Welcome to day one of camp at Bugolobi school! What a difference from Rwanda - but I cannot say the children are any less dear. They met us this morning with such happy smiles and lights in their eyes like we were their favorite thing this year. It was quite endearing. We walked through the wide open double doors to the sound of their voices raised in song, echoing through the church. They start off every morning with a beautiful mixture of recitation and song. We heard Psalm 23 quoted brilliantly and flawlessly by 120 young voices, something that might have been the Ugandan national pledge (not quite sure about that one), and a prayer of blessing for all of us. And then they pray in a heartwarming way with every voice speaking aloud, until, at an undetermined moment, one voice will rise above the others, thank God quite sincerely, and then we all say, “Amen!”
Then it is our turn. We do not start off the day half so well. First, it is a skit, where Jon runs out into the middle of the children where our “stage” is and tries valiantly to read his lines as Willy Wildman without laughing. Then I come skittering out with a blue mask that is supposed to be over my face, but the eye holes are too small, so I tip it up over my hair instead. I get the honor of being Willy’s rather scattered assistant, Lloyd. The monkey. If I didn’t enjoy acting so much, it might be a bit of a trial. But hearing the dear children’s giggles makes up for any lack on the grandness of the lines!
After singing our theme song, which, regardless of the truth in the words (they’re rather simple; we just sing “Jesus is King” approximately 500 times with a couple verses about safari animals thrown in for good measure), I have already come to dislike intensely, we split into our five groups and go our separate ways. Jon and I are in charge of the music, and Jon is an excellent guitar player - which leaves me with the singing and, um, dancing. Dancing might be a bit too generous a word. The children were amazing and picked up on the songs quickly. I think, however, that we will not be able to teach songs for all 45 minutes of our sessions day after day. It is not enough variety.
Which brings me to the hardest part of today - the part that was not all smiles and sunshine. Well, there was sunshine, but it felt more like sunburn after nearly four hours of sessions outside. The day was simply long. I was tired, Jon was tired, and Molly (in charge of games outside on the rocky driveway) was tired. Which is not so surprising. Only I think maybe we were more tired than we had to be. If we could just change the schedule, switch things up a bit, perhaps it would not be so hard on us - or the children, who were rather beginning to lose it by the fourth session. Forty-five minute periods of games, music, dance, crafts, and Bible stories - it sounds like a school schedule! So some of us thought maybe we could revamp the schedule - make it easier and, in the process, hopefully more fun. Only not all the team agreed, and, after several rather strained moments of discussion at the end of the day, we still hadn’t come to any compromise. It was rather sad actually. I’m sure we all came here for the glory of God and the sake of the children . . . but to see such division in a team that has come together under Your guidance . . . What do You want me to do, Lord? It is hard not to compare this team with the Rwandan team - so much easier to just write them off as too difficult and long for Rwanda again. But did You not bring us all here together in Uganda just as You had brought us all together in Rwanda? Surely, You did not do it so we could fight each other.
So, I see now the indispensable necessity of unity in the body of Christ - of flexibility and the willingness to give up your own personal preferences for the sake of the whole. How will the world know we are Christians except by our love? How will the children know that we love them if we cannot love each other? Oh, if only the Church could remember this always! Your children are in disharmony, God, and that is not Your purpose. That is not Your heart. The longest recorded prayer of Jesus is about what? - about unity in the family of God. He says, “I pray . . . that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one (John 17:20,21).”
This is my prayer. Amen.
