Baptized with 1.5 liters

Kasokoso Child Development Centre

Iganga, Uganda

Day 2 – We kicked off the day with pancakes, scrambled eggs, toast and mango juice. What a way to start the day off on the right foot. The short one-hour drive to our first orphanage showed us the side of Uganda that last nights evening drive neglected to let us in on. The Ugandan landscape is painted with shacks and shanties, children flooding to the streets like ants ravaging over a leftover funnel cake after the fair, goats and cows tied to the side of the road for clearing, people living in bushes for reasons unknown but that we are certainly not oblivious to, and children as young as my 28-month-old nephew walking the street where zipping vehicles hardly see them as an afterthought - much like the diner we eat every night.

--Insertion--

This is Trey blogging for Emily now because she has gone upstairs to shower with a 1.5 liter of Rwensori bottled water – the water is out citywide in Jinga tonight. So she opted for a bottled bath rather than no bath at all.

Here is my account of today, until she gets back.

We arrived at the Kasokoso Child Development Centre to hundreds of orphans chanting “Big Daddy, Big Daddy, Big Daddy.” What a blessing it must be for Ted Moody, the founder of Pennies for Posho, to hear his name chanted where ever he goes. All of these precious children yearned for us to love, touch and spend time with them. I was completely overwhelmed getting off the bus for the first time.

-- Trey’s insertion over--

To pick up where Trey left off…All the children wanted to help us off the bus when we arrived at the orphanage. As Trey said, it was quite overwhelming. Then again, I do not think overwhelming begins to describe the emotion I felt. I literally had a feeling of guilt – for having so much and seeing these children with so little, compassion – because I wanted to change each of their lives and make it all better, sorry – because I knew I could not take their situation away and give them what I was accustomed to as a child, and happiness – because even though I could not change their situation and I could not change their state of being in this world, I could give them all the love I had to give and make them smile if only for a moment. That moment turned into millions of moments over the course of the day. I, along with all of the Pennies for Posho team, found myself in a sea of beautiful smiling faces with the most loving and hopeful eyes cast upon me.

--Insertion Trey--

After my hot shower – haha Emily, your shower came from a 1.5 liter of cold bottled water – I came up with the best description of how these children looked at us. These children looked at us the way we should look at God – they saw us as having the power to save them, give them hope, meet their most basic physical, emotional and human needs.

--Trey’s last insertion over. He says this sums up his day to a “T”--

The children carried us into their church with sounds of laughter and song and the most beautiful dances a visitor could ask for. The day consumed us as we played, told stories, led men’s and women’s conferences, passed out candy, clothes and hygiene products, fed the children, and delivered 5 million shillings worth of food to the orphanage that will feed them for more than three months.

 [Today’s serving portion was much larger than normal because we brought food supplies. The orphans eat twice a day, getting one cup rice, one piece of meat the size of a half dollar and a ½ cup of broth.]

As we prepared for departure six Muslim boys stopped Suzanne, one of our missionaries, in her tracks. The oldest boy, Betumda Yassin, was roughly 21 and the youngest 18. The boy looked at her and asked her to tell the group about Christianity and explain the difference between the two religions. Time was short and Suzanne said the only things she could…Jesus was is the King and not a prophet and that everyone will stand before God on judgment day, whether they believe in him or not. The young man then asked how to become a Christian. Suzanne then said, “To become part of God’s family you must serve the Lord and be humbled. You have to have a fact of your own sin and realize the consequences of it. This is why Jesus came, to forgive us for our sins and allow all those that follow Him to walk in His presence one day.” Suzanne then asked if he had a Bible and he said no, I have Quran. Suzanne gave him her bible and said I will pray for you.

Betumda wrote the following in Suzanne’s notebook after writing his name at the top of the page: “Suzanne preached to the above person the word of God because this person was not a believer, he was a Muslim, and he asked her to pray for him.

Suzanne told Trey and I this story as we sat writing the blog tonight and I thought it would be good to share as I end the story about today’s journey. Although we are not all believers in Christ, we will love you no matter what your choice in life. We are not here to judge you, but to love you enough that you will able to find light in the word of God and find salvation through the Grand Architect of this universe as he intended.