Anecdotes from Africa

I truly adore the children of Uganda! The place I see God most here is in each smile of these precious little children of His. Since I cannot hope to write here about everything I have done in the last week, I have decided to limit this particular blog entry to a few stories about adorable kids.

My first week here, Esther, Judith, and Winith stayed at our house. Esther, age four, is big sister to twins Judith and Winith, who both had malaria and upper respiratory infections. The twins were here to receive medicine, and Esther was here because the twins needed her to be a stand-in mom. One of the blessings I have been able to give was to allow Esther to be a kid. She spent much time taking good care of sisters—kids here can be extremely responsible—but, when she played with me, she got to take a much-needed break and act like a child again. We became very close. She cannot speak a word of English, and I only know a few words of Lugandan, but that doesn’t seem to matter to our Awesome God. Esther and her sisters are back at home now, but I still see them frequently.

Serving His Children (SHC) feeds 900 to 1,000 children twice a week here in Masese, Uganda. Both times this week, after Esther came through the line and ate, she came to me and clung to my skirt (grinning widely) while I helped to feed the other children. Yesterday, I went to visit Esther at her house. There, I played with about 10 children, sang songs, did dances, played games, and had a simply fabulous time!

I have done a lot of singing with children here. Songs with motions and silly sounds are great because the kids can follow along even though they don’t understand the words. Four year old Rachel thinks that “Three Purple Peacocks” is about the funniest thing she has ever heard. She runs around holding up three fingers, chanting “Three purkle peekahs,” and bursting into fits of giggles.

SHC also provides medical care to the community. The other day, I went along to take three babies and a seven year-old to a medical clinic. I sat with the seven year-old, Dennis, in the waiting area for about 5 minutes before we both started to get bored. I spent the next hour and a half acting completely ridiculous in order to keep him entertained. (I may have actually had even more fun than he did…) We sang a bunch of songs, did the chicken dance, jumped like a frog, hopped on one foot along a crack in the floor, and gauged how far we could jump by moving a piece of trash farther across the floor. It was amazing to watch him go from being nervous, shy and uncomfortable to having the time of his life. The next week, Dennis came to playtime at our house (we have about 50 kids from the neighborhood play here and do a Bible club three times a week). When he saw me, Dennis yelled “Auntie Elly!”—the only words of English that he knows. He ran over to me, and started doing the chicken dance. Then, he placed two pieces of trash on the floor and jumped over them. He recreated our entire evening together over the next few minutes. The smile has yet to fade from my face…

God is good.