Homes of Hope

 It’s been a busier week.  There is a YWAM ministry based out of Tijuana called Homes of Hope.  Their mission is to build homes for the poor; efficiently using cost effective technology, and locally available materials and labor.  One of the technologies they’ve been using is foam building blocks encased in plaster and concrete.  Last year they shipped most of the equipment needed to make the foam blocks here, and then built a home in Kakira (see last blog).  Dr. Tim, the Hopeland director, has a vision to build several homes in the area, including a long range vision of building an entire community and sees Homes of Hope as a logical fit in that vision.  Last year HoH shipped molds, other equipment, chemicals, and many other materials for producing the foam blocks.  They also sent a couple of guys to set things up, and later a team to build the home.  They’ve also purchased many tools and materials here, and have trained a few young men in the process.  Two guys from HoH have been here for the last week to try to get it going again in anticipation of building more homes beginning next month.  There have been a lot of problems with the equipment and very few blocks have been made so far, but it seems most of the kinks have been worked out and there may be better results moving forward.  Since I’ll be working with young men to develop vocational skills, I will be heavily involved in this project.

setting up for block building

celebrating....

Beth has had a busy week as well.  One day she attended a meeting in town to meet with several medical professionals from various organizations which have different ministries in the area.  She met another nurse there who was able to spend a day with Beth giving a crash course in HIV/AIDS, and its treatment methods here in Uganda.  On Friday she was planning to go to visit Musana and some of the people there, but first she and some of the other ladies on base met with the Women with Hope group.  Turns out one of those women had died, so the whole group walked to her home in a nearby village for the pre-funeral viewing.  Beth and one of the other women here have also begun an early morning exercise routine twice a week which they are hoping others will join.  She also was asked to administer IV drugs to one of the vocational school girls who had been to a clinic in town, and diagnosed with a serious infection for which she had been given several meds.  Beth and I have also been asked to take on a kind of mentoring and parenting role to the vocational school girls, which is something Beth had been feeling called to already.  When we move into our ‘permanent’ quarters it will be near where the vocational girls are housed.

On Saturday there was a big celebration on base.  One of the staff members and her husband are celebrating their 25^th anniversary, and that’s a big deal here.  It started with a special service at their church, then a parade through town, followed by a procession to the base.  There was a marching band, much pomp and circumstance, speeches, dance performances, bubbles, gift giving, and a feast.  There were hundreds of people in attendance, typical I understand, for such events.

This base is very peaceful and somewhat secluded, but we have been warned last time here and this, that it’s not safe to be out after dark.  There have been rapes, murders, and robberies are common.  We’ve also been warned to always lock our room because ‘even though YWAM people are mostly honest, there are a lot of people who move around on and through the base’.  It’s okay though, because the base is mostly fenced, and there are large gates at the two road accesses, one of which is guarded most of the time.  Of course we noticed that one of those gates and much of the surrounding fence was missing when we got here this time.  Also, when we returned to the base one evening at about nine, it took several honks from the boda driver to wake up the guard to unlock the remaining gate and let us in.  I guess we could have walked the hundred yards or so, to where the other gate had previously been.  Before it was stolen…

                                   

stories

 Everybody has a story, right?  As you get to know people you begin to learn their stories; some will tell you directly, others you learn by circumstances and observations.  Yours, mine, theirs; they are constantly being written, and told, and interpreted.  We’re seeing and hearing some of those stories:

Nancy is a 58 year old widow from Kenya who is a student in the Discipleship Training School.  Like us, she is not your typical DTS student, she is in a class with mostly twenty-somethings with an entirely different outlook on life.  But she has wisdom, and faith unlike any one I’ve met.  She lost her husband twenty years ago, and in her culture that is a terrible thing.  Without a husband ‘a woman is nothing’, disdained by nearly everyone, including his and her own family.  She wanted to die, but God showed up.  He is her source; father, friend, provider, everything and everyone to her.  Her confidence and poise are amazing and inspiring.  We are excited to hear how God uses her during the DTS’s upcoming outreach.

George is a 36 year old student in one of the other schools here.  Orphaned and sent to live with uncles at age four, and put out on the streets at six.  He ate from rubbish piles and survived the streets.  He was taken in for part of his childhood by a widow who ensured he attended school where he completed part of his primary education.  As a teenager he joined the Ugandan military to ‘fight for my country’ against Joseph Koni’s forces who were terrorizing his part of the country.  Afterword he returned to his ‘home’ on the streets.  He then spent nine years as a fisherman on Lake Victoria before meeting Jesus.  His life was transformed, including deliverance from a twenty year opium habit.  He has nothing, but finds himself here preparing for the fulfillment of his dream of a ministry for Ugandan street kids.

Julius and Mary are on staff over the girl’s vocational school, and they are who we will be primarily working with for the boy’s vocational school.  They have four children, two at home, and two in boarding school.  Julius’ father suffered a stroke last year and lives with them here on the base.  Last weekend Julius’ brother was hit by a car while on his way to work and left for dead on the side of the road.  A passer-by found him, and he was somehow transported to the hospital in Kampala.  Broken pelvis, broken arm, crushed facial bones, and internal injuries.  One surgery so far and another scheduled for tomorrow.  (If the $180 can be found to pay for it.)  Julius has been staying with him in the hospital, and Mary can’t leave the house because of her father-in-law’s condition.  Financially, Julius and Mary are eking by, and this ‘run of bad luck’ hasn’t helped matters, but by their faith and positive attitudes you’d hardly know it.

