The Need No One Else Would Fill

I am out this week at Covenant Cedars for Royal Family Kids Camp (RFKC).  It’s a week of fried chicken, fruit snacks, and spaghetti.  A week of “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” and “Oh ma chey chey!”  A week of doing terrifying things for the sake of a nine-year old (things like the zip line and the 3-story-tall water slide).

The campers at RFKC are foster kids.  Kids between the ages of 5 and 11 who, for some reason or the other (and usually the reason isn’t a very nice one), have been involved or are still involved with Nebraska’s social services.

They’re pretty messed up kids.

Proof that it is possible to destroy a child’s character in a mere 5 years.

Living examples of the results of trying to raise a kid with something very opposed to the love of Jesus.

They remind me of the kids I met in northern Uganda.

Her mom abandoned her babies, and his mom was abducted by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army; you might want to google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about).  His dad was on drugs, and her dad has AIDS.  His dad is in jail.  She never knew her mom.

Like Sarah.

I met Sarah at a police woman’s house.  Sarah lives at this house because she is a total orphan.  “Total orphan” is the term Ugandans use to explain that both a child’s parents are dead. (The word “orphan” can mean that one or both of the parents are actually alive, but are either unable or unwilling to care for their child.)  Sarah’s dad used to be a pastor.  But he was killed by the LRA.  They killed him with a panga.  Which is an African word for machete.  Sarah cried and cried when she told me what happened to her parents.  I wondered if she had been there and watched the day the LRA killed her father.

Sarah’s mom died of AIDS.

If Sarah didn’t live with this police woman in Lira, she would be on the streets instead.  There is nowhere else for her to go.  No one wants her.  No one cares whether she lives or dies.  No one is interested in what she wants to be when she grows up.

In Nebraska when we have kids like this, they get picked up by social services.  They get placed in foster homes.  They get sponsored by the government.

In Africa, the police who get the call about an abandoned kid are the only hope those kids have.  If the police don’t care, no one else cares either.  In Lira, at least some of the police saw the need no one else would fill.  They decided to do something about it.

How many Sarah's are there in northern Uganda?

How many Sarah's are there in Nebraska?

Olal Eric: Jesus Is Enough

So, I’ve finally gotten to the part I’ve been most excited for, the part I’ve been dying to tell you.  The stories I went to Uganda to find.  The faces God set in front of me - faces and names I now know - that I want to share with you.

And I can’t figure out what to say.

It’s not that I don’t have anything.  It’s that I have too much.  And it’s not words.  It’s faces.  Sparkling eyes and shy smiles.  Laughter.  Names.

Dogo.

Dennis.

Jarred.

Beatrice.

Kristopher.

Solomon.

People I know.  Children I’ve met.  Brothers and sisters in Christ.  Friends.

And I think: “Dude.  Blogging is really a pathetic way to meet a person.”  I wish I could take you on a plane, and we could walk the streets of northern Uganda together.  I wish we could sit at the little yellow restaurant that serves rice and g-nut (short for ground nut, or peanuts) sauce and Coke.  I wish you could hop on the back of Washington’s boda and experience the thrill of Africa on two wheels.  I wish we could stop at Dennis’s house and sit in the shade.  Or meet Solomon at CRO (Child Rehabilitation Outreach), a ministry for street kids.  Or talk with Jarred after a soccer game.

Maybe next year.

For now, this is going to have to do.

I’d like you to meet Olal Eric.

Olal is 23 years old.  I met him one day when I went to the Internet café near the church to check my email.  I was surprised by how young he looked because there was an ancient peace on his face that you usually only see in much older people.

Olal works with street kids.  Before the war, Lira didn’t have any street kids.  Now there are half a thousand - and that’s a low estimate.  Olal and a friend saw the need, and they decided to do something about it.  They didn’t have any money or any resources.  But they had feet and hands and hearts that loved Jesus.  So, they walked out onto the streets and started befriending the friendless.

Street kids in Lira aren’t exactly welcomed.  A week before I arrived, the police riled up the community against the street kids so that they attacked the kids where they were sleeping one night and beat them, killing a couple and arresting more than 20.  This is the attitude of the local community towards street children.

Except for Olal.  And other people like him whose hearts God has touched.  Softened.  Strengthened.  Moved.  So that when he sees a kid on the street - someone maybe only a few years younger than himself - he helps.  He may not have money to pay for their school fees or a roof to put over their heads or food to put in their mouths.  But he has Jesus.  And even in northern Uganda, Jesus is enough.

