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.
