shaken

Confession:: I waited till nearly my 3^rd decade of life to watch my first Super Bowl this year.

Apparently, inspired by either homesickness or feelings of nostalgia for anything American, I decided that living in Uganda meant I should watch Super Bowl XLV. Having spent most of my life saying my feelings for football almost border on hate, I will point out that I showed an extraordinary amount of dedication to watch this football game - getting up at 3am Ugandan time and even making an effort to learn the rules (and no, they still don't make sense…something about yard lines? Yard sticks?).

In case you don't know, Super Bowl XLV, the Green Bay Packers vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers, was hosted at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX. Turns out the thing that I remember most from my early-morning football initiation was not the teams or the score but this colossal, bedazzled stadium.

The stadium's architects will say that it is the world's largest, most technologically advanced entertainment venue. The stadium site covers 73 acres and can hold up to 100,000 fans. The stadium boasts the most spectacular column-free room in the world, stretching a quarter-mile long, and has the largest retractable roof in the world, about 660,800 square feet. The price tag:: $1.1 billion. Oh, and did I mention the stadium's video board? The world's largest LED display - it weighs 600 tons, has 300 million light bulbs, is the equivalent of 4,920 fifty-two inch flat panel tv's, and cost…40 million dollars.

Oh, it dazzles and it sparkles and it boggles the mind and the only word I can think of to properly describe it is...excessive.

The Super Bowl was 5 months ago and while it was a unique memory, it didn't leave a lasting impression on my life. But for some reason...real life pictures I saw this week, in my world, in my neighborhood here in Uganda, the starkest of contrasts possible, brought me back to it. Destitute and broken poverty vs. opulent and dripping wealth. Darkness, dirt, ashes and shards vs. Shiny lights, towers, brilliance and masterpiece. Nothing vs. Everything.

In a series of events that swirl in a confusion of African culture, Ugandan history, modern-day business investments and political intrigue, about 2,000 people who live a few miles away from me lost their homes, communities, and livelihoods the span of 24 hours.

The residents of Naguru and Nakawa woke up on Monday morning to find their neighborhoods surrounded by armed police. Hours later city bulldozers flattened a few homes of people who were absent, at work already…homes replete with belongings of people who live, work, have lives, and families and memories – smashed to a pile of rubble. Books, beds and blankets, pots and pans, picture albums, teddy bears…some lost the only home they had ever known and some where only left with the belongings they were wearing.

Several of our Hope Alive! children and their families lived in these neighborhoods. The facts and details of the land agreements seem murky. The land that housed these few thousand people was apparently sold by the government to a UK private development group. Instead of neighborhoods that were deemed “dilapidated” and “unfit for human habitation” there will instead be high-end apartment units, shopping, a Muslim school and other “affordable” housing units.

The other side of the story is that the residents had been warned and threatened of evictions for several years, but each time the deadline approached and passed without anything happening. I am sure that the residents again thought government red tape and political promises would keep their houses standing.

I am quite sure I am not learned enough on the cultural complications of this story, nor do I have the political savvy to comment learnedly. But I do have relationships with people who lost their homes and livelihoods and know families who were forced to split up in the name of this development process.

Emma is one of our older students, in vocational school for mechanics. He was called home from school in the middle of the day and arrived home to find his family frantically throwing all of their belongings out of the house before it was demolished. As people in the neighborhood were suddenly scrambling to find housing around the city, landlords and truck drivers took advantage of a golden opportunity and hiked prices exorbitantly. Families made agreements for rent prices they will never be able to meet financially in matter of months.

I visited Emma the day after his house was torn down. He was dirty and sweaty from loading his mother’s belongings into a lorry (aka, truck). As we sat and chatted his house was just a pile of cement blocks and rubble behind him. The sounds of a hammer striking cement punctuated our conversation – an man, a stranger to Emma and his family, was breaking the rebar out of the cement blocks that used to be their home, scavenging for anything that could be sold for money. This picture is so striking in my mind – a stranger on a heap of rubble that used to be a home, taking what he could for himself while the family sits with their belongings piled on a bed frame watching him with disconnect.

When I asked where the family had slept the night before, Emma told me they had had nowhere to go. So, they hired a policeman to keep guard and they slept outside, where their house should have been. He’s a big kid, Emma, and he seems composed but there is unmistakable sadness in the way he sits, his shoulders, his words. “Emma, were you able to sleep last night?” He shakes his head, just barely, looks at the ground and says in a small quiet voice, “No, I’m not used to sleeping outside. I’m used to sleeping in my house. I haven’t slept outside before.”

