I was so excited for the opportunity to go back to Africa last month with Sixty Feet. I would pretty much leap at any opportunity that allowed me to head back to my favorite continent. Even more exciting was the fact that Austin was able to come with me and experience Africa for the first time.
First, a shameless plug for the ministry that we worked with in Uganda: Sixty Feet is an amazing organization based out of Atlanta. The ministry works primarily with children imprisoned by the Ugandan government in remand homes. Some of these children have committed legitimate crimes. Others have been incarcerated for “offenses” such as stubbornness or disobedience. Many of these children have not committed crimes but are simply orphaned, abandoned, or have special needs that leave them with nowhere else to go.
As I have seen with my own eyes, the children in these prisons live in dire circumstances. Sixty Feet works to bring them medical care directly through their nursing staff (which is what I spent most of my week doing.) They also work with justice initiatives and prominent lawmakers to change the Ugandan court system and allow children to get through the judicial system faster. They resettle children who have been released from the remand homes and work to set them up with American sponsors to pay for their school fees. This allows them the chance to get an education or learn a trade. They teach the kids about a gracious God who loves them infinitely and redeems the lost and brokenhearted. Ultimately, the goal of the ministry is to raise up these forgotten children to be healthy, thriving leaders of Uganda who love and serve the Lord. True beauty from ashes.
The majority of my week was spent working with Betty, the Ugandan nurse on staff with Sixty Feet. We went to a different remand home each day and provided care for the kids there. It felt like each of the homes had very different medical needs. At M2, I spent most of my time administering malaria tests. At M1 and M3, there were many children walking around with large, gaping wounds that desperately needed to be dressed. I busted out my big ole’ bag of nursing supplies, lined the kiddos up, and dressed wound after wound after wound. It was hard to get over the fact that many of them needed further medical attention than I could provide (like some serious stitches), but in a third world country, you truly have to learn to work with what you have.
It was great to meet a practical need by providing some nursing care, but my favorite part of the week was the time I got to spend loving on the little ones at the remand homes. And I do mean little ones. I was struck to see children under the age of 3 living in these prisons. Many of them were severely malnourished and some of them were visibly sick. The older children did their best to care for the babies, but it truly shook me to my core to see toddlers living in these desperate situations.
We were sitting on the grass one day at M1 when Austin had a little girl who was maybe 2 come up to him and promptly curl herself in his lap. We took turns passing her back and forth. I don’t think I’ve ever met a toddler who was so content to just sit and enjoy every ounce of love and affection she could get. I remember rocking her and rubbing her back and wondering when the last time was that she had been held. I thought of my blonde haired, blue eyed 2-year-old niece who I love to pieces and shuddered at the thought of her living in a place like M1. When we had to leave, I went to set her down with one of the older girls and she broke down into big sobs with crocodile tears rolling down her little cheeks. I fought back my own tears as I turned and walked towards our van. I think that’s when the injustice of the whole situation got to me. Something about a 2-year-old in prison deeply disturbed me that day. I’m not okay with that. I can’t come back home to America and make myself be okay with that. These children may seem forgotten by the world, but they are not forgotten by their Creator, who knows them intimately and loves them infinitely.
Every night as I lay down in my comfy bed, I think about the children I met that week in Uganda. I think about their faces and their stories. The red dirt rubs into my heart deeper and deeper. I’m so grateful to have been able to serve them in a small way by putting on some Bactine and bandaids for a week. But a week is only 7 days. I think about the work that Sixty Feet is doing to embody the Gospel by serving these children day in and day out. It excites me to my core and makes me want to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of these kids in East Africa. He is restoring what is broken. He is making all things new.
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| Austin and I at the source of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda |
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