IDP Camps & Hope

Today is Saturday. Yesterday we concluded our time in the I.D.P. camp with a football (soccer) game. Thanks to the skills of the youth we worked with out there we won the match 2-1. It does not change the fact that USA lost to Ghana, of which we are reminded everywhere we go.

For the last three days we have been working with a subsidiary organization to Concerned Parents Association, the organization that Ben and Holly work for, Concerned Children and Youth Association (CCYA). They regularly go into the IDP Camps to organize play days. As they instructed us on the first day, “we are trained in making fun”. The day consists of hundreds of children, from those carried on the backs of their siblings to young 20’s, being divided into groups to “make the fun” together. The addition of our team has provided humor and some additional resources. After two hours of dancing, a Ugandan version of “duck, duck, goose”, singing and laughing we are exhausted. We have had different art projects each day – the first day distributing over 900 pieces of construction paper and a single (actually half) crayon to each child to draw. It is amazing seeing hundreds of children sit and wait to be instructed on what they will draw. Yesterday we gave out 500 pieces of chalk, broken to have enough for the children to have one piece for every two kids, to color on an abandoned building. The colors and pictures of trees, houses, flowers, animals, and math equations demonstrated how dedicated the children are in every opportunity they are afforded. Each day we have given out Colorado Rapids Football jerseys to the children who have participated the “best”. To give out 50 jerseys and a dozen footballs is wonderful. To only be able to give them to a handful and have thousands of eyes stare at you and question why there is not more is probably for me one of the worst parts of my day. We brought enough candy for every child to have one piece. As we walked down lines of hundreds of children placing a single piece of candy in their hand I had a moment where it was not candy, but rather a form of communion - that I was there touching the hand of a child and praying for them that they would somehow know the love of God in this place. Leaving the camp yesterday there was a sense of deeper understanding, greater confusion, and a desperate need for hope.

The most memorable part of the day was a conversation with a young man named Dennis; he was 20 years old and has lived all of his known life in IDP camps. He had many questions for me including how far away from our home were we, if it is 2:00pm in Uganda what time is it in the USA, which led to a poor explanation by me about how the world is round like a football (soccer ball) and how Africa is always about a half a day ahead of the USA. The question that turned the conversation was when he asked, “compare life here in this camp to life in the USA”. I told him, “you can not, there is too much difference”. By the time the conversation ended there were over 100 people listening to us discuss how we both wanted the extreme poverty and unimaginable living conditions of the camps to not be the only life he and thousands of others would know. He asked regarding my desire to see things change, “what NGO (Non Government Organization) are you with?” I replied by asking him, “you want things to change, what NGO are you with?” The crowd laughed and he smiled. We agreed that we were simply two men standing in the middle of a camp, surrounded by thousands of people living in some of the most difficult circumstances, and hoping for change. Last night at dinner and this morning at breakfast our conversations continued about what does hope look like for this country, these people. A small piece of clarity came with that hope is not prescriptive, rather redemptive.

The day included multiple celebrations of Alyssa’s birthday as well. The CCYA staff sang to her and gave her an unexpected “bath” of water poured over her back since it was her “bath – day”. Ugandan humor I suspect. We also had an angel food cake baked by Ben and Kimball that we took to a restaurant where the entire restaurant joined in singing to her – twice. Once when we brought the cake out with the candle, and once we the power went out and we were all sitting in complete darkness for about three minutes. We learned the additional verses to “Happy Birthday”, which were, “how old are you now?” and “you look like a donkey”. When the power came back on an African man looking at Kimball shouted, “Where is my wallet?, Kimball looked at him and shouted the same, with much laughter following. At times laughter is the best, and only, medicine.

We have been away now seven days. It seems at times much longer. The moments of pause at the end of the day include either “high / low” or reflection and silence of what we have seen and experienced. There is no doubt that we are sustained and given strength to walk through this land by the prayers of so many. We continue to attempt to post pictures of our time here; the power issues and the unstable connections make it difficult. To try to give you a picture of what we see here imagine the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets with the biggest sky you have ever seen. Against that backdrop is poverty, pain, sickness, and doubt that it is almost impossible to remain engaged with. It is good to be here. Not easy, but good.

Grace and peace.

[Jared Mackey]