Archive for April, 2008
the po-pos
April 18th, 2008. Published under Life in Uganda, TIA, thoughts and questions. No Comments.
Three friends of mine were recently arrested for no reason. These guys were waiting in front of a bank for myself and some friends to take them out to lunch and were rounded up with a few others and taken to jail, just like that. Riots had broken out in a different part of downtown (taxis were striking because police had actually cracked down on illegal and wreckless driving. The police do their jobs and people get mad) and the police were literally going around arresting anyone and everyone, over 200 people in a matter of a few hours. What’s worse is that police brutality practically seems to be encouraged here. We went to the police station trying to plead their innocence and saw firsthand people being dragged in, slapped, kicked and hit with clubs. One guy was even being taken away mid seizure on a stretcher.
At one point we were standing just inside the station, trying to figure out which friend in the government could help us out (none) when one of the mentors, Mark, was pushed by. He started yelling in Luganda to Collins, one of the mentors not arrested who was with us. He was telling Collins who to talk to in the police station to help them out. The police pushing him were yelling at him to shut up but he wouldn’t. Mark has a little temper as well so he wasn’t exactly cooperating with these policemen who were pushing, slapping and yelling at him. So he yelled back. Right in front of us one guy slapped him across the face at which point Mark fell to the ground and a few of the police started kicking him. Mark yelled even more and they roughed him up even more. I had a complete feeling of helplessness and rage at the same time, but what could I do? Several police sort of barricaded us and shooed us away. It was horrible.
The worst part of the whole thing is that the Ugandan guys practically shrugged this off. Its not horrible that they weren’t as traumatized as us, but horrible that they’ve been through this time and time again to be immunized to this tragedy. Horrible that this is the reality of life for them. Walking up to the police station, we weren’t afraid of being beaten or yelled at walking in. Collins was. He waited outside, at a considerable distance, for us to come before even attempting to go in.
Don’t get me wrong, they were frustrated and disappointed, but this was just a part of what they go through. They are all former street kids so they had been arrested several times, spending up to a week in jail for no particular reason. And Mark has a temper for good reason. He’d been abused and has scars all over his body from various gunshots and life in the slums. What we thought was the worst thing possible is business as usual for them. Why and how this happens the world over is a mystery to me. Needless to say Friday was a rough day but eye opening and trying. I got a snippet of what they’ve gone through for the 20 something years they’ve been alive.
How many times do I take for granted my life, the hand I’ve been dealt?
If guys who have every right in the world to neglect others and “get theirs” are out here on the frontlines caring for kids who have nothing, how much more should we, the privileged, be giving back of all that we have?
How much more can I do?
How much more can you do?
Slumber party
April 11th, 2008. Published under Life in Uganda, TIA. No Comments.
Tuesday night some friends and I spent a night with street kids in one of Kampala’s slums. One of my friends works with an orphanage that works with the kids and whose mentors (former street kids) come from the area. So we had about 5 young Ugandan guys (who are absolute studs, such cool guys) showing us around and making sure nothing happened to us. But it was quite an experience. I can’t really accurately describe the slums though, just utter poverty.
We toured around the slum with the guys and met a few families and saw the areas where the guys help out. They showed us the bathroom, a small river that ran through the middle of the slum. We ended up at one spot where a fire was started and hundreds of curious eyes quickly surrounded us. We spent several hours just sitting on a bench of sorts and playing/talking to the kids and people who walked by and waited for the kids’ dinner to be served. The mentors provided the dinner, porridge and bread. It was pure mayhem when it was ready, the short attempt to form a line was quickly abandoned and the hundred or so kids just crowded around the mentors as they tried to serve the food.
The kids were great but pretty difficult to be around. I mean difficult in million different ways. Difficult because there were so many of them and so few of us so it was claustrophobic. Difficult because they were drugged up and high, which made it increasingly more difficult because it broke our hearts. Almost all of them are addicted to sniffing petrol or some sort of fuel. It acts as a drug to get high off of, but it also curbs hunger. These kids know true hunger and you can’t really blame them for becoming addicted to this drug. They each had an empty water bottle or rag they used to soak the fuel in and would constantly sniff it. It was pretty sad. They would fight (we saw about 15 miniature fights during the night) or cry uncontrollably if someone took away their bottle. This wasn’t my first time interacting with these kids so I somewhat knew what to expect, but it was still heartbreaking.
Besides the kids we also had to deal with the dozens and dozens of drunken guys, and kids for that matter, who walked by throughout the night and quite a few guys tried to suit Kristen, the only girl in our group, by standing 5 feet away and do nothing but stare. We were cracking up at this and even got out a video camera and slyly taped one guy’s intense stares. We felt somewhat safe though, at least one of the mentors literally stood guard by us the entire night, they were very protective. By 11 or so many kids started getting out cardboard to sleep on and we did likewise. Kids slept anywhere they could in this particular section, on trash piles, in a little ditch and on top of each other when the space ran out. There were probably 100 kids in the small area where we were. We put down a few pieces of cardboard over the dirt and rocks and tried our best to sleep too (we asked what happened when it rained and were told its every man for himself to find shelter). It was pretty difficult, we had to laugh about it a little, going to sleep with a crowd of at least twenty people around just watching us, wondering what we were doing. But the mentors made sure no one bothered us too much. We did, however, get to sleep to the sounds of Bob Marley on repeat. We listened to the same 4 songs about 10 times that night.
