My Own Calcutta

One evening, I posed a question to Auntie Marilyn: If you had no connection to Noah’s Ark and came to Uganda with the purpose of improving the education system in some way, where would you start? I expected her to say making sure English is taught everywhere at an early age, or making libraries for all the schools, or building school buildings for the poorest ones.

Instead she told me, “I would start wherever I was.” She paused, then continued, “At first, that would probably mean taking a few children into my home and teaching them the best I could. Then I’m sure it would grow, and it would be a huge task as things got bigger, but I would try to meet the needs in front of me.”

That’s all God asks of us, isn’t it? To meet the needs he places in front of us? For some, like Aaron, that means the needs that are literally right there, a part of his life. For others, like me, God places something on our hearts and it is always in front of us no matter where we are.

Even Katie Davis didn’t set out to change the face of Africa. She saw a need in her village and eventually what started as 40 kids turned into 600.

During her lifetime, many people asked Mother Theresa how they could change the world like she changed the world for so many people who lived in her Indian community of Calcutta. How does it start? What should they do? Where should they go? What was her secret?

Her answer to them was plain and simple: “Find your own Calcutta.”

Funny how you can follow in someone’s footsteps without ever going where they have gone. I wonder if people thought she would invite them to join her in Calcutta and take place in the ministry she was doing. Instead, she basically said, “Look around you. Open your eyes and see the need God has placed right in front of you. Focus on one person at a time. That is how you change the world.”

My three months in Uganda is rapidly drawing to a close. In less than 48 hours I will board a plane that will take me away from the red dirt and different constellations and bright white smiles set in soft brown faces of Uganda and my time here will be over.

As if.

I may be boarding a plane on Wednesday, but I am taking Uganda with me. I have photos. I have more than three journals full of memories. I have souvenirs and gifts. I have sweet notes from some of my students. I have a stack of coloring book pages from the kids who fill my room on the weekends. I have email addresses and phone numbers.

But more than that, I have a love for the children of Noah’s Ark and New Horizon and the surrounding community. Those people won’t be on the airplane, but they won’t be left behind either. It amazes me when children tell me not to forget them. I am not surprised they don’t want to be forgotten; I am surprised they think they are that forgettable.

The last three months have given me the opportunity to do hands-on service for these children. I have hugged them. I have read with them. I have laughed with them. I have wiped their tears and bandaged their wounds and whispered in their ears that God loves them and that I do too. And even though those things will by necessity stop when I leave, the need here will always be right in front of me, and I will always be looking for a way to meet it.

I would love to provide quality education to every single child in Uganda. I would love for every Ugandan to know the gospel and love their neighbor as themselves. I would love to abolish corruption in this country, from the head of the government to the lowest worker. But even though I know all things are possible with God, I don’t see these big dreams being possible through me. My Calcutta is much smaller.

I want to start a library for New Horizon Secondary and Vocational School, the secondary school run by Noah’s Ark.

The primary school library has been my second home here. I have spent hours upon hours helping students learn to read better and serving as the substitute librarian on occasion. The more I work with individual students and the more I learn about Uganda at large, the more I am convinced that after choosing to follow Christ, the key to change in one life and the key to change in a nation lies in education. In order to get the most out of their education, students need to be able to read well, and in order to read well, they need lots of practice. In a country where most families don’t own many—or any—books, this can be quite a challenge.

I have wrestled a lot with the dilemma of whether it is better to improve the good schools in Uganda so that a few students get a high quality education or whether it is better to start more schools in Uganda so everyone can get at least a minimal education. The answer is yes. They are both better. They are both necessary. But things don’t start on a large scale. They start with a need right in front of you. For me right now, that need is in one ministry, in one school, in one task of providing a library for less than one hundred students.

It sounds small, but small things tend to grow.

I would love your help. In fact, I plead for your help. I don’t have the resources to do this on my own, and what fun would that be anyway? For the next six months (and possibly for the rest of my life) I will be collecting new and gently used books and money (the money doesn’t have to be new) to provide for the beginning of a secondary school library. We can use fiction, non-fiction, religious books, encyclopedias, research materials… really, anything with words is gold. I know you all have at least one book lying around your house that some teenager would find interesting and that you won’t miss at all. Many of you probably have an entire bookshelf that fits that category. If you work in a library, do you ever cycle books out? What happens to them? Students, what about holding a book drive at your school and giving more people a chance to get in on this?

One library won’t change the world. I understand that. But my goal is not a world of change. This is one simple way in which we as a western community can help provide the opportunity for a better future to a handful of students whom God has placed on my heart. Pray about it… and then please join me. At least in the near future, this is my Calcutta.

This is the primary school library--my second home here. 

The kids love coming to my room and reading books on the weekends. 

Some of the secondary students who currently don't have a library. 

Sharifa, one of my reading students.

More secondary students.

I spend half our reading time teaching kids how to turn the page without wrinkling the paper. It has been quite a process, but now the kids teach each other, which is always entertaining to watch.