Paradise

Yesterday was the last full day for the Uganda 360 CRED team. It has been an amazing trip in so many ways, not least seeing a very diverse group of young people, from a range of backgrounds, each with their own set of ‘baggage’ and issues that they are working through, come together to make a strong, supportive team, who have been working for each other as much as for themselves, and even moreso have been working together for the good of the children and communities we have been serving.

It has been a transforming trip for the team, and there have been lots of very interesting conversations as they have been processing what they have seen, heard and experienced. Eyes have definitely been opened, hearts softened, and future directions reconsidered. A very good trip.

But the thought I want to share today relates to a song that they had on in the van yesterday as we were driving back from Maya, an area of rural poverty, to have a final visit with the Acholi Community, an area of urban poverty. The song that came on was ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay, and although I’ve heard it many times before, the words set off a new thought process yesterday.

I’m not brilliant with lyrics, but it talks of a girl who expected the world, but couldn’t have it, so she flew away in her sleep to paradise. It goes on to mention how the wheel breaks the butterfly, and tears are like waterfalls – so as to reinforce the hardness of the girl’s life, and how far she feels from paradise.

As I reflected on the people I’d just met at Maya, and those I would soon meet at Acholi, I wondered what paradise would look like to them. For westerners, I think paradise would include golden sandy beaches, blue sky, palm trees, everything taken care of etc. But to a child living in absolute poverty, can their imagination even stretch that far?

Can they think that far outside of their immediate existence, or would that be too painful a process – to dream of something they know is almost impossible to get? Would paradise for them be more along the lines of knowing that they could have 3 meals a day, water on tap, a non-leaking roof, a few changes of clothes, shoes that aren’t broken, cooking facilities that don’t involve leaning over a charcoal fire all day?

All things we take for granted, even assume as our basic rights, but for so many in the world, it is so far from the norm, and definitely not something to be assumed.

Maybe I need to ask some of the children at Acholi Quarters one day how they would describe paradise, and see what their answer is. I could be surprised, and discover that they have the courage to dream big, or I might find that their dreams are much more low-key, with much lower expectations of what the best is that could come their way.

In the meantime, maybe the challenge to all of us is to look for ways in which we can help others get one step closer to the paradise they dream of, and to put those ways into practice.

The power of the beads, part 2

Sometime back I blogged about the power of the Acholi beads, and the impact that our Uganda teams are making when they come here and create a market for the Acholi women to sell their paper-bead jewellery to.

Well, yesterday, whilst at Acholi Quarters for the afternoon with the current team, I learnt an extra bit of information that reinforces the extent of that impact.

Apparently, when the ladies make the beads, they have two options: if they have no buyers of their own to sell jewellery to, they can sell the beads loose to another person who does have access to a market and will turn the beads into goods to sell at that market.

Or, if they do have access to their own buyers, they can turn their own beads into jewellery and sell direct.

The numbers behind these two options are what I learnt yesterday, and are pretty impressive:

Option 1: selling the beads loose:

30 beads can be sold loose for 100 shillings

on average the ladies will each make 100 beads per hour, so that is 330ish shillings per hour.

Over an 8 hour working day, that would net them about 2600 shillings.

In itself, that is quite appealing, as the most they can earn at the quarry breaking up rocks, is about 1000 – 1200 shillings, and that involves sitting in the hot sun, hitting rocks all day with a hammer, getting hit by flying shards of rock, worrying that the children are at home unsupervised etc.

Move on to Option 2: selling the beads a jewellery:

14 beads make up one single strand bracelet, which sells for 1000 shillings.

So that same 30 beads can bring in 2000 shillings if sold in the form of bracelets.

Over an 8 hour period, the 800 beads made can be turned into 57 single-strand bracelets, which is 57000 Ugandan shillings – if they have people they can sell the jewellery to.

Compare that to the 2600 shillings if they have no market for the jewellery, and the impact of access to buyers is really evident

For Harriet and her group of ladies that form the cooperative that we work with, their buyers are all the teams of young people who come to John’s and spend at least a day visiting with the Acholi, or sometimes even a week.

All the teams get the opportunity to buy jewellery from the ladies, and a lot gets bought! Add to that the previous team members who are sending money for repeat orders, and we have an extra layer of demand for the jewellery, creating even more opportunity for the ladies to sell the finished products, and earn more money which is spent on putting the children through school, putting food on the table, paying the rent, and other basic needs.

