Post Uganda

When Dan and I got back to O'Hare, Christina pulled up and Spencer shot out of the car and gave me a big hug. Lilly was all quiet for a little while (where ya been, Daddy?). It was so great to see my family (of course I missed them so much). When we got home, there was a huge "Welcome Back Daddy" sign on the wall, which was colored by the whole family so well. I am very blessed to have a wonderful wife and great kids.

So, I have been back from Uganda and I am already thinking about going back. Uganda is such a beautiful country and the people are the most beautiful part. A few observations about the people we met:

1) They truly possess the gift of hospitality. They really expressed how welcome we were to their villages, schools, and everywhere else we went. They went out of their way to make us feel comfortable and gave generously. They sacrificed their own comfort and resources to give to us what was not necessary but given out of love.

2) I was amazed by their faith and eagerness to talk about what God has done in their lives. I heard some amazing testimonies from some amazing people.

3) I felt an incredible sense of community. The folks in the village really pulled together on the different construction projects, eager to work together for the common good.

4) The folks who work for Global Family Rescue and the other Non Government Organizations within Uganda have such a passion to lift up the impoverished and under-resourced. They have extraordinary talents and would make significantly more money in the business-world. They have foregone treasures on earth and instead are storing them up in heaven.

5) The team I was on with Ben, Renata, Michelle, Kaitlin, Lee, Dan, Jamie, Jackie, Harrison, Brain, Andy, and Terry (aka T-Lish) was wonderful.

So what now? A few things. I keep thinking about the Child Mothers in Gulu and the people in Gulu in general. This was the toughest part of the trip for me. I will be praying for the people in Gulu and seeing where God might lead me.

I hope that you will consider sponsoring a family in Uganda. For $64 per month, you can transform a family. They can have regular meals, education, housing, and a stronger relationship with God. Olive and Aaron, the family Christina and I sponsor, were given this financial resource and truly capitalized on it. They now have a home, regular meals, education, and hope. Please check out http://www.globalfamilyrescue.org/ for more information on sponsorship or to give a one-time gift.

Also, I am sure there are people who have followed my trip who are all over the spectrum on their feelings about God and their relationships with God. Prior to November 2006, I wasn't really sure about who God was (and at times, if there really was a God). I call tell you that God has transformed my life. If ever you want to hear my story about how this all happened, or just want to check out where I go to church, I would love to share with you.

Thank you to everyone who was with me on this journey.

Pictures of People

In no particlar order . . . (I will add more)


Fred our driver and me by the Nile ......................Andy walking in Gulu

Terry giving away his cap .....................................Dan's reunioun with Ruth

Brian, Renata, Ben, Dan and Terry (somewhere in Uganda) . . .Ben sporting his traditional dance.

Harrison, Jackie, Dan, Jamie, and Brian (Uganda looks different)

We made it back

We made it back safely last night. I had to go back to work today so I am dragging right now. I will post a wrap up and thoughts after returning from Uganda this weekend.

Thanks again who supported me through your encouragement, prayers, and/or financial support. It was an experience of a lifetime (although I will likely go back some time in the future).

Comin' Home

It's our last day in Africa. We will head out of Entebbe around 11:30pm, then to Brussels, then to New York, and then home. I will likely post more pictures and thoughts when I return home.

It has been a great trip.

Gulu

We just got back from Gulu and Murchison Falls. Gulu was really heavy.

We went to visit one of the IDP camps and it was really a challenging site to see. Uganda has the longest running civil war in Africa, and Gulu is where many people who flee their villages end up going. They flee from Joseph Kony and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA has been trying to topple the Ugandan government. They have abducted children from all over Northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Sudan. The LRA turns these children into militants and sex slaves.

One lady we spoke to in the camps has been there since 1999. She said the LRA has even raided the camps and they abducted her son when he was around 12 years old, and she has not seen him since. She said that the worst raid by the rebels claimed about 24 lives in her camp.

