Teenagers

God broke my heart last week. It is not the broken heart of unrequited love or losing someone special or anything like that. It is the heartbreak of an overflow of love for people on two different sides of the world, two sides that I cannot, in my tiny mind, imagine ever converging.

Believe it or not, the source of this heartbreak is not the nursery school kids or the darling babies or my reading students or even my hilarious group of girls I read with each night. It is the teenagers… and this surprises me more than anyone.

I have been leading a group of about thirty teens twice a week for the past two months. On Sunday mornings, I work with two other Ugandan Noah’s Ark staff to lead Bible Class, which is the equivalent of Sunday School for the secondary students. We have been going through the book of Romans and have talked a lot about what it means and what it takes to become saved. On Tuesday evenings, Christian (a Dutch volunteer) and I lead Teen Club, which is a themed Bible study for the same students. We started with a series on becoming the people God wants us to be and just finished a series on how to deal with feelings such as anger, fear, unhappiness, and guilt.

For much of my time with them, I have felt like an outsider come to try to fit in and take over. When I arrived early to Bible Class, I would awkwardly sit in my seat and speak when spoken to but not reach out. To them, I probably looked arrogant and hostile. I have dreaded nearly every Bible Class and Teen Club and have been embarrassingly intimidated by this group of young people. They could be fun at times, but often they were a source of frustration and anxiety.

Then last week, I fell in love with them.

I don’t know what God did. Perhaps several circumstances converged to produce this effect, but it is powerful. After working with these students for two months, they are opening up more. I have spent more casual time with the teens in the last week, time not in the context of a leader and students, putting us more on a peer and friendship level. And now that there is only one more Bible Class and one more Teen Club, we are at the point where things are starting to look not as bad as they once were and I can even mourn the ending of those things I never particularly liked anyway.

One thing that has helped bridge the gap between the teens and myself was an unexpected bit of encouragement I received from them last week. During testimonies in Bible Class, Hannah thanked God for the leaders and said we had a really good discussion. Then in church that day, Michael also thanked God for the Bible Class leaders and prayed that God would bless us more than the teens could themselves. It’s hard to imagine a better blessing than hearing those words.

Last Thursday we had an African Night (as the mzungus call it), or a Mzungu Party (as the Africans call it). Noah’s Ark puts one on when we have a group of volunteers to give us a taste of Ugandan culture through music, dancing, food, and interesting facts about their traditions and way of life. While we were eating our meal, the hut was divided awkwardly but intentionally into Noah’s Ark children and teens on one side and white volunteers on the other. I got bored listening to everyone around me speaking Dutch, so after awhile I crossed the hut and joined Rebecca, Tamara, Isca, Brian, Sarah, and some others. I was amazed at how much more comfortable I felt on that side. We talked and laughed and ate and at that point I knew for certain that I have friends in Uganda. Yes, friends!

Since then, I have spent much more time with them and have loved it. Five of us presented a song during Bible class last week. A few students come by my room every afternoon with a guitar and we worship with any other volunteers and children who happen to stop by before supper. Last night as I was walking by the boarding girls’ home I heard them singing together, so I went in and joined the fun. As it turns out, I had just walked into a birthday party to which I had not been invited, but was then called the Guest of Honor and gently forced to make a speech to the birthday girl.

Now instead of feeling out of place around the teenagers, I gravitate to them. I want to sit with them in church. I want to stop and talk to them on my way to school, not to Be Intentional but to hear what they have to say. God has filled me with a love for them that is deeper than I thought possible for teenagers.

On one hand, I am thrilled we are becoming such good friends because that has been my hope in spending so much uncomfortable time with them in the last two months. On the other hand, all this love hurts my heart because I am leaving in two weeks and don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to come back and see them again. It makes a statement when I have teenagers begging me not to leave, doesn’t it?

I feel awful. Who am I to step into their lives for such a short time and then just as quickly step out of them? This was always a concern of mine when I was looking at a short-term mission, but the reality is worse than I expected because I not only have sympathy for the people I’m leaving behind—I love them and don’t want to cause them any unhappiness and would really love to be a part of their lives for much longer than this.

And that is how my heart has broken and ended up on two different sides of the world. It would have been so much easier if the teens had intimidated me until the end and I could leave with relief, not tears. If I come to Africa and don’t make a difference, why would I come? But if I come to Africa and make a difference, why would I leave?

