Well, the morning started early for me. I was up at the sound of the thunder outside our window. As I lay there I was just thinking about how it would change our plans. The minutes of rain turned into a couple of hours. Now, most of the roads in Uganda are made of dirt, so rain is not a friend of transportation. As we sat outside and waited for our ride it didn’t come. Finally Pamela arrived and we loaded up the truck and headed out. The rain subsided as we got closer to the school, which is about 45 minutes away. When we arrived the New Life Home (NLH) boys were waiting along with 50 or so other singing children. We unloaded the truck and met with the guys for a minute to start registration. Each one of the Americans had a group they would start with each day, much like a home room. I got the little ones age 4-7. Usually this would be terrible for me, but I WAS SO HAPPY to have them and they were so darn cute. We were supposed to have around 10 because only the younger ones were coming to camp in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon. However, more and more kids kept coming in. Before my first 45 minutes with them my group was up to 20. Each morning we were supposed to go over the memory verse, Matt 5:6, play games, and just have fun. The first day the groups don’t rotate. So, I had my group for the next hour and a half for games, since that is my rotation. Ryan is doing science and they are making volcanoes. Mallory has crafts. Katie is doing a drum circle. So here I am on the first day with over two hours of time with 10 kids age 4-7, 5 kids age 10, and 5 kids 14 and over. I loved every minute of it. The kids were so smart and sometimes the little ones speak better English than the older ones. Finally it was time for chapel. The boys lead this. They have them sing. Then they do a skit we taught them. After the skit one of the Americans will go through the Bible story and we end with one of the boys giving their testimony. The boys did a great job leading all week. Since this will take a long time to write about every day, I am going to hit some highlights of each day.
We ended Monday by telling certain ones to come at 9 and the others to come at 1 for Tuesday. Tuesday they all showed up at 9, but we kept them separated, our mistake. So it was 9 the rest of the week for everybody. Since we had some extra time on Monday, I played with the kids while we waited on the taxi. That day I got the chance to just sit and talk with one of the older girls who is from a Muslim family. She really stuck on my heart each day and she was always there to smile and have a chat.
Tuesday, I learned the power of balloons and how great they are with kids that have never seen them. The head mistress was not able to be up and about on Monday and on Tuesday they asked Katie to come see her. I followed her down and she grabbed Moses to translate. Ester was lying in her bed with the other teachers sitting around nervously watching. She had told Katie on Monday that a lot of things were wrong. Today all of those things had gotten worse. As Katie was trying to figure out what it might be and why the doctor had given her the medicine she had, Mallory showed up with little Rose. Rose was by far my favorite. Her little smile could light up New York City. She wasn’t feeling good. So I took her from Mallory and waited to see what would happen with Ester. Ester dialed the number of her doctor and gave the phone to Katie. The doc couldn’t understand her so it was passed to Moses. I was proud of Moses for how he handled everything. He grabbed Katie and took her out of the room and told her that the doctor had given her the medicine because she had HIV and wanted to boost her immune system. We then asked if she had been told she had HIV and the answer was no. We asked the director of Abaana to come and talk to her on Wednesday to make sure everything was straight and to tell her that she needed to go and get a scan and blood work done. She told us that she couldn’t afford to. This is one of those sad things that is true here. She needs to go and have these things checked out and get on medicine but doesn’t have the money.
Back to Rose – She was just leaning on my shoulder as I held her and clutching my back. At the time I was just thinking, God we have just found out the headmistress might have HIV and this little girl is sick but we don’t know what to do. So I just walked around and sang in her ear. A great calm came over me and I knew God had things under control. After getting her some food and water she was back to smiling. It was a great day of trusting. Lots of times during the trip, and in my life in general, I know things are simply out of my control and I don’t know what to do. It is still so amazing to me to just turn those moments over to God and watching Him work it out in some mysterious way.
Wednesdays are my day to talk in chapel. We work off of the woman at the well story through the week. Katie has day 1 and talks about how we are all thirsting for something. Ryan has day 2 and talks about how God knows our sins, but he still loves us. I have day 3 and talk about Jesus being the Messiah. Mallory has the last day and talks about sharing what we know about Jesus with others. So I don’t typically like to give messages and then say “OK, if you wanna give your life to Christ….” So I walked pretty carefully through the invitation. Now I’ve also worked with youth and children long enough to know that everyone who comes forward is not coming for the invitation part. Some are there because I asked them to come, others because the person beside them did. The good thing is that I DON’T HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT. God knows what is going on in each person and so I just celebrate and know that he knows. Around 40 kids came forward and prayed, God knows what about but we celebrate what God is doing in their lives.
Thursday was a little different because they wanted to have a soccer match against us. So we made the mistake of thinking this was just a friendly game and would only take about 30 minutes or so and then we would end with chapel. Nayda (no). There is nothing here that is simply for fun when it comes to soccer. This was war. I prayed half the game that no one would get hurt. I don’t have shoes to play in while Im here and the sandals just weren’t working. So I went for the bare feet thing. It took 5 minutes before I was stepping in the manure left all over the field by the cows. I was finally able to convince them to end the game after about 45 minutes. Abaana 2 CTK 1.
While we were at the field one girl was run over by a bike while she was crossing the road. Her head was sliced open and so Katie had to go and take care of that. She decided not to do stitches and just to come back and check on her two days later. When we came back on Saturday they had taken her to the hospital. We still haven’t heard how she is.
SO camp week one was a success. It was full of trials and triumphs. Mostly, though, it was full of God. Watching the NLH boys lead was great. They are continuing to grow in knowledge and understanding. Afterwards they all shared how great full they were to be allowed the opportunity. No one had ever believed in them. They had always been told to stay away from the teams that traveled. They weren’t allowed to eat the same things or be around them without supervision. They always thought that they would never lose the image of a street boy. Now they are excited to see that is gone. There is nothing wrong with them and they are our friends. There were plenty of smiles on faces of children and us alike. Smiles that were full of God’s grace and love. There were lots of hugs and hand holding that didn’t want to stop at the end of the day. That’s what happens when God forms a bond. It is deeper than we can imagine. Those children will have my heart. I pray they have God’s.
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