The lady we spoke with said that there hadn't been a raid on the camp in about 2 years but with peace talks breaking down, she feared that rebel activity may start again. She will not leave the camps since there is some military presence there which provides a sense of security for them

The Ugandan government has stopped sending the camps food since the ceasefire. The only source of food has been through the United Nations World Food Program.

We then visited the Child Mothers Ministry, which consists of women who were former abductees and who became pregnant by the rebels. They welcomed us and put on a traditional song and dance routine.

We then asked if there was anything we could pray about for them and what kind of help they needed. The striking thing about these women was that when asked they desired education, even over food.

I have never seen poverty on a scale like this. The kids were dirty and I am sure many were sick and malnourished. They were in ragged clothes or in some cases, had no clothes at all.

Even in this situation, the kids still smiled when they saw us, still ran around with heir friends, and still acted like kids. In the picture above, I took their picture (left). Then, I squatted down to take their picture again and see the picture on the right.

Tomorrow thru Saturday

Tommorrow, we leave for Gulu to visit the Child Mothers Ministry IDP camps. After this evening, I will not be back on line until Saturday night (assuming we have power and the Internet).

Oh Happy Day

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in the past few days. We have been out of town for the past two days (in Fort Portal and Kamwenge), and when we returned, no power here.

I am going to blog a little out of sequence since I am most excited about my meeting the Olive and Aaron, the family Christina and I sponsor. This is my second attempt to send this blog since the Internet decided to quit on my first try (and I didn’t type it in Word first so I lost it all).

We took the two-hour trip from Fort Portal to Kamwenge yesterday, which put my stomach to the test (rough road, tossing my stomach around the whole time).


Here I am meeting Olive for the first time. Olive has a very interesting story. She is a widow, who was actually dead for an hour. The village started preparing to bury her when she started coughing and came back. Then last year, with her and Aaron really bad off, ill, owning no property, no home, no livestock, and having no prospects for the future, Olive attempted to take her own life by drinking acid. When she didn’t die this second time, Olive believed that God kept her alive and had a purpose for her.

A few months later, her sponsorship started coming from my family. With this money, she has purchased the room in house she lives in (like a small condo). She has purchased a school uniform and Aaron attends school at the Primary 4 level (4th grade). They have livestock that includes 3 goats and a pig. Olive has started a sorghum beer brewing business and sells beer to the villagers for an income. Most of all, she has a bight future and a relationship with God.

Here we are in their home. I brought gifts and they were so appreciative. It was a wonderful experience. Every time I gave Aaron a gift, he had a smiled and gave me a hug.

Here are their goats.

Olive disappeared, then returned in her new dress. Aaron sang in the choir in a small celebration the village through for our arrival (picture on right - blue shirt, back left).

Here is Olive presenting me with gifts that included a gourd that she painted for me, a hand-woven mat, and a gourd full of honey.

Then, the ultimate in giving, Aaron gave me his largest rooster. A twelve year-old child gave me something that would be of huge value to him. He must have been very proud to be able to give such a gift.

The cost of sponsorship for a family in reality is very little to us but means so much to them. I am so proud of what Olive and Aaron have done with what they have received. There is such a huge need here in Uganda, with lack of food, medical care, and hope for an unbelievable amount of people. If you would be interested in changing the lives of a family here, please visit http://www.globalfamilyrescue.org/ for more information on family sponsorship.

Here is a excerpt from a speech Olive wrote:

"I Oliva Mbarame wish to thank God for his mercy, that he has enabled me to survive up to this day. I had once died, but I am alive by the mercy of the Almighty God. People came to my place to bury me having heard that I was dead, but I came to life instantly due to God's mercy.

Now I am deaf, I can't hear any speech or any spoken word from my friends. However, I am able to talk. Praise the Lord! God is feeding me and he give me some porraige to drink. I had totally despaired, but now I have hope. I appreciate the work done by the Americans who usually send me money to sustain my life. May God bless the Americans."