It was easier when I wanted to help The Children. That can be done through collecting books for the library. Or sponsoring a child. Or periodic visits to bring baby clothes and sports equipment.

But it’s different when I have fallen in love with Uganda in person. It’s different when it’s Uganda with a face. It’s different when it’s Agatha. Rebecca. Augustine. Brian. Sarah. Timothy. Vanessa. Deborah. Hannah.

It’s just different now. 

An Open Hand

One thing I love about talking with the other volunteers is the perspective we gain from those conversations and the perspective we share, being from the western world. (Okay, that was two. I’m an English major, not a math whiz.) All of us volunteers are asking the same questions and seeking the same thing in all our different ways… how do we help?

We are all here because we want to help in one way or another. We want to help put together the pieces that will give these children a hope and a future. In fact, we want that for all Ugandans, not just those who come through Noah’s Ark. But what will make a difference and where do we start?

Before coming, I had it in my mind that all Africans worked very hard to provide for themselves and their families and only took our assistance when they couldn’t possibly make ends meet on their own. For many people, that really is the case. There are women who work two jobs just so they can afford to send one child to school. There are aunties here, like Jessica, who works her butt off everyday and lives in a small room on the compound, spending years trying to save up enough money to build a house for her and her family.

Ineka, another volunteer, met a man who made a living baking bread. He admitted he didn’t know a thing about bread baking when he started and his bread certainly wasn’t the best on the market. However, he was creative and gave customers a little something extra—every time they bought bread from him, he sang them a song. With that strategy, he was able to sell enough bread to save enough money to get training in a better job later on and secure a better future for himself… because he worked hard.

But then there are people who know there are lots of people who want to help, who know that help often comes in the form of handouts, and who rely on that as their primary means of supporting themselves and their families. It is not uncommon for people here to have big families. This is both a symbol of status and, I suspect, the result of a lack of entertainment or things outside the home to occupy their time.

In the western world, we generally limit the number of children we have based on our ability (often financial) to raise them, care for them, and offer a good future. Big families are rare because with the cost of living, how could we raise ten kids? How could we send them to college? These are things people consider before even getting pregnant! In Uganda, however, they know that if they have many children, some organization will find them many sponsors and their kids will be able to go to school, be fed lunch everyday, and get birthday and Christmas presents. Why not have more kids if it won’t cost you anything?

Before volunteering here, Sara spent two weeks in a refugee camp in Sudan. The conditions were atrocious by our standards and these people had been there for something like five years. She said none of them tried to leave or pursue a better life because at the camp they were handed food to eat everyday. Of course someone had to worry about where that food was coming from (What a big job that would be!), but it wasn’t them, so being there was better than the uncertainty of being somewhere else. They also kept having babies and kept having babies and kept having babies, brining more and more people into the miserable situation.

A Ugandan recently vented to Ineka on a taxi ride. He was frustrated with the government for not putting more emphasis on education and providing good schools. He said that as well-intentioned as people around the world are, instead of helping pull Africa onto its own two feet, we are teaching Africans to sit down and hold out an open hand. Eventually we will come fill it.

Education is the key. However, the downside to focusing on education is that it will take a long time to see results. Several generations for lasting change. If we want to simply feed the hungry so they don’t starve, we can give them food today and they will still be alive tomorrow. But what does tomorrow hold for them? Waiting for another handout to postpone death by one more day? I’m not saying these people don’t matter or that they might as well die right away, but wouldn’t it be better to pour our resources into something more permanent?

If we educate someone today, she will not change the face of Uganda tomorrow. She will not have all the answers in a year. Ten years down the road, thousand and thousands of children-dead-from-starvation later, things might not be that much different. But in her lifetime, she will become more than a mother of ten. She will become more than a woman who sits at a fruit stand. She will become more than a prostitute.

Maybe she will become a midwife and help reduce the number of women who die in childbirth in her home village. Maybe she will become an agriculturalist and teach people how to get the most out of their land and take care of it so many people have more efficient farms and can make better futures for themselves as well. Maybe she will become a teacher and inspire other children to grow in knowledge and understanding so they too can grow up and work hard and multiply their efforts—and think of how much that would multiply hers!

