A Joy Filled Visit
When one enters the country of Uganda, it is like a completely different world in comparison to the United States. Immediately, I felt the different climate, but it wasn’t until I spent time with the people and children that I truly began to see the culture and pick-out the distinctions, which I’ll be working on forever! The children at the Hope Center Uganda are all special and unique but there are a few that have very unique special needs, which requires them to attend a different school where the staff is able to accommodate these children and provide their education. Paul Kaggwa, one of our Ugandan staff members, recently visited a couple of these children at their school and provided an account of this experience. Here is his account:
The school is a school for kids with special needs, kids that can’t walk, just all kinds of kids with disabilities and here comes my first time to go see this place! It had always been stories to be about it and the stories where scary that’s for sure but when the time came for going there in person. I was frightened wondering what I was gonna see there, what I was going to witness. The Hope center has two beautiful little girls there both Ritah and Mimi. Ritah is both disabled and special at the same time, but you will never see this little girl without a smile, she’s always smiling, happy and this is what’s makes a difference she always smiles to everyone. Mimi is disabled, can’t walk well and much more with her bones that she can’t grow to a size of her age.
So it was that time when we had to go pick up these two, the school is located in Zigoti Mityana Uganda, 20-minute drive from the Hope Center. Went inside and what was there blew my mind, I stayed quite for a couple minutes maybe three or so just looking at these kids, with no arms, kids in wheel chairs and not in wheel chairs because they had got accidents or something but born like that, kids with heads too big than normal size of their age, kids with all kinds of disabilities and special needs, trust me I can’t explain what I experienced in writings. After all this, we picked up our two kids in my mind i kept asking myself, why am I not so ungrateful, like always? Why? Why am I not going out there preaching more the word of God to others, yet I have a mouth that can talk perfectly, why can’t I walk to places and preach yet I can walk perfectly? Being at this place made me feel like I have always been so selfish, always been so ungrateful of what God has given me! When I went there these kids where singing and dancing for God, so happy, they were not singing so well or dancing so good, but they were doing it! Yet I am out here someone who can sing so well, dance so well but sometimes always feel like it’s not something that I have to do. I felt so much guilt and most important this experience changed my life, I felt closer to God, I felt like I need to appreciate him more, for what he has given me. I can talk, walk and much more little things that we have in life that never recognize them and appreciate them in our lives because why? We have those things and we tend too much to focus on yearning for more than appreciating what God has given us! So, we never see what we possess as important or be thankful!
Going to this place helped me realize that God has blessed us all in many ways that we can spread in word with what he has given us and also to be more grateful and appreciate more of what we have rather than yearning for more cause there are those who don’t have what we have! Even those kids that couldn’t sing well, dance well but did dance for him (GOD). Who are you of which God has blessed you with even more not to sing and dance for him or any other way use what he has blessed you with to spread his word!
Wow! When I first read this my heart was just filled with joy. Paul was able to see not just the two children from the Hope Center but the entire room full of children. Despite their disabilities or special needs, those kids were joyful and happy. Then in self-reflection, Paul was able to gain some perspective on his own life and closeness to God. His story made me do that same thing, stepping back to reflect. In sharing this with you today I hope you can also take some moments to pause and reflect on your life and live in the joy of the Lord and what he has done for you, given you life. But not keeping that joy to yourself, instead sharing it with those around you in what you say and do and how you live your life. The impact you have on other people through your prayers, words of encouragement, gifts, or presence might not ever be something you recognize but if you take the steps to make an impact, God is surely working through you in those situations.
-Paul Kaggwa, Hope Center Staff & Matt Kuske, Task Force Member
