Daily Life

It has been a while since my last post, so I thought I better get onto it and write up a blog post for everyone reading back in Australia.
It has been over a month since arriving in Uganda, and I have been keeping busy and getting ready for programs to start running.
At the moment I am now house sitting for good friends Ron and Anne who have been a part of building a school here in Uganda. I do admit it feels rather comfortable eating freshly baked bread, having internet access, warm showers and sodas. I am enjoying the blessing of it all, and its good fun being on a school ground with a community of friends around me to greet me every time I walk out of the house.

I have also recently got my hands on a bike, it needed new tyres and a touch up, but after getting the mechanic to fix the bike (twice, because he put dodgy tubes in the first time) I have been enjoying the freedom of riding around everywhere on a bike. It makes it easy to go to meetings as I am doing community development type work. I seem to be moving everywhere around the community, and the walking seems to take up a lot of time. This morning I rode along African village roads to sit by the shores of Lake Victoria to read and pray, which was a beautiful experience.

 

Recently I have rented a large office space here in Wairaka, which I will use to run projects out of before a youth centre is built. The first program running out of this will be a sewing and business class for young women who are vulnerable in the community and need a source of income. Most of these young women will be single mothers who are really suffering in the community. I have met a few of the girls we have chosen and it is exciting to know that they will be joining a class that will empower them, give them self-worth and allow them to be making money for themselves.

The room I rented is next door to where farook (my best friend, brother and partner in helping youth) will be living with his wife and newborn baby. Farook and I have been working hard to get this sewing class up and running, and his wife Beatrice who is a sewing teacher will be teaching the tailoring class, while we have another good friend and professional teacher lined up to teach the business side of things.

                                     

This weekend I will be starting a two month program for teenage boys in two different locations. Saturday mornings will be in a place called Njeeru with a project called Divine Holistic Ministries, run by Fred and Judith ( A lovely local Ugandan couple ). On Sunday afternoons I will be running the same program with a group of boys here in Wairaka.
The program goes for two months and will be focussed around getting the boys to come up with a creative project, most likely a film or a number of short films. Each lesson will also look at social issues in the community like H.I.V, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty or sexual abuse. These topics will be covered in engaging and creative ways and at the end of the program the group will present their project to people in their community. 

I will also be starting to run some programs in school next week. I have been talking with the headmaster of a school called Wairaka Modern. The school has been struggling with high rates of H.I.V and sexual issues, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, so I will be running 1 hour sessions on both Mondays and Tuesdays. The sessions will cover H.I.V education, making wise choices and drug and alcohol education. Often young people here have no access to information on these topics, and youth here can be very ignorant about issues, so by educating them we hope to be able to help in early intervention, and prevention.

I am beginning to see how busy I am already with these programs, and it has become apparent how necessary it will be to start training up leaders here to be able to take over and run these programs. I have been blessed to know a few trusted friends who are interested in working with the youth on these issues, and are looking for interesting ways to be able to educate them.

So all in all it has been a busy month, but it is always full of special moments of community, faith and love. I especially love it when a big tropical storm rolls in and seems to stop everyone’s schedule for about half an hour.
I have also been preparing for the day when my anti malaria tablets run out (4 days). I have heard that there is a local plant here that when brewed into a tea has anti malaria aspects to it. It is hard to get onto these things here as herbs and natural medicines have been heavily associated with witch craft (which is associated with things like child mutilation and sacrifice), so for the most part the Christian community here are very weary of using natural medicines. But there are a few older generation Christians who use different plants and herbs for things like common colds and malaria. My good friend Ivan has an older mother working at his community house who makes a tea for the children who live there, to help in stopping them from getting malaria. I have been getting some lessons from her on how to brew a tea. 

Otherwise I bought a bucket just in case I do get malaria and get very very sick.

                                  


God bless and thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and supporting me.

Lessons in grace, patience and humility.

The last few days have been rather impacting .. not because of anything out of the ordinary for life in Uganda, more so because God has been teaching me some things through the people here.

