The Riches of the Poor

Kamuli, Uganda

2008-03-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

Right now I am deep in the bush of Uganda, a place called Kamuli, about two hours from the commonly known town of Jinja- where the source of the Nile is. This is an amazing country. The centre is full of happy kids, jack fruit trees, bananas, noisy birds and steamy jungle plants. I bathe from a bucket of cold water that I pump from a small well (however, many times the children want to do it for me). The toilet is a hole in the ground all ‘facilities’ are hidden behind a cement walls, but the shower is open air and has no door on one side. We sleep when the sun goes down, and wake up when it rises. At dawn and dusk the children pull out their massive drums and start beating them until all 133 of them are dancing and praying to the Lord. They are truly amazing.

Uganda Orphans fund is a hidden treasure in the middle of Africa. It is such a pure hearted place that is becoming a habitation of the sweetest Presence of Jesus. The children are so hungry for God. The young children fast and pray on their own so much that they would put much of the body of Christ to shame. I am sure their treasure in Heaven will be astounding. The most amazing part of it to me, is that other then Inger, I am the only other Mzungo (white person) out here. I cant believe how much I love being the minority skin color. I feel more comfortable staying at a place like this, then any other place in the world. This NGO is staying true to the culture of Uganda and it is untouched by Western ideals. I spent a long weekend with Duncan Hill, the founder of Uganda Orphans, and also some time with his team from Montana. It was wonderful to get to know them and talk about their vision. I have an invitation to go back there again with them, and God just really blessed our time together.

My time in Uganda has been fantastic, however some things have changed and I will be flying to South Africa early. Until I say goodbye to everyone at Kamuli at the end of the week, there is still a lot of fun to be had with the children. Hopefully I will teach them some songs if we have time… some of them can sing so well. I cant wait to sing with them. They always want me to pray with them while they are fasting and seeking God. Their hearts are so hungry. It has been healing and deeply encouraging to meet these children and also the local adults who assist in running the orphanage. They are all amazing servants of God and they are taking such good care of me. Its so humbling. I wish I had more to give them.

My good friend, who we call ‘Madame’, says she does not want me to leave. She takes care of the children. Her husband was taken by rebels and killed 3 years ago and so she lives at Kamuli with her 3 year old son Dan Dan…she tells me that she will fast and pray that God sends me back. How can I leave when there are people who want me there so much?! So it will be a teary day for me when I say goodbye. Each time I leave the place just for a few hours, it seems that I return to at least 80 kids running up to hug me and greet me.

Eternal thanks for your prayers.
Love in Him,

Christy

Hope for a Nation

2008-01-05T08:50:00.001-08:00

I’m almost at the end of my time here in Mozambique. On Boxing Day I saw off my travel companion, Manda, who went back to Australia. In just a few more days I will be saying goodbye to some of my closest friends, some that I will see again and some that I may not.

I’ll miss Domingo, the guard who sits just outside my room. I’ve had so many funny conversations with him. Somehow we have bonded through my broken Portuguese. It makes all other random conversations boring after living in Mozambique with a friendly Maconde guard that calls me “little girl”. I speak to him most days, I know about his family, the places he’s traveled to, the languages he speaks, the differences between Macua, Swahili and others…we talk about animals, the weather in Pemba compared to Australia. I’ll also miss Laura, our cleaning lady. Yesterday I walked out of my room after a desperately needed sleep in, and because I’d been away for the past week, they didn’t realize I was back in Pemba. Everyone started yelling when I opened my door and walked out. “Ahhhhh! Mana Christina!!! Voce voltar!” (you return). Then I was inundated with Portuguese questions about the historical Island I just went to. It was so sweet. Sometimes I’m not sure what’s wrong with me…I’m so attached to the people from other cultures that I meet. It’s the simple experiences here that I can’t help but draw life from. Nothing else compares to how alive I feel when I’m immersed in another culture.

Two days ago at 5am I was leaving Ilha de Mozambique, the island that was the capital of the country for over 400 years when the Portuguese were here. I was sitting in the back of a chappa (a small bus), crammed into the corner so tightly that I now have bruises all over me. I had my big backpack on my lap and my shoulder bag jammed behind my neck as the locals continued to pile in and as men outside continued to pile ridiculous amounts of chickens, suitcases, rice and mangos on top of the chappa. I tried not to think of 5 days before when we’d seen another chappa tip on its two right wheels as it turned a corner with the 40 people inside and the piled up luggage on the top. They either rock like they’re about to tip over on their side, or they look like the tires are about to pop under the weight. I relaxed and thought that it was probably better to not know or even think about how high they’d piled things on top this day. Three hours later we made it to Nampula. We got off the chappa and, praise God, our ride came straight away to pick us up. I got in the car, and then a police officer with a massive chip on his shoulder told me to get out and wanted our passports. He was angry…for no apparent reason, but he’d been watching us since we got off the chappa. I was with three other friends, two of us had white skin and in the middle of hundreds of dark skinned people, we stood out as a financial opportunity for the police. I was covered because I had my passport, but immigration had messed up Erik’s passport that previous month, so it was back in another city 500kms away. Oh dear. So with no choice but to pay a corrupt officers yearly salary, or face getting beaten by angry police officers, Erik had to give them everything he had. Africa.

