religion is the opium of the poor? As this child is screaming on top of his lungs quoting scripture that he can barely read since he does not look older than 10, my brain really went in circles, and my heart was broken by this picture. 

Philippians 4 

Elections in Zimbabwe: Article from BBC News

People across Zimbabwe are anxiously awaiting the final election results, which have been slow to emerge since the close of polling on Sunday.

The situation is said to be tense, as delays raise concerns of vote rigging. A team of pan-African observers said voting had been free and fair but also expressed concern about the delay. Official results show the ruling Zanu-PF has 31 parliamentary seats, while the opposition has 35 in total so far, with 144 seats still not declared. Five of the opposition seats have gone to a breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), according to official results.

The air is thick with expectation and with rumour. The parts of the country we have seen are very calm and, in some cases, unusually quiet BBC’s Ian Pannell

The MDC claims the main opposition party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won 60% of the presidential vote, against 30% for Robert Mugabe. The international community has urged Zimbabwe to give the results soon. Foreign ministers from seven European Union countries “called on the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission to swiftly announce all official election results, especially the results of the presidential election”. Washington said the vote should be counted honestly and reflect the will of the people. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the eyes of the world were on Zimbabwe. John Sawers, British ambassador to the United Nations, said that if the elections did herald a change of leadership, “there would be a huge groundswell of support for a new government prepared to address the fundamental problems that exist in Zimbabwe”.

Rumours

Nana Ampofo, an analyst for Global Insight, which specialises in political and economic forecasting, says the delay is cause for concern.

ELECTION RESULTS SO FAR Parliamentary constituencies MDC-Tsvangirai: 30 Zanu-PF: 31 Breakaway MDC faction: 5 Yet to declare: 144 Presidential results None so far Winner needs more than 50% to avoid run-off Source: ZEC Results according to MDC: Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC: 60% Robert Mugabe, Zanu-PF: 30% MDC 99 parliamentary seats Zanu-PF 96 Other opposition 15

“The manner in which results for parliamentary constituencies are balanced 50-50 between the MDC and Zanu PF, it will raise eyebrows,” he said. “It’s still not clear that the election results are fixed but there are definitely reasons to be concerned.” Rumours have circulated as people await results, and government has been forced to deny speculation that Mr Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, had gone to Malaysia or was planning to impose a state of emergency. Riot police have been patrolling the capital, Harare, and other urban areas and residents have been told to stay indoors. A BBC correspondent, in Zimbabwe despite a ban on the BBC operating there, says initial optimism that change is coming is evaporating. Our correspondent said there were some army units on the streets but there was no major deployment.

Patience

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga denied the polls would be rigged and said the president would accept defeat. He said people should be patient in waiting for the results. “The verification process is ongoing. They are announcing the results,” he told the BBC. “I know everyone is very anxious, they are on edge. They don’t know if they are going to make it or not.” Local results have been posted outside most polling stations since Sunday morning. Presidential, House of Assembly, Senate and local elections were all held on Saturday, and election officials say that this is why results have been slow to come.

The land of my ancestors, the land of a thousand hills.

Picture Discription: (1&2) Genocide museum and Kigali genocide memorial, (2&3) Welcoming team from the Kabeza Presbyterian Church, one the of the main churches supported by our church FPC of Nashville, (4) standing infront of the traditional hut, (5) Got time to visit some of my relatives that’s my aunt and grandmother, (6&7) Children in a remote village of rwanda, (8,9,10) These are former street children at the CPAJ center which is a rehabilitation center for street children, (11) With my friend Trey who shared this journey with me.

One day when I was 12years old, I woke up at a very unusual hour and sounds, it was the music of bullets and cries that lasted for a 100 days, nothing else made a sound except those that were dying, even the birds in the air were no where to be found, and the crickets at night were no where to be heard, everything else was silenced by what was going on. In 100 days, more than  a million innocent people died just because of what they looked like, hell broke loose on Rwanda. But at the end of every turnel there is a light,  no matter how small it might be it is there.

