Village of Hope

Village of Hope? After my trip to Africa in March of 2006, I can not stop thinking about the orphans I met in Northern Uganda. They live everyday of their life in fear of death, abduction, rape and starving to death; basicly the fact that so many children in Africa have NOTHING!!!

So here is "what's next"!!!

We want to buy 100 acres in a safe area in Uganda... build a village of huts, with a school, huge garden and livestock. And then fill the huts with families of orphans and widows. This is their home, not an orphange. They will be loved, safe, feed, and educated. Most of all they will have a FUTURE!!! They will be able to dream again!

"Where there are are no dreams, people perish...die!"

To read more about this project, please check out the website:
www.villageofhopeuganda.com

Thank you for dreaming with me... now let's see this dream become a reality for the children of Northern Uganda!

I have a dream...

Since my return from Africa, I continue to ask the question: "Lord, what can I do?"

As I walk through my day, safely, I think of the 1,000's of children in Northern Uganda, who cannot walk in safety, who live every day in FEAR, that they will be abducted by the rebels.

We can feed them, give them clothes, but there has to be MORE!!!

I dream of a Village of Hope, in the safe zone. Where orphan families can live without fear of abduction. Where they can drink clean water, and eat fresh vegetables, and go to school. I dream of land where they can cultivate food, and raise pigs, and chickens, and goats. Where they can learn skills, and have hope for a new tomorrow!

Is this just a dream? Or can I really make this a reality for them? Should I start an organization that will commit themselves to seeing not my dream, but the dream of every orphan come true? A place of Hope, Love, Safety, .... Tomorrow!

If you have any ideas, wisdom, and thoughts on this, PLEASE write me and let me know. I am searching for answers.... and solutions. This is not something I can do alone; but together, we can change the world... for some of these children.

"Dry Cleaning" Project in Rwanda

One thing I learned in Africa was, things don't always mean what you think it means. Our staff said they would take us to the "dry cleaning" project. I immediately thought, hmmm, most people don't even have electricity, or enough money for food, how could they need a dry cleaner?

Well to my surprise we drove up to a dump site. Widows and orphans collected rubbish, brought it to the dump site and then began the process of sorting out what they would burn and what they would recycle. This was the process of "drying" the burnable rubbish.. sorting was the process of "cleaning" it.

The women and children worked hard everyday to make enough money to feed their families. I was so impressed by the hard working people of Rwanda.

Livestock Project in Rwanda

The land grows the crop that feeds the livestock. Pigs, goats and chickens are breed onsite. And the eggs from the chickens pay for the workers who grow the crops and feed the animals.

A village is selected and approximately 20 HIV+ widows will receive one pig or goat. The women all live in the same village, and therefore will breed their animal with another widow’s animal. Once she has babies, she gives one back to ALARM and one to another widow in her village. After that she can sell her piglets or baby goats to get money to feed, clothe and provide school fees for her family.

Practical reconciliation also takes place as women from different tribes raise their livestock together.

Rwanda after Genocide

In 1994 the world watched as over 800,000 men, women and children were brutally killed in Rwanda.

As I drove down the streets of Rwanda in March of 2006, it was hard to imagine that these beautiful, peaceful people were at war with each other. It was hard to imagine that the streets were covered with slain bodies just 12 years before.

All I could see were smiling faces of children as they ran up to our car, waving and saying, "Mazungu" (white person).

The genocide left most churches without pastors, women without husbands and children without parents. The need is great.

ALARM began working in Rwanda shortly after the genocide. So my time in Rwanda was spent visiting our many projects. Projects include Biblical training for pastors and women; skill training and assistance for widows and orphans.

Many would ask, what was the breakdown in the church that believers would take up arms against another? Most pastors in Rwanda and all over Africa have very little if any biblical training. Many don't even have Bibles. If a believer doesn't know the word of God, how will they know not to kill their brothers and sisters in Christ? How will understand the forgiveness of God, and therefore how to forgive one another instead of revengeous?

So ALARM is committed to training pastors and their wives. Some of the other projects to widows and orphans are: teaching women to sew, providing women and children with pigs, goats or chickens, so they can provide food and clothing for their families. And many other similar projects. They are geared to help the people help themselves instead of becoming dependant on agencies, UN or NGO's.

It was so encouraging to see people from different (previously warring tribes) working together in the church, in the fields and in small business.

Now what?

There are some many needs, so many to help, where do I beging?

Since I have been back in the US, these are the things that have come out of my trip to Africa.

Maasia literacy program for women in Kenya will be funded by a group that is having a missions conference. They need 4,000 bracelets to give to the attendees, and the women from the Maasai tribe will make the bracelets and this will completely fund their program.

