Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers 'til I reach you
This week our class
packed our bags and headed up to Gulu for a few days to visit the different
Watoto projects there. Most of us have
never been there before and have been anticipating this trip from the beginning
of the program.
After a six hour
journey on the bumpy highway, our three buses made it to Gulu. Gulu is in northern Uganda and for those of
you who have been living under a rock for the past few years and have never
heard of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) and Joseph Kony, Gulu is old stomping
grounds for this guerilla group who now have moved out of Uganda and into the border
regions of northeastern Congo, South Sudan, and Central African Republic.
Remnants of the war still can be seen in bullet holes in some of the
buildings downtown. Watoto has been
doing a lot of work to help restore northern Uganda and make it livable again.
On Saturday, we visited the children’s village
in Gulu for the day. After about an hour’s
drive from our hotel along a red dirt road with grass and mud huts along the
side, we reached a big flat beautiful grassy land where the village is
located. The Gulu village is only six years
old and is still developing as it gets its own high school. Throughout the day, we visited the homes
which are a little different from the homes we have visited in Bbira and Suubi
as people in northern Uganda speak Acholi, not Luganda. We spent the morning attending the church
service in the village and then our team split off to have a traditional lunch
in the homes. Momma Rosemary was a sweet
lady that hosted me for lunch. She
showed us and her children great love and care.
In the afternoon, the boys in our class played a soccer game against the
boys in the village on the field in the village. So yes, this place is very serene and filled
with joy. Would you ever think that this
place once was a base camp for the LRA only a few years previously? All I can say is REDEMPTION! The children that were directly affected by
the war, some as child soldiers and others losing their families and their
entire villages now live on the LRA’s old stomping grounds where they have a
loving home where they are well fed, cared for, and educated. Talk about a complete reversal and
restoration.
Some of my friends and
I explored the area near the village and found a murky creek in the midst of
tall grass. We took the same paths as
the soldiers took only a few years before.
We also visited the
Living Hope ministries in Gulu which has empowered over 900 women in the past
four years who are HIV positive or who were abducted from the war, giving them
skills and counseling to now restore their lives, their families’ lives and their
community. Most of the Watoto textile
products that you can find at merchandise tables at the Watoto Choir Concerts
come from here. I felt so blessed to
meet some of the women while they were at work.
As we entered the sewing workshop, some of the women started to do this
African yell (something I am envious of and wish I could do). I don’t know exactly what happened next but
the music began to blast, my classmates responded by doing the African call and
then we all began dancing right there in the workshop. I can’t even describe how joyful our
spontaneous dance was with a mix of women affected from the war,
internationals, and people who grew up in the Watoto villages. I can only imagine what heaven must be like!
Living Hope
Baby Watoto Gulu
Overall Gulu was an
incredible experience and a great chance for our class to have lots of fun
together in these final few weeks left of class. My evenings at the hotel were spent teaching
some of my friends how to swim in the pool, playing volleyball or Scrabble, and
laughing with these incredible people that I have been so lucky to get to know
and now call friends in the last five months.
On Monday before our long drive back to Kampala, we made a
surprise detour through Murchison
falls park for a safari game drive. This
time we even saw a male and female lion hiding in the long grass. Despite the sixteen hours it took us to get
back to Kampala, I was so grateful to get to see more African wildlife and this
time have it be among all of my classmates.
A year from now
we’ll all be gone
All our friends
will move away
Even though in a blink my time in Uganda will have
ended, I am forever grateful for the friendships I have been given and the
places I have been so lucky to have visited, and have simply done life in. God is so good in how He takes us to places
we have only ever heard of in the news.
God is so good in how He plunks people into our lives for a given period
of time so that we can grow with each other, help support one another and become lifelong friends.
Peace and love
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