Out of Anything in the World

I have always known that my international social work placement was different and that my roles are much different here than they would be in the US. But I have to say I never saw this one coming. My knew name around the office is "chicken cutter". Why? Because last week at my internship I killed a chicken. Yep. Stepped on it's feet held its neck and sawed through it with a knife (it was a dull one too). The bishop was coming that day and I was helping out in the kitchen, so of course, we were eating chicken and they had to be killed. So we buy them from the market, kill them, take out the feathers, gut them, cut, boil, and eat! Talk about fresh meat! I know you think that's gross but do you have any idea what is in the chicken you eat?

I tend to ask a lot of questions. For those of you who know me, surprise right? One of the question I have been asking people, is “If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be?” In my mind, and I have asked this question to many Americans in the past, people start thinking about who their favorite person in history was or who is the most famous person of our time. Answers are typically Jesus, Oprah, or Justin Bieber. So  I asked this question to someone and the response I got was astonishing. So I began asking more people and I was continually astonished, so much that I found it blog worthy.  When I asked the question the first time, his response was his mother. I asked if he had ever met his mother—I thought she has passed away when he was a baby or something! But he laughed and said no, he sees his mother often as she lives in the same town. At this point I was a bit confused as to why he would want to have dinner with his mother. So I asked. And he just smiled again and said that he loves his mother, and would want to have dinner with her over and over again. I just thought, out of all the people in the world, you would want to have dinner with your mother?! It really took me back because I had not expected that. But after I thought about it, it was aligned with this sense of relationships in Uganda. To him, it made no sense to have dinner with someone he hardly knew, and what was he gaining from having dinner with someone who was famous? It made way more sense to him to engage in a relationship that he has already established and poured into, rather than with a stranger. And here I am, an American, always looking outside my situation to do something that is admirable. It would be way cooler to say I’ve had dinner with Oprah than it would be to say with my mother. But not for your average African. Do you think Oprah would remember having dinner with you? Probably not. But would your mother? The person who has given you life, loved you to the point where she would lay down her own life? Absolutely. Africans understand something we don’t. They understand that life is precious. And that each experience and relationship is of value and it matters. Because in the end, we will not be remembered by what we did, but by who we chose to invest in deeply.

Ali

The Important Things

I have never come to a place in my life where I have faced some of my deepest fears. Not fears such as large, death-daring snakes or cars crashing in the river or even public speaking. I have come to the conclusion that I do not fear many things, but for those few that I do, they are forces stronger than gravity itself. Those fears influence every single decision I do or do not make. They are the driving force in almost every action. I carry around with me the fear of commitment to one place, person, or thing, the fear of boredom and complacency, and the fear of missing out. Ever since I was a young girl I remember telling my parents the day I turn 18 is the day I move out of the house. Although, because God is funny like that, I went to college in my home state, it was the only school I applied to in Michigan. I was committed to Philadelphia in my heart, but by God’s provision I stayed in state. Luckily, I was able to spend my summers out west, reliving each summer the excitement of change and new experiences. Being able to work in Colorado and Montana for my summers was my outlet every year. 

The thought of living in Michigan, or the Midwest, has been an idea I have refused to even visit in my mind. God is all about taking his followers to do radical things right? True radical Christians don’t stay in their hometown. Sure, we need doctors and nurses and accountants and teachers, but not for me no. God has called me to radical things. He has called me to international social work and missions. That is what I have always believed and I’m not saying that is not true, God could be calling me to this type of radical thing, but while in Africa I have had to face the question of “what if the most radical thing we can do is love our neighbor?” What if the craziest journey we can be on is to love and pour into our community back home? What if, God is calling me back home? I have been forced to ask and answer these questions because I have been living in a part of the world that does just that. When I look at my African friends and family, I have to conclude that they are not missing out on anything. For most of what I’ve seen, women become housewives and raise their children, families attend church every Sunday and participate in their community simply by being present, and most will never make it out of the country. And there is nothing wrong with that! I believe north American Christianity has been fed a lie about “radical Christianity”. I do believe that we are called to be radical, but our definition of ‘radical’ may just be wrong. We have attributed radical to overseas missions or voluntary poverty. And I’m not saying that God does not call people to that. Jesus is a radical God, and he often calls his followers to places they could have never conceived before. But not everyone is meant to be a Paul and Silas. 