As a result of the genocide, there is a high increase of orphans, street children and of course the problem of Aids is not making life any easier or anybetter. I was not in Rwanda for long, I was there for just a short time with a friend of mine from our church, actually one of our youth directors, who was a great support(the guy with the flowers). We visited different projects that are a part of the presbyterian church there, which our church is establishing a great relationship with. There are three particular places that absolutely broke my heart and made me really wonder a lot about God’s sovereignty and that made me understand much better the way that the old church was commended not to have any poor among them.

Our first stop was a small Presbyterian Church located withing the city of Kigali. We worshiped there, they even made us preach, thank goodness all I had to do was translations!! Our church here in Nashville is trying to help this church build a sanctuary because right now they are just meeting in a place that used to be a local restaurant. While we were there, we were mostly interested in their Youth Ministry, unfortunately this church’s budget is so small that the youth ministry is almost non-existing, but they have a very motivated youth that they just organize themselves and fundraise for their own events. This youth group was absolutely the perfect example of a youth group, they were amazing and absolutely useful and helpful to their own community and their own church. This youth group organizes itself into groups that take care of eachother and those around them, i.e. they have a group in charge of hospital ministry, where they visit those in the local hospitals especially those that are HIV+ because they are so isolated from the community. Since not everyone has a chance to gain education, the youth that is educated forms groups to help those that are not educated and teach them how to read and how to write! These are just a few of the things that blew my brain away and made me realize that they truly understand the meaning of community better than I do. At this church, I understood the meaning of the church being the community of believers.

We made a trip to Byumba, which is the northern part of Rwanda to visit one of the most incredible woman that I have known. She runs a program/ministry “Hannah Ministry” to children that are HIV+ and those that are just 100% orphans and they are “a child led family”. The Child led households go through a lot of problems and I have to say that for those that take care of their siblings not only is it a huge responsibility at a young age, but they also sacrifice alot for the well being of their siblings. Hannah Ministry is the voice for these children in this area of the country. Hannah Ministry also has a feeding program for the children that are HIV+. The purpose of this feeding program is to provide these children the nutrition values that their families would not be able to afford, not forget that these children might not even get fed by their families. The feeding program is just for the children that are taking the ARV medication, so that their bodies would have enough strenght to handle the medication. This was one of the most incredible program I saw while in Africa, mostly because people are just thinking of ARV medication and forgetting the fact that these people are not getting enough nutritional values to strength their bodies as well.

After Byumba, we stoped at a street children rehabilitation center ran by the presbyterian church, at this center I got a chance to sit down with these children and be blessed by their life stories. As any other country in Africa, the problem of street children is inevitable, yet there are only three organizations that are taking care of this problem of street children together with the government. CPAJ ;Centre Presbyterien d’Amour de Jeune(Presbyterian Center for the love of the youth) is a rehabilitation and street children center founded in 1998 by the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda. CPAJ engages in many different activities: paying school fees for these children, counselling the traumatised children, linking these children back to their families if it is a safe environment, supporting the girls with self-reliance activities, and providing HIV/AIDS education to everyone. CPAJ cares for about 270 children. One of the stories that stuck in my head for long, is the story of a little girl, who was 7 years old and she had been at the center for 5 months by the time I met her. Her mother could not care for her anymore and the only option she had was to put her on the street, but as she learned about CPAJ she brought her daughter to their door steps. This is just one of the few stories that are found within the compound of this center, it was an amazing place to be, an amazing place to learn how to be joyful and thankful in all circumstances. Please read this article to hear more about CPAJ http://streetkidnews.blogsome.com/2007/11/26/rwanda-street-children-get-new-basketballvolleyball-court/

After hanging out with the street children who stole my heart from my chest, I visited a missionary hospital in a village just outside of the city of Kigali. This hospital is also another project of the presbyterian church in Rwanda, and this place just made my stomach drop! This hospitals serves a population of 265,000 with only 4 doctors and of course a few qualified nurses. This hospital does not have enough beds for the capacity of people that they treat, so you would be surprised to know that there are people sharing beds in a hospital, or people that have no other way but to bring in their own mattresses and just put them on the floor. You can help this hospital, by starting on donating just a single bed. To learn more on how you can help this hospital contact or visit www.theoutreachfoundation.org  and you can learn of many other different ways to help.

