We're staying with a guy named Samuel and his family. Since I last posted, I've been able to hear a bit more of his story and I am amazed by it. Sam is the oldest of seven kids and his dad fell ill while Sam was young, so he had to go to school and work full time to support his family. Yup, 6 siblings, mom, dad, and yourself. I think it happened sometime during high school, so we're talkin' 17-hour days between work and school. Oof. He still supports his family (his dad has since passed away) and some others - mostly kids from people he knows. Not even relatives!!


Monday Mike, Carolyn, Lindsey and I did an outreach with Spring of Hope. SOH is a ministry of YWAM Jinja that addresses the needs of disabled children. They do home visits to see how the kids are doing and to do excercises with them. They take care of the logistics when it comes to schooling - aka they try to get kids educated and developed as members of society. The list goes on and on. Basically, SOH tries to fulfill needs where they see them when it comes to disabled kids in the Jinja and Kangulumira area.



There are some hard truths about this that I've seen. A lot of the time, disabled kids are abandoned by their fathers. The mindset is that there aren't any disable people in my heritage, so this can't be my kid. It's my wife's only. G'bye. Lindsey and I went around (on motorbike taxis woohoo!!) with Charles, SOH staff, to visit a few kids. I didn't see one father.



We visited Fred, who is lame after he caught malaria when he was young. I never knew malaria could do such terrible things. If you can't get treatment, you could end up lame, deaf, blind, dead... But Fred was awesome. He starts Secondary One (Freshman year of high school) on Monday!! And in primary school, he was the top student in his class. He gets around using his hands dragging his legs underneath him. But I could see incredible diligent and strength. Wow. Then we visited Ruth and Ferruck, two kids who are deaf. We drew words in the sand and practiced sign language!! A lot of the signs of the alphabet are the same as ASL, but a few were different. So fun! And oh my goodness, Ruth? Absolutely gorgeous. I think she was around 10 and she just had the biggest, most beautiful smile I've seen in a while. And she was such a ham!! I whipped out my camera and she immediately posed, pulled people into pictures, put on that huge smile of hers... I'll put up photos later.



I've found that I'm not heartbroken. I'm not. I will be comeplete honest and admit that I'm not broken to the point of needing to come back, needing to do something more. At first this was so upsetting. BLEH!! How could I not feel much when holding a baby with HIV or seeing a starving kid to skin and bones?

But what I am getting? Their beauty. I've seen SOO many ill, hungry, hurting people that are still so beautiful. Helen at Amacet in Soroti had a feeding tube through her nose and was soooo small. But she was gorgeous. Ruth can't hear a thing, but she is so beautiful!! I'm seeing such beauty in peopole who've had ugly things happen to them. It just transcends.

We four got home early in the day, so we explored the land around Sam's house with Sarah (Sam's sister), Peter (his brother), and Ivan (one of the kids he looks after). Behind Sam's house there are a bunch of crops, a grazing pasture with cows (moo), and the best climbing tree ever. Vines, vines, vines. We were like little kids running around back there - so fun and freeing!! Sigh. I took a picture sitting in front of a bunch of cows holding a vanilla leaf and some coffee beans. Vanilla latte, anyone?

Wednesday we all worked with Spring of Hope again. They have a new building that needed to be cleaned out, so we washed the walls and floors in preparation for some painting!! Yay, pretty new building!! The Jinja area definitely has more Muzungus (white people) than Soroti did, but we are still feeling like spectacles. As we worked, we had kids peeking in at us through the windows and door. There comes a point when you just don't know what to do because you're being intensely stared at. So I just kept washing per usual. Mike cracked a lame joke and so I cracked some fake laughter, and the kids copied my laughter!! It was so stinkin' hilarious!! So then we decided to milk it and started to make noises and say phrases that the kids would imitate.

"Oh my GOSH!!" (A common phrase of mine)

"Elmo loves you." (Complete with high-pitched voice)

"RHAH!" (From Chad - our Prayer & Worship speaker LoL)

and the list goes on...

We had a morning tea break and sat outside for a bit. Naturally, the kids gathered 'round. I hadn't yet had a touchy feely experience, but I definitely had one then!! All the kids were fascinated with my skin and hair and face... my arms were every which way. They were playing with my hair and touching my skin. It was overwhelming, yes, but I loved it. I almost suffocated, but it was wonderful : ). And then they handed me a baby. Yeah, a random baby. So I held it for a little bit and then handed her off to Crystal. Then they... handed me another random baby (named Julia). Where are all these children coming from?? Ha! When it was time to get back to work, we gave the children back (while hoping we were handing them to the right kids...). I stood up and they were on the ball on getting me back into the house. Immediately, they wiped the dirt off my butt and held my arms to help me up the stairs. Wow. More hospitality. Mike kind of had to peel them off me. Intense!!

I've begun to start thinking about what it is that I'll do when I get home. It's down to weeks and I feel the need for a game plan. I've been spending time away with God just asking and asking and attempting to listen... I was brought to Psalm 139 and was sooo encouraged by Him. Read it. Love it. God's just kind of reiterating "I love the way you are, the things you love. Just do what you do because I'm pleased with that. You know what you love because I've told you. Your effort in pursuing that matters." Pheeeeeewwww. Siiiiiiigh. Breathe in. Breathe out.

It's all good : )