Uganda Trip-Postscript

I suspect that I will refer to or write about my trip to Uganda in future blogs, but this will conclude my daily blogs recounting the trip. As I mentioned in the beginning of these blogs, the trip was amazing, and that is the only adjective that seems appropriate. A couple of people asked me to tell them what was the one most outstanding thing about the trip. I told them that I couldn't name one thing. My experiences on the trip were more like a mountain range with roughly equivalent peaks, not like Pike's Peak or Mt Rainer that stand out from the surrounding mountains.

I am trusting that God will guide the church in our next steps. The needs are enormous and can fell overwhelming, but we have the opportunity to make a dent in the poverty and help bring hope in tangible ways. I would encourage you to keep this opportunity in your prayers.

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Thought for the Day

The principle cannot be denied: the fiercer the struggle against the injustice you suffer, the blinder you will be to the injustice you inflict.
Miroslav Volf

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Uganda Trip-13

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, on Tuesday morning, April 8, we headed back to Entebbe Airport. After we crossed the Victoria Nile we drove by the top of Murchison Falls so we stopped to get a closer look and take some pictures. The falls drops about 140 feet and it is only 22 feet wide at its narrowest point--it really is impressive and beautiful. It was sunny day so there w have included several pictures of the falls and of the rainbow.

I have included a couple of pictures of the falls and of the rainbow.


Murchison Falls, by the way, is named after the head of the British National Geographic Society who lived in the mid-nineteenth century.
Here is one of the last pictures that I took--it is of the group including our two drivers, Santos and Jarred; Christine, our World Vision Uganda host; and Evelyn, a schoolmate she met unexpectedly at Paraa Lodge and who caught a ride back to Kampala with us. Ellen, the free lance photographer who was in our group is taking the picture.


The drive back to Entebbe Airport was about seven hours of which the first four hours were on dirt roads. It is quite exhausting to travel far bouncing around in the vehicles--our drivers were "pushing the envelope" in terms of speed at times. But we arrived safely to a hotel near the airport where we were able to shower, have dinner, and then head out for Entebbe.

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Thought for the Day

Hope...is one of the ways in which what is merely future and potential is made vividly present and actual to us. Hope is the positive, as anxiety is the negative, mode of awaiting the future.
--Emil Brunner

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Uganda Trip-12

During the last full day that we spent in Uganda and the last day at the park, Monday, April 4, we took a boat ride the 10 1/2 miles up the Victoria Nile to Murchison Falls and then returned back. After the boat ride we went on one more safari trip as well. Spending the time at the park was a blessing to us not only because of the beauty of the park but for providing us some down time to create space for us to begin to process what we had seen in Gulu. We were aware that most of the inhabitants of Gulu would never have the opportunity to see this beautiful park with its great variety of animals.

On the boat ride we saw hundreds of hippos, many crocodiles, a lot of birds, and a good many land animals drinking on the side of the Nile. Corcodiles cool themselves by keeping their mouths open.



This is as close to the falls as we could get by boat.



During the Safari that we took during the afternoon, we came across nine lion cubs by the side of the road. The guide told us that the mothers were out hunting. We kept a wary eye out for them as we stopped and took pictures. Here is a picture that has several of them in it.


On Tuesday morning we headed out on our seven hour drive for Entebbe airport. We took a ferry across the Victoria Nile by the lodge and drove past the top of Murchison Falls.

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Thought for the Day

Faith is verification by the heart; confession by the tongue; action by the limbs.
--Sufi proverb

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Sunday's Prayer

Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Uganda Trip-11

By Friday night we were all pretty much "emotional toast." Over the course of the week we had seen and experienced a lot, and we all agreed that we were emotionally "topped off." We were ready to head out to the Paraa Safarai Park on the Victoria Nile by Murchison Falls. On Saturday morning we headed out for the five hour drive to the park.

The two and a half days that we spent here were a time to unwind and begin to process what we had seen in Northern Uganda. It turns out that the LRA did traverse the most eastern edge of the park, but never entered the center. Nevertheless, until very recently almost no one visited this game park. The park is 3840 square kilometers which equates to approximately 1500 square miles.

We really were not able to talk about what we had seen and experienced until a day and a half after arriving. We went on a couple of safaris and delighted on the beauty of the park and the amazing animal life that we observed. I have included a picture of the place where we stayed as well as a couple of pictures of the park and animals that we saw.

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Thought for the Day

The human being who denies his nature as a created being, ends up by claiming for himself attributes which are a sort of caricature of those that belong to the Uncreated.
--Gabriel Marcel

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Uganda Trip-10

After leaving the Children of War Center on Friday, 4/04, Christine took us to the Interpersonal Psychotherapy Therapy Group center. The purpose of this center is to help the children who are suffering from ongoing mental illness like depression. They broke us and the children into four groups and we met in smaller groups: the men met with boys and the women met with the girls.