Yes, education is so important, but how do we educate people without making that a handout as well? If a parent has a lot of kids, knowing they will rely on sponsors for their entire schooling, do we trust that the kids will become smart enough to not make the same poor choices? Is there any option that will not reinforce the poor choices of the parents, while at the same time not punish the children for their parents’ decisions?

How do we share our resources enough to make sure needs are met all over the world but hold back enough so that those who need help are challenged to put in some effort themselves?

I have had many people, both children and adults, say they want to come back to America with me in December. I was warned about that beforehand and even though they are all serious in their desire, I doubt any of them hold a real expectation. It seems to me that the people who don’t want to live like this want to leave. They don’t try to make change happen here. Maybe they don’t think change can happen here. How could they imagine a large-scale or long-term change if they have a hard time seeing past tomorrow?

It would make sense why they might have such a hard time seeing the big picture. At any point in their lives, how many of them have any sort of capacity to affect the big picture? They can’t send money to an improve-the-schools-in-Uganda organization when they can barely afford to send their own children to school. They can’t travel around teaching entire communities about AIDS prevention and treatment when they spend all their time caring for a sick family member. They can’t donate food to a famine relief organization when they barely have enough food for themselves and give any extra to their lame neighbor.

But doesn’t everything large scale start small scale? We wouldn’t need organizations to feed the hungry if everyone took care of their neighbor in need. Would the neighbor be less likely to complacently hold out an open hand if it was someone he knew helping him and not some stranger, a faceless entity? Would he be inspired to try harder if he could see the person helping him working hard?

We all want to help, but we are much less helpful than we think.

Friday... Here It Is

5:00 a.m.     Wake up. I put on some comfortable and warm clothes and heat water for the first of my two morning cups of tea.

5:30     I take my sleeping bag, cup of tea, headlamp, and devotional stuff outside and set up camp on my front step. Yes, I could do TAG (Time Alone with God… a camp term) inside my room where I have a desk and a light, but I love being outside to see the morning start and spend time with God in His creation. Plus, once the monkeys emerge for breakfast they add some entertainment.

6:00     I interrupt TAG to get my computer and Skype with my parents. Because of the time difference, we usually Skype early in the morning for me, when it is the night before for them. It is still dark out but I get the best internet outside so I stay on my front step.

7:00     We say good-bye and I stay outside to finish TAG before the real day starts.

8:00     I head down to the primary school for the weekly assembly. On Fridays, the New Zealand missionary couple Uncle Warwick and Auntie Marilyn lead part of this assembly, and I have been helping them. The assembly starts with half an hour of praise and worship led by one of the classes. After that, Warwick, Marilyn and I give a ten-minute talk on a certain topic or Bible story, followed by a song or two and a prayer. Then there is a time for presentations, where individual students or groups can come up front and perform a song for the rest of the students. The assembly closes with some remarks from the headmaster reminding students not to swim in puddles and build houses out of piles of bricks on the compound and things like that.

9:10     I take one of my reading students out of class to work one-on-one with her in the library. Unfortunately, she didn’t practice her spelling words, and since my rule is that if they don’t put in time I won’t either, I have her go back to class and send me another student who is more prepared to learn.

10:00     I make the short walk to the primary school office to make copies of worksheets for my readers and then head back to the library to prepare what I will do with them next week. During the school day, the library is my home base.

10:30     I practice slingshoting paper balls against the library blackboard with my very official-looking paisley bandana slingshot. We are acting out the story of David and Goliath at the nursery school assembly and I want to look my part.

11:00     Time for the nursery school assembly! This one is awesome to watch the praise and worship because the kids are so darned cute in their little school uniforms. Even with half an hour of focused slingshot practice, I come nowhere near hitting Goliath with my paper stone. (The next week, my part of the story includes no weapons or targets.)

11:30     The assembly ends and I make a quick trip up the hill and back to my room to drop off my stack of books.

12:20     BACK down to the library to meet with Sharon, one of my other readers. My day revolves around when certain students are in which classes and when other classes are using the library. Some days I can manage to fit in all seven of my reading students, and some days I strike out with every attempt and don’t see anyone. I prepare everything I am planning to do with Sharon, and then go to her class to get her… but the room is empty. Apparently the P6 students are working in the garden today.

12:30     I walk back up the hill AGAIN to do some reading and prepare for the teenage Bible class on Sunday. We are going through the book of Romans chapter by chapter and as one of three leaders, my job each week is to prepare some questions on the chapter and come up with an activity to do with the students to reinforce what we are learning.