It’s ironic to me that I fly across the world to realize that maybe God is calling me home. Couldn’t I have learned before committing to four months on a different continent?! I have come to value friends and family more than ever before, because after all, what if that is all we have? What if that is the most important thing? I cannot neglect the fact that my grandparents are nearing the end of their life, my parents are growing older, and my sister is closer to marriage than getting behind the wheel of a car for the first time. And here I am running around the world searching for adventures trying to avoid “missing out” when I am missing out on all that is going on at home. I do believe I carry around an adventurous spirit and have a fever for wild, free-spirited, crazy things, but I have come to a place in life where I have had to face the reality that life is short. And life is precious, especially the people in it. It would be foolish of me to ignore that fact. Africa has taught me that each day is a gift and God doesn’t promise us another day. So how would our lives look if we took that seriously? I am just beginning the journey of not taking anything for granted, and trust me, it’s worth it. Because in the end, let me ask you this, how will you be remembered? what you accomplished or traveled to, or whose lives you changed by investing in them?






Ali

Sponsoring A Child

I’ll start by saying I’m bias. After doing my internship with Compassion International (the largest child sponsorship program in the world) in Uganda, I could not be more convinced in the effectiveness it makes. I just cannot get over how much a child’s life changes if he/she is sponsored. I have grown up hearing about Compassion and sponsoring children in general, and it has been easy to pass by children in need—because after all, I didn’t really know them. I believed there were needy children in the world, but I didn’t really think it concerned me—someone else will take care of them right? I have seen hundreds of faces displayed with a packet of information about how to sponsor a child, and I never occurred to me that I should do it. But I’m telling you that now things are different. I feel blessed with the opportunity to have witnessed the other side of servant hood; I am doing ground work here in Uganda literally watching lives be transformed. The oceans between a picture and a human face have been removed—and it has changed me. So as of this past week, I am officially a child sponsor.

                I wrote of him earlier in my posts as he was one of the first children I met because his father does some side work for our offices. I connected with him right away and we instantly became buddies. Every time I see him he comes sprinting towards me with a huge smile yelling, “Ali! Ali! Ali!” I am not a mother, but I understand a glimpse of the joy a child can bring simply wanting to see you. I knew that after interning with Compassion I would not be able to walk away from the experience without sponsoring a child. So I began to pray about sponsorship, and it so happened that Shahibu had been on the waiting list for almost 2 years to become sponsored.  When I found this out I talked to my project director to even see if it would be possible to sponsor him. They were ecstatic.  The month long process of communication with the head office and other officials is over, and I am officially sponsoring someone I know and love.

                I do not write this to guilt anyone into becoming a sponsor, listen to your own convictions and follow them please. But if you or someone you know is on the fence about becoming a sponsor, I am telling you how it changes lives. The way the system in the world is set up write now is tragic, and if a child isn’t sponsored, they have little to no hope of every going to get a college education and giving back to their community.

                Other than that all is well here in Uganda, rainy season has begun and the drought it over (funny how I have never been so thankful for rain before). I have also been training with the volleyball team and have made some great relationships here. Thank you for your ceaseless prayers and devotions to my journey in Uganda.

We do not have to go after crosses,but we have to take up the crosses we have been given all along.

Ali 

The quest for water

One pull of the finger in and there it is: a perfect cylindrical clear stream of the most life-sustaining element on earth: water. These past ten days I have been living in rural Chapchowra, Uganda. It is a beautiful village residing in the foothills of Mt. Elgon bordering Uganda and Kenya.  Running water is for the small wealthy percentage in Uganda, so I have adapted to this lifestyle of not having it. but what I haven’t adapted to is walking long distances to retrieve water on my head. Most people carry the large 20L jerrycans on their head (which I calculated to be 42 pounds), but I can only do a 10L. I would even put myself on the stronger end of the spectrum for females, and there was no way I was getting that thing on my head. And there are women carrying a baby in a sling on their back with a 20L on their head, walking down steep terrain. African women are strong!