He has scratches on his forearms from working in the debris of his house and sorting through their possessions. The family members sit around, mostly without words, as the mother and older sister discuss possible living locations. I bend over to greet the grandmother, but she won’t even shake my hand or offer me her arm, telling me ashamedly that her hands are too dirty. The family will be split up now. The mother will go back to their village, 4-5 hours away from Kampala, but Emma and his sister will stay in Kampala so they can continue school and work.

They finish loading the truck and it is time for the mother to go. We gather in a small group and pray over the family. When we finish the mother goes around the group and shakes our hands, thanking us for coming. She reaches Emma last and also extends her hand to him. Instead he jumps up and grabs her in a big hug, shaking his head and saying, “No, you are my mother.”

I tell you this story not as an exploitation, not because you’ll be able to relate, but because I told Emma I would. I told him there are Christians in America who would be praying for him and his family. I tell you this story because there are many many other sad stories like it. I tell you this story because it is so easy to watch our televised Super Bowl games under glittering lights and forget that so much of the world lives in poverty, often in desperate situations. I tell you this story because some of these families had to relocate to houses that have no toilets or running water. Imagine for moment…having to go outside and pay to use a toilet because your house doesn’t have one. We forget that maybe, just maybe, it should bother us that we can spend 40 million dollars on a stadium video screen when, at the same moment in time, somewhere in the world a family will be chased out of their home because they can’t afford a monthly rent of $100.

I don’t understand it, and I’m certainly not above it.

A wake-up call to myself::

“Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matt 19:21

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” Prov 19:17

And a reminder that God still reigns as compassionate and righteous judge of this world::

“The LORD takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: 
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”

Isaiah 3:13-15

May we be people who continue to be bothered by the injustice in the world and brave enough to take compassionate action.

For further reading::

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1197002/-/bylh29z/-/index.html

http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/news/news-analysis/79-news-analysis/738-who-owns-naguru-nakawa-estate-land

pictorial prayer – july 6, 2011

please pray for the residents of Naguru and Nakawa. on Monday, the residents of these

neighborhoods (just few kilometers from my house) were suddenly and forcefully

evicted by the Kampala City government.

Several of our Hope Alive! children and families were among those who lost their

homes. Emma, (pictured above) was called home from school in the middle of the day

to find his family’s belongings being throw outside before his home was bulldozed. Now

his family will have to split up in order for them to find affordable housing and for

Emma to continue school.

Although the government had been threatening this relocation for years, the final

move came suddenly and many lost not only their homes and shelter, but also

livelihood and community. Close to 2,000 people have been forced to relocate without

compensation.

enemies

Pull up a chair, it's story time.

George R. Price was born in October of 1922, grew up through the Great Depression, and emerged a strong atheist. He is known as a "population geneticist," but comes out on the top of the over-achiever list; he worked as a chemist on the atom bomb, solved problems in transistor research, researched oncology treatments, and invented computer-aided design. In the process of bouncing through major scientific achievements in history, George married, but then left his family when his children were still very young.

While he was on track for at least a few nobel prizes, George eventually settled on a question that seems strange for a scientist - Why family?. His question (ironically enough,)was focused on the evolutionary origin of the human family (how does it persist?), but this eventually led him to the a question that would dramatically shift the rest of his life - Why does anybody help anybody? Essentially the question of goodness...kindness...altruism.

As a scientist that believed in Darwin's evolution, altruism seemed to be the elephant in the room that everyone was trying to ignore. So, like any reasonable person, he wrote a mathematical representation for the trait of altruism (now called the Price Equation).

[Price's theory] holds that the farther genetically removed two organisms are from each other the less likely they are to show altruism to each other. If true, then altruistic(kind) behavior is not truly selfless and is instead an adaptation that organisms have in order to promote their own genetic heritage.

He figured that if goodness could be formulated biologically and mathematically, then trait itself is never really altruistic...and there is no true selflessness.

But his science became the very thing he could not accept - a world devoid of genuine genuineness. In a 180 degree change, he flung himself into a quest of radical altruism - going to the streets of London and giving any physical or monetary help he could to the homeless, alcoholics, derelicts, and down-and-outs.

He gave up everything to help the poor, but many of them stole from him, leaving him essentially destitute himself.

Just after Christmas of 1975, George was found after he cut his carotid artery with a pair of scissors.

George died, despondent, because he felt been unable to go on helping the homeless.

I wonder what George's last thoughts were - did he think through his scientific achievements, did he think of his two daughters, or did he die haunted by his own lingering question - why does anybody help anybody?