On Sunday I had promised to go visit a church that a friend here has started up in a poor area of Jinja. Honestly I had been avoiding going to this church for a while now (about a year) as I like going to my own church and sometimes it can feel like you are just going to be put on show. But I decided I would go this Sunday to get it out of the way.
From the very start I had a very sour attitude in my heart, and God was ready to give me a lesson in humility due to the pride that had started to sink in.
I really did not feel like going to this church, and as I said, I was just doing it to get it out of the way. Already I was a little frustrated at my companion as he told me I would be expected to say a word and preach, which I certainly didn’t feel like doing. I was very busy that day, so I was asking many questions about how long it was going to be, and all in all my heart was certainly not in the right place.
All of that changed when I reached our destination. Basically this was a small gathering of people (mostly women) who were extremely poor, and met under a tree in poor village to passionately worship, sing and pray. When I first arrived a very sick man in bare feet who had been working all night came up to me and asked me if I would please be so kind as to pray for him. Everyone who was there made me feel so welcome, and their faces lit up when I spoke to them. Afterwards the ones who were sick asked me to pray for them. My heart was totally melted .. the whole time leading up to this church service I had a hardened heart of pride, not really wanting to go, but it ended up being a very moving experience and God taught me a very strong lesson in humility and grace.

In the afternoon I got to trial a program I had developed during my diploma of youth work course. The program focuses on human rights when it comes to sex, as well as H.I.V education and looking at the stigma around H.I.V Aids. The program is developed for teenage boys, as mentalities towards women here are very worrying at times. There can be a large number of rapes, and H.I.V infections due to women not enjoying the same rights and equal standings to men, especially when it comes to sexual rights. It was a great time of discussing and debating with this group of boys (as usually is when talking about sex with a bunch of teenage guys) and they all said they came away learning a lot, and thinking about things from a different perspective then they normally would of before (mainly the perspective of how it would be, to be treated as women are). Again sometimes the views expressed can be very worrying, and it takes patience and grace to listen to these boys’ perspectives so hopefully down the track they may learn and understand about different values and morals.

At the end of the day I was on my way home to enjoy my dinner, as it was just starting to get dark, when an older women came up and approached me. This women has been asking me to visit her house for a while now, and I keep telling her that I would eventually get round to it. Honestly I just wanted to get home and eat some food, but I stopped and looked at this women, and was struck with the lessons I had already learnt that day, and just felt grace and love towards her. So I walked with her to her home to sit for a while and talk. She basically lived in a tiny mud hut and was looking after a large number of children (who slept in the small mud hut with her) as they had been abandoned by their parents. The women was also sick and had no work. I was waiting for her to ask for money as many people do (and really you cannot blame them) but all this women asked for was for my company and a prayer. After praying for her, she told me how blessed she was now.

I couldn’t help but feel that it was really her doing the blessing.

 

It was a beautiful, yet heartbreaking moment, that I realise I would of missed out on if I had simply gone about being busy and wanting to move on to go eat. It made me realise how important it is at times to slow down from our busy schedule and show grace … You just may miss out on an important lesson.

So I got home, sat in front of my food ready to eat, and my phone rings. It was farook. He wanted me to come to the hospital because Beatrice (farooks wife) was there in pain and they were suspecting she was going into labour. I thought about how I would not be enjoying my dinner and it was going to be a long night, although I was at peace with that, and rather excited. It felt like after everything today, why not a little more grace, humility and patience.
Luckily for me the doctor told Beatrice to go home and come in the morning as she was not ready yet. The whole next day was spent at an African hospital sitting with farook and giving him support. He was so scared and nervous, as this was his first child, and he felt terrible that Beatrice was in so much pain, even stating that “I don’t want another kid, I never want to put her through this again”.
In the culture here the men don’t go into the delivery room, but it is women friends of the one giving birth and the nurses who do it all, as this is women’s business. So the men sit around outside and wait until it is over (Not a bad way of doing it, if I do say so myself …. Just kidding ... kind of). At one stage farook was out buying basins, bed sheets and a mat for the birth (as the hospital does not have these things) and left me sitting on the bench. Beatrice came out for a walk and sat down next to me, and farook had asked me to keep an eye on her. She started having painful contractions while sitting next to me, and to be honest I was kind of freaking out, I didn’t know what to do, as I have never been around a woman in labour, let alone asked to keep an eye on one in an African hospital. Thankfully Beatrice helped me out and made it easier for me by turning to me and saying “Luke, pray for me now“. Righteo I thought! That I can do.
We ended up waiting around all day and she still didn’t give birth that night, so the next day we were back at the hospital waiting around. Just before Beatrice started going into heavy contractions, farook and her asked if we could pray together. Beatrice was sitting on the floor so Farook and I also joined her and sat in a circle on the floor holding hands. It was really special, to be invited into that intimate moment, I really look at Farook and Beatrice as family, and as we sat on the floor in a circle holding hands in a little African hospital, we prayed to God for a safe birth.
In the end she gave birth around 2 pm that day and everything went smooth and there was no problems (thank you to everyone who prayed for her, you know who you are). The catholic nun came out to tell the news to Farook that he was now the father to a little baby boy. Farooks face lit up and he was stunned, he grabbed my hand on the spot and said “let us now thank God for everything he has done” haha, again another great moment!
So they will now be starting their life together as a family, and I look forward to watching the baby grow over the years and being (as Beatrice and Farook say) “Uncle number one”.


