Being busy can get one down from time to time and taking time out relaxing can be good to bring your sanity back. Today there was not too much on, just chasing up a few things for Sunday School, catching up with a few people about making arrangements about interviews for the Nursery Teacher’s position and spending an hour at the mechanics getting the fuel pump and filter removed from beside the passenger’s seat back to under the bonnet where it should be. This gave me a bit of time to think, but yesterday I had just finished a book ‘A Long Way Gone.’ It is a story of a boy’s life from Sierra Leone.
It was a fantastic read, well written and very hard to put down. The only problem if you read it and don’t allow things to distract you, you cannot help but be moved. At an age when I remember trying to figure out a way that I can get my mother to think I was sick so I could stay home from school and play with the boy next door, the boy in the book had been separated from his family as his village was attacked by rebels, run half way across the country in fear of his life, almost found his family only to discover they were all killed in a village that was ambushed by rebels, joined the army out of necessity, becoming a junior lieutenant, killed endless amounts of rebels and even civilians, been rehabilitated by UNICEF in the capital (Freetown), been reunited with an uncle and lived with them, flown to New York as part of a conference for young people from around the world, returned home only to find the war now reached the capital and fled to Guinea to avoid being killed by the war or even worse being caught up again in the fighting. I cannot help but think how my life is concerned with trivial matters, sure, one needs to be concerned with their well being and that of their families, but how much of what we chase after seems irrelevant or immature; that is when you compare it to others who have to strive with everything they and their family has to just find food for the coming evening. While we put in as much effort to get ahead of others around us, just to appear to be better off than our neighbours.
The book was not all gloom and doom, ruining me, as it also shows that there are people out there that do really care, though they seem to be few; and that even though people go through bad situations there is always hope and a chance of improvement. Usually though with the way things are, people in hard situations are there because those who should be helping are abusing, but when they receive help from someone else it can make all the difference.
In my travels today I ran into Pam and Eddie and talked about a boy that someone from Australia sent money over to sponsor to go to school. His name is Santunamo (Not sure of the spelling, but that’s how you say it) and he must be around 16 or 17 years of age, and can speak English to some extent. Pam was saying how gobsmacked he was that he had the opportunity to go to school. When she took him to try on a uniform he insisted on trying his shorts and shirt on together to make sure they looked good. Today when they gave him his books at drop-in he just laid them out on the table shaking his head and kept say ohhh, ohhh Mummy. He has been to the school and had a test and is going into Primary Three. That is grade three in Australian terms, though it is probably not too much higher a standard than grade two.
Though it is possible that Santunamo may not ever turn out to be a doctor or even a teacher, but he now has a chance. He like most of the other boys at the drop-in now have someone showing them that there is hope for them in the future, no longer are they destined to be forever roaming rubbish piles and scavenging for their next meal. Through going to school they are getting a chance to just have their morale lifted, to think more highly of themselves, no longer are they the scum of a back beat town in the middle of Africa. They are important enough for someone from the other side of the world to help them out.
Personally I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here in Kabale, Uganda, to witness and be involved with such things, being connected with the drop-in and being a part of Akanyijuka, which is helping children that were possibly heading down the same path as the drop-in boys. I look at my life and can only say that what I have been doing in the last year has been the most significant thing I have accomplished in my life. I can only attribute my being able to set my own concerns to the side, to those who have influenced my life; my lovely wife who has shared this journey with me, my mother and father, my senior pastor, the ex-missionaries from my church who are nothing but an inspiration to me, my close friends and family who encouraged my every move with words and finance, and to God who is always willing to change one who is accepting.
OK then, that is a big post – length and content. Let me lighten things up a bit and say that there is some great photos of Max from Akanyijuka on my photo site. I have uploaded another profile and Max was next in line.
Davesphotos
Here’s another photo from the breakfast table:
