Our New Friend Patrick

The telling of our mission adventure must include our new friend, Oloya Patrick, an 18 yr old Acholi boy, who has just passed the national secondary school exams, making University the next step on his horizon. 

I got to know Patrick – on Facebook, of course – through another organization, U-TOUCH, a non-profit started in Scripps Ranch which is using computers to bridge the education and opportunity gap in Gulu, Kitgum and Paday Uganda.  We amped up our correspondence in the weeks before our trip, with Patrick offering ground support (lining up a few supplies for VBS), offering encouragement and heartfelt prayers for our group.

So I was extremely anxious to meet him in person and share him with everyone.  Our kids embraced him, his joy,  warm heart and “yahhh-yes-Wazzup?”.  He fit right into the pack, and willingly joined us for our first day in Guru-Guru…..and every day after.  What a great addition to our team!  A patient and able translator, who was willing to step up and take on crowd control occasionally, working and sweating right alongside us.  Observing all of this, you would never know, you could hardly believe what Patrick’s life has been like.  On Wednesday evening, Robert asked him to share it with us. 

We had been told that this part of Uganda had been through 22 years of Civil War in which tens of thousands of kids have been abducted by the rebels to be soldiers, their parents killed.  When Patrick was 13, the rebels came to his hut one night around midnight.  They called the parents outside and when they could not give them the foodstuffs they demanded, the Rebels brutally slaughtered them, in front of their children, and then took Patrick away.  He told of his experience with the Rebels before escaping and how he found his sister and brother again.  At each crisis point in this experience—being taken, being caned nearly to death, hiding from the Rebels, trying to find his brother and sister -- he shared his prayers to Jesus for deliverance, and most remarkable to me, thanksgiving. He had lost his parents and then, one by one, every person who could have helped him -- every relative, his neighbors who took care of his siblings, his teacher who paid for his schooling, all killed by the rebels. And yet he loved and thanked God.

I have known Patrick’s story for a while through my work with U-Touch. When I left on this trip there was a question I hoped to answer more than any other – how do you love God when terrible things happen?  That night I began to see.  At every horrible event in his life, Patrick saw how God was there, saving him from something much worse, guiding him, protecting him. 

I think those who have a lot, expect a lot.  Maybe you have to have nothing and expect nothing to learn to see all the ways God works in our lives.  I tend to look always at what is not working and wonder where God is.  But God specializes in guiding our path through the center of those difficult or even hopeless situations.
   

Patrick and I talked a lot this week about his plans – to go to University and study law.  Somehow , since the age of 13 he has managed to provide for himself and his brother and sister, and one way or another keep them in school.  And miraculously, in a place where schools have no books, he has become a competent computer user – something that has opened the world to him.  Patrick would love to come to America and maybe one day, be president of Uganda.  With Jesus, all things are possible.

Mary 

This Ain't Mission "Lite"!

Our week-long mission adventure has been many things.  It was, indeed, a great “first mission” trip.  It was definitely a chance to see God at work in faraway places.  With Kirsten’s amazing storytelling we all shared in our mission to “go and spread the Gospel to all nations.”  And it blessed us more than we could imagine.

But there’s one thing it was NOT!   It was not Mission”Lite”.   Nothing about this was “lite”.

• Our team worked harder than any Masungas (White people) the Acholis had ever seen.
• We outlasted any previous mission team--by about 4 days.  Our 2 hour bone rattling bus ride on dirt roads each way to the village had deterred others who had come before us.
• Our ebullient leader, Austin, inspired us to amazing achievements – like fixing roads and clearing fields with some distressingly short lived hoes and shovels.  
• While most teams lose their young people about midweek, our kids ran the good race, full out, all week.  Awesome!
• It’s HOT at the equator.  But not hot enough to stop Janelle, the oldest member of our team and a true “roadie”. 
• We completely underestimated the dire living conditions of these people, some barely clothed, all of them undernourished, two miles from safe water.
• We greatly overestimated their ability to do a simple craft, or even color.
• The last 15 years of camp living has created a culture of begging and grabbing that made every activity a potential riot and an opportunity for learning new social skills.

