I have been
to Africa nine times and have spent over 14 months on the continent. I have seen poverty many times over. To some degree I have become callous to it. Another mud hut, another old widow, another
person sleeping on a dirt floor, another person in need of medical help,
another sad story to tell. It starts to
dull the senses – not because I don’t care but because it is a natural reaction
to an overload of emotions. Today
though, the people I saw broke through the wall that has been built up around
my heart and touched me again. Touched
me like the first time I witnessed poverty and felt the stabbing pain inside my
soul – the pain that convicts you of not caring for others while living a life
of luxury. For those of you who have
traveled to 3rd world countries you know what I mean.
Today, we
traveled back to Buloba where I had preached the night before. Today though, we partnered with the local
pastor, loaded up our van with beans, rice, sugar, corn flour, soap, and wash clothes,
and visited the poor, widows, widowers, and those in need. Buloba is a relatively new church in the
ministry we support and this was my first time in the village even though I’ve
driven by it a million times. Buloba is
a mix of lifestyles and beliefs. They
are known for having bars and drunks, have resident witch doctors, but also
have a Catholic church, a 7th Day Adventist church, and a Muslim
mosque. They are on the main road but
have never developed any sort of economy besides farming to make a name for
themselves. Their residents tap into the
electrical wires illegally and bury the wires underground through the village
to steal electricity. Like other
villages, they send their children to the hand pump water wells after school to
bring home water.
Pastor led
us through the dirt paths to mud hut to brick house to mud hut visiting people
that he had identified as needing help.
Most of them didn’t attend church which made our outreach more impactful
as our purpose was supposed to help the church share the love of Jesus and not
just help those within the church family.
Magdalene is a widow in her 80’s although most older people have no idea
how old they really are. When we arrived
she was cooking beans over a small fire and roasting an ear of corn in the
embers. Her frail body lay hidden
beneath her clothes and as she looked at us I realized that her left eye was
either missing or had shrunk back into her skull and no longer functioned. Her bare feet were leather hard from years of
never wearing shoes. She sat down on the
ground with us and listened to the reason why we had come to visit her today –
to share the love of Jesus with her and bless her with food. She asked to accept Christ. Miles led her in prayer as I photographed the
event.
Our next
stop was another widow trying to help raise 2 young grandchildren – although we
could never clarify if they were her grandchildren. From there we visited Rose who was sick with
malaria. She said the food would feed
her and her children for 10 days as long as they only ate one item a day – ie
not mix beans and rice together on the same day. Another widow, another sick person, a mother
asking us to pay her children’s school fees, another widow in her 80’s, and a
cancer stricken women afraid of dying.
We then came
to Hawa’s house. She was probably close
to 90 or in her 90’s. We presented her
the gifts we had brought and Pastor noticed that she had a “bed bug” crawling
on her. When he attempted to flick it
off of her that’s when he noticed that there were more of them. As he talked with her, we walked inside her
house and inspected her bed. It was
disgusting. Bugs were crawling all over
her bed sheets and she sleep with them.
Pastor then found out that she had not accepted Christ because no one
had taught her how. He prayed with her and
she accepted Jesus into her life. We then
made the decision to go to town and pay for a fumigating company to come out
the next day and start the process of killing the bugs while we purchased new
sheets and blankets. To think that as I
am writing this blog, Hawa is sleeping on that bed makes me shudder.
This is what
being the church is, this is outreach, this is mission work, this is loving
others, this is what being a Christian is all about. Going door to door helping people where they
are and loving them. The people told us
that the Muslims in the village never help them. This isn’t exciting, we’re not building
something, and we aren’t deep into theology, we’re simply helping people. This is why I keep working with GGI and
coming to Uganda. That night we returned
to Buloba for the evening crusade of music and preaching. Pastor Ken from Spokane preached along with
Ugandan pastors and as the darkness set in the final preaching prayed and
called those to the stage for salvation and over 20 people gave their lives to
Christ. Our little church is going to be
busy following up with so many new people.
Glory to God.
John Kimsey
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