Congo: For the first time in 3 years a Womens Leadership Training will take place in Congo, led by a women from Texas. This will be such an encouragement to the women and to our staff in Congo. They will know they are NOT forgotten! They will receive the much needed training they have so long hoped for.

Also 2 other groups will be visiting Congo this June to see their needs and hopefully be willing to help.

Uganda's Invisible Children: A large church in Dallas has taken on the mission to help in 3 areas: 1. provide food and education for 100 orphans 2. train leaders in trauma counseling and other needed topics will go on this year 3. Micro econimic programs will be established to help widows and orphans, learn the necessary skills to live, eat and clothe their families.

These are just the beginning of the many possibilites in these countries.

I ask myself and God everyday, "What can I do to help? What can I do to make a difference one person at a time?" Sure there is no way I can help every person I met, or every child who is hungry or in danger; but I can help some... one...!

Maybe you too are asking, "What can I do?" Join me in helping ONE! You can GO, you can send money, you can pray for the helpless.

Personal thots April 1, 2006

This morning has been hard. I have been back from Africa for 3 days now. I got up early and started looking through my 24 rolls of pictures from my trip. Picking out the best ones to put together to show people.

Eating my Cheerios brought tears to my eyes as I thot of the children in Northern Uganda living in the huts and not having anything to eat. Flies cover their dirty faces. Where most children are playing and having fun, these children spend each day in search for food and water, walking each night to shelters to sleep so the rebels can’t abduct them. What kind of living hell they experience each day. What is worse is that this is all they know. They were born in war and live it each day of their miserable lives.

Where do I put this? Where do I file this information? Sleep is difficult. When I close my eyes the haunting faces appear to me. Pleading for help, and I feel so helpless. My heart hurts, my mind swims with thoughts, faces, smells, filth, poverty, hopelessness.

I wonder about Daniel, a young boy I met in Sudan. Will he be safe from the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) tonight or will they again come to his village and steal, burn huts and kill? All he wants is to go to school, but that is even impossible since he has no money.

I think if I pour out my thots on paper, then maybe I can go through the day without this aching in my soul. Somewhere to dump all this information. Pass it onto others so I don’t have to carry it alone. But the burden on my shoulders grows heavier with each passing day. No relief insight.

Would I trade my experience in Africa? Not for all the money in the world! God has allowed me to see what most people will never see. He has allowed me to walk in their shoes even if only for a day, so I can remember, so I can know what they go through, so I can tell others. Lord, help me to know what to do! How to help these precious people whom you love and died for.

While we were in Gulu, (northern Uganda) a woman asked “Where is God?” I had no answer. But later I thought of how we are the “body” of Christ, we are Christ in physical form to the world around us. And in Gulu the body of Christ is not there, the church is not there, believers are NOT THERE!!! So in answer to her question: “Where is God?” I am sorry but He is NOT IN GULU!!! Because we, his body is not there!

Joyce's story: Congo

"I was raped 2 different times. The first time there were four of us in our home, 3 women and 1 boy. The soldiers came in, killed the boy and sodumized him and then they raped the rest of us.

The second time four soldiers came into my home and each one of them raped me. Shortly afterwards I found out I was pregnant. My husband rejected me because he blames me for being raped and doesn't know if our baby is his or the soldiers baby."

What could I say to this woman, who has shared the most humiliating story with us, she feels guilt, violated, ashamed, and yet she is holding her baby in her arms. I just sat and wept with her.

She is only one story of over 26,000 "reported" rapes in this city alone. Many of the women contract HIV from the soldiers, which just intensify the problem.

The orphans in Congo

Orphanage in Congo

Bahati, greeted us at the orphanage with her hair in 15 four inch braids sticking straight out of her head. She welcomed us and showed us around. Bahati, was an orphan with no education, but one day she found a baby nursing on his dead mother. She took in that baby and 68 others since. They live in 3 rooms of an elementary school. The rooms are dark; one room has a bed, another only a blanket, but it is home for these children. There is one toilet and no running water. ALARM, our organization bought them gutters to collect the rain off the roof and a holding tank to gather the water.

I started to write a list of their needs, blankets, clothes, toilets, food ... then in my journal, I wrote, "needs: EVERYTHING!"

Congo the Forgotten Country

We drove 4 hours through the green lush mountains and valleys of Rwanda to Congo. Arriving at the border, our staff from Rwanda began taking our luggage out of the truck. I said "what are you doing, aren't you going with us?" "No" Andre said, "We will pick you up in 2 days."