Despite all of these challenges, we gave our all and saw God show up over and over.  Several dozen children and adults raised their hands to accept Jesus.  Every day our numbers grew as word spread.  

In addition to that, 10 people at Canyon Springs now know how to build a genuine Acholi dwelling hut. And we have proved without any doubt that Love and “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” are the universal language.

Mary

We are at the Amsterdam airport and heading into our last two legs of our journey.  We left Gulu on Friday at 6 am with pink and grey skies above us.  We took a 12 hour bus ride to get to Mokuno.  Imagine a 12 hour bus ride in the states--you would stop every few hours at In and Out, go to the bathroom, listen to music, etc. Not so in Africa--no stops for food or a cold drink and when we did stop, the option for women was a hole in the ground, so most of us waited.  We did however, enjoy an amazing stretch through safari park where we saw water buffalo, gazelle, giraffes, elephants, birds of all types. The landscape was much different than in Gulu--it was more savannah like but still tropical with lots of trees and lush ground cover. After the park, we had our one stop at the Paraa Lodge where we took pictures as we stood over the Nile River.  Then we crossed the Nile on a ferry and saw a group of hippos bathing and drinking in the Nile. It was an incredibly long day and ended with our last group meeting where we worshipped and then shared our reflections of the journey.  Saturday was our last day where we went to Victor's School and met the staff and children.  The children ran to greet us and showed us their rooms, played soccer with us, and wanted to carry anything we had.  They all spoke English, so it was much easier to communicate.  I met Brenda, Lillian and Sheryl. Brenda told me she had been praying to God for a "white friend" and then she met me and now I am her "white mama".  All three girls told me their stories--none had parents--they were either killed in the war or died from Aids.  Yet all these children are filled with the joy of God and their smiles show it all.  After a short visit, we left for a boat ride on the Nile where we saw monkeys, mountain lizards, tilapia fishermen, birds of all kinds.  This was also the first time that we shopped--we had fun buying gifts for our family members and bartering with the merchants.  We returned later in the day to say good bye to our Victor's School Friends and we all already have pen pals to write to.  One of my favorite moments was watching Mike Long surrounded by little girls who were fascinated by his arm hair.  They were laughing and pulling on it and asking him about his wife. Of course I told him that if Mary came, she would never leave this place!  And so many of the girls were asking me about Noah--how old is he, does he have a girlfriend?  They were a little afraid to talk with him one on one, but he was busy playing soccer with all the boys.

We are all exhausted, but we are all absolutely ready to return again.  Saying goodbye to our precious ugandan friends who helped lead the trip, especially Mark and Patrick, was the hardest part. But we hope it was just a "see you later".  We are all so blessed to have met these people and know that our common bond is in Jesus.  Please follow the blog for the next few days as many of us will be posting reflections "post trip."  Thanks for journeying with us via your prayers.  Blessings.

We left our hearts in Guru Guru

All of a sudden we are all blogging tonight. I know some of the moms back home have been waiting patientely to hear from their kids, but we have so little time and then when we try to blog, the internet goes down on us. For the past four days in Guru Guru, we have been broken into teams--the roadies are Kelley, Leo and Janelle.  Their work on the road inspired the village leader to get other villages to work on the road as well.  It seems that they all just need a push that things are indeed possible.  The others are on construction teams that are building two houses (huts).  The VBS team stays at the center of the village and runs Bible School at the church.  The first day we had over 65 kids, the second day 130, the third day we had 250 and today we had the entire village.  We learned flexibility by the minute.  The language barrier was much more difficult than we expected but we have learned the Acholi tribal language quickly.  Lubonga Dit! God is Great!  We heard this so much from the elders of the village who would come up to us with their canes and speak with such vigor about how they appreciate all we have done for them.  We learned this week that we are the first "mazungos" (white people) who have ever visited their village. We continue to remind ourselves at every night's meeting that these are people who have been in a war zone for 20 years.  Fear is the norm.  But they have invited us into their lives with such joy.  This is a place that is non churched and only recently began hearing about Jesus.  Some of the older people know God, but many of the children do not.  That is why VBS was so huge.  The translators and the leaders kept telling us that what we were teaching was so beautiful. The kids gathered and listened with such an obvious thirst for knowing Jesus.  Over 100 people invited Jesus into their hearts today. I told them that we would meet as one community in heaven one day--Acholi and Mazungos and they clapped and yelled Amen! We have so many "moments" to share with all of you back home.  We have all been moved and touched in huge ways.  One obvious way is the spiritual growth even within our team.  The bonding we have with each other--sharing coffee in the morning, talking on the dusty bus, eating meals at night, journaling together, praying and sharing all the stories of our days. I will conclude tonight with a story of our departure--one of the women I grew closest with was Florence. Each time we saw each other her smile lit up and she greeted me with a huge hug and kisses on both cheeks.  When I learned the Acholi word for friend, I went to her and said, "Larema" and she hugged me and said, "Best Larema".  When we left today we prayed together and I told her I would see her again (soon).  When we parted our last words at the same time were "aremi"--I love you.  Truly, our hearts are in Guru Guru and we can't wait to see our "laremas" again. 

