sharing community in Guru Guru

After 36 hours of air travel, a 6 hour bus ride into Gulu, and a 21/2 hour van ride into the village of Guru Guru, we met the precious people of Guru Guru.  As we pulled up the children streamed out of the church (sticks with sheet metal for a roof) to greet us with hugs and handshakes.  Then they sang us songs they had prepared for our visit.  The tears were flowing from most of us as we were overtaken with their joy and pure gratitude for our arrival.  We spent the next hour in church with them sitting amongst the women, children, men, babies as they sang joyfully to the Lord.  After church it was "play time"--we spent hours just hanging out with kids, teens, and adults.  We played thumb wars, duck duck goose, patty cake.  The simplest things that brought them laughter and bonded us together.  A group of boys gathered our boys to play soccer--no goals, no field, no shoes, and a "ball" made of wadded up trash wrapped in strips of fabric.  Getting pictures taken was a huge event.  We took pictures of groups of kids and people and they grabbed our cameras to see themselves. They greeted their "camera faces" with squeals of surprise and delight.  When we left we were sweaty, hot, and hungry, but as the villagers waved to us and surrounded the bus, we couldn't wait to return tomorrow.  Day Two will be more rigourous as we plan to cut brush to lay a soccer field and begin work on four homes--thatch huts made of wood, dung, mud and straw. Then we will begin our vacation Bible school in the afternoons. As we debriefed this evening, the teens on our team had huge realizations of how MUCH we have in America and how much we take for  granted,  They were amazed at how much joy these kids had in playing such simple games. But as we were reminded tonight, it wasn't really the games, it was the human touch, the joy of laughter, the warmth of hugs that brought the joy.  Pastor Robert reminded all of us that we are a community of brothers and sisters no matter where we live or the color of our skin, but because we are bonded in Christ.  To sum our day up, I will use the words of Brad when he introduced himself to the congregation: "My name is Brad and I travleled across the world to share your smiles."

Posted by Kirsten Loy on behalf of the TEAM