Robert and I arrived in Uganda last night two weeks before the November team. We will be working and preparing for their arrival and will be joined by Elizabeth, Don and Darrin on November 5th.

I’ve been told that it is very difficult to adopt a child here in Uganda even though they are orphans because the law says if they have a living relative that relative must care for the child. But if the baby is abandoned the courts will allow you to adopt.

So at the Amani Baby Cottage in Jinga, Uganda it has been possible for Americans to adopt some of the cutest babies on earth. I was tipped off about this organization by a woman in Texas who is in the process of adopting through them. I looked up their website http://www.amanibabycottage.org/ and was so impressed I contacted them to ask if I could stop by for a visit.

Robert, Pastor Wilber and I stopped on our way to Tororo and were warmly received. We saw around 50 babies/toddlers. Not all are to be adopted out. Sometimes a mother dies during childbirth and the husband, grandmother or other relatives aren’t able to care for an infant so they bring him/her to the Baby Cottage where the baby will be cared for for up to two years. Sometimes they are able to come and retrieve the child. Other times the relatives are not heard from again and after two years of no contact the child is considered abandoned and can be adopted.

Often a mother will go to the hospital to deliver; give a fake name and then leave the baby there. Sometimes these mothers are teenagers who’ve gotten pregnant and the boy refuses to take responsibility or the girl won’t name the boy. Alone with her baby and having no skills or finances, she will leave it at the hospital or abandon it in an area where she knows someone will nurture the child. Sometimes the fate of the baby is worse and they will be abandoned in a latrine as was the case with one of the babies at ABC.  People heard his cries from the bottom of a 48’ latrine and called the police who pulled him out with ropes. He has multiple problems and they don’t know how much stems from waste he would have swallowed and inhaled in the latrine or if he was born with the problems. In either case he is a precious little guy who receives a lot of love at the cottage.

ABC welcomes a lot of preemies and I had the privilege of holding and carrying around their smallest baby, Faith. I hated giving her back but knowing that someone very special is waiting to give her a home made it much easier to kiss her goodbye.

Please visit the extremely informative and fabulous website to learn more about this organization and how you can be a part of this great ministry.

I will post photos and give you an update of our work on the True Vine Ministry site as soon as I am able to return to the internet. As you may know it is difficult because of brown outs and often I will be in the middle of sending and the power goes out.

Keep us in your prayers.

Sunday in Uganda
October 29, 2006

It was fantastic to once again be a part of the True Vine worship service and to see many of our friends. If you didn’t have any friends at church wouldn’t it seem like something huge was missing? They greeted us with warmhearted smiles, firm handshakes and smothering hugs.

Even now as I sit outside the church in the late afternoon I am surrounded by children who are content to stand and stare as I write.

There are many changes at the site. In anticipation of a visit from the president of Uganda to dedicate the new hospital everything is being spruced up with luxuriant foliage, cacti, flowers and trees. An enormous front gate is under construction. The gate will swing open to hail the president and his entourage as they arrive. New buildings are popping up and will be finished and painted before the big day.
 

New hospital facilities

As I toured the site I marveled that three years ago this site was bare land and now there is a clinic with a state of the art hospital in its final phase of building. A sewing room is a gathering place for women who are learning to sew in order to support themselves. The women’s ministry shop supports the sewing room by selling clothing, baskets and jewelry. The women who have made the hand-crafts are paid and more materials are bought. When the American teams arrive and shop it really boosts their ability to restock supplies.

There is a computer room where anyone can go to learn.  I was amazed to see the preschool and playground equipment. I remember two years ago a team member and I discussed how wonderful it would be for the children to have swings and merry-go-rounds and now they do!

Soon there will be a primary boarding school where at risk orphans will live. Others will attend as a day school. This school will have the best teachers, housemothers and staff and Christian principles will rule. It will be a privilege for children to attend.

Of course all these projects need funding and generous people like you can send your tax deductible contributions to Hope4Kids. You can state which project you would like your money to go toward or give a general donation and know it will be put to good use.

The House of Hope is looking promising. One can imagine sitting beneath the great columned portico drinking a Stoney soda and leisurely watching the sun go down while visiting with our African neighbors at the end of the day.