Of course there are others…

On Friday Beth and I went to a nearby small town, Kakira, to buy bananas for the Women With Hope meeting that was to be held later that afternoon, and to buy g-nuts, raw shelled peanuts for someone who asked us to do so.  We found the market which is mostly empty during the week, but we did find a young boy selling bananas from a tray on his head.  We made him wide eyed and happy when we bought his entire stock, but we still needed to buy g-nuts and asked him where to find them.  He didn’t understand English though, but an older boy nearby seemed to.  He talked to the younger boy, and we understood that we were to follow the younger to a place to get the nuts.  Single file, we left the market, then the town itself, and weaved our way through a ‘residential’ area; mud houses, garden plots, chickens, goats, cows, and lots of kids.  It was apparent we weren’t going to be buying from a typical vendor, and Beth asked if the kid (who kept looking back at us) understood, or we should turn back, but I figured we were being taken to ‘an inside source’.  After several minutes we arrived at a place where the boy’s grandmother (I presume) stood talking to two other bewildered women sitting in their doorways and staring at the Mzungus who had followed the boy home.  The grandmother took the banana money, and between the three women we were able to determine they did not have g-nuts there.  We gave the boy a small tip, said our thank-yous and goodbyes, and made our way back to the market.  There we found a pair of women sitting on a mat shelling peanuts.  The peanuts were not ready to be sold, and the women didn’t speak English either, but one was able to understand what we wanted.  She took Beth’s hand and guided us to a stall where she woke up a man who then sold us some g-nuts.

Beth wants to take some Luganda lessons.  Perhaps we should.

a view from a boda

not what you want your driver to be doing

searching for g-nuts

Guidelines

As I type this Bryan is on his way to the airport where he’ll begin his trip home with an overnight flight, and Beth is lying on the bed with a major migraine.  She was bragging to her best friend last night about being headache free so far.  Oops…

 We’re sad to see Bryan go; it’s been great being able to spend time with him in a country he loves.  To watch him interact with the locals, adults and children, is inspiring; there is a natural bond that we haven’t seen between the locals and most Mzungus (white people).  It doesn’t matter if they are boda-boda drivers, shop keepers, beggars, or children in an orphanage or on the street; when interacting with Bryan there seems to be mutual respect and relationship that crosses cultural barriers.  He leaves behind many friends and a few broken hearts, and I’m sure he’ll find his way back here in the future.  Of course with his departure we will have no reason not to focus on our roles here.

Those roles are still being determined.  We did have orientation meetings this week and are becoming more familiar with the operation of the base here, and how it fits into the big YWAM picture.  One of the visions of course is to have a young men’s vocational school, and another is to have a health clinic, and those will be a large part of where Beth and I focus our energy.  But since in reality both of those may be a ways off, we will also be participating in some of the ministries on base.  Because the base here is part of YWAM, it’s focus is not necessarily to change this part of the world as another ‘fix it, do good’ organization, but rather the focus is on training in many areas for students from around the world, to prepare them for what God is calling them to.  Having these bases in Africa makes it more accessible to Africans who would otherwise not have the opportunities.  We have met staff and students from several African nations, India, Britain, Canada, and the USA.  The vocational schools are actually an exception to the YWAM mission, as they are targeting local at risk youth to help them to be successful in their communities.  But of course because of its presence here, YWAM is doing service and ministries for the local communities.  One of those which Beth has already been involved in is Women of Hope; a support group of sorts for HIV positive women, mostly widows and/or single mothers who come regularly for encouragement, fellowship, and a break from their difficult lives.

Part of the training this week included the rules of the base for staff, which I think we now officially are.  Except they are not really rules, they are guidelines to be followed according to our own consciences and the honor system.  We are a Christian volunteer organization, after all.

There are rules and laws in place in Uganda, as well, that should probably be more accurately referred to as guidelines.  For instance the taxis:  These are diesel powered Toyota vans which when delivered from the factory have seats for ten passengers and the driver.  Originally equipped there is a seat in the front on the other side of the engine from the driver, three two person benches opposite the sliding door, and a three person bench in the back.  But as modified the engine becomes a seat, another two person bench is added making four rows instead of three, and little flip down seats are welded to the ends of the two person benches, adding three more seats.  Four rows of three, plus two in the front, now the taxi is equipped and licensed for fourteen passengers; it says so right on the door.  It’s just a guideline.  In addition to the driver each taxi also has a conductor, it’s his job to take money and recruit passengers by banging on the door and shouting the destination, or, in some cases, harassing people on the street until they get in.  Because the taxi isn’t really going until it’s met the fourteen passenger guideline, but there’s room for more.  Guidelines +three, +four, +six; it’s really up to the imagination what the limit is.  And that’s just the adults, children fill in the few remaining gaps.  Similar to our travel experiences in Cameroon, actually…

Bed bug update:  We’re not sure if they’re bedbugs, but pretty sure of the source, and it’s not the bed.  There are two wicker chairs in our space which I had been sitting in, and it seems that’s when I would get bitten.  Since I’ve stopped sitting there, the amount of bites I get are way down, though not entirely. 

Bryan with some of HELP's kitchen staff...

...and showing his brick making skills with the crew.

2010 photo inside a taxi.  Equipment is older, but procedures are the same.

one of the neighbors who lives over our door

another neighbor

another guideline, perhaps?