1:30     Lunchtime! Guacamole on toast… it is my standard lunch and it hasn’t gotten old yet.

2:40     I go back to the library for the final time to read with another student. I get things ready, tell the student to get his things and come back, and fifteen minutes later he still hasn’t shown up. When I check the classroom to remind him, it looks like they’re taking a test, so I don’t pull him out. Meanwhile, all the P7 students are outside cleaning their desks before their primary leaving exams and Joanita, who works in the main office, is using the library for last-minute Christmas photos with students, so there’s not much of a chance any of the kids will focus even if I do get them to the library.

3:00     Back to my room. I do some more reading and Bible class prep, then grab a coloring book and crayons and leave again.

3:45     I find my friend Blessing playing on the toys at the primary school. I push her on the swing until she falls off and cries. And people say I’m good with kids.

4:00     This is an awesome part of the day where I get to walk Blessing home along with five other girls who live down the road. They talk my ears off. In a good way, of course.

4:45     Blessing’s house is the farthest, so by the time she gets home I am the only one with her. I drop her off at home and walk a bit farther to visit Christine and Kevin, two of the girls I met on my long walk several weeks ago. Christine is making supper and the three of us talk and sing together a little bit, while students from all the nearby schools walk home and stare at me sitting by their fire because people living this far down the road have seen very few mzungus in their lives. Christine’s little sister loves the coloring book.

5:20     We depart from their house so I can get back to Noah’s Ark in time for supper. I say “we” because four of them decide to walk me back, so it is rather slow going.

6:10     The girls turn around when I am halfway home ad I make my way back to the compound just in time to grab supper from the kitchen and take it back to my room. Sometimes I eat in the home with the children, but right now I need to go to the bathroom, wash my hands after being out so long, and think.

7:30     Friday movie night with the teenagers! I take partly partially to spend time with them and partially because I enjoy seeing a movie every week. That is, when the sound isn’t dubbed over with Lugandan commentary that everyone can understand except me.

10:00     When the movie ends, I go back to my room, spend some time journaling (I have filled three journals since I came here), and go to bed. Just a normal Friday. 

Eva, My Friend

Now that the laundry soap and math instruments are more than a week behind us (and God continues to gently remind me that I am surrounded by His family—my family—here too), Eva and I are in a wonderful place in our friendship. Since her leaving examination for primary school is finished, she no longer comes to Noah’s Ark for classes, but she has stopped by to visit on occasion.

She loves asking questions about America. Not the hard questions some children ask, like whether America is bigger than Canada or when we had our war to gain independence from Britain (I was never good at social studies, so yes, those are hard questions). She asks things like whether any white people are born with black hair and does everyone really speak English? Today she reported that she heard some people have blue eyes. When I confirmed it, she said that sounded scary.

I had the privilege of seeing Eva’s home and meeting her family a few days ago. We walked half an hour away from Noah’s Ark up a slippery, muddy dirt road lined with short trees and tethered goats. We passed several houses that were quite large and nice for Ugandan homes, and I began to get hopeful that maybe her situation was better than I had expected. When she said, “Here is my house,” my heart leapt as I looked at the good-sized painted house before us… until I realized she was pointing to the house in front of that one, the house that looked more like a garden shed in comparison.

Eva, her grandparents, her uncle, her sister, and her three cousins live in a two-room brick building with no electricity or running water, which is not uncommon for homes here. The main room is six feet by ten feet and has nothing but a couch, some plastic on the ground and a machete in the corner. The second room is where most of the family sleeps. There was a kitten the size of my fist that wandered through the house, wet from the afternoon storm and literally shivering in the cold.

One thing I did not consider beforehand was that Eva and her sister are the only ones in their family who can speak English. Many Ugandan families are in a similar situation because the children learn in school, but the parents, many of whom never went to school, only speak their local language. Eva’s grandmother was thrilled to see me. She had been hoping to meet me for the past two weeks and greeted me with a huge smile and several minutes of talk as she shook my hand, most of which Eva never bothered to translate. What I did manage to make out was “Webale, webale, webale” over and over again, which means “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Eva’s grandmother is 57 years old and very sick. She has had severe health issues for the past year and has lost a lot of weight (Eva says she used to be fat, but now the woman looks frail). Her grandfather is 87 and although he doesn’t have many health issues, he is very old, especially for a Ugandan. Neither of them is able to work so they spend the whole day at home with the young children.