We listened to a few of their stories, those who were willing to say anything about themselves that they felt safe sharing. Once again we heard horrendous stories about what some of the boys had endured. The story of one thirteen year old boy stood out to me. He is only thirteen and wanted to commit suicide because of some of the deaths on family members, especially his mother. Through the group therapy he no longer wants to kill himself and feels as though he has a reason to live. I have posted pictures of some of the students their and of the group of boys with whom Bob Givens and I met.


The last visit we made was to a small village where World Vision had donated musical instruments for the purpose of helping the healing and reconciliation that needs to go on in so many of these villages. The drums are large gourds called callabus and the music and dancing was wonderful. They actually pulled a few of us in to play them and I can assure you that I was not very rythmic: Bob and I were two very stiff white guys who stood out like sore thumbs!

It was a great experience and at the end the village gave us a live chicken as a gift and I was chosen to receive it. It was a very generous gift so we graciously received it and put it in the back of the van. Later we gave it to one of the World Vision staff.

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Thought for the Day

None knows the weight of another's burden.
--George Herbert

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Uganda Trip-9

The morning of the last full day that we spent in Gulu, Friday April 4th, we visited the Children of War Center. The center is the place where child soldiers come after escaping or being rescued from the LRA. The director of the center, Mark, had asked if I would lead devotions that morning so we met in a building in the middle of the compound and I gave the message to about 60 World Vision staff (many came from other sites). After devotions we asked Mark if we could anoint with oil and pray for any who would be so moved, and he gave his permission. So the eight of us stood in the front and I anointed each person with oil on their forehead and then all of us laid hands on the person and prayed for them. I believe everyone there came forward. It was a powerful experience.

After devotions we met Mama Ida, the woman in charge of counseling the child soldiers. She is a woman of great faith and wisdom, and you know that she has heard a lot heart-breaking stories. She shared a few of them briefly with us. The one that stands out in my mind is Gladys's story. She was a young mother of two, who was out working in the fields with other women and men when the LRA passed through. They killed everyone but her because she was pregnant and it is taboo to kill a pregnant woman in that area. So one of the commanders ordered one of the child soldiers to take a razor blade and cut off her ears, nose, and lips. He did so and they left her for dead. She did not die, however. Because her face was so mutilated her husband left her (it was unclear to me whether or not he took their two children as well). She has been to Germany several times for plastic surgery.

When she arrived at the IDP camp, who did she find there but the commander who had ordered her mutilation and the child soldier who had carried it out. She was understandably terrified and wanted to leave. Part of the important work of World Vision in these centers and in the villages is to help people to forgive and reconcile, not unlike the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. In one of the counseling rooms, Mama Ida showed us a couple of faded pictures of Gladys shaking hands with the commander that ordered her mutilation.

Mama Ida has adopted five former child soldiers.

After meeting with Mama Ida, we met with former child soldiers who have gone through the center. (There are no child soldiers in the center at this time because the LRA has not been active for about 3 1/2 years. The LRA which is somewhere on the border between the Sudan and the Central African Republic, still has child soldiers in it.) We met Christopher, Alice, and Jeffrey. They are all in their late teens or early 20s at this point and all of them have scars from bullet wounds or shrapnel wounds. Christopher is the last to have gone through the center and he still has a bandage on his right elbow from a bad wound that has not completely healed. Christopher was kidnapped when he was 9, Alice when she was 7 and Jeffrey when he was 8. Christopher and Alice were in the LRA for 11 years before each of them escaped during a crossfire. Alice had a baby with an LRA soldier when she was 12 years old. They both have harrowing stories of starvation, of firefights, and of their own arduous escapes. Jeffrey was left for dead about a year after his kidnapping. He still has the shrapnel in his forehead from the bombing that nearly killed him and basically has incapacitated him. In the picture I am giving Alice some dolls that Karen Bailey and friends knitted for me to take with me. Alice has two children and is taking care of her elderly parents and was thrilled to receive them. Jeffrey is in front and Christopher to Alice's left.

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Thought for the Day

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
--Mahatma Gandhi

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Uganda Trip-8

The last place we visited in the Koro/Bobi ADP area was an IDP. We had visited several of them during the week and this one that we visited was the saddest. It was the dirtiest and the most crowded one that we saw. The reason Christine took us there was to visit a child-headed household. There were six children in the family and a sixteen year-old was the head of the house. When we arrived, she and the fourteen year-old were off getting food, but we saw the four younger children. There were a lot of children in the IDP and they gathered around us in the crowded conditions. The following pictures are those I took in that IDP. Note the small yellow "house" in the center of one of the pictures: that, according to Christine, is the shower. I have no idea how it actually worked. In one of the pictures you can see the large refuse heap at one side of the IDP. In the midst of the poverty, we still saw children with smiles.

The first picture is of three of the children in the child-headed household and the next is a scene in the camp.







Notice the picture with the little yellow "house" and the refuse pile in the foreground.

The last picture I took was of two girls, I assume sisters, and their beautiful smiles as we left the IDP camp.

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Thought for the Day

He is truly happy who has all that he wishes to have, and wishes to have nothing which he ought not to wish.
--St. Augustine

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Uganda Trip-7

On the afternoon of Thursday, April 3rd, we visited a secondary school, the St. Thomas More Secondary School, in the Koro/Bobi ADP area. It is one of two secondary schools in a very large area and is the only one that didn't close down during the Civil War largely because there were no boarding students.

When we arrived we were met by the student choir which walked into our area singing, and then greeted by the headmaster, Todo Alex, who introduced himself, the faculty, the faculty, and the parents organization. I have included a picture of the student choir and of Todo Alex.



We were impressed with Alex, his vision for the school, and his concern for women. Frequently education is not a high priority for women in Africa, and this holds true in Uganda. Girls tend not to go to school or leave after a time to help out in the house. They also tend to marry at a young age. In fact here is poster we saw at another school concerning the effort by educators to encourage girls to receive a good education.


Alex told us that there were sixteen teachers, fourteen of which are male and two of which are female. He then proceeded to say that it shouldn't be this way: it should be half and half. He talked about the importance of educating girls. To this end he has the plan to build a hostel to board eighty girls. The school needs a laboratory (a rudimentary science building) in order to receive accreditation from the state, and they also need a library and a new latrine system. He showed us the kiln on the property that is ready to make bricks for the buildings. Here is a picture of one of the buildings. The room with the torn sheets across the windows is his office.

One of the most moving experiences we had was listening to a four page poem written by one of the students entitled "Hate, Hate, Hate." The poem captured not only what hate has done in the world, but in this young man's life especially through the civil war and the atrocities of the LRA. After the formal part of our meeting was over and we were preparing to leave, the headmaster told us that the young man who had written and read the poem was an orphan, whose parents and relatives had been killed. We were all moved. Here is a picture of the young man (whose name I can't remember) and the principle and the student body president. The young man is on the left, Alex is in the middle, and the student body president is on Alex's right.


I think that this school might provide us an excellent opportunity to partner with through the Koro/Bobi ADP. They have a vision, a plan, and the resources to begin to implememt it.

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Thought for the Day

Benevolence doesn't consist in those who are prosperous pitying and helping those who are not. Benevolence consists in fellow feeling that puts you upon actually the same level with the fellow who suffers.
--Woodrow Wilson

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Thought for the Day

Where there is love, there is life.
--Mahatma Gandhi

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Uganda Trip-6

On Thursday, April 3, we visited the Koro/Bobi ADP. They invited us for devotions, so we arrived at 8:00 a.m. and shared in their devotions. They had asked if one of us would lead so Bob Givens volunteered. As always, between the singing and the sharing, it was a blessing to us all.

The director of this ADP is Christine and it has only existed for two months. Christine is a charismatic Roman Catholic with a vibrant faith. Here is a picture of her. Notice the white rabbit lying at her feet. They have about six or seven domestic rabbits running free in the yard.

We visited a couple of primary schools in the morning along with a visit to two water sources out in the bush that several villages used as their primary water supply. I have two pictures of one water supply, a pool in a little brook. Notice how white the water is. It looked terrible.




Christine then took us to another water source that was much smaller but the water looked as unhealthy as the pool of water looked.

A high priority for World Vision is access to clean water because so many of the diseases that kill people and especially children are waterborne and the function of unclean water supplies.

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Sunday's Prayer

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that I, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ my Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.

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Uganda Trip-5

In this blog I want to finish sharing a story and pictures while we were in the Paicho-Bungatir ADP area. After visiting the health center, we visited a primary school which had been located in the thoroughfare of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). You can see the bullet holes in the building in the picture.






Most of the schools did not have real soccer balls for the children to play with. The most common soccer ball was banana leaves tightly rolled together and wrapped and second most commonly they used plastic bags rolled up and tied. I have included a picture of one of the plastic bag soccerballs.


Tom Slicklen, one of the two World Vision USA staff leading this trip had a lot of soccer balls that had been donated by companies that make athletic gear and we gave the school three of the balls with a pump to pump them up. When he gave it to the headmistress, she threw the soccerball on the ground and then all of the students started kicking it and running after it. They were really excited--I'm sure it is the first real soccer ball that they had ever had.


This last picture is of a classroom at the school. The teacher had the children sing a couple of songs for us. Notice how crowded this classroom is.

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Thought for the Day

The best way out is always through.
--Robert Frost

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Uganda Trip-4

We visited a primary school in the Aber ADP amongst all of the trips to sponsored children's houses and wanted to share a picture of the children and headmaster at this school as well as a building.




On Wednesday, 4/2, we visited another ADP, the Paicho-Bungatir ADP. The director of this ADP is Abok Paul and they have been in existence for about four months. It is not far from Gulu. In the morning we visited an IDP (Internal Displaced Persons) camp which was just across the street and a few hundred yards down the road from the ADP headquarters. This IDP is about one square kilometer and while houses are tightly packed together, it was one of the "better" ones that we visited relatively speaking. Following are several pictures of this IDP camp.



As you can see, they have a well with a number of water containers surrounding it which means that they have access to clean water. The women and children are responsible for getting water.

We also visited another primary school in this ADP area. These children have no desks or chairs to sit in--they sit on the concrete floor. As the headmaster noted, when it rains it makes it very difficult because the floor becomes wet. As I mentioned in an earlier post, schools do not have glassed in windows. Here is a picture of a classroom at this school.


In the afternoon we toured the Coope Health center in Bungatira. The physician there is Dr. Willy, and he were all impressed by his dedication. The health center deals with HIV/AIDs and he said that in northern Uganda the infection rate is about 13% whereas the infection rate for the country as a whole is about 9%. He gave us a brief tour and we prayed with him before we left. Below is a picture of Dr. Willy and the health center.

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Thought for the Day

The answer to the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" must always be, "No! I am my brother's brother.
--Dr. Paul Klapper

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The Amazing Work of Paul Farmer

Sunday's Boston Globe had an interesting article about Dr. Paul Farmer and the amazing job that he is doing in Rwanda (Rwanda is contiguous with Uganda on the southwest side). He is building hospitals in some of the most remote and poor areas in the country. We visited and Aids clinic/hospital in Gulu and things are basic--they could benefit greatly from someone like Dr. Farmer building hospitals in Uganda.

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Uganda Trip-3

The first ADP (Area Development Program) that we visited was Aber. Aber is probably 30 to 40 miles south of Gulu. It doesn't seem far, but the road between Gulu and Aber was terrible. It was an old paved road with millions of large potholes in it so that the driver was always zigzagging trying to drive around the largest ones. But the drive was rough--it's amazing how tired you get bouncing around in the vehicle. Above is a picture of the sign directing us off road to the ADP headquarters.

We met the director of the ADP whose name is Fred, and he introduced us to the rest of the World Vision Staff working at the Aber ADP. this ADP has been up and running for about six months. Here is a picture of the staff.

Most of the day (this was Tuesday, 4/1) was spent visiting sponsored children out in the bush. Of the eight of us, five sponsored children through this ADP, and two others met with children sponsored by friends. I was the only one who didn't have a sponsored child or a friend who sponsored a child in Uganda. As it turns out, one of the children that Beth and I sponsor is in Kenya, the next country to the east, but too far away to visit.

It is always a moving experience to visit a child that you sponsor. I have had the privilege of visiting two children that we have sponsored, one in South India ten years ago, and the other in the tiny land locked country of Lesotho located "inside" of South Africa in 2005. The children get all dressed up, and the village is there to meet you--it is a very big deal not only for the children, but for the adults as well. There are introductions, and exchange of gifts, and of course pictures. Ellen, our free lance photographer suggested that we bring Polaroid film with us for her Polaroid camera so we could take pictures and give them to the children. This was a great idea and a big hit! Most of these people have not only never seen a picture of themselves, many do not have mirrors, so they really do not know what they look like. Everyone, both children and adults, loved it when we took their picture, gave it to them, and they watched it slowly develop in their hands.

At the second village we visited there were a lot of children but there were four boys on the margin who caught my attention. They were very poor, but there was just blank stares on their faces. I gave each of them a piece of candy which they accepted but didn't change the expression on their faces. Even after Tom Slicklen gave each of them a new jersey (which for most kids would have brought big smiles) there was the same blank stare. A couple of them looked sick, and it was heart breaking realizing that some of them probably would not survive childhood. Here are two pictures of the boys, one before the jerseys and the second after receiving them. Look at their faces.

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