African Crisis: Kenya

BY DAVID MWAMBARI

In 1950s and a large part of 1960s, the African young men and women who were interested in the fate of their colonial countries and continent were more concerned with liberating their people from European colonial rule.  These were the likes of Ghanaian  Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzanian Mwalimu Nyerere, Kenyan Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Madiba Mandela, Ms. Winnie Mandela, Patrice Lumumba – the list goes on.  History validates their generation’s sacrifice as having fought for independence and for us their then unborn generation.  Critics will focus more on their failures, forgetting that no human is immune to error. In post independence era, another group emerged blinded with greed, and lust for power. In 1970s and1980s they enlarged their “society” giving birth to innocent minds poisoned in their socialization . Currently, Africa finds herself with a large, divided youthful society. The first group is composed of the elites whose character and thought process has been heavily intoxicated by western ideals, from language, to culture. Their arrogance exhibits oppressors’ behaviour under a different skin color. They have learned from their fathers’ greedy hearts and looked up to their uncaring mothers’ souls. In their thinking, anything African is dismissed as uncivilized, a village up country is a no-go zone, and their definition of identity is influenced by television and magazines. They are rarely found on the streets rioting for any issues that affect society; they are often found in bed on election day with a hangover from last night’s heavy drinking. Their jobs are taken for granted; they earn fat salaries and bank it overseas and save some to purchase alcohol for their fellow hypocrite friends. Should the country plunge into a civil war, genocide or any other crisis, they are the first to be flown out of the country. There is another group of young people whose struggles begin at birth – people from the lower class. Their childhood is marked by hard labour before and after school, that is, if they can afford the resources or get permission to attend (especially young girls). They have to be exceptionally lucky and bright to make it through high school to university. Their first salary is spent on educating their siblings, feeding their parents if not helping a cousin or relative with long term illness called dependency. Should the country plunge into a civil war, genocide, or any other crisis, they will be brutally beaten, listed for the military as well as put on frontlines in any battles, and if not killed they walk or run long distances to cross into the nearest border.   Africa is a land where the rich dictate the present and future of their country and network to dishonor the continent. Their greed causes uncertainty to the unborn children and their networks expand from the Cape to Cairo. In the last three years, the young people from the middle class and from wealthy families, mentored and guided with their parents ganged up, and started the journey of lying to the poor, majority young voters. They (poor, young voters) were told there is such a thing as their voices being heard through the ballot box. For once they went out in numbers believing that their majority cries for change matter. The events around the country yesterday were an illustration of this deeply divided society. Unlike a few weeks ago when riots began, the Pentagon (as the ODM opposition leadership calls themselves) were on the streets surrounded by their blind supporters. Alongside, the 4WDs and SUVs were moving slowly, as they arrived in the city center and the police confronted them. Dispersed by tear gas and live bullets, the rich and so called “leaders” entered their cars and drove off to the nearest five star hotels, where they were welcomed with a cup of tea. The rioters ran for their lives on foot, without a direction, and if caught by police, were brutally beaten. Even those who were in the city for other reasons assuming the situation is back to normal were caught and not spared by the tear gas. The police special force is composed of the young people whose learning in the academy seems to have concentrated on how to kill their own brothers and sisters without pity – perhaps with orders from a government minister, a police boss probably somewhere heavily guarded, occasionally sipping the best wine or warm beer. The police, the rioters and the displaced have something in common; they are both manipulated by the rich, to carry out their political agenda. They all go home on empty stomachs while the bosses enjoy feasts prepared by a well-qualified chef. These two groups tune in for news in the evening to watch and listen to their day re-played on the screen or radio. The poor ignorant person proudly explains how he is sacrificing for democracy and freedom for his country as the rich look at their political interests while calculating their economic losses or gains. “You, as young people, should be at the forefront of making sacrifices for Africa. Often, in Africa, instead of young people being at the forefront of the struggle for social justice, they are at the forefront of the struggle for privileges.”  – President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. And so as we watched a young man making faces at the police on Wednesday protests in Kisumu City on television, and in a split of a second he was shot and lying down dead, this question came to mind: sacrifice for who? Then I was looking into the eyes of a thirteen-year old girl seated in front of her mother’s tent in a displaced camp, I asked myself: sacrifice for what? Our African young generation has a challenge to address the social inequalities, or else we will continue to submit to the manipulation of the rich with their partners in crime wherever they are in the world. ‘If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich’. John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961 The author is a Masters student in International Relations at the United States International University-Nairobi

