Life, Death and Suffering.

As usual we have been very busy over the last few weeks.

At the moment we have lots of young people that we are always spending time with. Of course with the tailoring class and boys classes there are many youth here. But often on days off, we seem to have at least a few young people hanging around our house, whether practicing their tailoring skills or playing ludo.
A lot of the time it is a bit of a safe haven for them.

We are also developing the YSU block, and things are looking great. We have been leveling the whole compound and planting some trees and grass. Since there is lots of work to do, it is always great to give an opportunity to some of our boys to do some labor. With this money they can then go and pay some of their schools fees. So both parties are happy at the end of the day.

We are currently starting to build a slab for a big chicken coop on the YSU block. This is being prepared by some of the builders so that the July team can build on top of it as a project they will be involved in here.

We plan to use this chicken coop as a way to train up young men in poultry care, as well as use it to make a bit of an income for YSU and to be a bit more sustainable in paying our bills!

We have also had the team just leave, who were able to visit us and spend some time seeing some of YSU's work! We also have Ken and Nicole who are still here and have been helping us out with a number of programs! The other day they put on a very exciting game of bingo for the tailoring girls, who were so full of energy and laughter during it all.

Farouk and I also went for a bit of an adventure a few weeks back. We recently got some cheap tents, and so we loaded up our bikes and went for a camp at the top of this big hill. That night a huge thunderstorm came through, and we felt very exposed on the top of the mountain. Our tents didn't hold up too well, and a small lake formed in one half of my tent by about 4.30 am. I was praying that the lightning wouldn't hit me as well.
If you want to see our full adventure you can watch our little video we made here.

https://vimeo.com/128780069

We have also been running drug and alcohol information sessions here with young men and women. We particularly focused on Alcohol abuse last Wednesday. I am still taken aback by the dangerous lack of education you can find here. One of the young women said that she had always been told that drinking wairagi (incredibly strong home made bootleg liquor) while your pregnant will help develop your baby.
So I had to go through why it is incredibly dangerous to be drinking alcohol like this while pregnant.

I was reminded again about the dangers of drinking this local brew (which 70% of drinkers in Uganda drink) when I walked past a dead body (unknowingly) with Farouk yesterday.

Near the YSU block is a bit of a slum community. Our next door neighbor has an older son who had become a bit mentally ill from drinking so much. We had walked by him when he was passed out on the ground yesterday. This is a common thing you see, and the fact that many people were casually around him, not seeming to give him particular attention, led us to not think anything was wrong.

We found out yesterday night that he was actually dead from drinking too much alcohol. When they tried to wake him up to bring him back home, he had gone stiff.
Just another reminder about the seriousness of alcohol abuse in Uganda. Someone can be laying dead on the ground in the middle of the community, with people walking past them and not even knowing.

We have also had some tragic news the past week.

If you read my last blog post you would of been familiar about the story I told of one of our tailoring girls who had an extremely sick child. She was being kept by the man who impregnated her, in his village, and he was refusing to give the child medical care (even though we pleaded with her to come back to Wairaka so we could help) .. if you want the full backstory, just go back and read my previous blog.

Sadly, last week during one of our tailoring classes, someone from the community came to tell our girls that the baby to this young woman had died that morning.

The class was full of tears, as all the girls were friends with their fellow classmate. The baby had been a common little guest in our house, and so all the girls were very upset.

The fact that it was a needless death, and that medical care had been offered to the child, but the Muslim husband was refusing help from any 'modern hospital' or 'christian organisation' also was a stab to the heart to all the girls, who knew the baby could of survived.

We spent some time praying together as a group, and for the mother of this child. We then provided transport for the tailoring girls to be able to take a bus that was leaving Wairaka for the funeral, because Muslim families here bury their dead on the day they die. The bus was provided by the young woman's family who still live here in Wairaka.

Since the young woman's family has also been very harsh and abusive to the girl, we wanted to send our tailoring girls, with Beatrice and Agnes, to go as support for the young woman. We don't think she gets much loving support in her life.

So Agnes and our tailoring girls all went to the burial of the child.

Agnes later explained the story to me of what happened when they reached the village where the woman was staying.

It was quite a horrific situation. The young woman was sitting alone in a very small, dark hut, with the dead body of the child. The place she was forced to stay was in a horrible condition.

The young woman was also incredibly skinny and sick as well.

What had happened, was the young man and his family were keeping the young woman there as a sort of slave. She was forced to do hard labor and dig in their garden, while her child was dying. The man had also taken the young woman again as 'his wife' (as he called her) yet they had never married. The young man had only gotten the girl pregnant and then abandoned her, and now he thought he had a claim over this woman.

All of this was happening to her, while her child had been dying.

I can't imagine the trauma she must of gone through.

During the burial, the young woman's family, and all the people who came from Wairaka, had surrounded her, and were refusing the man and his family to come near her.

They were actually planning a rescue to get her out of the village, and they didn't want the mans family to know in case things got violent. 

