Today was beautiful, brutal, heartbreaking, and humbling. It’s the way things are in Uganda, a place where great beauty and unimaginable tragedy live hand in hand.
A Safe Haven for Street Boys in Kampala
In the morning, the women visited a home for street boys. Run by Melody, a Swiss missionary, the home is a safe haven for 23 boys who’ve been rescued off the streets of Kampala. We toured the house, then sat in on the boys’ Bible study. They blessed us with drums and worship, and then they shared their stories.
“I used to wait at the mosque,” one boy shared. “We would steal their shoes when they went inside and then sell them on the street.”
He ran away from home because his stepfather beat him and joined the thousands of young boys living on the streets of Kampala. They sleep where they can, always aware that someone could rob them if they sleep too deeply. They often end up on drugs, beaten by other street kids, starving, and running from police. Many of them are not even 10 years old.
One by one, other boys shared their stories. They have gone through more than most of us can imagine in an entire lifetime, and they are just children. It’s a hard, hard life.
The Transforming Love of Christ
Melody reaches out to the boys twice a week on the streets, offering them food and support. Those who want help, she brings to the home. There, they are loved on, cared for, and introduced to the Father who never abandons His children.
At the home, they are beaming with joy. They are safe and cared for, loved, and living as a family. They worship with abandon. They are learning to read and proudly recite their favorite Bible verses.
This is what the love of Christ does: Sorrow becomes joy. Abandonment becomes family. God is writing a new story for these children, and it’s a blessing to be here to see it.
Serving Families in the Namuwongo Slum in Kampala
While the women spent time at the boys’ home, the three men on the trip traveled with Martin, the founder of the Kuganja Foundation, to the Namuwongo slum in Kampala.
Slums in Uganda are difficult to describe. Families live in makeshift homes scrapped together with cardboard, corrugated tin, and tarps. Churches are built in the same way. The floors are packed dirt, and light pours down from holes in the tin roof.
The people worshipping there, however, could not be more beautiful. The joy they find in Jesus can’t be captured with words.
The team brought food and sanitary packets to many of Martin’s ministry’s “beneficiaries,” but one of the highlights of the morning was watching the children jumping and dancing in worship in their lean-to church with rivers of sludge under our feet.
It was a powerful moment. The team also spent time praying over the hardest of hard situations they came across.
The hardness amidst the beauty affirms the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
Prayerfully, the work of The Rock’s team will be a small part of God proving Himself good.
Erica Hale
Posted in Missions