I thought I would periodically share some stories from our trip here. I really have no plans or intentions with these except to share whatever stories come to mind so you can share in our experience with us! So here is the first of, hopefully, many…
Mary Daniel's cousin Cheri was part of our team in January. I believe she is from North Carolina but she flew into Atlanta to meet up with Wayne and Mary and came over to Uganda with them and another team member, Beccah.
Cheri is such a sweet woman but was always very quiet and a little reserved. She isn't the type of person to walk up to someone and start a conversation but is very friendly to everyone she meets. Cheri began sponsoring a little girl through ACM some time ago, but because of some mix-up, had not gotten any information about her for a while. After asking around, Mary was told that Cheri's sponsored daughter had moved to a different school and they were having trouble finding her. Cheri was resigned to knowing that her money was going to help her girl get to school, have uniforms, pay for her supplies and books, pay any medical expenses she might have and ensure she has a good meal each day and gave up hope of getting to see her girl. {all with $300, for a YEAR! Crazy, right?!?}
{when someone comes to the ranch that is sponsoring a child through ACM, a great deal of effort is made to try to allow the sponsor to meet their sponsored child in person}
While many people really enjoy going on home visits while in Uganda, Cheri just wasn't feeling comfortable going on them. I'm not sure what specifically made her uncomfortable but it was my understanding that she felt like she had trouble starting conversations with the families we would visit and was worried that she was imposing on them. {the opposite is actually true, the people in Uganda view receiving visitors as an honor and hospitality is a very important aspect of their culture, they also, like most people, love just having someone to talk to and share their day with! Bonus for me, who, now this might be a shock…loves to talk! :) } So for a couple days Cheri decided not to go on the home visits, and instead found other activities to be involved in. After spending some time talking to Mary and better understanding what these home visits mean to the Ugandans, Cheri finally decided to give home visits another try.
This particular day we were going to a village that was farther away from the ranch than any we had visited to this point. It was probably about 10-15 miles away, all uphill on very bad roads. The more remote a village is, the worse the roads are…even the good roads have potholes as big as a car! So you can imagine this road was really rough!! We, thankfully, made this trip in the ACM truck, but the children's ministry staff at ACM that are assigned to this village, Johnstone and Heziron, usually make this trip on bicycles! I'm sure it must take them hours to get to the first home but as we arrived we quickly learned that Johnstone and Heziron know every single ACM child in the village by name, they know their stories and what school they are attending. {I never did really figure out the school districting stuff. I think that there isn't much governmental or organizational control over who goes to which school. It seems that if you can pay your school fees, can get to the school and there is room for you, you can go to any school. We heard many stories of families trying to send their children to better schools only to get there and find out there wasn't room for them.}
One thing about this trip that really made an impact on both Cheri and I was how obvious it was that the ACM children's ministry staff really cared about each and every one of these children. Maybe it was because we are so used to the men in our culture being more emotionally reserved or the fact that we are used to hearing so much about absentee fathers, but the loving way Johnstone and Heziron spoke to the kids, helped them clean their faces and hands, soothed those that cried {the younger children especially sometimes get scared when they see these strange looking white people!} and just listened to them was beautiful and incredibly moving. I cannot say enough about these amazing men!
After visiting several families, we were driving to the next home when Heziron suddenly yelled to stop the truck near the village's common area. He was excitedly yelling in Luganda and Cheri and I had no idea what he was saying or what was going on. Johnstone started translating for us…"She's there! Right there! Your daughter is right there!" Everyone started to pile out of the truck as it dawned on us what they were talking about…Cheri's sponsored daughter had been found!!!
Randomly driving down the road, in a village she wasn't supposed to be in, Heziron spotted her precious face in a crowd of people and immediately called to her. It took only a few seconds of translating to explain to the little girl and her father who Cheri was…I'm pretty sure Cheri and I were already crying but if not, her father's reaction did us all in! He immediately went from confused and hesitant to overwhelmed and overjoyed as he thanked Cheri for sponsoring his little girl, raised his hands to God to thank him for sending Cheri, thanked Heziron for introducing them and even thanked me for…being there I guess? :) Cheri introduced herself to her sweet girl and she said something back in Luganda. Heziron translated that she was asking if she could give Cheri a hug. {The Ugandan people are extremely kind and loving but VERY reserved, the fact that this precious girl spoke up at all amongst adults was surprising, the fact that she asked to physically show her love and gratitude with a hug was shocking!}
At this point none of us could keep from crying. {I can't even write this without crying! ;)}
So there we are randomly standing in the middle of the road all crying and praising God for arranging this meeting! I'm sure from the looks of the locals that were watching us, they all thought we were all crazy!
Then her father started telling us a little bit about her story…
He told us how the girl, probably around 9 or 10 years old, had lost her mother and how hard it was for him to take care of her by himself
{I'm assuming she had brothers and sisters as well, it is very unusual in Uganda to only have one child. Actually the average, AVERAGE, number of children a Ugandan woman has in her lifetime is 7. AVERAGE…SEVEN!} .
He introduced us to the woman in this village that had agreed to take the girl into her home so that this sweet girl could get to the school that I'm presuming is better than the school she was attending before…or maybe her old school didn't have room for her, I'm not clear on the details but was clear was that this was extremely hard for her father to do. The pain in his face over the uncertainty of their future was evident. He spoke of how he had worked hard to get her to this village to live with this woman {probably a relative of the girl's mother} and how he was trying so hard to get together money to pay for her school, her uniforms and her books when he found out she had been sponsored. I really wish I was a better writer and could better articulate what this meant to him and his daughter. I don't think I will ever in my life forget the looks of joy on their faces, not only of getting the news that she would indeed be able to continue her education, they were definitely excited about that, but the sheer overwhelming joy they had in being able to thank the person that made it possible, face to face. It was a moment I will never forget!
As soon as we jumped out of the truck and understood what was happening, I started taking pictures. The picture I've attached is when Cheri and her sponsored daughter first met. {After snapping a few pics with my camera I grabbed Cheri's and took a ton more!}
I hope you enjoyed getting to know a learn a little about what we experienced on our trip. I will try to do more in the coming weeks and months and hopefully I won't cry through all of them! haha! :)
Much love,
Alicia