                                 


Never a dull moment in Africa.

Settling in

So it has been almost 2 weeks since touching down in Uganda, in a strange way it can often feel like things are moving both very fast .. and very slow.

 

So far there has been lots of meetings and ideas for projects, and organising bank accounts and setting myself up, and it feels like I have got a lot done within two weeks. But on the other hand there is a very slow pace to life here, where time must be taken to stop and talk with an old friend, perhaps share a meal with them, before moving on to what I was meant to be doing that day.
I also feel I am going to get very fat, very fast, if I don’t stop accepting all the free meals being thrown my way ( Ugandans love to pile on the food when feeding a guest ).

                                     

                                                                 Farook and Beatrice


I have been really excited to see my good friend, and brother from another mother, Farook. His wife is expecting their first baby any day now, and it’s great to see how in love they are with each other, and how excited they are to start raising a family. In a country where so many dads run away from responsibilities, it’s great to see that Farook is going to be a good father.
I have also been in plans with Farook and his wife Beatrice to start a small sewing group for vulnerable young women, from the ages of 18 to 24, who may be single mums and need a source of income. Beatrice is a sewing teaching, but they have recently been struggling as she works in town, and it costs them a lot of money for transport for her to go to work. By setting them up with their own sewing machine here in Wairaka, they would be able to save money, but also start on their dream of helping young women find a valuable skill. I would love to see YSU empowering and supporting their vision ( with some well organised structures to help guarantee something successful ). So me and Farook have been spending time visiting other organisations and seeing how they run sewing classes. The aim is to start small, maybe 3 machines and 5 girls, and build from there. It looks like this will be the first program of Youth Support Uganda.


                                     

                                                                        Acting group

I have also had the chance to help a group of young actors in filming and editing some skits they have put together to go on air for a local TV station. Rosco is the young man who has initiated this acting group, and he has a lot of drive for making short films and dramas. It’s been good to help this young group with a project they have been wanting to complete for a long time. Ultimately the best type of youth work is supporting and empowering Young people who already have ideas and initiatives to do things.

I have also been tutoring the secondary students at the village of hope with English, CRE and History every morning while they are on holidays. These older kids are amazing, and I always have such a great time teaching them, although the schooling system can be frustrating here. Often the material they get for their English classes, from their teaches, is full of terrible spelling and bad sentence structuring, yet this is the material they are given to learn English. Also CRE can be interesting, with a bit of a disturbing amount of religious type attitude towards the faith, and a real lack of teaching on grace, which leads to me learning when to hold my tongue, and when to gently challenge some things. But all in all, it has been a great experience for both me and the kids, and I think we both get a lot out of these lessons.

Even though there are problems with the church and the culture here, there are still great moments when the people here really teach me a lesson or two. The other day a young single mother was trying to understand why the time in Australia is different to Uganda, and I simply explained about the earth’s orbit around the sun and what makes a day, what makes a year, and why one side of the earth experiences night while the other experiences day. After explaining this, the mother, with a look of awe and amazement on her face, simply said “God is so good”. It took me off guard and really made me smile. When we are so used to scientific explanations of the universe leading to attitudes of discrediting the need for a god, it was beautiful to see this women connect the understanding of the earth’s orbit to thinking that God must be so amazing. I am sure it is this simple, humble type of faith from the poor that must make God smile.