CCC – Namyoya Campus

We attended church in Namyoya today. The people of Namyoya hold an extremely lively service. Pastor David preached in Lugunda (the local language) and Pastor Henry interpreted. Pastor David taught from Psalm 126, Daniel 6, and Revelation 2. His main message was about trust and being trustworthy. He was so thankful for the roof on the church and the home being built for him. He said that they have been praying to God and trusting in God and their prayers are being answered.

I made a little friend in church. Donna didn't quite make it through the whole service.

The folks in Namyoya have so little yet still give what they have to the church.

At the end of the service, the people of Namyoya sacrificed a goat for us and then gave us gifts that included sugar cane, bananas, eggs, and a gourd.

We then headed to see the family Dan Clark sponsors. The roads to her home are awful.

One thing I noticed since being here is that whenever we walk down a road, a couple children will start following us and before you know it, we look like a small parade. The children here are priceless.

This is where they get their water to drink and for eveything else.

The people greeted us with singing and waving branches. The children sang and danced for us.

Dan’s family was so appreciative. Thy showered him with gifts that included a chicken, rugs, and a basket. Getting a chicken is a very important gift and one that they would be very proud to give. The chicken is running around outside our house right now.

We will be heaing to Fort Portal tomorrow to play soccer against the High School and then on to Kamwenge. I am so excited that on Tuesday, I get to met the family that my family sponsors.

It will be an overnight trip with no Internet access so the next blog post will be Tuesday.

Mzungu Matatu

Today was our free day so we walked a few blocks from our house and caught a Matatu into downtown Kampala. A Matutu is a shared taxi that looks like a minivan with 15 seats. Kampala is easily one of the scariest places to be on the road. There are no traffic lights and not really any traffic laws nor order to how people drive. Cars and vans drive bumper to bumper, side to side, pretty much cutting off each other on a regular basis. Nobody waits to pull into traffic. Then add in boda traffic (motorcycle taxis) weaving in and out of traffic and in between the cars and vans that are weaving. Then add in bicycles and pedestrians. Every time I looked out the window, I wondered how many people get hit on a daily basis. I learned that it was smarter to just not look out the window.

Tomorrow, we go to Namyoya to attend church services. It will be exciting to attend the first service with an actual roof on the church. We will also visit the family that Dan Clark sponsors.

"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

Southern Cross

Last night, I saw the Southern Cross for the first time (try getting the song out of your head now). Hearing the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song so many times in the past, I was pretty stoked. For those who don't now what I am talking about, its a constellation that can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere (and parts just north of the equator).

Today is a free day. We will be going to Kampala to see what we can see.

Day Two in Namyoya

So we’re on our third day in Uganda and I thought I would start out with some random observations:

Whenever we enter Kampala, there is a huge police and military presence. They all hold AK-47’s. I can’t send any photos since you do not photograph any police or military personnel or any embassy or official building (I think I will go ahead and follow this rule).

The people of Uganda call us Mzungu (it means white). It is not derogatory. They tend to have a very positive impression of Mzungu. We hear “Mzungu” shouted everywhere we go.

The kids are fascinated by us. They love to shake our hands and be around us. They especially like when you take a digital photo of them, then show the picture on the LCD display (they’ve never seen anything like it).

There is extreme poverty everywhere we go. The people are hungry, do not have access to healthcare, adequate roads, clean water and many other things I take for granted.



So we left for Namyoya this morning and it was a similar entry into the church area. All of the kids came storming out of the school to great us the ladies ran down the road to great us. The church roof is nearly completed and should be up by Sunday for service.

We began moving bricks and almost immediately after we began, a bunch of folks from the village joined in. At one point, we were nearly shoulder to shoulder passing bricks and had to divide into two lines.

