African Insights Ezine - February 2007

They just keep coming…and coming: 

Early I arrived; it was just 7 AM, driving through the red clay side streets of Bugolobi, through the shopping area, past the Church of Uganda where early worshippers were arriving for prayer, down to the apartments where Robinah and her husband David live.   

There, children were already lined up in the early Sunday morning hours, ready to go to a very unique church.  A “church for children.” Not just any children, but those born into the slums of Kampala. 

As I got out the vehicle, they kept coming in, forming lines of 50, then a hundred, then literally 100’s.  In twos and threes they walked up muddy paths from their shacks in the slums to the gathering place underneath the large tree.  Dressed in their Sunday’s best, others in tattered clothing, yet all shared a quiet expectancy that one could read in their eyes and on their shiny, expectant faces. 

One of the volunteers arrived and walked to the head of the line, every child received a freshly baked chapatti (a flatbread made from flour).  The girls did a little curtsy and the boys  bowed in thanks.  They moved out of the one line into another and quietly ate their morning treat, for most the only food thus far. 

By now there well over three hundred children that had come to the gathering place.  All were fed and then the walk began toward the school classrooms that had been rented for the purpose of Children’s Church.  Before church, they went to the toilets where they washed their hands and then returned to the classrooms in accordance with their age range. 

I was amazed as to how well these children behaved…they could have slept in, but most came because they chose to do so.  They had heard about this place through other children, they came to the place because it was safe; there were people who cared and loved them.  Many of these children came from families that had been devastated by the scourge of AIDS and other illnesses from malaria to TB. 

They lived with aunts and uncles, some with grandmother, others came from a house where there was just a mother who had no means of income but to make some illegal brew or gin like mixture called Waragi.  Life is tough in the slums, so when a child hears that there is a place that gives out bread, has a kid’s club on Saturday with lots of activities and on Sunday there is church, they simply come.  Afterwards they go back home and tell another about this place wonderful place for children.

One does not have to be Christian, to understand the value of faith in a life that is otherwise filled with hopelessness, filled with abject poverty where the only things one knows it is another day of going without.

They sing songs of hope with gusto, pray with expectancy, and support one another through the tough times of a life in a slum.  They listen to the stories and they enjoy the caring nurture of the adult workers.  Nothing is missed by them and when the church is over, they linger, as they receive some hot porridge or other food.

Afterwards they help in the cleaning up and then begin their walk home where things are not like the place they are leaving, but once again hope fills their heart. Eagerly they share this day with anyone who will listen.  They share about the place that gives not just physical bread but something more, spiritual sustenance.  Their hearts are filled with hope that will lift them above the despair of the here and now, out the dread of hopelessness into faith for a better tomorrow.

What drew me to this project was the fact that this is not the idea of some agency, but a simply a quiet, faith filled couple who have a deep desire to impact the children of their world and they have done so for over 20 years and this is just another divine interruption that came across their path to which they said “yes”…jon