The kitchen and the dog

What happens when the well is dry? You see its rainy season here, which means water must be used conservatively because having dry wells is common. This past week I experienced this first hand. After lunch, and after lunch’s dishes, my mom and I always go and fetch water. It is about an 8 minute walk to the nearest well, really not too bad, although these were the foothills, so there is no flat ground. Steep walking up hills is required anywhere you go. So we went to our usual place to retrieve water with our empty jerrycans, and found that the tap was dry. Oh no. my mom doesn’t fret because she knows the other sources; so we pick up our feet and walk another 12 minutes to the next source. Dry.  Okay well this isn’t good, my mom comments. So we must keep trying. We need water. There is no “we can get it later”. We have to cook, do dishes, bathe, and drink. There is no other choice but to keep trying; there is no other option. We trek on another 15 minutes to the next source. Dry. Again. This is a real big problem, my mom explains. Water was here yesterday and the day before as the people who were with us were saying. I don’t understand the local language but I could see on everyone’s faces how tired they were and effect of the problem at hand. We all now travel in a pack with other people who share the same desperation for water as we do. We now had to walk to the furthest source, another 15 minutes away. 

carrying Metoke on my head (African style of course)

making home-made coffee and g-nut sauce

By this time I am tied (from walking all the hills), hot (from the blazing sun), and thirsty( the only reason keeping me going at this point). As we approach our fourth attempt at water, alas, a crowd of people are gathered around the spring all waiting in line with their containers to be filled. After filling, I watched my 10-year old sister sling a 20L on her head and then proceeded to smile watching myself struggle to do the same with my measly 10L. we walked 45 minutes home. As we reached home I just thought what a journey. And as I removed the water from atop of my head and placed it down in the kitchen, I was reminded of the effort it takes me to nudge my finger and get running water at home, which I can assure you I will never take advantage of again.

Being White

Being White

I knew I would be different. I knew I was white. I knew Africans were black. I knew I would be the small percentage of white in a black culture. But what I didn’t know was how difficult it would be. I didn’t know what the real implications of being white in a black culture were. But now I understand.

It wasn’t until I became the minority where I started to learn about what it meant to be white. I had never thought about being white until recently. What is “white culture”? What are the implications of my skin color to Uganda, to Africa, to the rest of the world? Growing up in a non-diverse area, the opportunity to look at being white never came up. It was just how it was. I naively thought everyone saw the world through my lens. Sure, there was the slave trade starting in the 1600s, the civil war in the 1800s, and the civil rights movement in the mid-1900s, but that is in history now, that’s all over right? There is no such thing as inequalities because of race now right? We don’t live in a world that judges both character and wealth by the color of one’s skin do we? WRONG.

The truth is that we live in a world that strongly operates based on the assumptions of race. And thee most powerful and privileged race in the world is that of the white individual. In east Africa, the term mzungu is labeled to all white people in the country. It can be offensive at first because in the US it is rude to identify someone by their race, but here in Uganda the term literally translates to someone of good standing. So when children are running after white people screaming mzungu! Mzungu!, simply trying to catch a smile or wave, they are telling that person how well-off they are. In other words, they are saying because I am white, I have good standing and I’m essentially better.

In the United States if one is a minority, (African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American, etc) they are more likely to be in poverty, be unemployed, be in prison, not go to college, have teen pregnancy, develop a mental illness, be an alcoholic, not make as much money, and the list seriously goes and on and on of ways non-whites are discriminated against. We live in a world that is dominated by the color white. And the reason it is so powerful is because no one sees it—it’s invisible.

Each of the times I have visited a public place in Kampala where security checks are at every door, I have never once been inspected. If a traffic officer sees me in a vehicle, our car is exempt from the rules of the road. Because I’m white, it’s like I’m above the law, and above morality. At my internship in rural Kisoga, children crawl on my skin, rubbing it up and down, simply wanting to just touch it. All of this drives me crazy, not just because of the attention, but because I don’t want anyone to believe that I am any better than anyone else because I’m white. I don’t want to be treated like a god. If those children touch my skin they won’t be healed. I’m human, I’m a sinner, and just because I’m white doesn’t mean I don’t struggle and I don’t have hardships.

I have had to realize the position God has put me in in this world. I am white. And that is not going to change. I need to be an advocate for the discrimination and disparity happening around the globe due to racism. Yes, my skin has power, but more than that it has influence. And as I navigate what that really means in this world, I will have to learn to speak up for those who cannot and use my whiteness for good.

This next 10 days I will living in rural Capchorwa, east Africa, to live with a host family on a farm and do life with them. I couldn’t be more excited. Please pray for an open-mind and adaptability as I navigate what rural African living is!