Visiting the Widows
Monday, October 30, 2006
 

Today Robert stayed on site checking on what needs to be done and planning for what can be done now. The projects are numerous. He met with people to discuss some of the projects and caught a vision of what they would like to see happen.
I told Pastor Jane I wanted to write the stories of the women of Uganda and she set up interviews with the oldest widows she could find. One widow, Cadija, is around 120 years old. They are never sure of their age but people figure it out according to what the person talks about as a child. They might talk about an event and others who know history will know what year it was and go from there.

When we arrived Cadija was crawling around trying to fix her mud hut where it had caved in because of the heavy rains. She had pulled her bed outside which was a pile of rags and two tattered blankets. Her skin was like an alligator and her fingernails and toenails were extremely long. It was impossible to interview her because she just wanted to talk and when you are 120 years old you can do that if you want. She was delightful and as I watched her laughing and talking I wondered how she could find joy in the midst of her pain. She couldn’t walk. Her place was a mess. She has no one to help her.

Jane asked if she had eaten-she didn’t have any water so she couldn’t cook. Matia, our driver, took her two water jugs and ran to the well to fetch water. She crawled inside and returned pushing an old plastic basin out in front of her as she inched along. I wondered how she was supposed to wash in it because about an inch above the bottom was a huge hole.

It began to rain so Cadija piled all her rags on top of her basin and slowly scooted her things into her hut. Inside her hut was a mess. Jane picked up firewood and placed it in the corner because Cadija was sitting on it. She picked up a pan with a few wilted greens in it and said Cadija was saving it for her next meal. There was no bed. She just piles up her rags and sleeps on them. When we gave her gifts of soap, sugar, biscuits, rice, sheets and a blanket she was thrilled. She listed off her gifts and couldn’t believe we’d brought them. Jane wrapped a sheet around her and she just sat and enjoyed the feel.

It’s so sad that a woman who is over 100 years old has to live that way-no one to care for her. . . Next week we will return with a mattress. Jane says it will be the first time in Cadija’s life to sleep on a mattress. Oh. And I’m sure a new wash basin is in order.

We visited three other widows. What a delight. At one point I thought, I never would have dreamed while growing up in small town Iowa that I would be sitting in the middle of the jungles of Africa discussing Idi Amin or anything for that matter!

One of the widows was extremely afraid when she saw me and refused to sit with us. Her son told her, "The Mzungu (foreigner) has come to see you. Don’t be so rude!" Finally she greeted Jane but refused to look at me. . Jane began to talk to her and moved her chair a little closer but told me, "You remain there. You are Mzungu. You might eat her!"

I took a couple pictures but could see she was very uncomfortable so I put the camera away.

When Jane had finished interviewing her without interpreting because she knew the lady would talk more if I wasn’t involved she told her we had brought gifts. She started to warm to me when Jane said we were to enter her home. I stood back and asked if it was okay to which she nodded and shook my hand. Inside she allowed me to take her picture and Jane showed me her food, bed and pots. Her bed was sticks tied together and ropes across to hold a mattress except there wasn’t one. She had her clothing and rags piled on the bed for her to sleep on. She was thrilled with the gifts and thanked us again and again.

As we were leaving I raised my hand and said, "Bye."
She raised her hand and said, "Bye" right back. The kids all giggled and said "Bye" over and over.

Visiting the Widows - Day 2
Tuesday October 31, 2006

What a day! We were back visiting the widows. This is Jane’s passion as she cites verses such as James 1:27:

"Religion that pleases God the Father must be pure and spotless. You must help the needy orphans and widows and not let this world make you evil." (CEV) 

These past two days of traveling to the oldest and poorest widows have been such a pleasure.

Today we met Regina who is around 103 years old. She is the grandmother of our friend, Wandera and when his parents died of AIDS she took him in as well as his five siblings. She was a peasant, living off the land, and selling what she could spare for a little money. Wandera learned to fish and helped support the family by selling fish to a market.


Regina hadn’t seen Wandera for a year so she was elated when we arrived with him. She shared that when her mother was a girl, families would fight one another with spears-killing one another. I couldn’t get what the point of the fighting was-but then I never have. They wore animal skins for clothing. When Regina came along the fighting had stopped. She talked about families having an old woman-probably the grandmother stayed in a hut with the girls. Little did parents know the girls weren’t safe because a boy could bribe the grandmother with a little money and she’d allow him to come in during the night and carry one of the girls off, rape them and bring them back before morning. Now they say they can be prosecuted for rape but it continues to happen and often goes unreported.