Sometimes people will ask what difference can a team make going out for just one week, and would it be better to send the money for the airfare instead. Here is one simple bit of evidence of how we do make a difference by actually coming here. There are many other ways that we make a positive difference by coming in person, but the maths behind the selling of beads is one strong reason in itself.

John: Breaking out of the poverty cycle, but not turning away from it

Last night, I sat and listened to a wonderful man, whom I have known for several years, and feel privileged, to call my friend, tell his story to a team of young people, all of whom hung on his every word.

I don’t have time to relate the whole story now, but the summary version is this:

John was born to Rwandese refugees, in Uganda, the youngest of 4 boys. His dad worked on a British owned tea plantation, and John’s first memories are of life in the servants quarters, occasionally catching a glimpse of a white person, but mostly having to stay out of their way.

His mum was in Kampala where she had gone to seek work, and John’s childhood was split between the tea plantation at Mityana, and at Kampala – a day’s bus ride away. Both his parents lived in extremely poor conditions, and John would often go all day without food.

During John’s formative years, first Uganda was in turmoil, with a number of uprisings, coups and other civil unrests, and then the Rwandan genocide impacted the family. Although John was too young to be in danger of being enlisted to fight for any side, his brothers weren’t, and all three were killed when they fought alongside the RPF in Rwanda in 1994.

From that point John had to take on the role of head of the household, and care for his sick mother, and help find money to pay the rent each month, as well as try to do his studies on an empty stomach, and with no electricity to do homework by.

But luck was on his side, or as I prefer to think – God had better plans for John. He was able to obtain the opportunity, through the tea plantation, to go to study in the UK for two years at a Welsh boarding school, and during that time he completed O levels and A levels in parallel (whilst trying to understand the weird Welsh accent, cope with the harsh weather of Wales in winter, learn that ‘tea’ isn’t just a drink but a meal, and deal with all manner of other cultural differences).

Having completed his A levels, John returned to Uganda to build his mum a 2 room house (that was infinitely better than the shack she had been in), and then went to University at Liverpool to come out with a combined honours degree.

John is now married to Sophie, with a lively, and lovely 2yr old daughter Patience, and his work is varied, selfless and inspiring. He has built his own house; a house for dad that has solar power, rainwater harvesting, biogas fuel, and cows and chickens for milk and eggs, as well as a vegetable garden for other food stuffs; a house for mum; a dental and medical clinic at Maya plus a house for an elderly lady and her grandchildren; and biogas projects at several other locations as well. He is also involved in supporting the Acholi people living in Kampala, and has fingers in many other pies.

As I said, that is the summary version, but what comes through in it all is John’s passion that underlies all of his work – to help liberate people from the crushing cycle of poverty.

Whenever I bring teams here, I come away, as do the teams, richer for the experience. Whether we are working with the Acholi Quarters project, or helping advance the biogas project, or going into one of the many rural or slum schools that he has contacts with, or visiting the Maya project – just listening to John talk about the projects and his visions and dreams, is an absolutely wonderful experience.

His faith perspective, and his unswerving belief that his poverty-ridden start in life was the best start he could have to get him to where he is now, is very challenging and thought-provoking. No ‘poor little me’ syndrome, or seeking out charity, or feeling that life owes him something. Instead John feels that he is privileged to have experienced the cycle of poverty, and know that it is possible to climb out of it.

And it is that experience, and that knowledge that drives him forward each day, to do what he can to help others climb out, through access to more sustainable living, and education.

As well as leading the team this week, I’ve also had the chance to have some wonderful conversations with John about dreams he has for the future, for projects that will empower the vulnerable and liberate those trapped in poverty. It is exciting to hear those dreams, and to talk them through with him, and to consider ways in which the dreams could become reality.

I’m sure there will be more blogs on that in time to come, but for now I just lift a prayer of thanks to God – for John, and his lifestory, that is so entwined with God’s provision and guiding hand, and that is so encouraging and uplifting as a demonstration of how God can take each of us, whatever our start in life, and use us, to bring about positive transformation – if we will just be open to His calling, and His guidance.

I Live Again

Yesterday evening (Monday) we had a visit by three incredible people. Benson Ocen, and his wife Ruth, are founders of I Live Again (ILA), and Joel is one of their key trauma counselors.

All three of them are from the Acholi tribe, and have varied experiences of the horrific times when Joseph Kony and the Lords Resistance Army were leading a reign of terror in the area.

ILA works with the survivors of that period, and helps take people through a programme of trauma counseling, discipleship, forgiveness and reconciliation, and where wished for, they assist in resettlement back to the Acholi tribal homelands. Obviously the speed of progress through the programme is different for each individual, and for some the process of healing and forgiveness is much more painful and slowly achieved than for others.

