Archive for the ‘STAO’ Category
1
Sep
2007
Sep
2007
Of Orange Soda, Hopscotch, and Little Miracles
September 1st, 2007 at 14:13 pm by Melissa in STAO
It’s a lazy Saturday here in Jinja. Laundry is hanging out to dry (please don’t rain, please don’t rain), the market is bustling, the sun is out, and orange soda sits in cool refrigerators tempting passers-by. After a week of working, playing, planning, praying, this lazy afternoon is a welcome reprieve.
It seems as though we’ve been on a rollercoaster ride (or maybe more appropriately, a boda-boda ride!) of emotions. Much has happened this week that has hung heavy on our hearts: We have met widows who could easily have been our peers; we have met children who know unbearable pain and unspeakable tragedy; we’ve met education and healthcare systems that are nothing less than infuriating; we’ve come face to face with how small we are in the seemingly endless problems of a country and a people who live on next to nothing.
Yet more than anything, I’ve been met with an overwhelming joy and a boundless hope in the people I’ve come to know. Yesterday, I spent an entire day with the kids at STAO. Being left alone and defenseless with 30 rambunctious 3 – 12 year olds was an intimidating thought, but with pressing matters to attend to, the rest of the team left me to entertain our favourite little mob!
What an incredible blessing it was! All we did was play all day. We read bible stories, sang songs, played hopscotch (I lost a lot despite the fact that my legs are longer than theirs! Sigh..), and just rolled around and giggled a lot. More than anyone I know, these kids know what it means to have an untouchable joy and to be loved by a God who cares for them. We read about Jesus turning the 5 loaves and 2 fish into food for a multitude, and these precious ones, who know what it means to be hungry, were just absolutely amazed and so excited to hear about their provider Jesus. Their wide eyes and huge smiles were such a sight as I reminded them that the Jesus who provided that miracle was the very same One who loved and cared for each and every one of them. Their individual stories are heartbreaking, yet their hope abounds.
On a lazy Saturday like today, I thank God for the ways He brings joy when all around seems tragic. He comforts the mourning, feeds the hungry, gives power to the weak, and loves those who have never known love.
Webaleh, Yesu. Webaleh, Yesu.
Before I came to Uganda, many asked me “What will you be doing there?” Each time I struggled to come up with a succinct answer… instead I would rattle off details about the teams we’re split into, the way in which Tusubira was formed, or my own personal reasons or goals.
After today, I think the right answer was “building.” We’ve done a lot of it since we arrived. We’ve built relationships with orphans, widows, the STAO staff, and their partners. We’ve built friendships, trust, and understanding within the team itself. We’ve also built insect traps, security mechanisms made of coat hangars, and a collection of embarassing dance videos. Today we built in a more traditional sense: We built a pig sty.
A sty? But why?!?
To house STAO’s new pigs of course. You see, my team here is focused on sustainable income projects for STAO. One such project is a “pigery” - which was proposed / endorsed by Pastor David. David recently joined the STAO board of directors, although his main occupation is running a different organization called Father’s Divine Love Ministries. They have two orphanages and work in a very similar way to STAO, but they are larger and more established. FDLM has a pigery as one of their main sources of income, and so STAO is going to try and emulate their success. The pigs themselves are being donated by the STAO-Norway team (a group from Norway that functions similarly to Tusubira). They are buying them from FDLM, and giving them to STAO. However, before they can do that, they need a place to put them, and STAO-Norway didn’t want to donate the resources or labor to build a sty. So that’s where we came in.
Yesterday Sam, Jamie, and I headed into Jinja with Pastor Nelson and purchased all the supplies we would need. We would have started the work, but it began to rain and we barely got the cement inside one of the neighboring widow’s mud hut before it started coming down. It was also already around 4pm, as we spent most of the day haggling, buying, retrieving funds from the bank, arranging delivery, and loading/unloading supplies.
This morning, after a breakfast of fried Casava (much like large french fries) and Chipote (a fried bread tortilla sort of thing) with peanut butter which Shawna and I retrieved while the others got ready for the day, we headed to STAO to begin work. I’m really amazed at how the sty came together. When we arrived, the STAO volunteers and one professional builder had already laid poles in the ground with cement, and started hammering the wooden planks that would make up the walls in place. Very quickly we had most of the walls attached, and began tackling the poles that will support the roof. At one point we ran out of wood, so Sam and I headed into town to get more. But Jamie (the muzungu construction machine) and the others kept working and got some of the cement flooring done. It’s really impressive progress, and though we had to break from both exhaustion and the coming rain, we are confident it will be completed tomorrow in time for the Norway team to buy the pigs when they come back from their safari on Saturday.
Even so, I think we won’t stop building. The healthcare team is building relationships with villagers in Mafubira and two other villages. They’re also building a catalog of data about them, which Dale is using to plot various correlations and statistics using his wizardy (and nifty software program). The education team is building on the childrens’ existing English expertise, and helping out headmaster Festo. Meanwhile we’re all building experiences, images, and memories that will stay with us through the rest of our lives.
I can’t even begin to fathom sheer number of kids we’ve met since we’ve been here. For me personally, it is actually very daunting and draining at times. At some moments, their joy, energy and vibrancy almost makes me forget that they’re orphans. It is incredibly moving to see what a spiritually healthy environment that these kids have been provided by pastor Nelson and pastor Ivan. In mist of the overwhelming madness of kids swarming us and pulling us in every direction possible, each of us are finding our selves slowly being drawn to certain kids at STAO.
I’ve been finding myself really drawn to a kid named Kitimbo. We first met during service on Sunday. This is rather embarrassing to post, but I was bawling during the service, especially when all the kids were singing on top of their lungs, “Touch my body, touch my soul, touch my spirit, and make me whole”. Kitimbo pulled my hand down and wiped my tears off my face and gave me a smile that I simply cannot describe with words. I pray that God will show me how to love him as it seems like he won’t be letting go of my hand anytime soon. 
When we arrived at STAO this morning, pastor Ivan introduced us to a girl named Sandra. We noticed a tumor on side of her head, and also realized that she wasn’t like the other kids that’s been swarming us. Sandra is 7 years old. She has full blown AIDS. However, she just contracted TB (tuberculosis) and is not sure if her body can even handle ARV(AntiRetroViral)s. What was really heart breaking on top of that was she is actually not an orphan. She has a father, but apparently he does not care about her and completely neglects her. The team was able to pray for her, and the healthcare team will be taking her to the clinic to look at treatment options tomorrow.
It is very difficult for me to articulate the thoughts and emotions I’ve been trying to process. However we have hope because our God loves us and the children here beyond our comprehension and His heart truly breaks for the children here. We pray that He’ll continue to reveal himself more and more to our team as we try to process everything we’ve been experiencing.
Pictures:
Sam and Kitimbo at the STAO church
Melissa with Sandra
Here are some pictures that Jamie took today while we were at STAO handing out the clothes you donated to the orphans. Click for larger versions.
Danielle w/ STAO kids
Dale w/ more kids
Kids lined up to pick out donated clothes
Pastor Nelson (founder of STAO)
And here’s one from yesterday of me with Shemelia, who has been cooking us wonderful dinners, at Itanda Falls.
