Farouk and I have begun getting everything ready for the agriculture class today, and we have selected three boys who will begin the training next week. All of these boys come from very poor backgrounds and have had hard lives. This program will be able to assist them to get ahead in life, and empower them to run their own small business with all the skills that they will learn. As well as starting them up with some financial help and business guidance once they finish the training program.
I have also been asked by a local pastor to teach the youth in his church, some of which I am good friends with here. When asked what he wanted me to teach he responded with "everything! please teach everything the bible teaches on all aspects of life".
So perhaps that may look like a regular weekly or fortnightly gathering of worship, prayer and teaching in our house with a group of youth.
It would be an exciting but daunting thing to undertake. I feel that perhaps the last few years of constant study of theology, bible reading and hours listening to podcast have helped prepare me for a position to teach those under me with less knowledge. Even though all those hours were a result of a hunger I had in myself to learn more, I realize we all have a responsibility to teach what we learn. This is daunting though as I recognize those who teach have a greater responsibility on them. I have a very big sense of needing to watch myself, to make sure I don't try and teach my opinion, but search genuinely for truth and teach what the Word says, not what I say. It also means constantly feeding myself, every day, every morning. If there is one lesson I have learnt from being away from my home church in Australia, it's that out here, I do need to stand on my own feet and learn to be feeding myself spiritually, not relying completely on a Sunday service to do it for me.
The other day Farouk and I also decided to go for a bike ride and for a swim. It was such a hot day and I was really missing my old Aussie lifestyle of weekly beach missions and swimming, surfing and spearfishing. So we hit the little walking trails on our bikes and gunned it down bush tracks and past sugar cane plantations to find a place to swim in lake Victoria. It was a bit of fun and felt a bit adventurous, especially since Farouk and I decided to push each other and see if we could keep up with each other on the little trails. Farouk took me to a small little fishing village with grass thatched huts, right on the edge of lake Victoria. The local elder said it was fine for me to swim, so I hopped in and had a dip with some of the kids who were already swimming. I do have to admit I was weary of catching some kind of sickness, ear infection or bumping into a crocodile in the rather suspicious looking swamp reeds. I didn't spend too long in the water, as every time I placed my feet down on the ground, these big fish came and started biting at my feet and toes. After thinking about crocodiles it kind of freaked me out.
It didn't entirely stop me though, as today I went with a group of youth to another place and went swimming in the lake again, this time doing front flips and back flips off a half submerged tree. I feel like I need these little getaways sometimes, as I was so used to little adventures down by the coast in Australia, so it feels nice to swim and be a bit adventurous.
I have also been visiting the local children's hospital run by the government here as a young boy my family has been a part of sponsoring, has been very sick. I have been close friends with his family for many years now, and this boy holds a special place in my heart. The problem is he has sickle cell anemia, a very serious disease which effects the red blood cells in the body, and can cause serious infections and organ failures, as well as the painful experience of having blood cells not being able to pass properly through the veins. He caught malaria which set of his sickness, and he has almost died from the disease a number of times in the past. He is such a beautiful bright young boy, but the sickness can cause people to die very young if not treated right.
Of course the government hospitals are your typical 3rd world type, full of dying children, a lack of resources, under payed weary doctors, and corridors and sick rooms that smell like urine, vomit and feces.
The boy almost died last Friday night, but a community of prayers have been with him, and thank God he seems to be getting better. I went and visited him when he was in a lot of pain, in fact the whole hospital was full of his screams of pain due to the red blood cells blocking up his veins. His heart and legs seemed to be in excruciating pain.
I remember when I went to visit him, he grabbed my hand and rested it on his chest and wouldn't let me go. I stayed with him for a while with his parents, but when I went to leave, to go continue the things I had to do that day, he started crying and wouldn't let me go as he begged "uncle Luke don't go". I stayed for a little bit longer, and then a little bit longer, every time he gripped my hand harder as I went to leave. Eventually his parents pried his hand of my wrist as I said good bye. He started crying again as I left the hospital ward.
I still feel guilty about that.
I should of stayed with him longer.
The whole time it gave me that gut sinking feeling, one that I hadn't felt in a while, but I remember well from my first year in Africa when I was exposed to many of these things for the first time. It is almost like as you see and hear more of this kind of stuff you grow accustomed to it. But seeing that little boy in that pain, in a hospital that we in the west wouldn't deem fit for our pets, certainly brought back those feelings.
Many thoughts and emotions can run through my head, including frustration and anger at the government, whose corruption for greed can cause them to overlook the health of the people. To thinking about the consumer driven culture of the west and the greed that is in all of our hearts, while people around us suffer, largely that we are unaware of because of the walls we place up. But for some reason a real sense of my own brokenness sunk in. All the good moral intentions, the right government systems in place, NGO and charity funding, Utopian type visions, all of it can never eradicate the line between love and greed, good and evil, within our own hearts.
I had a very real sense, as sharp as a knife, that we are all terribly hopeless without God. All the internal analyzing of morals, self betterment and improvement will never do. It is an external help outside of ourselves that we as humans need .. It is a Savior that the human race must seek, and that savior will not be ourselves. I believe that Savior has to be our creator.
It has been a week since he has been in hospital, and it does seem he will be coming out soon, but please keep him in your prayers as he continues to go through pain.
Lastly I was able to have an evening of joy as I celebrated the HopeBuilders team farewell dinner. A big pot of pork was cooked up, and an evening of speeches, traditional dances and songs were enjoyed. It was great to catch up with some good friends and I do hope they all enjoy their time here in Uganda.
Pork!
I am looking forward to the next week as I get to introduce Agnes to some more close friends of mine and as we keep preparing for our wedding.
God bless
Hi Luke. Thanks for sharing the journey. On my first trip to UG I held a young boy with sickle cell anemia for over an hour and it a terrible heart breaking nasty disease. Thanks for sharing your journey and I pray that God will continue to bless and keep you in the work you are doing there. Hoping to see you in July. Stan
ReplyDeleteMy heart and prayers goes out to you, the boy, his family and all those affected by this disease. It's just heart breaking to read this. Indeed it's sad that the world is conditioned to not feel for those in need, there's a lot of work to be done, but I totally agree with you, the "stock market" or economic "growth" isn't going to change the world, only Christ.
ReplyDeleteYour words really remind of the current Popes words:
"To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us."
I guess this is what you can see when you work with the Poor at least once.
"[H]umanity is experiencing a turning point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time, we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity.‚
Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “Thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality."
On another point:
I couldn't help reading about the disease shortly and found this:
"There is very little one can do about sickle cell anemia therapeutically using diet except adding some red meat to increase iron availability for the healthy red blood cells and increasing folic acid. I did hear of some cases where they did a stem cell transplant that cured the sickle cell condition of one very young boy but he still of course carried the genetic marker so will thus have a good chance to deliver the painful condition upon his future children. It is a hereditary condition. It is very important for people of Sub-Saharan African heritage that has sickle cell in their families to have genetic counseling prior to having children. The gene can be unexpressed but if met with another recessive can result in children with sickle cell and it is an extremely painful condition which shortens the lifespan of the those afflicted. It is actually an evolutionary mutation for protection from malaria. I used to work in hematology/oncology and treated many patients with sickle cell although I believe the insititution I worked in did not have a very forward sickle cell treatment program. Some important things were that is is very important for those with sickle cell to keep hydrated well -- often a crisis could have been averted if the patient had been drinking enough fluids." - http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread29488.html
All the best for the wedding plans and visits! Exciting times!