responsible irresponsibility: 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.