Olal says to tell my church and my family that “I LOVE THEM.” (That’s exactly the way he typed it - and he’s never even met you guys!)  He is praying for God's open doors in northern Uganda.

Knocking Off the Hinges

(A brief explanation in terms: Pastor Johnson is the Ugandan pastor who was my sole contact in Lira, Uganda, when I first arrived.  We are not related except that we have the same Father.  Alpha is the name of the hotel/guest house where I stayed during my two weeks in Lira, and it is run by Pastor Johnson and his family.  Victory Outreach Church [aka VOC] is a large church in Lira, of which Pastor Johnson is one of five pastors.)

Meet Washington:

      And Pat:

These two men are a large part of the reason my journey to Lira included more than me sitting in my room all day, wondering why I was there.  They were God’s answer to a prayer I didn’t know how to pray.  My side went something like this: “So, God, I’m up here in northern Uganda where I don’t know anyone, and no one’s really been waiting for me to come, and I’ve got no schedule and no organization in charge of me . . . So, what am I supposed to be doing again?”

God’s answer went like this: I was walking down the noisy, red-dirt streets of downtown Lira.  Population 119,323 (from Google).  I was trying not to get run over by any of the motorcycles, fall into the open sewer systems, trip into pedestrians, or knock over any small businesses on the side of the road.

Needless to say, I was a bit preoccupied.

The boda (Ugandan for motorcycle; remember this word as I probably won’t explain it again.) was stalled in front of me, and its two occupants were yelling my name before I even realized they were there.

How did two strange Ugandans get to know my name?  I didn’t know being white made me that big of a celebrity.  Then I made out what they were saying.  “Rebecca!  We have a meeting with you at 2:30.  We will be at Alpha.  Meet us there!”  And then they were gone.

Hm.

I’ve had strange men stop on the side of the road and ask me to go out with them before (see this post if you’d like to know the details), but never this!

At 2:30 I was faithfully sitting at Alpha, wondering if my two random friends/complete strangers would show.

They did.

The three of us sat down at a table under the shade of a tree, and I met Pat and Washington, VOC delegates sent to welcome this strange white woman who had come all by herself and didn’t seem to know what she was doing.

I love how they started the meeting.  Pat tried to ask some questions: “Pastor Johnson says you are here in Lira for two weeks.  We want to know what your schedule looks like, what you are expecting to do.  We want to hear why you -”

Washington waved a hand.  “No, no,” he said.  “First, we pray.”

I didn’t know that with that simple introduction, God had just knocked the hinges off every closed door I didn’t know how to open.

Tender Hearts Baby Home

Kampala, Uganda.

A twisted little red-dirt street so nondescript, we drove past it the first time.  But this little side road holds an important house.  A house for children whose biological parents have abandoned them.

It is called Tender Hearts Baby Home, and it is run by a man named Kenneth and his wife whose name I forgot to write down.  When I was visiting, Tender Hearts had seven children age five and under in their protection.  These are children thrown away on the side of the road.  Children born of rape.  Children too expensive to feed.  Whatever the reason, their parents do not want them, and so they are left.

Abandoned.  Forgotten.  Alone.

When the police find these children, they contact Tender Hearts.  The children (sometimes only weeks old!) are brought to the home, their families researched and recorded, and medical treatment given as needed.  If no relatives are willing to care for the child, they are made available for international adoption.

Kenneth and his wife have been running Tender Hearts for the past two years.  But Kenneth’s interest in orphans started long ago.  By the time he reached his early twenties, both Kenneth’s parents were dead.  He was an orphan.  At first, he became very angry with God.  Why would a loving God allow this?  Where was God anyway?  Was he all alone in the world now?  In his anger and confusion, he began searching the Bible.  And it was there, in the Word of God, that Kenneth learned, as he said “to accept God’s will.”  He began discipling orphan boys.  He married, and he and his wife continued together in their work with abandoned children.  Then God told them to start a baby home.

Tender Hearts is the result.

This is a very brief sketch of Kenneth and the work he heads.  But, even though my visit was only a couple hours, I learned something very important from Kenneth.  Something I would see over and over in my time in Uganda.

The people who are serving the children in the deepest pain, the rawest need - abandoned babies, street children, former child soldiers - these are the very people who once lived there themselves.