Next we met Wandera’s 110-year-old maternal grandmother, Natocho. She was delightful! She showed me her basket/bowl used for food. They wove the basket and then sealed it with cow dung. You couldn’t wash it because the cow dung would soften so they just banged the bowl upside down when they emptied the food. When the bowl got too dirty they’d reseal it with more cow dung.

Before we left Natocho she said she wanted to accept Jesus as Savior. Imagine! You’re never too old for God’s mercy. Isn’t that wonderful? She was filled with happiness.

Everywhere I go people talk about Idi Amin and the terror of his regime. Today we stopped by a river and our driver told me, "This is where Amin’s soldiers would dump people." Amin ordered his soldiers to take no prisoners because he wouldn’t feed them; so one of the atrocities by the soldiers was to round people up for no reason. If they didn’t shoot them on the spot they would pile them into a dump truck, back up to the river and raise the truck spilling them into the river. People didn’t know how to swim and if they had it wouldn’t have helped because the soldiers stood on the river banks ready to shoot anyone who surfaced! What these people had to endure is beyond our comprehension! They said they never knew when they woke up in the morning if they’d be alive at night and when they went to bed at night they didn’t know if they would be dragged from their beds to be raped and shot.

We met up with two other widows today. One was 86-years-old. The other was in her 80’s also. I didn’t get a good look at her because she was lying in bed inside her dark hut. I could make out her image with the little light that sneaked through the doorway. She said, "I don’t want the Mzungu to photograph me." I agreed I wouldn’t although I really wanted to! She stood up and shrieked with happiness when she received her gifts and although I always stand back and Jane gives the gifts she showered me with grateful hugs as well as Jane.

Robert is here too. I’m just so excited about the honor of meeting these elderly women and hearing their stories that I’ve not gotten many stories from him. He is however working very hard and enjoying it. I’ve included a picture of him and Waterman. Waterman is modeling the new uniform Robert brought for him. His name isn’t really Waterman but when Robert gave him the job of "water monitor" he said, "I want to be called Waterman." Who can argue?

Tomorrow we head for a refugee camp. Keep the prayers going.

Soroti Refugee Camp
November 1, 2006

Today we went to Soroti to a refugee camp. These people have fled the rebel army in Northern Uganda and some have come from Sudan. We were told there were sixty families in this camp so we brought enough rice, beans and soap for 60 households. When we arrived we were told there were 118 families and around 800 people in all. I looked at the people who were waiting so expectantly and gazed at the amount of food. All I could do is turn away from them and cry.

We have so much in America. We don’t really know suffering as we strive to get bigger houses, newer cars, vacation homes, motor homes, more toys, good food and on and on. I don’t need to tell you how blessed we are. And then I come to Uganda and see how the people suffered under Idi Amin and now the rebels...

I interviewed a lady who looked old-she said she was fifty. She’s been in the camp for three years. Rebels beat her so badly she is unable to walk so relatives helped her escape. She said she almost died. Before the insurgency she said life was good. She’s a Muteso and enjoyed working the land growing many types of crops. She talked about how life was then-how they cooked their food-how they entertained visitors and then broke out in song as she demonstrated how a new wife was welcomed into their tribe.

We met another woman who is 60 years old and seems years beyond that. She too talked of how good life was before the rebels came. Women could do any kind of work, including build a house. They saw to it their children were well fed, bathed with clean noses and to grow up in a good atmosphere. I wondered what she meant by a good life when she told us she had four children but three died when they were young and the fourth one is blind.

When I asked her how she came to the camp she said: "I was getting water from the river and the soldiers (Ugandan) came and asked if I knew where are the rebels. Then the rebels came and killed all the soldiers. I fell down and stayed until they were gone then I got up and walked to Soroti with only the dress on my back. Now I stay here and for a mattress I collect grass to sleep on." Her brother’s children were all abducted and have disappeared.
 

Soroti Refugee Camp

Our guide was abducted by the rebels and after three weeks managed to escape. He was one of the fortunate ones. He said when they abduct children they usually immediately make them participate in massacres. Some actually go crazy after seeing the horrible things the rebels do. Others become monsters like their captors. Many would just like to go home.

Continue to hold us in your prayers.

~ To Be Continued ~