God’s heart for Africa

I went to Africa to learn the behaviors of others instead I learned more of what God wanted me to do with my life, what my part is and should be to contributing to the Kingdom’s growth. I once read a quote that said that ask questions what they believe in and they will all be able to tell you what they truly believe; the risen Christ and the trinity. But if you ask Christians how they should live, they won’t tell you anything different from the way the rest of the world live. It took me a while to understand what this was saying but then I later met someone who once asked me if I see Christianity as a subculture or as a lifestyle! This puzzled me even more because I did not like the way it sounded, I was immediately guilty of looking or using Christianity as a subculture instead of a lifestyle. Christians should live like Christ lived, we should not be ashamed of hanging out with the prostitutes, we need to know the poor that live among us and we absolutely need to treat everyone with dignity.

The mothers in Gulu have seen the worst horrors than most mothers around the world, they have cried until tears dried out of their eyes, they have watched their children being abducted by the LRA rebels and their husbands being killed on a daily basis. For so long, the world did not know what was taking place in this part of the Northern Uganda. It was not until 2000 when I started hearing words like; child soldiers, child abduction, the night commuters, and many more other words that just made my head spin. Eventhough, some of us just took it like the rest of the stories flashing on our television screens, there are those that took action and wanted to be part of everything that was going on in Gulu and the other parts of the world where these terrible horrors are taking place, there are people like the Birnghams that responded to God’s call no matter how much danger their lives were in.

In the heat of Gulu, I learned God’s heart for the African continent. On January 21st, I arrived into a place that once had a population of 700,000 and now it was down to 200,000 because of the civil war caused by the LRA rebels! The place was a bit quite, but life is absolutely coming back into this small town, a new born life, because of the peace talks that have been going on since 2006. I pray that it will keep this way for long, but everyone is waiting for what to come after January 31st! This was the deadline for both parties to have made a decision but now it has been pushed until March. You can absolutely tell that people are enjoying the little peace but at the same time people are quietly waiting to see how long the peace period is going to last. People are still living in huts no one has dared to build for the past 1 year and a half because these people have lived in fear most of their lives and now they really don’t know what is around the corner, what’s behind the quietness of the machine guns! Behind the quite nights since there are no more night commuters seeking shelter from the rebels.  Well well, I am back from Gulu and i have to say that I am absolutely in love with the place; the people are amazingly nice, the language is absolutely beautiful, it was the first time on this trip that I could not get a single word, the land is so dry and so hot but there is so much goodness going on that one cant really feel the heat!

 So I landed on the runway or the strip way sometime on Monday afternoon! Yeah, its really not an airport but I got there that’s all that matters, the roads are bumpy even the sky is bumpy!. While in Gulu, I worked with Action International Ministry which works side by side with African Leadership and I truly enjoyed every day of my stay there. As I got there, I really didn’t have a plan of what I wanted to accomplish or what I wanted to do, I let the Lord handle that so that I may learn what he wanted me to learn instead of being restricted by the schedule and being frustrated by the fact that time is really not a big deal as I have learned in these past two and a half months! Action International Ministry in Gulu was the first christian organization to respond to the chaos that was going on in the northern Uganda, and they have done a tremendous job and I was happy to know and hear that African Leadership has a part in the goodness that is taking place up there. Jerry and Candace Bingham are the missionary directors there, and they have been there since 2000 when the war was still going on. In October/ November of 2007 Adam and Angie flew up there from the States to join them and assist them in the work that is taking place. However, their main focus is to train the locals and to make the community self-sufficient, they work side by side with the people of Gulu, who are of the Acholi tribe. The Gulu district has seen some of the craziest things that a person can see in a life time, they have suffered tremendously, the mothers have cried themselves to exhaustion. When I learned of Gulu and what was going on there my freshman year of college, 2001, I started hearing new words, words like child abduction, child soldiers, words like the LRA Rebels and so many others were introduced into my vocabulary! For so long, I had chosen to believe that only the children of Rwanda had suffered the worst, but I came to learn that there were more children suffering even worse and no one was doing anything about it. I came to learn that there were mothers out there who were crying for their kidnapped children, for their children that were being trained into becoming killers! I knew that the Lord has saved me from the genocide for a reason, but soon enough I got too comfortable and forgotten all about it, soon enough, I started to rely on many other things that I forgot how far the Lord had brought me from, I forgot that he snatched me from the hands of death and this gives me so much responsibility first and foremost as a christian, but mostly as a survivor who knows the goodness of the Lord!