Ali

Invisible Children

 “They came in the night,” she said. “We knew the knock as soon as we heard it. We knew we were helpless at that moment and we were going to have to go with them. They grabbed my brothers by the arm and chained my parents outside in the back of our home. When I heard the two gunshots following my brothers wailing, I knew what had happened—they made them kill my parents. They abducted me and told me I was going to be a commander’s wife and I was responsible to satisfying him. He was 63, I was 11. I screamed and cried every night but no one heard me. There was always the thought of escaping, but everyone knew it would be triple the horror to escape and be caught. A boy from my village tried it once and when he was caught, as punishment for trying to get away, they made the other boys kill him with sticks. And then they made them smear the boy’s blood on their faces as a reminder not to run away. The other boys were his friends, but they too would be killed if they didn’t kill him. I became pregnant with the commander’s baby, but even being pregnant didn’t stop them from making us walk hundreds of miles, days and nights without water or food. I wanted to die. But something in me wanted to fight, something in me said I have to keep moving. God had a plan for me, and it was to live.” –as told by a Ugandan woman previously abducted by Joseph Kony and the LRA

This is the short story of a young woman who was a previous child solider in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Gulu, northern Uganda is where this took place from 1986-2006. I spent this past weekend in Gulu visiting different NGOs and getting the opportunity to hear the stories of some of the women who were abducted. Uganda declared peace in 2006 with the LRA, but the leader (Joseph Kony) is still abducting children in the Congo. Uganda knows the war isn’t over, and there is a possibility he will return to Gulu—the place he started.

Kony would target children ages 11-14 and abduct them from their homes in the middle of the night. He would turn the boys into child soldiers, often making them kill their own family to psychologically destroy them and also not give them any reason to return home. The girls were used as sex slaves for the commanders in the army. They were forced to be wives and bear children of rape.  At the project I visited, there were five women who shared their stories—all of whom were in slavery for 7-10 years. They have been working at this organization called Amani for the past 8 years to try and reintegrate into society. With no family, children of rape, and intense trauma, they face battles every day I will never even come close to understanding.

Hearing this story in person from a woman with wet tears and gasping sobs, made everything I had ever learned about trauma come to life. Everything from the Kony 2012 movement and the LRA, it just became real. As tears rolled down my face, I thought about how shielded I was about what really goes on in the world. It’s not that I believed atrocities didn’t happen, but I live in a bubble. It has just been about donating money to help, to make oneself feel better about themselves. It was about gaining knowledge to engage in political conversations, but not about living a compassionate lifestyle. It was never about the people. Because the people were “out there” or “over there”. They were invisible. Yes, people mattered, but they were too far away to really care. But when I was able to hear a real story of a real person, it suddenly became about the people. Those “invisible children” became visible. And once they are visible and they look you straight in the face, you will never forget those eyes. Because those eyes are the surface of a human soul, no different than mine or yours, worthy of time and resources, and seeking for the same longing every human being has had since the beginning of time: to be unconditionally accepted and loved.

Presence

What I have thoroughly enjoyed about the Ugandan culture, and I believe this speaks to most of Africa, is that presence in the basis for all human relationships. Simply being with another person, sitting in silence, is more powerful than any mumbled speech just to fill space and alleviate the uncomfortableness a person feels. 

When I was staying with my host family the last two weeks in Mukono, we would eat most of our meals in silence. While this was strange for me at first, because supper is usually a time for catching up on each other’s day, supper was a time to be simply present with each other. I came to enjoy such times because there is so much that happens without communication. In the United States we would measure “time spent together” on the basis of our conversation or activity. While  here in Uganda, spending time together is simple being present. This has worked in my advantage in a lot of ways here because of the language barrier. English is the national language, but most of the people I work with don’t k now English. Since going to school is a privilege and costs money, a lot of people cannot afford the fees and therefore don’t learn English as a language. But as I interact with kids and adults, language hasn’t even been a necessity. I have learned that there is so much communication that happens non-verbally anyways—who knew? One of my closest relationships here in Uganda is with a little Muslim boy names Shehebu—he’s 3. As soon as my van pulls up to the office and I get out of the car, he is running towards me in the same shirt and trousers he was wearing the day before with a big smile on his face yelling “Ali! Ali! Ali!” I have been able to pick up a few phrases from him in Luganda here and there (kids really are the best teachers), but mostly we communication through play. We became buddies just from simply being in the same room.

What would it mean if our relationships weren’t formed by words or actions, but by simply sharing the same air? Would there be less fighting because our value would be in our humanness and not our prestige, social class, race, religion, sex, etc etc etc? I long for this in our world—that each person has value because they are human.

For we ourselves know what it means, as a stranger passes us on the pavement, to catch a fleeting, spontaneous smile and to know we are recognized not by name but simply for our humanity. For a moment our presence to one another, eye to eye and face to face, dispels the isolation and lifts our hearts. –John Taylor

Ali