There was one man there who I think is Eva’s uncle. He is in his twenties and has a one-year-old daughter, Annika. His wife left him for another marriage when Annika was four months old, so he and Eva’s grandmother have raised the precious little girl. Annika was sick when I visited, but when her sweet smile came out it lit up the damp little room.

The other family members living there are Eva’s 9-year-old sister, her 5-year-old nephew-or-cousin, and her 4-year-old nephew-or-cousin. Eva also has an 11-year-old sister who lives in a nearby village. She works as a sort of housekeeper for a family who took her in as much for the help she needed as for the help she had to offer. They provide food, clothing, and housing for her, are teaching her basic household tasks like cooking and washing, and have promised to pay her way through primary school starting in the February term. She is so blessed by them and the situation in which they have put her. Because she is not far away, Eva still gets to see her on a regular basis.

Most of my visit to Eva’s house was spent with little Annika on my lap, her wild hair tickling my chin. Eva’s grandmother talked up a storm. Many times, she took one of my hands in both of hers and shook it firmly yet tenderly while looking into my eyes and saying all sorts of unintelligible things to me. It might sound uncomfortable, but her gratitude was apparent even without her words and I was happy to finally be there to meet her and help bring some joy. She didn’t seem to mind that my only response was a smile.

What I loved most about their family is how much they smiled. I have spoken before of how joyful Eva is despite her circumstances, and the same is true of most of her family. There were times in Eva’s and her grandmother’s conversation where they would both tilt their heads back in loud and unabashed laughter and have such a beautiful moment it made me wonder what they had been talking about all that time. I have seen Eva’s eyes turn sad when she talks to me about certain things, but her grandmother’s dark eyes glowed the entire time I was at their house, shining with the appreciation of someone who has been given a very wonderful gift. And to think the only thing I brought with me was a bag of sugar.

After I prayed for her grandmother and Eva took several pictures of me with her family… and of her family… and of me… and of her sister in a cornfield… and more of her family… and more of me… it was time for me to start walking back to Noah’s Ark for supper. We said our good-byes and I assured them (with Eva’s help) that I would visit at least once more before I leave next month. Eva and I walked hand-in-hand down the long dirt road on which we had come, and she didn’t turn back until I was halfway home again. When she did turn around, she practically skipped up the road and out of sight.

Tomorrow is the last time I will see Eva. On Sunday, she is traveling to a village in western Uganda to sort out some land ownership issues for the property on which their house sits. I don’t understand the whole story, but her family is from another part of Uganda, and when they moved here her father borrowed the land because he couldn’t afford to buy it. When her father died, that complicated the matter, so now she has to go to the man who actually owns the land (why he lives across the country and owns this tiny plot, I cannot tell you) to show her face and prove that there are still people living on it… or something like that. She said she will be at that village until the end of January because she will need to work, but I’m not sure if that is to pay off debt from the land or to pay for travel back home. She is coming to Noah’s Ark tomorrow to say good-bye.

“Auntie Katie, I don’t know what I will do when you leave,” she told me the other day. “I will miss you so much. When I told my grandmother you are going home next month, she said you can’t go. Who will take care of us if you are gone?”

“Surely someone will step in and help provide for you,” I said hopefully. “You know, there are plenty of other volunteers here who I’m sure would love to get to know you and your family and help you out.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know. Many, many people come through here. I see them all the time. But none of them are like you. Most of them, you can tell them your problems, but…” she trailed off. I knew exactly what she meant. How often have I listened to someone’s problems and let my response trail off before they could make me promise to take action? “But you are different,” she continued. “You care. I feel like we are sisters, and now you are going home. I am going to miss you so much.”

There are some days here when I wonder why God had to bring me all the way to Africa to learn the little lessons He is teaching me. There are some days when I feel like my contribution is minimal and my frustration is great. And then today God walloped me over the head with my student-become-good-friend Eva and showed me what can happen when you pay attention to the people right in front of you.

God is so good, and because of that I am full of hope for my joyful friend.

p.s. If you want to learn what you can do to help Eva and her family, please email me: katie.schinnell@gmail.com.