Back in February, I told you a story about Sofia - a Hope Alive! student I had grown particularly close to...a 16-old year girl who is now a womanly mother of 2 children. Though Sofia had been given the grace for a new start after breaking our rules with her first pregnancy, she chose to not only willfully disobey again, but to do it while lying with a smile to our faces.

While I was in Gulu this last March, I didn't know why, but I couldn't shake a very deep feeling that I needed to find Sofia in her village to visit her and her new baby. She had left Kampala for the holidays before we even knew she was pregnant and hadn't seen her since.

So roommate Kate and I squished together on the back of a boda (motorcycle taxi) for what we thought would be a quick ride...and ended up being over a 40 minute ride down dusty bumpy roads to the village in the middle of...nowhere.

We were welcomed warmly into one of their huts - a circular construction of mud bricks and a grass-thatched roof - and eventually left alone with Sofia and her baby.

So there I was - suddenly holding little baby Auma Praise (a name that symbolically has the meaning of one falling on her face). Little fingers curled around one of mine, eyes closed peacefully in fierce sleep that couldn't be bothered by noise or strangers.

Sofia was sitting next to me, but what do you say in this situation, something that is not only socially but culturally appropriate?

But deep down, I think I knew why I needed to come, to see Sofia and her baby girl. I needed to tell Sofia that I forgave her. Forgave her for deceiving me, for treating my trust and friendship like something limp and dirty, for not making the good choices I know she is capable of.

So, as simply as I could I told her that; that she hurt me, but I forgave her and I still love her. But that I forgave her because God did the same thing for me and for all of us.

Like most Acholi women, Sofia is strong and usually only puts on the face of stoic happiness. As we talked though, Sofia's head went lower and lower, her hands covering her eyes to hide quiet tears.

I feel like this is a theme God wants me to learn and re-learn and learn again...the lesson that true loving hurts. In this case, the very humbling truth that loving will often mean forgiving before someone even asks for it.

Given the fact that we have family, and friends, and roommates, and colleagues, and employees, we have limitless opportunities for practicing. And given the fact that I usually fail miserably or maybe just achieve love minor-ly, it should come as no shock that I recently had an epiphany - love does not happen by accident or by mistake, it is intentional - every minute, every word, every action.

I like these song lyrics::

love hangs on invisible strings

so roll up your sleeves

this could take some time

The bible sums it up like this::

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

In 1970, it is said that our Mr. Price had a religious experience and became quite a New Testament scholar. I wonder what he found there? Did he read about how God loves His enemies and forgives those who are useless compared to His greatness? I wonder if Mr. Price gave up on life because he realized that true goodness takes too much concentrated effort for it to merely be a evolutionary adaptation? Was he disappointed that he did not possess the altruistic trait that would allow him to go on helping the poor or was he only disappointed that he failed to be a present love in the life of his own children? I wish I could ask him these questions myself.

May you, as you become aware of your own insufficiency in living and loving, turn and lean on our God of continual and enduring goodness (ps.52.1).

References

al·tru·ism/ˈaltro͞oˌizəm/Noun

1. The belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.

2. Behavior of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.

-www.radiolab.org (podcast "The Good Show")

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price

-"The Price of Altruism" by Oren Harman

-Scripture verses taken from Romans 5:6-8

-Song lyrics taken from "Green Screens" by Sleeping at Last

family

This is my Jonah.

I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I often feel out of place when I look around and find myself in my 28th year of life. On either side of the “late-20’s” spectrum, I seem to be an outlier. I don’t own cute high heels or expensive jeans, I haven’t been on a date in a couple of years, and I’m rarely out of the house past dark. I also don’t have a husband, kids, car payments, or silverware.

I spent last month living in Gulu, a village town in the Northern part of Uganda, where about a third of our Hope Alive! children live. Despite the fact that I lived out of a hotel room for a month I grew to really love the lifestyle of a simpler rural life outside the sprawling modern African city of Kampala.

It felt easy, natural, to establish routines even in a month’s time. The town is small enough to walk most anywhere so most days included walking about 3 miles on dirt or pot-holed roads under one of the biggest, bluest, and most beautiful skies I’ve seen. I became a “regular” of the chapatti man on a certain road-side corner stall (a chapatti is a delicious Uganda version of a tortilla), and the skirt man named Walter who had neatly organized walls of skirts in his market stall. It was easy to learn the maze of the dirt paths of the market, which was small in comparison to any in Kampala. When I wanted pineapple or avocado, I always bought from Florence, who smiled sweetly and never tried to over-charge me. I went further into the market to buy my tomatoes and cucumbers from either Sunday or Patrick, brothers who usually ran a family-owned stall. Nearly everyday I had to stop by a small supermarket and buy a juice box from Salim, the Indian man who owned the store. Wednesdays were bible study times at the Sports Outreach farm father out in the village followed by fun and silly times of soccer drills with the women there. Sunday morning hours were filled with church with people from the village who may not have shared the same language with me, but definitely shared the same love of the same God. We visited children who live miles out in the bush, in huts surrounded by open space and tall dry grasses, and experienced the generosity of families expressed through meals cooked for us (sometimes with some “exotic” dishes...yes, I did eat ants and the equivalent of what could be called “ant-loaf”) and gifts that cost them more than we would know (our live chicken, Sal, stayed in Gulu and may or may not still be living..).

Small details of a life that is a little simpler, less full of being busy, and more open to stopping and chatting with a familiar face on the street.

One of the last evenings I was in Gulu, I stopped briefly at stall run by (my now friend) Patrick. When I asked him how he was, he replied with the common Ugandan answer of “Fair, fair” (meaning “I’m fine, but kind of not fine.”). Unexpectedly he asked me, “but why would you come here to Uganda from your country?” (many Ugandans envision America something akin to how a 5-year old dreams of Disneyland – a land of Happily Ever After).

Seemed like one of those openings you just can’t ignore, so I told him how God was the one who had called me to come to Uganda. It was as if the word “God” opened some place deep inside him, a place he had been waiting to unlock. He asked me what I believed about God, heaven, forgiveness…As I posed the same question back to him I heard that he already believed the gospel essentials, only, as he put it, “I think I’ve done too many bad things to be forgiven.” Then, a sweet conversation in which I told him what I believe about God and why, and he kept nodding in agreement. I am not a street evangelist by any stretch of the imagination, but there seemed like there only one question left to ask – “Do you want to pray right now, Patrick?”

Too often, I think, belief in God and salvation gets muddled and smudged in semantics, rhetoric, and lofty theological terms; in sects, traditions, and rote Musts and Shoulds. In the end, is there anything as beautiful in its simplicity than the Gospel message?

Patrick told me he didn’t know how to pray. I told him it’s just talking to God, saying what you feel. So his prayer was a few short sentences, confessing his own sin and declaring his belief in the death of Jesus, asking for God’s forgiveness. There were no words about dispensationalism, Calvinism, or his particular beliefs about the trinity. Just Patrick, talking to God, asking for forgiveness in front of his vegetable stand.

Simple words that cut out the busyness of lives that crowd out the one relationship that matters eternally.

After he prayed, Patrick marked the day in his cell phone calendar as “my new birth day, the day I got saved.”

I don’t tell you this story so that you will be convinced of what a cool person or life I have. Remember? I'm the one that often wears frumpy skirts and is a couple years behind in American pop culture. In fact, I have a tendency to not talk about things that will put me at the center of attention. But this is my Jonah. What? You know, Jonah…who got swallowed whole by the big fish and vomited out later on?

God gave Jonah a story, a message to tell about His character and His glory. Jonah tried to ignore God’s call for him to shout the message out loud and…well, he had a hard time.

So this is my Jonah. My life does not always make sense in a typical way but in moments of clarity I know that for this time, being where I am is no mistake and the things I see and experience are not coincidences. I believe that God not only has a message He wants me to tell the people I meet in Uganda, but also to share it back with so many of you who keep up with my life. It’s a message about GOD – His faithful character and endless forgiveness, His fathering towards each and every one of us.

We recently enrolled 20 new kids in our Hope Alive! site in Kampala and they came to their first Saturday club last week. The new kids were asked to stand in front and say their names and grades in school. I was touched by the words our site manager told the children, “these new ones are visitors, but after they say their names and we clap for them, they become one of us, they join our family.” Just like that, family. Something like saying a simple prayer of forgiveness and being celebrated into God’s family.



{{All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.}} 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

WestGate Water

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello from Uganda! I’ve been wanting to write and tell you about an amazing experience I was so blessed to be part of the other day while I’ve been staying in Gulu, Northern Uganda.

This past holiday season, my home church in San Jose, CA, WestGate church took part in Advent Conspiracy and generously gave money for water projects around the world. Like many of you, I’ve given money for these kinds of global projects before. Maybe it’s a check in the offering bucket at church or a credit card donation online – you do it as a means of obeying God and serving the less fortunate around the world – but (if you’re anything like me), it seems far away and disconnected from the eventual and actual solutions that will happen in some distant country. So, I’m writing to you now, hoping I’ll be able to help draw you into the reality of what a check can really mean.