Straight after the child was buried, the people from Wairaka asked this young woman if she wanted to get out of this village and escape this man. She instantly said yes and ran towards the bus.

All of the people from Wairaka got up to quickly leave the place and hop onto the bus, including Agnes and the tailoring girls.

This is when things got violent. The man was screaming at them to 'give him back his wife'. And many of the mans family where trying to get on the bus to grab the young woman and bring her back to them. Agnes later told me that it was likely they were upset that the person they were using for hard labor was now being taken away.

Agnes had called me at this point on my phone, all distressed and asking for prayers, as the situation was getting crazy. I could hear lots of screaming and yelling over the phone, so I was praying for her that she would be kept safe.

In Uganda, mob justice rules, and things get out of control very easily. I have often heard of beatings that have lead to death, people being set on fire and more, simply because a mob of people got angry.

Amazingly, Agnes told me later that it was the big old Mammas from Wairaka who were putting themselves in between this young woman, and the angry man and his family.

A protective African Mamma is not someone you want to mess around with, and from what Agnes told me, it sounds like some of them got a few jabs in on the mans face.

Thankfully all the people from Wairaka managed to get on the bus and they escaped, while the man and his family threw rocks at the bus as it sped away.

Agnes said the whole time this was going on, the young woman was just crouched on the bus with her head in her hands crying.
Again, I can't imagine the trauma this girl has gone through.

So she managed to escape the bondage she was in at this mans village, and she is now back in Wairaka. But not without the loss of her one year old baby girl. May the little girls soul rest in peace.

This young woman has actually spent most of this week here at our house. Again, the situation here in Wairaka, where she lives with her family, is not the best either. We have heard it is quite abusive towards her. And to be honest, I feel like our tailoring girls and YSU are the only friends she has at the moment.

We are in private talks with her at the moment, the possibility of her staying with us may also come up. As she has asked us in the past if she could please stay with us, and the fact that the family she is staying with don't want her, we may make room for her here with us.

We certainly want to show the love of God to her during this tough time.

We also would love to create a stable environment for to be able to spend time at.
It was only yesterday that I saw her smile for the first time, and I am very proud of our tailoring girls who have taken her under their wing, just to show her love and friendship.

Every Tuesday, we have been running small devotion classes for our girls. These have been voluntary, and we don't make it compulsory for the class to have to attend. This is purely because our class has some Muslims in it, and I don't like the idea of them being pressured to do something that may be conflicting to their religion. I firmly believe in this being something that is done out of their free will.

This lesson I had prepared something small on the topic of suffering, since it had been a hard week for them all.

The young woman whose child died, has never attended one of these classes, since the father to her child was a Muslim, and she had also been influenced by the Islamic faith. She has often been quite scared to be involved in anything Christian, because of the influence of this man over her.

So I was shocked to see her attend the bible study class this last Tuesday. And not only attend, but be one of the first ones in the class, sitting and waiting for it to begin, and singing along to some of the worship songs.

It was actually her and the other Muslim girl who were the first in the class waiting to here what the bible had to say.

You can imagine the pressure I all of a sudden felt. I was not prepared for this, and my heart started beating fast, as I thought I was going to talk about suffering from a biblical perspective, to a group of already Christian young women.

I am a firm believer in not needing to give 'all the answers' during someones suffering. I often think the best form of counseling during someones suffering, is to be silent, to serve them and love them, and just offer support.

All of these things we have been offering to this young woman this week. We haven't felt like we need to rush into counseling, and the young woman knows that she can talk with Agnes anytime she wants (she has actually organized a time today to speak with Agnes).
But here she was, in our bible study class, on her own free will, wanting to hear what we had to say.

I started going over my material, getting worried if I had things in there that were too heavy. In the end I gave it back over to God. I believe He is sovereign. I believe he had planned the message I was going to give, and he had planned the young woman to come there, for the first time, on this particular day.

So I gave the message I had prepared.

I had never planned to go into abstract philosophical reasons for suffering, nor had I planned to go into deep theological concepts.

I simply had planned to point out that no other God in any other religion, stepped into and entered our suffering like Jesus. 

That only Christ, with all His Power and Glory, became a weak man, who was beaten and mocked and shamed and betrayed and crucified for us.

That we may struggle deeply when we suffer, but that we have a God who cares deeply. So deeply that He was willing to enter right into the middle of our sufferings with us.

I pray that this young woman will be able to feel the love and light of God. And I pray that we at YSU will able to be Christ's hands and feet in the situation. Serving her, loving her and being a friend.

I am so proud of Agnes and the tailoring girls, and how they have rallied around to support this young woman

We will continue to pray for her, and I ask that you also do the same, as now more then ever, she is open to the Gospel because of the deep pain that has shaken her world.

I will leave you with the words of John Stott, talking about the uniqueness of a God who suffers with us and for us.
These words run deep, and I believe reflect a truth we can hold onto when suffering.

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross.'
In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world.
But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.
That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us.
Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.
"The cross of Christ ... is God's only self justification in such a world" as ours ... 'The other gods were strong; but thou was weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone."