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.