I was pulling bricks off the pile for a while when I picked up a brick and underneath it was the tail of a black snake. I pointed it out to one of the villagers and he immediately signaled me to get back. They dug through the bricks and the snakes headed popped out momentarily. They whipped the snake to death, then tossed it into the weeds. It turned out to be a Mamba Snake. I understand that a bite will kill you in four minutes. I have to thank God that he protected me by having only the tail of the snake under that brick.

We had a great opportunity to socialize with the villagers today. We gave them another soccer ball, which they loved. I had a bag of hotel bar soap and shampoo. We asked the ladies of the families who are not yet sponsored to come by and I started passing them out. They were thanking me, many kneeling down and grabbing my hand (a sign of great respect). It became quite bittersweet. Here I am giving something that to them has great value that normally I might use once, then leave behind in a hotel room.

A couple people in our group brought bubbles and started blowing them. It made the kids crazy. They kept laughing at them and jumping up to grab them. I can’t imagine that they had ever seen something like this.

We finished the day playing soccer with the kids. I am so out of shape. We will be playing soccer against a High School on Monday. I think it will be more like “chase the kids with the ball, running circles around us.”


The people fascinate me. There are women who I doubt get any regular meals, with babies tied to their backs, excited and happy to be working with us. There is a real sense of community and involvement. They love that we are here and there is a feeling of progress. There have been many people who have come in the past, promising help and then never returning. I think they are thrilled that we keep coming back (and that there is a now roof on a church that sat incomplete for almost ten years. I think it brings hope of a better future.

I have to thank everyone that through their prayers and / or sponsorship helped make this happen.


“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

Namyoya

We started the 2 hours trip to Namoya this morning. The road leading to Namyoya is so bad (we wouldn't even call it a road hear), we needed to get of of the bus and walk. We got a short distance and were greated by the scene above. All the children came out of school to great us. They treated us like celebrities. I must have shaken 15-20 little kids hands. It was a wonderful moment. We then were greeted by a parade of ladies from Namyoya who showered us with hugs.




I got to meet Pastor Dave (above).

Half the roof on the new churh was completed.


We moved bricks for the Pastors new house, got water from a watering hole that was more like a mud puddle, and moved the tin for the church's new roof.

Along the trip to the water hole, I discovered the giant black ants. Thy were blocking our path (there were that many of them) so I thounght I could ust run through them. Wrong. They are faster than me. I had a few run up my leg and when they bite, they burow their heads in. Feels kinda like a bee sting. I decided tha these ants are not my favorite.

The entire day was amazing. The people of Namyoya are so beauiful and God really showed up today. I am blessed to be here and love the people of Namyoya. They are so welcoming and so appreciative to see us.

I will write more soon (the Internet works sporadically so I will post before it quits).

Our First Day in Uganda

We finally left New York and landed in London late yesterday morning. With a nine hour layover, we decided to take the tube to see Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and take a tour of Westminster Abbey. We then headed back to Heathrow and flew to Entebbe.

We arrived at 7:40am and WOW! We got to the house GFR is renting and dropped of our luggage. We then headed to Bulindo, a village just outside of Kampala. We met some of the people and started moving bricks from the roadside to the site of a house GFR is building for a widow and 17 orphans that she cares for (a combination of her grandkids and other orphans).

While we were moving bricks, the boys and girls choir from Bulindo St. Joseph’s Primary School serenaded and danced for us. It was incredibly moving.

We then started the ½ km hike to fill 20 liter jugs of water to mix the cement. We got to experience what the villagers in the area must do many times a day just to get water. They hike over muddy, over-grown trails, down to very small, dirty water hole (about 2’ deep an about 2-3 yards in diameter).

The kids in the village were priceless. I can’t describe what I felt as I looked into their faces. They were kids just like other kids, with all the wonder in their eyes that a small child has, except they live in extreme poverty.

Tomorrow, we will get up early an head to Namyoya, to work on putting a roof on the church their or wok on the pastors house (based on the situation when we get there).

