Northern light

Tomorrow is the AIDS testing day! The kids who haven't been tested for AIDS yet will be tested with a guardian tomorrow at the school. There will be about 80-100 people being tested; this will be a big day since a lot of planning has gone into it and it will take all day from 5am till 7pm. Please pray that not a lot of kids or none of them will test positive, or that if they do that God can use the opportunity to really reach the kids and their families and give them hope. Pray that if the kids test positive that their guardians will take care of them and give the treatment as necessary, and if any of the guardians test positive pray that their family will support them and not abandon them.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. My camera battery is dead, but I've been borrowing a friend's camera so hopefully I can get some pictures up here some time soon. Everything's been busy since this is the last two and half weeks now.

This past weekend I had the chance to travel up north to Gulu. That was my first time stepping foot in an official war zone. While the LRA is currently in peace talks with the government, there is still a lot of chaos and even if the agreement is signed, the effects of the war are enormous. Read up on the history of the LRA and the war in the north, it is all interesting. We visited the biggest IDP camp in all of Africa. There are over 40,000 displaced persons in that camp. This part of Uganda is where the neediest and the greediest people live. At the camp there were only two small hospitals for all of the people and after talkign with the staff at the hospitals I learned that their medical supplies and support is always inadequate, not surprisingly. But what made me outraged was when they explained to me that money was coming into the government for the hospitals, but then just diappearing before it actually reached the hospitals. That is definitely one of Uganda's problems, corruption.

But again, whenever I step into some of the darkest places that I have ever encountered, I do not leave without seeing the light. I met a woman from Gulu who was kidnapped from her high school by the LRA and forced to become a sex slave. She lived with the LRA for a little over a year until her and twleve other girls escaped. On the long trek back to Gulu from Kitgum, two of the twelve died. The woman was very distraught and emotionally and mentally unstable, of course after this experience, but she received counseling at a church and says that she is always happy now, everyday. And it is true, whenever I see her or talk to her she is always laughing and smiling. She says that she smiles because she knows that her Lord is truly the Savior of the poor and the opressed and the widowed and fatherless. I heard many stories like hers while I was here and am again just blown away by the hope and the beauty that has come out of such a horrible situation.

There was so much that I saw in Gulu and so many people that I spoke with. Pray that I can sort out and uncover truths from my experience up north. I am still thinking about it all.

Mukwano means my friend in Lugandan, so, Mukwanos hold strong, have faith, and believe in love.