Hope is Real

Well, I think it’s time for an update! Today is Sunday, and we’re still in Gulu (in the north). We were supposed to go to Masindi (2 hours south; just south of the Nile) on September 1, but we started organizing the child sponsorship program for Village of Hope, and that’s taking extra long. At each of the five IDP camps we go to, we are taking individual photographs of the kids in VOH and then interviewing them. The interviews take SO long because there’s so much information to get, but we also have to leave some questions out. We can’t ask them if they were abducted by the LRA and if they are orphans until Rose can prepare them and then debrief with them after, so we’ve just been sticking with the simple questions, like favorite school subject, age and grade, and who they’re currently living with.

The other day I interviewed a four-year-old boy named Okello George Bush. His favorite hobby is hide-n-seek, he said he wants to be a driver when he grows up, and his prayer request was that someday when he’s a driver, that he’ll not get in accidents. He was adorable, and plus it’s just hilarious that his name is George Bush. There’s also a Bill Clinton somewhere in the VOH kids.

It feels really great to get this child sponsorship program rolling for VOH. Right now it just seems kind of disorganized. But after their interviews I always ask the kids if they have any prayer requests, and almost all of them ask me to pray that they will get a sponsor so that they can pay their school fees.

Last Wednesday, Collin and I woke up really early and went to Joyce’s house, on the outskirts of Labora IDP camp. We filmed her entire day doing her normal tasks. Here’s a quick run-down… she woke up, did dishes, went to the garden and weeded for an hour, went home and ate, got water at the well, rested for a bit, went and dug up a bunch of potatoes, washed them all, and cooked dinner for seven people. Our goal in filming this is to show that while life in the villages of Gulu isn’t necessarily bad for the kids, it certainly isn’t ideal. Their guardians (often aunts, uncles, or grandparents) aren’t typically unkind (there are some exceptions), but very rarely can they actually care for the kids. They often don’t have enough income to send the kids to school, and many of them don’t have the energy or the health to cook, clean, and wash for one to four kids other than their own children. The guardians actually WANT the kids to go the Masindi to be part of the VOH, because it means hope for the kids, especially where education is concerned.

I will try to post more updates soon! Thanks for reading, thanks for praying, I love you all!