Bear Witness to My Story

Wednesday, March 12

Day 2

After an excellent night's sleep under the mosquito nets while listening to the pouring rain, we expected to find a muddy mess when we went outside in the morning. To the contrary, the roads were as dry and dusty as the day before, that's how badly this bush area has been affected by the drought. We enjoyed a hot breakfast in the dining hall and were then given our job assignments for the day: mud a schoolhouse, give 350+ kids de-worming medication, and repair a well for a nearby village. Maggie Josiah from AHI had relationships built with the local village people and when groups like ours come through they team up with her to serve the poor communities surrounding her. (When I say poor, I mean poorer than many of the villages I experienced during my childhood in Bangladesh. With Bangladesh being one of the poorest nations in the world, I couldn't before imagine poverty like I saw in this war-ravaged Ugandan community.)

We started by getting the kids paired up with a good, sturdy bicycle. Well, paired up with a bicycle anyway. Some of us had to bike to the village and the kids were eager to volunteer. It ended up being several miles away and we were impressed with their stamina on these 50's era bicycles. (Truth be told, this ended up being one of their highlights at the end of the week.)

Off to the school house we go! We arrived to see a termite hill that had been broken apart. Termite hills in Africa can be several feet tall -- as in 6-7 feet tall. They are quite impressive! (And quite perfect for giving one nightmares of creepy crawlies...even without the help of malaria medication!) This one had been dug into and broken down, all ready for us to add water and stomp around in. Breaking down the mud in this way gets it to the appropriate consistency for mudding the building. Thankfully, many of the men were willing volunteers and most of the ladies got to opt out. The kids got into it and Denise, always up for a new adventure (and to be sure her friends back home would be sufficiently impressed by her missional heart for service), was the first woman to climb in. All of us other ladies were adequately appreciative of her efforts on our behalf.

Once the mud was sufficiently mixed, an assembly line was formed to pass handfuls of mud down to the wall that needed finished. Everyone jumped in line (well, except for me because I was...ahem...the designated photographer....thank you, Lord!) and began passing huge clumps of mud down the line where it a new pile of mud was created.  Finally, after enough mud had accumulated, everyone gathered for the mud-slinging. To properly mud a wall you must throw it at the wall!  You can imagine the fun everyone had throwing mud.

During this time, a couple other ladies had sat down with the students to begin the distribution of worm medication. They opened each package up and gave each child a dry caplet of medication which they then put into their mouths and began chewing! I felt so badly that they didn't have the ability to drink it down with fresh water. A few children spat it out, but most chewed it right up and swallowed it. I caught a couple of kids taking theirs out of their mouths, passing it along to their friend who thought it tasted just fine. Yuck! After we figured out that we needed to be sure each of them swallowed it, we started putting the tablet directly into their mouths and watched as they chewed it up. We figured at that point it was too hard to pass along to their neighbor.

When the mudding was done our children began running around the schoolyard playing tag with the kids. It was so fun to see them reaching out to one another in friendship even though they couldn't communicate with words. These village children were from deep in the bush and hadn't had the luxury of learning English yet. They had to rely on hand gestures and facial expressions to communicate with our children. No matter, they got their messages of joy and happiness across.

We stopped by another school to de-worm some more children on our way back to Maggie's for lunch. At this site we simply dispensed the medication and played, played played! This school had a fun little playground and our kids pushed them on the swings, climbed the monkey bars with the Ugandan children and played tag. Michael swung kids around and carried them on his shoulders. We sang and played song games (sort of like Ring-Around-A-Rosey) and sat in the dirt and played with matchbox cars. It was a delightful time and became a highlight of the week for a few of our kids.

After a delicious lunch of taco soup and cornbread back at Maggie's (Can you tell she's trained some really great cooks? We loved the food!), we departed for another village where we were going to help repair their well. Maggie's philosophy of ministry is that the villagers have to come up with the money for their own supplies and then she will help provide the labor through teams like ours. While the men worked in close quarters on the well job, the women stood under a fruit tree for shade, held babies and talked to the village women.

Our children, naturally, ran around again playing games with the village children. One little girl was completely taken with Morgan's long blonde hair and kept "trying it on" her own head. It was quite hysterical! A few girls eventually talked Morgan into letting them braid her hair. Kenlee & Allison had a group of kids dancing around the courtyard with them whileWyatt played hide and go seek and tag with a large crowd. We were quite impressed with the kids ability to have fun and not grow weary in the heat.

It was something to see the water come rushing out of the well when the men were finished. The villagers had been without water for close to 9 months and had been hauling their water from a nearby village that was about 5 miles away. They were both relieved and elated to have their own water supply repaired and we were delighted to be even a tiny part of that huge blessing in their lives!

After another delicious meal we gathered around to watch a video telling us more about the ministry of AHI. It was Maggie's story of how she was sexually abused by both her mother and her father. Her childhood abuse pushed her into a life of prostitution as an adult before finding Christ. I've linked her story here for you to watch. (Click on "Maggie's Story" in the left column...I can't recommend a better way of spending the next 15 minutes.) Hers is an amazing story of the grace of God and the beauty He delights in restoring to wounded souls. The ministry of AHI was a blessing to us already but even more so when knowing the backstory of the beautiful Maggie Josiah. One thing Maggie said to me that really penetrated my heart was, "Here in Uganda my story is every woman's story. In Uganda, a story like mine is nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary. It just is." For those who have been touched by sexual abuse you can relate to how profound that statement is on so many levels.

After dinner, as the adults sat around getting to know one another better, a few village friends the kids had met earlier at the well site showed up to play hide and seek in the dark with the kids. It doesn't take much for these kids of ours to make new friends, especially not here in the bush of Africa when their peers are so eager. How fun to hear their laughter ring out as they "found" each other (with flashlights) hiding behind banyan trees and termite hills. (True story: the Ugandan kids were always the hardest to find. They won every round!)

Bragging rights for the day: Denise who gave the mudding experience her best efforts and Russ for taking a bike to the village and then sticking it out even when he got a bum bicycle.