Kirsten

Yes the rumors are true.....

I do have a full beard... Haha. I am finally posting on the blog after days of procrastination. We have all been working so hard that when  we come home to the hotel, all we do is hang out and drink soda. We teenagers have been hosting soda parties in our room with the bottled soda which is 45 cents. We are all so wiped out but we finished our work at the village of Guru Guru. My group which consisted of me, Adam, my dad, Ryan, Chase, and Sam had to hike a mile to the site where we were building and then at the end of the day hike a mile back to the bus. We finished the first house and were putting the final touches on the roof made of sticks. We made about half of the second house before we had to leave on the final day. All of our hands are stained orange because of the mud so regardless of how much we wash our hands they are still dirty. I feel bad for the people washing our towels because even after a 30 minute shower we dry off and the towels are brown. It was very emotional saying goodbye to everyone. Everyone had built up relationships with people so there were a lot of tears by the end. My little buddy's name is Dennis. He was by far the group favorite. Him and his brother Ruben were so helpful with construction as well as with the little kids. He is such a leader and is only 10. He tried to teach me Achole. It didn't happen. So I will just have to study up for next year.  At the end of the day I said to him "Amari" which means "I love you" and he said it back. These kids don't get love from their parents, or grandparents if they don't have any parents. So it was really good that we were all pouring out love. One more sad memory though. I was in the bus about to leave Guru Guru, and one of the moms stuck her head through the window of the bus and told me to take her child. Her boy, Obama, was the favorite baby of the group and he was shoved into the bus windows. It was hard to say no. Even though I'm going off to college (which the decision has been made!) I wanted to take Dennis or Ruben or Obama. But its a good thing I will see them next year. Below is the picture of Me, Dennis (green) and Ruben (blue)

Great day but hard to say goodbye

Hard to believe today was our last day in the village!  We had a great day and a very productive day.  We did clothes with the kids, which was so much fun to see them in nice clean outfits.  We finished both houses except for roofs that will be put on later once bricks are dry. We had a short VBS with story and songs.  They also cooked us a lunch of goat and rice.  Busy day but absolutely wonderful day.  It was really hard to say goodbye to the new friends we have all made in the past 5 days we have visited the village.  What a wonderful experience this has been for us.  As we say goodbye I have added a picture below of the dirt roads of Uganda that we traveled each day 2 hours each way to enjoy and work with our new friends.

Donna

Lori's Adventures

So far this trip has been amazing.  We have been working so hard in the village. The weather has been hot and humid.  Everyday we take a two hour bump road on a bus just to get to this village.  We work in the village and get so dirty that our skin is litterly 5 shades darker, but none of us care.  It is more than worth every minute of it.  It is amazing how much you learn about a cultures past and present when you surround yourself in it.  These girls in the picture are my new friends.  They thought is was so funny when I said i would carry the baby on my back.  It is very easy to make them laugh and as you can see they are beautiful.  I miss my family very much, but I know the work I am doing here is making a difference. Can't wait to see everyone and show you the great pictures of this beautiful village in the middle of Africa.  Sorry it has taken so long to write anything, we have just been so busy and there are only 2 laptops between 19 people.  Would love to hear from you!

Love and hugs Lori

Sorry issues with photo upload.  Will post photo later separately.