At like 3:30 am the guys woke us up and took us to see other areas. We walked several miles around downtown Kampala, seeing all the different areas where kids sought shelter at night. It was definitely an eye opening experience. The kids are never truly safe, police (horrible story about police brutality to come soon, which we experienced first hand today), night guards and drunks are always a threat to beat the kids or steal from them.
I’m incredibly glad I joined my friends in doing this. The kids we interacted with loved having us spend time with them and learn a little more about their lives. White people are virtually never seen in this slum, much less ever joined them for a slumber party. We didn’t go in with the mindset that we were going to help change these kids or do some great work. We went just to experience a night in their lives. International aid is rarely going to fully heal or completely help its beneficiaries. We can provide $ to create a home or something for the kids, but it takes locals, like the mentors, to truly help and change these kids. I have a whole new respect for these 5 guys and the work they are doing. My prayer is that if/when I go home I can find people in my own country that I can come alongside and struggle with, like these guys are doing, and hopefully together create change.
Luke 6:20-26
April 11th, 2008. Published under religion, thoughts and questions. No Comments.
I’ve read a lot lately about discipleship and the costs of following Jesus. Through my readings and several conversations with friends I’ve learned a lot and felt pretty convicted in my own life. For me, Christianity should be about following Jesus, being a disciple of Him. It’s not going to church on Sundays and praying before every meal. It should be a complete devotion to Christ. The followers of Jesus, his disciples, left everything to learn Jesus’ “yoke” or his teachings and beliefs. Every Rabbi in that time had disciples, men whom the Rabbis were training to become like them and keep their yoke alive after they were gone. Usually a prospective disciple (someone who from about age 6-14 did nothing but study the scripture, and by age 14 had the entire Old Testament memorized) would approach a rabbi and ask to take on his yoke, and if the rabbi thought the disciple was good enough he would allow the disciple to follow him. Literally follow him, everywhere he went from sunup to sundown. Obviously not everyone became disciples. Those that weren’t good enough went off to learn the family trade. Only the best of the best became disciples.
Jesus did things a little out of the ordinary. First, he approached his disciples and asked them to follow him, instead of the other way around. He picked out his own disciples. He specially chose them. But, these guys were ordinary. They were not the best of the best in terms of Bible knowledge or spirituality. They were fishing with their fathers, working the family trade. This means at some point they were turned down and told they weren’t good enough, to go back to their families and start working the trade they would work until their death. Now to have a new rabbi come and say, “You are the best of the best, come and follow me” is a huge deal. They would leave everything and follow him.
So Jesus has his disciples following him everywhere for three years. Their job is to learn his yoke and know it well enough to teach others his teachings without him around. All this to say… in one of my conversations with a buddy James, he talked about an experience he had with Luke 6:20-26, the blessings and woes section. It’s amazing how many different interpretations I’ve heard on this passage. Most of them focus on the fact that the poor, hungry and mourning will turn to Jesus and become his followers, but the rich, well fed and happy people won’t look to Jesus because they have what the want already. But my friend had one I never heard before, yet I believe is the closest to what Jesus really meant.
Notice in verse 20 that Jesus is talking to his disciples. Not to the masses who don’t know him, but to his disciples. He’s telling these followers, the ones he’s teaching his yoke to, these blessings and woes. Step back real quick and look at the whole of Jesus’ teachings. The main point of Jesus’ teachings are to love God and love each other. To love each other we treat them like we’d want to be treated, the golden rule. James’ idea was that Jesus was teaching these men how to live in a community together. The church isn’t a group of individuals, but a community of believers all striving towards following Christ. So here in this passage, Christ is going deeper into what their community, what their following of him should look like.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh… Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep…”
He’s telling his disciples, those of you who are poor, you are blessed because this brother of yours that is rich, he’s going to come and share with you. But woe to you who are rich, because now you gotta come share what you have with this poor brother of yours. You’re no longer going to be as comfortable as you once were. And blessed are you who are weeping, because your brother is going to come and weep with you, and together you will laugh again. But you who are laughing, you’ve got to come and mourn with your brother who is weeping.
I don’t know, but I really do think this is what Jesus was talking about. The more and more I experience life I realize we were not designed to go about this alone. We were meant to grow/share/learn with others through Christ. My buddy James puts all this much more eloquently on his blog here http://jamestravels.com/2008/02/blessings-and-woes-2.php. Check it out.