African Leadership together with ACTION have a few projects going on in northern Uganda; there is the “Village of Hope” which is a Christ centered rehabilitation center for child mothers, and a nursery school in the same area, there is a clinic coming up at the same time, hoping to be opened as soon as they get it equipped and get the solar energy going. I spent sometime at the village of hope, talked to the child mothers and played with their children and at one point we sat down and we shared our stories to each other! We learned of the God’s goodness in our lives and that there is nothing that happens without God’s hand in it. There is also ministry called the “women of hope” which ministers to 450 women who are HIV+, they meet every Tuesday. I had a chance to sit down with them and enjoyed their company, they are full of joy and praises, and they truly taught me how to live life full of praises and to live as if there is no tomorrow, because no one knows the day nor the time. There is also a ministry called “men of courage” which ministers to 350men who are HIV+, I did not get a chance to attend this, of course for the known reasons! Am not a man . Then there is a ministry called “Victory Kids” these are the children living with HIV and I have to say that this touched the inner me and I couldn’t help but love and appreciate what A.I.M is doing in this part of the world. Then there is my absolute favorite, the orphanage “Home of Love” with 60 children, ages 3months – 14 yrs old. These orphans are either war orphans or AIDS orphans, though they have a few children who were picked up from the side of the street because their parents neglected them or because they were trying to sell them. Everytime that I needed my energy tank filled or my joy tank filled Home of Love was my filling station! It is absolutely the home of love. This orphanage is set up in a family/community style, it’s not just one big dorm with beds girls one side and boys one side! The setting is in a family setting, small houses with 8-10 children and a “mother” matron who takes care of the children, then each family has a young one! The children get physical exams every year and HIV tests every year. Their AIDS ministries, also provide social workers that go into the patience homes checking on how they are doing physically, emotionally and spiritually! and I got a chance to go around and do some home visitations with some of the social workers, this opened my eyes to somethings that I would not have known at all. This also gave me a chance to talk with the director of the AIDS program and exchange a few ideas, my eyes were opened and my vision became clearer in the heat of Gulu. On Mondays, the team in charge of Men Ministry, do a hospital visit, one group targets the adults another one targets the children, of course I went to see the children and as always it was an eye opening experience for me which at the end of the day made me cry my eyes out and made me angry at the same time. I did not know what to take with me but they gave me permission to take anything I wanted, so I gathered some coloring books for the bigger children, bought a pack of candy, and bought about 100 balloons that they could tie on their beds for those with beds! I have visited a lot of hospitals on my trip lately and there is so much suffering going on, not because of the sickness but because of the lack of care and hopelessness, these hospitals do no look like a place that can provide any help, and all I can think of is how little it would take to have an operating hospital for these children. The hospital in Gulu was in the worst shape, so bad that some children had to be in the UNICEF tent outside the children’s ward since there was not enough room! The heat is already unbearable, so under a tent!!? I couldn’t even imagine. The men from Action talked to the mothers, read some scriptures with them and prayed for the children, I was accompanied by Adam one of the missionaries there .I needed someone to actually blow the balloons for these children, I would have passed out doing it by myself On sunday, i worshipped at an IDP (Internally Displaced People) Camp church and it was amazing, true form of worship, I was reminded that God wants us to worship in truth and in spirit, which I don’t always do. After the church service I visited some of the families in the Camp and got a chance to look around the camp itself.