I was blown away to hear that WestGate wanted to send part of the money they gave for Advent Conspiracy to Uganda for a well project in coordination with my organization, Hope Alive!. The details get confusing, but show just how cool it is to be a part of the body of Christ – WestGate gave money to Living Water International for a well project in Uganda that could benefit the children of Hope Alive!. In Gulu, so many wells were broken or neglected during the civil war, leaving communities without clean water sources, even up to today. So, I worked with Life Giving Water (a Ugandan-based company that does the actual contracting work) to locate wells in that needed rehabilitation and were located in communities in which many of our Hope Alive! children live.

At the beginning of this week I had the awesome experience of going to the community dedications with Life Giving Water for the first two wells that have been rehabilitated through WestGate Church.

We drove for about 20 minutes down dirt walking paths in “the bush,” then walked still deeper down another small path. I can’t explain why, but the sight immediately brought tears to my eyes – through an opening in the tall dry grasses, a group of about 30 people had gathered around the well in the blazing hot sun. I had to stop to take in the moment – something that seems small and disconnected – like writing a check – meant so much to these people.

We were greeted warmly with handshakes, hugs and smiles. We held a small dedication time with the people for their newly-working well. Though I should have expected it, I was unprepared when they asked me to speak to the people. However, it was a holy moment for me, and God certainly gave me the words. “We met for the first time today, but we are all family,” I told them. I told them about my church family in California, in America. I told this community about how much they are loved and prayed for and how this church in America loves God, and that is why they sent money to fix their well.

This one particular well is in the area of Koro where there are about 120 households (equaling about 600 people)who will now have a working water source again. Their well had been broken for about a year. During that time, people would either have to walk for miles to the nearest well or many families dug holes in the nearby swamp and used the dirty water instead.

Peter, the director of Life Giving Water in Gulu, told me that as they repaired the well, they also shared the gospel with the community. He told me that everyone who came to the dedication that day had accepted Jesus. So I prayed for them that day this prayer and I hope you will continue to pray for the people of Koro and the other communities these working wells will impact:: “Father, we pray that every time these people use this water that it will give them life and good health that they will be reminded that You are our Living Water and You have given us life.”

Life Giving Water is in the process of rehabilitating other wells that impact other communities like Koro. This project is special to me in so many ways. It means so much because we are intentionally locating wells in communities where the children and staff of Hope Alive! are concentrated. It is such a tangible way to impact their lives. This was an amazing way to feel connected my church family – almost like I was the one who got to hand-deliver a gift from California all the way to Uganda! Above all though, it was truly an awe- inspiring experience of being a part of God’s global church – no matter that we represented four different organizations/groups. We came together as God’s people to love on God’s people. Nothing beats that. I’m quite sure this is just a small taste of what heaven will be like as we worship God together.

under His Grace,

kacie

**you can look at more photos the well dedications at this link::

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40685408@N06/sets/72157626237407362/

pictorial prayer – march13, 2011

please pray for rain. The dry season has been intense in Gulu and the rainy season is about a month late. Besides making it difficult to carry on work, the heat has delayed crops and often dries up water sources. The lack of rain has greatly inflated prices for even basic food staples. Please pray with us that God will graciously send His people here “good” rain that will be conducive to, and not destroy crops.

please pray for the problems of alcoholism that are rampant, especially in the village life here. As one Ugandan colleague recently put it, “at any given time at least 50% of the men in the village are drunk.” Please pray that God would continue to raise up people of conviction, integrity, an diligence in the church who will make an impact in their communities.

please pray for continued opportunities for relationships and chances to share Jesus as I work in the hospital here in Gulu and interact with people in the community.

pictorial prayer - march 7, 2011

please pray for my extended stay in Gulu. I will be spending the whole month of March in Gulu along with my roommate, Kate.

I am excited to spend a longer time in Gulu in order to focus on several projects that are hard to do from afar and in order to develop closer relationships with our kids and staff here.

While I am in Gulu I hope to work on several projects – physical exams and follow-up appointments for the kids, two different clean water projects (with Living Water International and The Water School), volunteering at the local government hospital, and visiting many kids and mentors in their homes.

please pray that this time will be God-filled and productive in the ways He wants to use it. Please pray for Kate and I for flexibility and safety as we live in a smaller village town and for opportunities to develop deeper relationships with people here.