So things have been moving on well, lots of joy and peace amongst the people here, I feel like I am always meeting with friends, and I am never lonely.
I look forward to the months to come, I think there will be a lot of work, and I will be keeping busy, but the joy of it all is really something special.

                                  

Touch down

It has been a few days in Uganda already and I'm starting to settle in now. The last two days have been filled with lots of visits to old friends, and receiving lots of love ... not to mention mangoes and sugar cane.
It has been a bit of a strange feeling, knowing that this is not a 3 week mission trip, or even a one year stay .. but I will be starting to set up a life here for at least a few years.
Already I have had meetings with friends, and ideas have started to spin around in my head, there is so much need here, but there is also so much potential for youth work programs. I am very excited to get things rolling soon! I will just need wisdom and discernment in knowing where, and who, to invest time and money into, to see results and lives start being changed.

 

In the end it is God who will do the life changing, I recognise that it is my part to be obedient to the call.

The next few weeks will involve meetings with friends, discussing potential programs to get started .. as well as all the running around with visa's, opening bank accounts and doing all the "practical" administration stuff.

I feel excited .. The youth are very positive about being involved, and I'm sure some great things will begin to happen.


                                            

Taking the leap

So tonight I will head off on a long haul night flight to begin this chapter of my life in Uganda. I have to admit, its a little scary and daunting, and I have been a little anxious leading up to these last few days.
It really feels like the big gulp of air, or the pulsing heart beat just before the leap. I realize it's a big mission I am setting out on ... and basically, faith can be scary.
Because that's what this feels like, stepping out in faith.
But I am confident of the love and support of friends and family here in Australia and over in Uganda. But most of all I am confident in my God. I know that in good times and in bad, God is sovereign over all ... and that gives me the hope and strength to set out on this mission.

I look forward to what the next few years will await me, with all the challenges and joys. But most of all I look forward to relying on faith and experiencing God in the poor, and in the "least of these brothers and sisters of mine".

Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last few weeks ( I have been overwhelmed by the encouragement from many people ).
And I look forward to sharing with you all my journey.

Welcome to my Uganda blog!
I created this blog so friends, family and people interested, can find out about my adventures, challenges, hopes and experiences while I am living in Uganda.
In 3 weeks time I will be leaving on a jet plane to go start a new chapter of life in a small rural village in Uganda, the "pearl of Africa".
The last 2 years have been an experience of growth and preparation for this big adventure, as I have gone about completing a Diploma in Youth work, as well as going through a great amount of fruitful discipleship.
Most of you who know me, know that I have spent a fair amount of time in Uganda, and I have a passion for the youth over there in particular.
Inspired and driven by my faith, and the teachings of Jesus in regards to the poor and oppressed, I will be living in Uganda to begin developing and implementing a youth targeted project called "Youth Support Uganda".
So many young people in Uganda, and in the village community of Wairaka where I will be living, face daily challenges and social issues. Young people in Uganda are surrounded by a world of poverty, broken homes, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, sexual abuse and more.
I plan to use the arts as a way to engage young people to tackle some of these issues, as well as creating a platform for education, financial stability and social change in their lives.
Down the line I hope to see a youth center built in the community where all these programs can run out of.
Its a big step of faith, as its a large endeavour to set out on and I am positive there will be many challenges ahead of me. I also know this is not something I am doing on my own accord, with a host of youth workers, teachers and friends in Uganda joining in on the vision, as well as a community of people supporting me from Australia ( Thanks one hope community church, friends and family ). I also believe this is a project and mission that God is forming and creating, and ultimately it is His vision, His work, and His love for the poor which is driving this.
So with all nerves, excitement and feelings of being incredibly blessed, I will be preparing for 3 weeks time when I head off.
Over the next few months separate information sources ( facebook, newsletters etc ) will be up and running to let people know how things are going with the projects of Youth Support Uganda. But keep an eye on this blog if you are interested on hearing how things are going for me over in Uganda on a personal level.
God bless

Luke