The war might be almost over in Gulu but they are fighting another kind of war, fighting the war without bullets; AIDS. The Gulu district is the one of the district with the highest number of HIV+ people, actually it is the 3rd highest, but I truly believe that there is something that can be done, to focus on the future generation and try the best to prevent the mother to child transmission of this deadly disease. Gulu is what I needed to hear God’s calling for my life, Gulu is what I needed to know my role as a christian in this suffering world, Gulu is what I needed to know that I am not too small to do something, Gulu is what I needed to be reminded that to whom much is given much is expected. Please keep these people in your prayers because they absolutely need it. ACTION is opening another office at the IDP Camp in Atiak, this being one of the biggest IDP camp around, so please pray for them as they prepare to send the trained locals to help their own. Pray as they get ready to open the Clinic that will be serving both their clientele and the community. I also got to experience the opening of the nursery school, which is mainly serving the children of the child mothers and the surrounding community, the school was dedicated this week and it was an amazing experience just to be there and see God at work.

Soroti, Uganda

I spent a few days in Soroti, enjoying and learning more about God’s amazing work and heart for this land of Africa. In Soroti, I also got to enjoy the company of a few friends from my church First Presbyterian Church here in Nashville. In Soroti, the Raines family started an organization called Hands In Service (HIS). This organization is meant to empower the communities that they are working with, to empower the people of Soroti, by teaching them how to farm especially since Soroti is a very dry area. In a very remote village called Kapelebyong, HIS started a high school/ a secondary school, which aims to serve the IDP ( internally displaced people) community in that area. This high school is in its second  year but I have to say that God is absolutely doing wonders around this area. I was more than privileged to experience it and be a part of what was going on there. 

Kishanje, Uganda

Lunch time in Kishanje

Beautiful Hills of Kishanje

Beautiful town of Kabale

Honest & Isaac

Childheaded household in Kishanje

Children in Kishanje

Orphans in Kishanje

AIDS orphans in Kishanje

The village of Kishanje is on the further west side of Uganda, very remote and very beautiful, in the hills that are absolutely full of creator’s beauty. In these hills, I saw God’s beauty, heard God’s voice calling me his “Beloved”. Most people of Kishanje are farmers, not many get a chance to education beyond primarily education (6th grade), there is 2 health clinics serving a population of 30, 000, the hospital is located hours away from the nearest town.

In Kishanje I continued working with Juna Amagara Ministry (JAM), this is their second operational site. The Kishanje site is almost similar to the site in Mbarara, with a few differences since it is still in the developing stage. In this project, there are about 60 AIDS orphans that are cared for on a daily basis, however, there is no orphanage “children’s home” in Kishanje. These children are fed two times a day; breakfast and lunch, then there is an afterschool program that helps them with their school work. This past month of February, JAM just opened their learning and training center, with a high school section and a vocational training section. This center is geared to serve those that do not get a chance to afford other high school, mostly because they are a bit far from this village which makes them boarding schools. According to the research, 2.7 billion people around the world are living on an income of $2 /day! 97% of the Ugandan population are living in this kind of poverty. This increases the number of the uneducated population.

Not only is AIDS producing massive numbers of Orphans, but it is also forcing children into adulthood at an early age, and tearing apart the family structures that for so long has been the backbone of African cultures. In Kishanje, I hang out with children from the “child headeded households”, something I have heard of but never experienced. On the day that I met Honest and Isaac, Honest (the oldest of the two, 18) was in need of money to buy paraffin so that she can find a way to study for her exams, at the same time, she was working at the Learning Center building site trying to make a few money to live by or even be able to buy a few necessities that she would need when she goes back to school. At the same time, Isaac as the man of the house was digging a ratrine which later on his friends came to help him finish. This is just one family, I met 7 families in total that are all managed by children, of all these families, the oldest care taker that I met in Kishanje was about 24 years old. As I mingled with these children, I was surprised by their sense of faith, their views of God, they absolutely have it better than I do, they clearly understand the meaning of depending on God better. Is it true that religion is the opium of the poor? In these hills I learned differently, the poor know God better than those that are comfortable, their God is actually alive and besides them from sun up to sun down, while my God is there when I just need him. There are so many child headed households throughout Africa, and there is a lot that we can all do to contribute to their well being.