I see in this the power of God to bring beauty from ashes.  From our worst calamities, our deepest heartaches, we have a God who is very capable of bringing good.  So much good that we start to wonder if it wasn’t best that He wounded us in the first place.  Who better to father the orphans than a man who has known the sting of being orphaned himself?

This is what Kenneth taught me.  It wasn't the last time I would learn the lesson.

(If you would like more information about Tender Hearts Baby Home and Night Light, the heading adoption agency, please click here.)

The First Step Into the Unknown

And then I went to Uganda.

Walking out of the Nairobi backpacker’s hostel and climbing into the car that was taking me to the airport at 5:30 in the morning on May 1 was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.

Why?

Because I was going alone.

Not only this, but I had had a total of one phone conversation with the man I hoped was picking me up at the airport, and I had no idea what he looked like.

Not only this, but I then had two entire weeks - fourteen days! - to spend in Uganda without the first clue how I was going to be spending them.

Not only this, but I was leaving behind an amazing team and unlimited ministry opportunities in Kenya for . . . what purpose, again?

I had a driver to drive me up to Lira in northern Uganda (a good six-hour drive), but no one to bring me back to Kampala to catch my flight back to the States two weeks later.  I had a place to stay in Lira but no plans for what to do with my time.  I had been promised breakfast, but I wasn’t sure how I would be getting lunch and dinner.  I had no driver in Lira.  I had no schedule.  I had no extra money.  I had no phone.

How would you have felt, stepping onto the airplane with all that . . . unknown-ness in front of you?

I did know one thing.

Revelation chapter 3, verse 8.  The voice of the Lord saying, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.”  I kept repeating it to myself over and over again when I started thinking about the very pitiful list of things I did know, the overwhelming list that I had no clue about.  God opened the door.  God opened the door.  I don’t need to know everything that’s on the other side.  Just this one step through the door is all I need, cause God opened it.

I wasn’t being very brave about it.  Joshua’s “Be strong and very courageous” got lost somewhere between the front porch of the hostel and the passenger door of the airport car.  But God knew.  And He saw.  And in the two weeks that followed that lonely ride to the airport, He blew open more doors than I could ever have imagined.

But it all started with that one terrifying step out into the unknown.

A Walk Through the Darkness

Meet Keziah (Kay-zee-ah) Wagari and Lucy Wangui.  They are two girls who live in the IDP camp in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  I don’t know much about Keziah and Lucy.  I can’t tell you how old they are or how many brothers and sisters they have or what they want to be when they grow up.  Instead, I want to tell you about a walk we took together.

The day I met Lucy, she was introduced to me as “Sassy Lucy.”  I was told that the name was well-earned, so when she asked me if I wanted to walk to town with her (about a 15-minute walk from the IDP camp), I wasn’t sure if it was entirely safe.  Who knows what a wild, mischievous girl can think up for a single white woman who doesn’t know her way around.  I said yes anyway.

I tried to have a conversation with Lucy on the walk to town, but she didn’t say much besides “yes” or “no.”  Keziah joined us half-way there, and the girls began rattling away in Swahili.  I decided to enjoy the scenery.  In town, we visited a mill where the girls took their bags of maize (corn) and ground it into flour.  I was fascinated.  I don’t think I’ve ever been a real, live, working mill before.

When it was time to leave, the girls pretended they didn’t have any money to pay the man who had ground their maize.  He asked me if I was going to pay for them.  I said no, they had brought money themselves.  Finally, the girls dug in their pockets and paid what they owed.

That was only the beginning of the sassiness.

On the walk back towards the camp, Lucy wanted to trade flip-flops with me.  I’m not at all sure, once she got mine on, that she meant to give them back.  Keziah asked for a piece of paper with my name on it and, once she had it, proceeded to stick it in her mouth and eat it.  Both girls tried to convince me that we were supposed to take a certain road that wasn’t going to lead us back to the camp.  They were flat-out lying and pretending to be angry with me for not doing everything they wanted.

I saw in their behavior a very small glimpse at the darkness that the AIM team confronts on a daily basis in the IDP camp.  It is not a very special kind of darkness.  It is not unique to IDP camps or Kenya or Africa.

But we talked about it one morning during worship, and it has the potential to be a very destructive force.  Why?  Because when we walk into darkness like that, when we brush up against it, our first reaction is usually something like disgust.  Walk away.  Talk about how awful they were to us.  Avoid them next time if at all possible.

But what about the people we’re walking away from?  What about Keziah and Lucy?  Are they lost causes Jesus didn’t mean to save?