Yesterday, I took money out of an ATM in town so I could pay for a flight to leave for Tanzania on Tuesday and the ATM shortchanged me. Africa.

So since I got here in late November, many things have happened. I don’t know how to elaborate on them other then to say that it has been draining on every level. Thank you for your prayers. God has been faithful, this time in Mozambique has been a blessing on my life and God knows how happy I am when I am here despite the darkness that I am in the midst of. In many places, the cities are in deep darkness, the people are in darkness, and then on top of this, there are the pressures of underdevelopment, which operate at the basic level of human need. Things like not enough healthy and fresh food, white bread, biscuits and coke are all easier to find then water and there’s no public latrines anywhere (basic sanitation). The corrupt police are just a reflection of other greater issues here, but I think it’s unwise to write a blog posting about those… I’m sure this will be channeled through many essays to come.

After being robbed by the police the other day, Erik made a comment about this country being really good at trying to kick out anyone who genuinely cares about it and anyone who really loves the people. It’s so true. He speaks fluent Portuguese, speaks some of the local Macua dialect and has given years of his life to this country only for ungratefulness, rarely any thanks, to be lied to, cheated, robbed, manipulated and the list goes on. I know he’d appreciate your prayers right now as well as many other long-term missionaries here. Of course their reward lies in heaven.

I leave Pemba on Tuesday 8th and fly to Tanzania for two nights in Dar es Salaam, and then fly to Entebbe, Uganda on Thursday where I’ll be staying with Uganda Orphans Fund in Kamuli, about an hour from Jinja with a missionary friend. I am praying for safe travels for the next week, especially because I’ll be on my own. I was originally going to pass through Kenya, but rearranged my plans because of the election and now riots that are going on there.

God is good all the time. We pray for people wherever we can, it’s exciting to see the Kingdom break forth here even in the midst of darkness. Healing miracles. God does and is always ready to pour out on desperate and hungry hearts here in Africa. Pemba is a difficult place, but I have seen positive changes in some of the people since last time I was here.

I speak Isaiah 60.1-2 over Mozambique.

Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you-rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!
For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness [all] peoples, but the Lord shall arise upon you, and his glory shall be seen on you.

Nothing is impossible for God. Mozambique is not impossible. Exposing corruption is not impossible. Stopping child trafficking is not impossible. Changing the stone hearts of proud Westerners is not impossible. In God, through the power of the indwelling Spirit, nothing is impossible for us. We are the incarnation of Christ on the earth. As we give up our life for breaking like the alabaster box, we leave behind trails of costly fragrance from heaven, and as Rolland Baker would say, we do this so that many others can experience the blessing of how perfect a Savior Jesus Christ really is.

Love in Him,

Christy

Wheelchairs

2007-12-15T02:38:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note to say that this was typed very quickly and right after I woke up!! I'll fix the typos when I get some time!! Sorry to all the professional writers who read this!

Hi!,
Just a continuation on that previous short blog…

The wheelchairs have been a huge blessing. Rainha had not been going to school and was just dragging herself around her house in the dirt when we got here. Now we’ve been taking her to church a few times a week, she was even on the stage singing at the mission student’s graduation party last week. Manda, Octavia (who is a long term missionary that cares for Rainha) and I wake up at 4.30am Mondays and Fridays and take her down to the beach for Hydrotherapy. We have to go at that time because the wheelchair draws too much attention and we’d be mobbed by hundreds of kids. We still draw some attention even at 5.30 when we arrive at the beach. It’s a 20 min walk to get to where we swim with her, and of course it takes time to load her in the chair and make it up and down the terrain here on the compound. Nothing is easy or smooth running here, but this chair is far better then any other one would have been.

We also have Jucebio, an 8-year-old village friend with cerebral palsy- but not your usual type of it. Anyway, he looks about 5, and he has a really big head, and cant use his feet or hands. His hands are getting worse, his fingers are curled in and his condition is deteriorating. Doctor Ange looked at him and said that medically, this condition will just get worse and worse until he dies. Some village boys we know got saved in the past year and they are so different to last time. They’re being disciple in the Word of God and they came with us on our first visit to Jucebio’s mud hut and prayed for him with their amazing fervency. His mother works in the kitchen at Arco-Iris five days a week. She’s a sweet Macua lady, only 25, but I really like her. Manda brought another wheelchair from Australia for this little boy. I told her she was crazy to take ANOTHER chair as well as the first, but now its here, wow, I’m so glad she didn’t listen to me…Jucebio is so happy, its amazing to see his face. I took him swimming the other day. He never usually speaks, but he just talked and talked the whole time I was in the water with him. I only wish I had worked out some before I came here so my arms could cope with the weight of carrying a child for longer. The African mamas are strong!