Some of those participating were victims of the LRA – and speak of watching loved ones being killed, or brutally tortured and left to die. Others are ex-child soldiers and testify to the horrific deeds that Kony and his men forced them to do, to their own families first, and then to others in their community. The guilt that these people carry around is massive, and for them forgiveness must first start with themselves, as they work through the internal knowledge of what they have done – atrocities often not shared previously with anyone.

And of course for these people also is the fear of being found out, and what their victims might do in revenge. Massive massive amounts of pain, hurt, and trauma that we can not even begin to imagine.

ILA is working day in and day out to help people move forwards in their lives – to help them, slowly by slowly, find a measure of peace, and then to nurture that small seed of peace and forgiveness to spread throughout the person, and into their family and community, that reconciliation can begin.

Listening to Benson, Ruth and Joel is hard – to hear the testimonies that they bring, to try to even comprehend the awful things that one man can do to another. And then to try and understand how anyone can be so forgiving – and be challenged to be as forgiving in our own contexts. To be challenged to let go of the hurts and pains of the past – that are holding us back, and to be challenged to do that by someone who has forgiven so so much more that it makes our little gripes seem embarrassingly trivial, and makes us feel uncomfortable to consider how petty it was to hold on to them in the first place.

So there is all of that to deal with. But then there is also the knowledge that although Joseph Kony isn’t in Uganda anymore, he and his LRA are still out there somewhere, and yet the world doesn’t seem to care.

He has gone through Sudan, and through DRC, and now is somewhere (it is thought) in Central African Republic. And he and his army are still recruiting child soldiers and child ‘brides’, violating lives, terrorizing villages and communities, forcing children to kill and maim members of their own family, or be killed themselves….

He is still out there doing all this, but do we hear about it on the news? Does it ever make the headlines?

What is it that means that we do hear about the killings going on in Syria and Iraq, in Israel and Palestine, and yet we don’t hear about the killing of others in poor corners of the world? Each person killed is one person too many, each person killed has the same right to life as any other. Each person killed has the same right to be mourned, and their story told, as any other. And yet it doesn’t happen like that.

I know there are copious reasons out there why things are like they are, and I’m not about to try and change the world of media reporting! But after the ILA talk yesterday, I do feel that the least I can do is raise awareness about those poor, frightened, traumatised victims, and their families, many killed or maimed or scarred for life; and send up a prayer for them, for those seeking to help them in their recovery, and for justice to be achieved, that Joseph Kony and the LRA’s reign of terror be brought to an end once and for all.

Initial reflections on the CRED 360 Uganda trip

Well, here I am again, happily back in Uganda, staying with John and Sophie, and having the delights of introducing yet another team to the inspiring, challenging and thought-provoking projects that I have grown to know and love so much over the years.

I really do feel so very blessed to be able to come here so often, and it is so lovely to see the young people blossoming and being transformed in very positive ways as they get involved in the different projects.

We’ve just had a debrief time, and everyone shared a couple of thoughts on what it is that has impacted them most since they’ve been here (ie since yesterday lunchtime). For most of them, it is their first time to Africa, for some it was their first time on a plane, or away from family for more than a weekend. So it was good to hear the varied reflections that they had.

When it came to my turn to share, I initially found it hard to think what to say, as I have been here so many times and so all the things that are unusual and strange to the others feel relatively normal to me.

But what has impacted me today, is just how much God has been showing up everywhere. And as the representative of a Christian organization, with a heart for getting the gospel out into the near and far reaches of the world through word and deed, I have been so excited to see how many times today the young people have seen and heard God referred to in and through daily life as well as the projects.

Some of these young people have come from very dark places, and very broken backgrounds; others have had it less tough, but still don’t have anything to do with church back home. Today they have all heard about being good stewards of God’s creation, as John spoke about what inspires him to help others pursue sustainable living as a way of escaping poverty; and they have heard all about the power of forgiveness and prayer, as Benson spoke about the atrocities experienced by the Acholi people during the reign of terror by Joseph Kony and the Lords Resistance Army.

Some of them also sat in on the prayer time at the start of the day; and I had a long conversation with one lad about different denominations, faith in action v faith by word, power of prayer etc.

And all of that on just day one!

So, as we embark on the rest of the fortnight, thank you for your prayers for the team – may they continue to be touched, challenged and impacted by what they see, what they hear, and what they take part in. And may we, the leaders, be wise to the different ways in which God is working His purposes out in each of them, so that we may support them in the ways that they each need it.