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| | Letter sent to family and friends about Uganda. Was in central Africa from July 5-July 20 give or take a few days for travel. Enjoy.
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July 25, 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
Well, I just got back from Uganda several days ago. The trip went well, all 15 days of it, flying from SFO to London, from London to Kampala. But before I share some memories and reflections, I'd like to thank you for your support, both in helping me to fund the trip, flying there, getting ground supplies, prayer and moral support. It meant a lot to know the many people that gave advice, kept me in their thoughts, and prayed for me during the trip. I couldn't have done it without you.
Once we arrived in Uganda, our group (14 of us) settled down, and stayed with Benny Kagonyera's--the one team member "studying abroad" in the US from Uganda-- family and friends place. Over the course of the next week and a half we traveled quite a bit around the countryside: visiting several churches, the source of the Nile, the Watoto Village Orphanage, the Mukono District where we helped transform a house into a hospital, the Equator, and Sanyu baby orphanage in Kampala. I wish I had time to describe all of these, but I'll only relate a few memories below.*
At the Sanyu Baby Orphanage, we helped take care of the babies for several hours. The children are from 0-3 years old, and they are abandoned by their parents in various parts of the city. The people from the Sanyu baby clinic often find these babies in dire circumstances before they take them in, with the ultimate goal of adoption into a family. As we held those kids in our arms, I could not imagine how they could have been abandoned by anyone. And yet they were the most cheerful kids, toddlers just ambling around, wanting to get picked up and be held. During the time, as I was reading through Isaiah a couple days previous, Isaiah 49:15-16 stood out in my mind as I reflected caring for these babies. "Can a women forget her nursing child...surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hand." Like the babies at that orphanage, God hasn't forgotten any of us. He lifts us up and takes care of us. It was really neat to reflect upon that Scripture while working with those kids. The second day, we visited the orphanage to drop off some baby formula. All the babies were in one room. As we walked in, several babies lifted their arms to get picked up and held. Several teammembers did so, but soon all the babies started to follow suite and when we weren't able to pick them all up they started to cry. One baby approached me, walked right to my feet and lifted his arms. I didn't quite know how to respond. I've never felt this emotion before. While I may find babies occasionally like this in a nursery or daycare, I felt an special added extra concern for these children--they have no parents and its just them in the orphanage with the caregivers. I'm thankful for the opportunity I had to interact with these children, to hold them and pray for them.
After visiting Sanyu, we visited the Watoto village to help out with some of their needs in preparations for classrooms and teachers rooms for their schools. We helped to paint two of their classrooms with a considerable amount of white paint. In addition, quite a bit of morter and bricks were laid down as we helped build a new teachers room. During that day I helped transport the wet mortar and shovel it to the workers site. I also did a little bit of bricklaying but I found out that laying down brick and mortar was a bit more challenging than I though it would be. The workers there appreciated our extra help, and continued on as we visited the next part of the village. Watoto started in 1992 and currently accommodates approximately 1500+ children. Many of these children have lost one or both parents. At Watoto village, the children are placed in homes with at least one adult, and the local church tries to provide a father figure from the community to mentor the children in each of these homes. When I visited this Watoto site, I observed many homes, many tidily organized, with children inside doing some homework on the commons tables. There was a nice soccer field outdoors, and all the children were eager to see us. I wish I was able to spend more time with them. More information about Watoto can be found at http://watoto.com/us/AboutUs/index.cfm .
The majority of our labor during the trip was in the Mukono district. Its an area about 30 minutes away from the capital city Kampala. It was quite a bit more rural than the city, one of the schoolhouses their was built in 1910. As we trekked through the district, we eventually met a man, Joseph, born in the 1920's that used to be the main sponsor of the school. In his prime, he used to try to fund and support many progressive projects for the village. However, at this age, he realized the best way to help out now would be to donate his old living residence to be used as a womens hospital. The house he donated was a fair size, with at least 8-10 rooms. However, the condition of the building had deteriorated as the building fell into disuse. Over the course of three days, we cleaned cleaned out the rooms, removed cobwebs (and I mean thick thick cobwebs), chased out cockroaches and rats, sandpapered the walls in preparation for painting, and then primed the surfaces of the walls. It was quite a messy project, but at the end of the day the house looked much better. Several more steps will need to be taken to transform the house into a womens hospital, but the impact of this project on the community will be huge. During the week, Joan Kakwenzire, a Uganda Senior Presidential Advisor on Poverty Alleviation, visited us at the project site and expressed her gratitude. A week later she held a party in our honor and was thankful that "so many volunteers helped us. You (volunteers) are always welcome in Uganda." She told each of us to forward that message to the people in the States.
It was also nice to visit several churches in Uganda, St. Lukes an Anglican Church and Kampala Pentecostal Church, which supports and helped initiate the Watoto Village. During one of the services at KPC, one person spoke of their success at Watoto. Different than a project supported by an NGO or a global organization like World Vision, this outreach which supports 1500+ children is the product of the church and local community efforts. It was a real privilege to visit the village and be able to see first hand its successes. At Watoto, after painting and bricklaying, we visited one of the villages and passed out toothbrushes, hygiene kits, and some snacks. It was real neat to participate with them in some soccer matches, to go to their homes and see the kids writing down in their notebooks information about "respiration in the lungs" and insects being the "vector for malaria." I'll never forget the people I met there, the smiles and the laughs.
Uganda is a beautiful country. It surprisingly has a climate that was better than California--especially with this current heatwave. The countryside is green and the temperature never seemed to surpass 70 or 80 Fahrenheit. More importantly, the people were extremely friendly. At dinners, which started around 8 or 9 pm and were always long, if there was ever a visitor, they would make a concerted effort to go around, shake hands, and introduce themselves to everyone. But on the other hand, Uganda is a country that still deals with the effects of Idi Amin, the LRA, and the AIDS crisis. Benny Kagonyera, who is "studying abroad" in the US, mentioned that because of these issues "Uganda is about 15 years behind where it have been in development." But it was a privilege to visit and be part of the things that are helping to uplift Uganda: the Watoto Village, the Sanyu Baby Orphanage, and the Mukono District Womens Hospital. It was a privilege to volunteer. I am grateful for the opportunity that we had as a team to go across the globe to benefit a community in a different part of the world. I'll never forget the wonderful times I had there.
Once again, thank you for helping to sponsor us for the Uganda trip. I've enjoyed writing this letter to you—in some ways its a journal reflection for myself as well of the good memories and times there. I'm still processing through some of the moments there, but if you'd like to learn more about Uganda or the work we did there, feel free to contact me. In the meantime, I hope you are having a wonderful summer. God bless.
Sincerely,
J L
P.s. *I hope you enjoy the photos that I am including with this letter. I wish I could send more. However, at the website http://agsedu.splink.net/photos/ , I created an album of photos entitled Uganda that has several hundred photos of the trip. There are pictures of Sanyu baby orphanage, Watoto Village, the Mukono District house and school, Benny's family and much more. | | | Posted 8/2/2006 5:50 PM - 34 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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