I am going to sign of now (I am on about 4 hours sleep in the past 48 hours).

I am so excited and love Uganda already.

“I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips.” Psalm 34:1

WE MADE IT!

What an amazng day. I need to run but wanted to let everyone know that we made it here safely and hit the ground running.

I will send a detailed post later today.

Back on track

We are back at JFK and should be boarding in less than two hours, heading for London. We made the best of our stay in New York City (got some cheap seats at a Met game yesterday and relaxed in Central Park today). Not a ton new other than our mission should really begin soon.

'So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.' John 8:36

Still en route

Hi Everyone,

We arrived in New York around, 5:30 pm and planned on flying to Belgium at 5:55pm (our plane out of O'Hare was delayed but we would still make it to our next flight). The plane headed to Belgium had mechanical problems so it was delayed. They had a trouble diagnosing the problem and as time went on, it became apparent that we were at risk of missing our connecting flight in Belgium.

At 8:45pm, they started boarding and found out that we would not make our next flight and that we would end up getting stranded in Belgium until June 4th if we boarded. They looked at all options and the fastest way to get us to Uganda will be to stay in New York until Monday, then fly to London and on to Entebbe. Yes, this was a huge disappointment but I am sure God has a plan that included this change of plan.

So, the airline gave us voutures for the Holiday in and meals. They told us to go get food first because it would be a while for us to get our bags. We got to baggage claim and they lost a bag so we waited quite some time and finally headed to the hotel.

We got to the hotel around 11:15pm and found quite a line to get a room. Around 12am, we found out they were going to be sold out . They were going to cut off the line and we were on the wrong side of the line. We also found out that that all the hotels in the area were sold out.

The Holiday Inn let us know that a bus was coming to take us to another Holiday Inn about an hour away. About 20 min into the trip, a few folks on the bus who didn't realize the hotel was an hour away, asked about travel time to the hotel. They had had early flights and began to really freak out. There were a couple people getting in the bus driver's face, yelling at him as he drove to turn the bus around and take all of us back to the airport. Others were pleading to leave him alone and that we were told about the travel time.

So things escalated, with a few passengers continuing to scream at him and folks telling the folks yelling to leave the driver alone. It was little freaky for a while. Then one of the foks who was not to pleased called 911 and yelled at the police for a while. The bus got pulled over and the police said no crime was being committed. Finally, back in route to the hotel . . .

Or not. More yelling and when we were probably 20 min from the hotel, pulled over again. Then the bus turns around and heads for the airport.

We got to the airport around 3am and were told the bus could not go to the hotel anymore.

Some of us slept at airport until around 5am. Then finally got rooms at the Ramada.

Kind of a crazy start but we're all ok. I knew there would be some adventure. I just thought it would start in Africa.

Should be out of New York late tomorrow; then off to London.

'I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me' Phillipians 4:13

All packed and ready to go - 6 hours and counting

In six hours, I will taking off for New York City (JFK), then Brussels, then Bujumbura, and finally Entebbe. We should be land in Entebbe on June 1st around 9:05pm, then start heading toward Kampala (I am not sure how long it takes to get bags and then to where we will be based).

I appreciate all of the encouragment I have gotten from so many people and that our mission will be in so many prayers.

I should have a new post some time on June 2nd.

Until then . . .

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26

11 days and counting

The journey begins 11 days from now and I am very excited about what lies ahead. I will be as far as I have ever been from home and definitely in a new environment.

I hope to be able to use this blog as an on-line journal, where I can update everyone on the trip and post photo's along the way. I have been told that power can be inconsistent so I will update this as often as I can while in Uganda.

I ask that if you would, pray for the safety of the folks on the coming mission trips and the safety of our families. Pray that we can truly do God's work and be a blessing to the people of Uganda.

I look forward to sharing my experiences on this coming trip.

God is Great!

Bill