Our staff from Congo walked us across the border into Goma, Congo. It was like night and day. In 2001 the Nyiragongo Volcano erupted and covered over half of the city in lava. The streets we drove across was lava, the buildings were covered up to the second floor in lava, so people just live on the second floor or build their home on top of the lava. There was no electricity in the entire city, so we drove down the dark streets of Goma.

We arrived at this huge white guesthouse, with flood lights, 10 foot fence and guards at the gate. "This is where you will be staying, we would invite you to stay in our homes, but someone would get you in the night." Mbusa said. (He is our director in Congo).

We ate dinner together, he told us of the situation in Congo. "Congo is surrounded by 9 different countries and all 9 countries send in their solders to kill our people and rape our women. When the refugees came in from Rwanda after the genocide, the militia also came in and started killing and raping. The congonise people are a peaceful people. But after years of attack they have become angry."

Driving through the town the next morning, the volcano was smoking in the distance, waiting to erupt again. How symbolic of the people here, just a smoldering pot waiting to explode. They have been beaten down again and again. A bicycle almost ran into our truck; both drivers jumped out of their vehicles and almost went to blows. The tension was so evident in the atmosphere around us. When will Congo be the next Rwanda?

The Invisible Children of Uganda

The Invisible Children of War in Uganda

Arriving in the town of Gulu (5 hour drive North of Kampala, the capital) we drove to a city of huts. They refer to them as "camps". Displaced families from north Uganda fled here. WHY?

The rebels, who live in the bush, go from village to village, burning down huts, killing adults and abducting children. They take young girls and use them as prostitutes in the rebel camps. The boys are taken to be work slaves and taught to be rebels.

So families run to Gulu for "safety". But there is no safety. The rebels still come to Gulu. In the night the raid the "camps" killing, stealing, burning, raping. So each night the moms say goodbye to their children and send them off to shelters (large one room tents) where the children spend the night...so they can be safe from the rebels.

We walked the dark streets of Gulu to a shelter where we interviewed children who had been abducted by the rebels, but managed to escape. One 11 year old girl explained how the rebels came and killed her parents in front of her, and then abducted her...raped her... and then after 1 month let her go with these instructions: "Go back and tell everyone what we did to you and tell them, we will do the same to them."

A 15 year old boy told about his 4 years of living in a rebel camp. He was abducted when he was 11. They kill you if you can't work or get sick. They put a machete in your hand and tell you to kill the weak child, and if you don't they have another child holding a machete, who will kill you. You don't have a choice. The rebels do this to desensitize the children.

As we walked back to our lodging, the streets were dark, just 2 days before the rebels had come to this very place and abducted 48 children. It was hard not to look over my shoulder, fear was thick, my heart raced. How can people live in this type of fear day in and day out?

A young boy came up to us as we ate breakfast and said, "I just escaped from a rebel camp, can I eat your leftovers?" We bought him breakfast. I took my bread from breakfast with me, wrapped in a napkin. As we drove to the next camp, I saw a boy along the road and handed him the bread. He wouldn't take it. So I asked them why? I was told that he can't take the bread because UN gives them food once a week (which will feed their family for 1 week) and they are not allowed to take food from anyone else.

We walked through a maze of huts, hundreds and hundreds of them. This was one of the 18 camps in this city alone. Children sat on the ground, with flies all over them. They didn't swat them away; I guess they are used to them. A 12 year old boy came up to us crying. He stood in line to get water all morning. Once he did get his water, someone accidentally knocked it over and now he had no water to give his 3 orphan siblings. He is 12 years old, for goodness sake. He should be playing soccer, or watching TV, not looking for food for his family, not being the head of his household.

UN doesn't give families run by orphans ANY FOOD. You have to be an adult to get a card which allows you to get food once a month. So the orphan run families have NOTHING!!!!!!!! The girls don't go to school, because they have to find food, and if they can't they will sell themselves into prostitution.

The situation in Gulu is not getting better. This has been going on for 23 years. They are born in war and live each day of their lives in war.

So who funds the rebels? It may not be P.C. to say, but it is the Arabs, the Muslims. They want to take over Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda. So they send in the L.R.A. (Lord's Resistant Army) or the rebels (same thing just different names) to destroy a people, to bring despair, destruction, to kill, rape and steal what little the people have. Who suffers? The innocent! The young! The helpless!

I wish I were making all of this up, but I am not! I wish this was just a nightmare that I had and I could just wake up, but this is as real as it gets. Not a reality that most of us in America will EVER see, not a reality that makes us feel comfortable or good. But it is reality!

Since I left Uganda, I have had nightmares each night. But thankfully I can wake up from my nightmares...these children will never wake up from their living nightmare.