Sunday, February 18, 2007

Rackoko

Northern Uganda is different from the south, how - well busyness is one of them. Driving up to the north takes hours - the roads are not paved - it's red dust roads - love it.

The IDP camps (Internally Displaced People) have their own stories, but the people have all been told to move from their villages. Some of their stories are to strong/horrible to tell, it breaks my heart. All the evil that is out there, how people are deceived and blinded from the Truth. This is the reason we need to go out, so they will learn about the Living God that gives hope in a hopeless situation. That will love them when love is missing....

Now that things have settled down and the peace talks are somewhat in process, people are starting to go out and plant so that they can get food to their families - sell some of it and get money to buy from others. Less than 1 year ago, they had a curfew at 5 pm - they had a lot of fear - in fact they still do with good reason. Slowly but surely they are getting back into a routine, that seems normal....

The children find time to play, some are in school - but there are to many in one class. In the one nurcery we visited there are about 60 children in each class, and they have 5 classrooms - would you like to be there when they have a break, that is about 300 children...... try to keep them in order

In the IDP camp that I visited, about 80 % are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, and on top of that many of them get malaria. The children are the ones that get affected the most when their parents dies and they don't have relatives in the camp. What to do, where to go, what now??

Monday, February 5, 2007

Uganda Orphans

Wow, this is awesome. The team I've been with these last couple of weeks has been great. We have gone into many different orphanages, yet done the same. Prayed over the children, breaking curses, blessing them with a fathers/mothers blessing. The homes are very different both in size of the houses and in how many children they have. Some have 60 children others have 12.

They have all been happy to see the "Muzungu" which is the white person. Most of the children are screaming, jumping and shouting when they see the land rover coming. The children run to greet you, the girls kneel in front of you as a way of respect and shake hands - the boys shake hands. Some take a little while to warm up, but then by the time we leave they ask when we are coming back to stay the night.

Some of the children have said that they feel very free when the prayers are done, they sense that things are different. Praise the Lord. We believe that things have happened in their lives, and that they will see the consequences later on in life.

In one of the homes we went to, 2 of Joseph Kony's children was present. Joseph Kony is the leader of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). It's so encouraging to know that they are there, and get christian influence. We believe that more of his children will come into orphagage homes.