My days in Mbarara

OURS Center

AIDS Orphans in Uganda

Enjoying my time with children

Children at OURS center

Tea Break

Mbarara, Uganda was my first stop on this trip. I was hosted by a lovely family which helped me not to miss my family at all. My days in Mbarara, opened my eyes to the reality of what I was about to experience for the coming few weeks while in Uganda. Mbarara is mostly made of the Banyakole tribe, which is a Bantu tribe, their language is very close to mine, so communication was not as hard as I thought it will be. While in Mbarara, I worked with two different organizations; Juna Amagara Ministry and The OURS CENTER.

JUNA AMAGARA MINISTRY

Juna Amagara Ministry (JAM) is a ministry that cares for AIDS orphans. This ministry has two operational sites; there is Mbarara and Kishanje which is further west of the country. In Mbarara is where the children’s home is located. This children home cares for about 60 orphans. These orphans are fed on a daily basis and they put through school. When I got there, the children were preparing for the exams before breaking for the Christmas break, which is a two month break. During the christmas break, children go to the village, to their extended families, and celebrate christmas with their relatives.  For those without relatives, they can stay at the children’s home and have their christmas there. My duties here ranged from teaching 1st grade – 4th grade, and leading bible studies. However, my joy came from just interacting with these children, praying with them, teaching them new songs and mostly learning from them what it trully means to give thanks to God. No matter how painful their past is, these children always have smiles on their faces, there is absolutely no pain registered on their faces. Of course as one keeps interacting with them, its inevitable to notice the pain and the hurt that comes with losing their parents.  In Mbarara, I got to be extremely close with the children because I spent my evenings with them, helping them with their homeworks and just visiting with them and getting to hear about how their day at school. Benon, is in 7th grade, and he is getting ready for his big exams, these are the equivalent of ACT/ SAT, though he only gets one chance, if he fails that’s almost the end of his education career. I say almost because unless he gets someone to pay for a private school, there is no way he can get into a public school if he doesn’t pass this exam. But Benon is so sure that he will not fail, he tells me that God has brought him thus far, not to leave him alone but to see him through. At that moment, I learned alot, learned that no matter what people say or do, nothing can absolutely take me out of God’s hand, and nothing can change his plans for my life. There is so much to learn from these children, that one cant help but hang around them, one can definately see and smell Jesus. However, of all the organizations and orphanages that I got a chance to work with while in Uganda, there is a lot of things that Juna Amagara lacks in so many ways, but as a developing organization I trully cant hold that much agains them.

The OURS CENTER

The OURS CENTER cares for children that are physically and mentally disabled. This place really tested my faith and my knowledge of God, his love and his grace. There was absolutely no way for me to explain God’s love and grace to these mothers with deformed children. How can a loving and caring God let this happen? That is one question that I was stuck with most of the days, none the less what happens here on earth does not stop him from being sovereign. OURS is a part of the Anglican Church here in Mbarara and the doctor here is German, she is the sweetest person around and extremely caring. I was more than happy to do anything that they needed me to do, since they were so understaffed in every way imaginable. One of the things that one needs to know and understand is that physical disability absolutely makes one an outcast in the community, so parents with children who are physically disabled tend to neglect them and keep them in the house at all times. There are very few places in Africa like the OURS CENTER. Parents bring their children here for just 5,000/= UShs, equivalent of $4.00. Once the child is administered and medically accessed, the child will be sent to a qualified hospital for the collective surgery, the recovery time is the hardest time for both the child and the mother. The children are brought back to OURS for after surgery care and follow up. There are about 32 beds at OURS, and most of the days these beds are full. OURS center has one nurse, one physical therapist, one office manager, one doctor who is german, and two cooks. The mothers of the children are the ones that help maintain this place. I worked into OURS one day and really realized that they needed help, so since I had most of my mornings open, i started volunteering there. From the OURS center I also volunteered at the Mbarara hospital and this was probably the hardest part for the time being. Not once had I yet to see poverty and injustice stearing at me face to face. Not once had I even imagined that people in a hospital would share a bed or not even have a bed to lay their sickly bodies on. This was absolutely an eye opening place and one of the places that I trully came to see and learn more about God, about Jesus and his love that brought him to this durty and injust world.