At the end of our worship time, Clint said something like this: “Everyone down there is my brother, my sister.  I love them not because I love them, but because Jesus loves them.  So, I’m not going to talk bad about what he did to me.  And I’m not going to ignore her because she was mean.  He is my brother.  She is my sister.  How does Jesus want to love them today?”

Keziah and Lucy are not bad girls.  They’re not abnormally naughty.  They’re not lost causes.  They’re just young girls who at present haven’t decided to follow Jesus with all their hearts.  Maybe they don’t have moms who love them.  Maybe they don’t have role models to show them the way.  Maybe they don’t have a grandma who prays for them every day the way my grandma prayed for me.

Who will show Keziah and Lucy what it means to be loved by Jesus?

The Bride of Christ in Kenya

Welcome to Africa.

I stepped off the airplane in Nairobi the night of April 23, knowing very little.  Flight times in and out, something about a team, IDP camp, contacts somewhere in northern Uganda maybe . . . Doesn’t Kenya have giraffes?  That sounds interesting.  I walked in mostly blind.  It’s becoming something of a gift in my life.  It wasn’t always this way, but I have come to seriously enjoy walking into a place, more or less completely unknowing, and waiting with great expectation to see what God will do.

This is why I call myself a Bohemian. (Well, that and the skirts I wear.)

I still don’t know all the reasons God took me to Kenya, but I can tell you what I saw there.  I saw the Body of Christ.  In Cristianna, Kelli, Matt Ruple, and Matt Patch - the four who currently make up AIM’s Kenya Initiative.  They love each other.  Very evidently, very obviously.  They are a small picture of the Body of Christ, living on the side of a mountain overlooking the Rift Valley.  They’ve been in Africa for something like a year now, and their hearts are with the people in an IDP camp that came into being four years ago due to violence caused by political elections.  During my week with the team, we talked about our different giftings, what God has fitted us for, and someone said this:

The picture God gave me of the team is like a car.  Kelli’s the interior, cause she welcomes people in and makes them feel comfortable.  Cristianna’s the outside, cause she attracts people to Christ.  Ruple is the engine, with the motivation and the strength to move forward, and Patch is the wheels with the creative ideas to tell us where to go.

I listened to this and thought, What a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ.  Each one aware of who they were alone in Christ, and then choosing to come together and offer those strengths and weaknesses to mesh with the rest of the Body.

The Body of Christ is a breathtaking thing.

Oh, the possibilities! I thought, watching this team.  What potential to go into the camp as the Bride of Christ, to pick up the children, to sit down with the moms, to walk with the dads, to work in the gardens and eat in the tents - to share Jesus out of a heart connected with the Head, hand in hand with your team, your family.

“They will know we are Christians by our love.”  This is what I saw from the team in Kenya.  I thank God for the team - for the leadership He’s put over them and for the people He’s reaching through them.

I encourage you to pray for them.  They are very open to how God is moving - to what He wants to do this day, next month, next year.  They are working in a hard place.  From their town, we saw the lights of truckers driving through the valley at night, stopping for prostitutes on the side of the road.  We ran into drunks in the middle of the day.  The women like to gossip about everything, and most of the men don’t have steady work.  We know kids who can’t go to school.  Everyone we met needs the love (not the judgment or harshness or ill will) of the team to show them the face of Jesus.

And that’s what I saw in this team.  Their hearts are broken and willing.  They are waiting on God each day to tell them what to do.  They’re also praying for more hands to help in the work.  “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”  For a few days, I was even wondering if God didn’t want me to join them.  But, of course, at that point, I hadn’t been to northern Uganda yet . . .

The team: If you look at just the muzungus (*whites*), from left to right: Clint Bokelman (God's open door for getting me to Kenya), Jeff Hylton (who was also in Haiti my very week-long trip there), Matt Ruple, Cristianna, Matt Patch, Courtney, Bill Bush (who works for AIM), and Kelli.

The Mammoth Task

I have a mammoth task in front of me.  Honestly, I don’t know if I’m up for it.  It would be so much easier to jump back on a plane, pick up my bag that was left in Nairobi, and move permanently to Central Africa.  It would be easier for me to do this.

Easier, but not better.

It is no longer time for me to sit on the football (soccer) field and pray with teenage boys who live on the streets.  It’s not time to drink Chai with a 12-year old whose mom went away for an extended visit, leaving him in charge of his two younger brothers.  It’s not time to wonder if the mosquito biting my arm is carrying malaria.  It’s not time to pick up the random toddler who’s wandered over to my chair in the middle of the church service.

