January 18, 2013 Uganda part two

Greetings

Before Bishop Hezron and I left Uganda on Wednesday we traveled west to Iganga to visit with the Orphans that Bishop Moses and his wife Esther house in their rented small two room apartment if you want to call it one.  It is essentially two rooms with each room about eight feet by ten feet if that.  The living room or sitting room doubles as the boys sleeping area at night.  The other room is the bedroom for Esther and the girls.  Moses and his wife have five children of their own and care for another twelve Orphans in a space smaller then my hotel room here in Kakamega.  There is no kitchen so Esther has to cook outside under a tree.  There is no bathroom and the facilities available are communal for all the families living in the complex.  I did see a bathing area next to the toilets and as I was walking around I happened to see a young boy in a bucket cleaning himself with absolutely no privacy.  Everyone sleeps on reed mats at night with no blankets or pillows.  We arrived right before the meal of the day which consisted of some rice, posha (ugali), and minnow soup.  This area of Uganda is a major rice growing area near Lake Victoria.  With the posha and minnows the meal is about as cheap as one can get.  However getting enough to feed nineteen people every day is a challenge.

Only thirteen of the seventeen kids were present as some of the older children were attending a youth conference with their church.  Moses started to explain the story of each child but my mind just wasn’t into it.  Does it really matter how each parent died or what happened to them?  The fact is that they are dead or gone and usually at a very young age since most of these children are very young themselves.  Some have died in the violence that has plagued this country for many years; some have died from the nasty diseases like aids, drowned in Lake Victoria fishing, or whatever.  In the last two days I have seen close to a hundred Orphans that are being housed within eight church families.  God gives us such a simple command but we happen to be so numb to it.  There are so many mouths to feed.  No telling what some of these kids have had to go through.  Granted the whole world has these same types of problems however Uganda has some of the worst of it.



Bishop Moses Wanyama and family 

 Esther Wanyama preparing the days meal

This is where they cook and eat every day 

Poshe (ugali) and minnow soup for dinner

 This is where the boys sleep at night

 The neighbor lady wanted her picture taken and published

(now I need to find a way so she can see it) 



Uganda has been in a civil war for a good twenty years with the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) mostly in the northern part of the country but the whole country has been affected at one time or another.  If you have not heard of this Kony guy look him up on the internet.  His army will raid a village and leave a path of death in a moments notice to acquire the children he needs to breed his army.  The girls are usually forced into sex slavery until they are no longer needed and discarded.  The boys are forced into the rebel insurgency by any means at their disposal.  The atrocities that these people have done are of the worst magnitude.  They go so far as to mutilate their enemies, their discards, those that try to escape, and they even cook them up for dinner.  Does cannibalism still exist in Uganda?  There are only a handful of places on this planet that might still harbor the practice.  Northern and eastern Uganda is included.  My understanding is that some villages had two types of butcheries one for the regular types of meat and ones for the other type of meat.  It is also my understanding that the excuse was not because they were hungry.  Let’s pray that this behavior no longer exists and that Joseph Kony is captured or killed in the near future.

This Monday night I will be going back to the comfortableness of my existence while so many of my friends and their families will continue to eek out an existence here in East Africa.  Every time I come here I get so darned depressed on the enormity of it all.  Who are we going to help and whom is going to be left aside?  There are those that have obvious needs and there are those that think they have needs but are they really just something they want?  As I travel the country side I see the good works of some of the missionaries that come here and I wonder.  Oh I so wonder why we do what we do.  We drove by this huge compound the other day just west of Busia of at least a hundred acres being fenced in with the construction of a huge church and a bunch of buildings being built with what looked like all the trimmings.  Is this what we are about?  Is this what God is asking us to do?  I can’t imagine the amount of money going into this project to help how many people?  I can’t remember the organizations name and I am sure they have great intentions but is this really addressing the needs of these people or is it something else entirely?  If we build it bigger and to our standards does God favor us more then if we come in with a measly amount of money to help as many people as possible because our hearts tell us to?  What is it going to be people?  Bigger and better or taking the same amount of money and making it adequate for as many as possible.  My friends here in East Africa hear this also.  What would Jesus have us do??  I think you know my answer or at least I hope you do.  Amen

Today we will be off to see some more Orphans on the Kenya side of Busia.  We will also pay a visit to Pastor Robert in Bulimbo to discuss micro-finance and passion fruit.

Take care and God bless

Dave