Matthew Cardwell CONT

Day 3 – Tuesday We learned from our experiences on Monday that we would not have two sessions. Also, the head mistress had told us that if we had it in the morning most kids would not be there because they would be working at their houses doing chores. So we had told the kids to come at two every day. This being the case we had lots of time to do what we wanted each morning. Katie had asked me to go running with her and so I agreed. Fahad and Moses decided that they would go with us as well. Our goal was to run to the Lake front we could see in the distance. It was a wonderful run, kind of like running through paradise and having a tropical surrounding. We were able to run to Lweza, which is the school we would be at the next week for camp. It sits up on a hill overlooking a bay. We walked around for awhile before heading back. I decided to walk since my old man knees can’t handle it anymore. Moses was excited to walk back too. We checked out the monkeys and had a long talk about faith as we walked. When we got back, we heard a lot of shouting. A group of parents had come down and were yelling at the teachers and head mistress. Matthew Cardwell has been dealing with what they believe is demon possession for the last three months. (I wrote about this in an earlier blog if you read it) The parents were blaming the staff and the school for bringing the demons to the village. We had kept this from the boys but now it was obviously out in the open. They were nervous as they heard the discussions which they could understand and we couldn’t. Soon Pamela (head of Abaana in Uganda) showed up for the meeting with the parents. She was able to calm them down a little and sent them away to come back later when the director of the school was coming for a meeting. Demons come in many forms. We have lots of demons in the US. However, here there is much more belief in them, and what we might be able to explain as a sickness through medical knowledge, would be called a demon here. I knew that we might be faced with this and had tried to come two weeks prior to meet with the children they believed were possessed, but we were not able to make the trip. My stance in the whole thing was to see if my experience would show me anything that would lead me to believe in the demon possession they were claiming. If I did not see anything then I was not going to add to the hysteria. To this point I had not seen anything but children who were sick and that we sent to the doctor, who confirmed their illness. There were many stories of things these children were doing and things that were happening from the villagers. My question was always, “Have you seen them or have you just heard the story?” It was very clear that fear was driving so much of the problem. So many of the parents were scared. Yes I do believe that the devil was using this fear to drive the fighting that was going on, so yes I do believe there was a spiritual attack taking place. But I still wasn’t convinced of possession. The morning meeting of course caused fear among the villagers and they didn’t want their kids to come to the school, so we had about twenty showed up for camp. Just down from us the parents were meeting with the director and yelling at him for what was going on. It made for a very mentally exhausting day. The rains came as we were finishing up and stayed around for most of the afternoon. Another thing that is important here is water collection. Most children spend lots of their day walking to the well and hauling back water to the house. There is nothing fun about lunging one and maybe 2 50 pound jugs of water 15 minutes to your house when you are older. It is even worse when you might be 9,10, or 11. So when it rains, children are seen hurrying about with the cans to put them under the runoff from the roofs. To me it was a sad seen. It is pouring down rain and that is when you know parents are yelling for their kids to get out in it, get wet, and collect water. In the city and even here people run from the rain. They hide anywhere they can to stay dry, but not if you have to collect water. I thought about how in the US parents would yell at their kids if they were out in the rain, and here it was just the opposite. Well the rest of my day was spent having conversations about demons. Whether it was with the Abaana staff that had come or with the boys who were a little nervous. Each time reaffirming my faith that God was over all this and not to be afraid. We knew things were a little up in the air for camp the next day because we might not have anybody due to the meetings. So we went to bed just waiting to see. Day 4 Wednesday The morning again included a walk. This time I went with Ryan, Vincent, and the bus driver. We went the opposite direction on the main road until we came to another village. We took a seat outside a store in town and just spoke to people as they came by. It was relaxing. As the time for camp was nearing more kids were coming around which meant we were going to have camp. We ended up having around 30 that day. The kids here are dirtier than most have been. Some of that is because they are from the village and actually don’t attend the school. Truth be told though, I like it dirty. It reminds me more of God. Each day when we finish, the same twenty or so hang around. Some are older and have their sibling strapped to their back. Others are around 5 or 6 and just love to hang on your limbs. Tonight was a clear evening and we knew we were going to have a great sunset. As the evening passed on, it was such a pleasure to watch each one of us in our own element. Just being with the kids and sharing God’s love in our own way. I found myself almost crying a couple of times. A little later Katie and I were having a conversation on the porch. As she was playing her guitar, some of the kids came around. As the sun was setting it was making the rays really obvious over the hills. I was thinking, “Look at God’s love pouring down on us.” We both had the same idea of a song to sing at that moment, which was a god thing. We sang to the kids about how god has a plan for them. It was awesome. The words are written from God’s perspective. It has always reminded me of all the youth I have ever worked with. The words are Come away with me. Come away with me. It’s never too late. It’s not too late. It’s never too late for you. Cause I have a plan for you. I have a plan for you. It’s gonna wild. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be full of me. Open up your heart and let me in. While we were singing I made eye contact with a few of them. Even though they didn’t know what we were singing. It was an incredible moment to be singing over their lives. Being the mouth piece of God is full of these moments, and if your emotions could handle it you would want them to happen all the time. Day 5 Thursday Thursday feels weird, since we have already given the invitation to know Christ. At most camps you would just get up and leave early the next day. We, however, do another whole day. Thursday started out innocently enough. I went down to the woods for some alone time and hopefully a little monkey watching. Unfortunately the monkeys spent most their time watching me so I couldn’t get a good look at them. When I arrived back, some of the Abaana staff had arrived. Today they had come with 5pastors from across the country and two doctors. They had invited the families with a child they thought was possessed to come and have their blood tested. It was quite frustrating as none of the families showed up. Slowly some adults began to wonder in but no children. I went in with the pastors to pray with a parent who had a child that she felt was possessed. I don’t mean to make light of the praying, but I’m not sure all the shouting makes it that much more effective. When we finished another woman came in who wanted to ask for prayers. As we were praying for her, someone came in and informed us that they had a child who was attacked that morning in the other room. We finished praying and went to see the child. They took her blood first, and the doctors went off to analyze it. The doctors were here to either help the people understand this was a health problem or to rule that out. The girl just looked really tired and disoriented. The excitement had gotten the boys a little nervous. We decided we would have the last day anyway. However, we did find out that we would be staying at a different school next week for camp. So we quickly loaded all our stuff in the bus and dropped it off at the other school about ten minutes away. When we arrived back the doctors let us know that she had a severe bacterial infection but they did not have all the equipment to say exactly which one. They felt she needed to get to the hospital immediately. Unfortunately the parents weren’t as sure and wanted to think about it. They gave Abaana their number to call the next day and see what they had decided. Andrew Rant – as I stated earlier I do believe there are spiritually forces at work here, the main one being that of fear. However, since my first visit, I have believed there was something medical here. Each time the medical profession has been asked to check on someone, they have found them to have a severe sickness. But, even though the doctors have found these problems, the villagers are reluctant to believe them or to get answers by checking into it further. It is very frustrating. OK, so when camp time arrived we actually had a few more than the day before with about 35. We were able to relax and have an extremely fun day. We gave tshirts to everyone who could say the theme verse by memory and there were about 30 of them who could with a little help ;). We took a picture and headed for the bus. As we were leaving I kept seeing Martin, a little boy whose foot had been infected the day were got there. He had been very sad and it hurt to walk. Most of us at some point had helped him in some way during the week. Through the good work of nurse Katie his foot was doing soooooo much better when we left. He could not keep from smiling. We left having been through an extremely tiring emotional and physical week. But it was worth it.