Instead it’s time for me to stare at this blank computer screen, trying to find words that will let your eyes see what my eyes saw, let your ears hear what my ears heard, let your heart break the way my heart broke.

Not out of obligation or a plea for funds or the sake of a good story.  I want to share because that’s the door God’s given me to walk through right now.  That’s what time it is.

And the church in Lira, Uganda, is praying for me.  As a man named Christopher Odongo said, they are praying that my journey to northern Uganda is like when Joshua and Caleb spied out the Promised Land.  That the report I bring back to you will be an encouragement that the giants in the land are not as scary as we thought they were.  They are praying that we see the milk and honey.  They are praying that my story will not be in vain.

It is a big prayer.

It feels even bigger now that I’m back in the States, and I can’t actually physically set one of the orphans in your lap.  You can’t shake the hand of Solomon, a street boy for the last six years because both his parents abandoned him.  You can’t ride down the road with David, who asked that I use a different name when I write about him so the Ugandan government doesn’t read that he fought for the LRA.  You can’t hear Sarah’s voice break when she tried to tell me what happened to her parents.  You can’t see the tears roll down her cheeks.

But I’ll do my best to share with you.  To introduce you to the pastors, the orphans, the former child soldiers, the street boys who have captured my heart.  And I’m praying.  For the kids who didn’t eat breakfast this morning, for the ones who cried last night, for the ones who wished they could go to school today.  And I’m praying for you.  I’m praying that God breaks our hearts for the same things that break His.

An Intro to the Adventure

I am back in Nebraska. Except for my family, my dog, and chocolate, it doesn’t really feel anything like home. My initial thought is that walking down the road here feels to me something like walking down the road in Africa might feel to you. I’ve left my heart, but it’s not in San Francisco. It’s lodged most definitely in Central Africa, and I don’t think it’s going to be moving any time soon.

Isn’t it funny how quickly God can spin your world around?

Two months ago, I had no idea I was about to board a plane for Nairobi, Kenya. One month ago, I hadn’t heard hardly a word about the streets of Lira, Uganda. And then very quietly, with almost no warning, God opened a door. And I walked through it.

And the angels were singing “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” and the very heavens were holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next, and I stumbled blindly along, bumping into walls, stubbing my toes, and really not having a clue what I was getting myself into.

I may be following after the King of kings, but that doesn’t mean I’m being very graceful about it. I still don’t have anything like a plan or an outline. But these last three weeks in Africa haven’t been much about me. They’ve been a showcase of the faithfulness of God Almighty. A testament to His mercy. A loud, ringing chorus of His love that never fails.

I’ve sat in a house in an IDP camp. I’ve drunk Chai tea that wasn’t made with “safe” water, and it didn’t make me sick. I’ve talked with boys who were abducted into the LRA and forced to kill. I’ve ridden a boda-boda (motorcycle) down the hectic streets of Kampala and felt as safe as I do now, sitting in this chair in my room. I’ve climbed an African mountain . . . hill. I know the names of boys who live on the streets, girls whose parents abandoned them, pastors who have a heart for orphans, brothers whom God has called to rescue the lost.

I’ve seen Jesus’ pulsing, bleeding, overflowing heart for the children.

And just that - just that one look into Jesus’ heart - has broken my heart for these kids. These hyper-active, naughty, loud, snotty-nosed, shiny-eyed, grinning, beautiful kids.

He’s begun to give me His heart for them. Not a plan on how to help, or an outline for an organization, or a goal to fundraise for. Just His heart. It’s what I saw every day in Africa - in the IDP camps, the churches, the streets, the houses, the tents. I know a few more of their faces now; I know their names. I am looking forward to introducing them to you.

24 Hours Left

Hey, all! This has to be quick, but I wanted to write once more while I'm still on the ground here in Africa. Actually, I'm not on the ground; I'm three stories up. Typing away very proficiently on my nook. I feel very high-tech. I want to let y'all know that I've had a good four years of African culture and studies crammed into the last two weeks. God has been so good and worked way past my wildest imagination (which, if you know anything about my imagination, is saying quite a bit). I am very excited to share with y'all when I land Stateside...although it might take awhile. I hope to have enough time to tell you everything God has done before I get on another plane (or a ship might be fun) and move to Africa. God knows. As always, I've all sorts of ideas but no real plans. The northern Ugandansa send you their greetings. God bless!