Anyway, to make a long story short, it looks like we have found a centre for kids with disabilities that is 100% staffed by Mozambican’s, but funded by some Catholic people. And we really wanted to find Jucibio a place where he could get some love and care, and mingle with other children. When we first got here and went to see him in the village, he had been sitting in the dirt, leaning up against his mud hut with thousands of ants all over him, while his mother had been at work. So we have asked these people if there would be a chance of him being dropped at their centre to do a day program with them a few times a week. It would be amazing to leave Mozambique knowing that he has some joy and social interaction in his life when we leave. The centre does painting with the kids, feeds them, and teaches them a little and everything. So we’re taking him their on Monday for a trial. These people even take their kids to the hospital for physiotherapy. It’s only tiny, and it’s not a wealthy centre, but, wow, it’s so much better then sitting in the dirt all day unable to move. We also can’t just give his mother the wheelchair because there is no security in a mud hut and it wouldn’t last a second.

So that’s just a really brief update on the situation here with the wheelchairs. Some people have become very angry with us for not buying them wheelchairs and they’re jealous that we’ve helped the others. It’s frustrating. There are many frustrations here! But if I went into those, this blog would go on for some time. Haha. TIA (this is Africa).

Oh and I have spent so much Internet time trying to send photos of all this, but to no avail… the connection in this country is just terrible. I think it’s much better in Uganda, so it might have to wait for a month.

Much love,
Christy

Pemba in December

2007-12-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

Hi,

This is just a quick note to say that I'm here safe and sound. The wheelchairs made it, so did all our luggage. Thank God!
Its summer in Africa, so I have only felt cold at one time when I was on the back of a flatbed truck at night in the bush. After a long cold winter in Australia, Im really enjoying the heat of the equator.
Hopefully soon, I will have time to write on this properly. But for now, my internet time is up and I have to get to the market to buy some bananas before they close for the day.

Much love!!! Its a blessing to be here, but it has its challenges. Each day Im reminded that this is a "special" continent with "special" people on it. haha. There is never an uneventful moment.

2007-10-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

This time a year ago, I was living in a humble home shared by eight others, who were similarly embarking on the beginnings of a life journey that would answer the calling of "a drum" that was beating in our hearts too loudly to be ignored. After months of showering from a bucket of dirty water, months of goat entrails, rice and beans (with bugs and rocks), months of facing digestive problems, scabies, malaria, ant bites, snakes and spiders, months of 40 degree heat... I can still hear what my good author friend describes as "that big African drum beating loudly inside". I am not 'dying to get back' to Africa, but rather, I am literally living to get back to the place of mud houses and banana leaved roofs.

I am convinced that Africa is the most romantic place in the world to write about. However, as most people are aware (or are they?), there is a stark irony to this; one that adjectives in our human language will constantly fail to define. The "romance" of mission work in Africa is usually quick to disappear, as the people you strive to love are those who are broken and abused, hurt and dying, confused and inconsolable. They have never seen any example of true unconditional love and often, particularly in the children who first arrive at a centre, they just cry, bite, or kick or scream. One little boy I met last time in the toddlers house at Iris was about three, and he had never once smiled, spoken or shown any expression but utter sadness on his face for months. No one knows what happened to him to have caused so much sorrow. I desperately hope to see a change in him next month when I arrive back there.

Amanda my missionary friend and I, are nearly ready to leave for this cruel, yet beloved continent again to embrace diverse cultures and to befriend those who are also "wonderfully and fearfully made" in Gods image. I wish thank those who continue to support me their prayers, especially the Colac CRC Church, those from Coromandal Valley Uniting, Kay in Qld, and Brigitta in Tassie, I know you all pray for me and I am so grateful. I especially want to thank the Colac Rotary Club, and more personally Ian Gullen and Irwin Sutherland for their incredible generosity and kindness that they have shown the poor. They have donated an overwhelming $1950 for Amanda and I to take over a therapeutic beach wheelchair for the orphans and the severely disadvantaged in northern Mozambique. We will possibly have more charitable support coming in over the next few weeks from others, all of which will be a wonderful blessing.

The tentative plan is to spend six weeks at the Arco Iris mission base in Pemba. Soon after the new year, we travel north to Dar Es Salaam -Tanzania, then by bus pass through Nairobi -Kenya and into Kampala -Uganda. From Kampala, Uganda's capital, we will head south to Kamuli and will be staying at a very basic and new Children’s Centre. Some of the children have come out of the Lords Resistance Army and have endured that of the most immense human suffering that humanity can face. I think that only the suffering of Jesus dying on the cross could come close to compare.

The centre in Uganda has close to 200 children who are orphans. As well as this centre, the organization is a non-profit organization in it's beginnings. My friend who is a long term missionary there recently spent her last change just to buy some newly adopted children some tee shirts. After befriending the poor, I can never justify feeling sorry for myself when I "struggle" to pay for my weekly groceries, or make my rent payments when I'm studying in Australia. Yet, having addressed the sad reality of Uganda and Mozambique, many of these people have a joy that is unspeakably different to the West’s. It’s unspeakably free and it is my greatest pleasure and joy to learn and live as one with these people in their community. Revival is in the people and I can't wait to enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with them.

I look forward to sharing the riches of the poor with you more in the coming months.

Much Love in Him,

Christy