Archive for March, 2008
the news
March 20th, 2008. Published under Life in Uganda. 2 Comments.
Today I picked up a local newspaper while waiting for a meeting to start at a restaurant. The headline caught my eye so I had to read it. It read, “Gadaffi says Bible is a forgery.” Gadaffi is the head of Libya and a pretty crazy looking dude known for his outrageous statements. But he is here opening a mosque here in Kampala named after himself. Its the largest mosque in sub-saharan Africa. He and 4 other heads of state came for the opening and for Muhammad’s birthday.
But Gadaffi claimed that since the Bible doesn’t mention Muhammad it is forged, because the true Bible was written by God and speaks of Muhammad. The president of Uganda, who claims to be a Christian, addressed the crowd afterwards and said he would have the Bishop look into the reason why Muhammad is not mentioned in the Bible. It just struck me as a funny story.
Another story that cracked me up was about a local basketball tournament that recently took place. The championship game never ended because someone in the crowd switched off the lights and when they came back on, someone had run off with the ball. Only in Africa.
Completely side note, I’m playing for the Gulu Hawks this season in the basketball league here in Uganda. The league goes from April to November, so I’ll play for the few weeks that I can. April 4th is our first game. I’m pumped, but haven’t played in over two weeks. Who knew I would come over to Africa and play “professional” ball. Haha. It’ll be fun though.
Homecoming
March 18th, 2008. Published under Life in Uganda. 1 Comment.
I’ve been gone from Gulu for three weeks. I haven’t seen the kids I fell in love with in almost a month, and they haven’t seen me. After a quick trip home to the states I finally made it back to Gulu tonight. I finally got to see the kids again…
As is customary, John and I pulled up to the compound of the Youth Corps house and honked the horn, signaling for someone to come and open the gate for us. One small head peaked out and a huge smile broke out on her face when she saw who it was. As soon as the gate opened, all of the girls came running towards the car. Pretty much every time I’ve come back from a week or so of being gone, several of the girls will run to the gate to open it up, but never all of them like this. This time they bombarded the car and we couldn’t drive in. They all had the biggest smiles on their faces and ran to the window to welcome me back. I’ve never felt so excited to be in Gulu. I love these kids and missed them terribly. Coming back to open arms like theirs makes me never want to leave.
This comes at a crucial time too. I just decided not to stay long term in Uganda, I’ve decided to pursue things in the states and leave Uganda at the end of May. By being home for a week, I felt really refreshed but wasn’t too excited about life in Uganda. I want to cherish my time, but so much junk has already come up I was already feeling discouraged. But seeing these kids’ faces and giving them hugs made all that feel insignificant. They put a new joy in me, a joy for life in general and a joy for serving others.
Unfortunately we weren’t able to hang out for long, the VP of Restore, Danny, is out with a group and I had to rush off to dinner. But I did get a chance to greet most of the kids and listened to the beginning of the girls’ singing. I love their worship, its so inspiring. But these kids will forever be in my hearts. I can’t imagine life without them, they will be by far the hardest part of leaving Uganda…