It's funny the things that make you want to cry. Sometimes it takes you by surprise. Catches you off guard. For me being here in a different culture, on the other side of the world, it is a bit random. I’m not really the crying type. I don’t, for instance, generally cry at movies. In fact at home, my friends will tell you, that I am very annoying to watch movies with. Because I laugh at inappropriate moments. Like when the Titanic is sinking, or Tom Hanks is watching people being sucked out of a plane that has just been ripped in half. Emotion is a funny thing. It doesn't necessarily follow a pattern. Can't always be easily predicted. And while common to us all, is unique to each one of us.
I have to say that I am not really missing home and it's comforts, I don't miss Tim Tams, I don't miss steak and vegies, I don't miss cooking my awesome vegie lasagne, I don't miss the beach. These are things I like when I am home but I am not actively missing them. This is all to say that while I love my friends and family I am not homesick and don't miss them to the point that I can't function here or think all the time about coming home. Maybe because I am not in very many situations that remind me of them. Maybe because I am able to communicate fairly frequently with them via the amazing technology we live with. Maybe it's because that's just who I am. But sometimes there is a moment that catches me. Something happens and I am reminded that I am far away from all those who know me, far away from those I know, that there is no one here (yet) who I have a shared history with, memories, inside jokes. It is easy in those moments to feel lonely even though I am surrounded by a sea of people. If I let myself. If I give in to that, it is too close to self pity which, if I let it, could make me forget why I am here.
Why am I here? Last week I answered that with what I believe. This week it is not a different answer, just a different perspective.
Before the end of the school holidays I was invited to Ritah's house. She is sponsored through HOPE and I met her for the first time when she came to Australia with Pastor Willy and another of our sponsored kids in February 2010. She impressed me with her grasp of English, her quiet confidence and love of life. When I came to Uganda in July 2010 I got to see her briefly as I was leaving (her school is in Entebbe, as is the airport). So I was very happy to come back and see her again this year. Up until a few weeks ago I had not seen her as she was at school (far away in Entebbe) but when school holidays started I saw her and she invited me (I think her exact words were 'when are you coming to visit us?') to visit her home. With the school holidays drawing to a close I was wondering when it was going to happen but on the Thursday before school went back I finally got there. Ritah (when she is not at school) lives with her mum, older brother Nickson and cousin (whose name I'm not sure how to spell so not even going to try). They rent a two-roomed place (1 bedroom, 1 living area) roofed with iron sheets that leak onto their mattresses when it rains. All three kids are sponsored through HOPE and are in school because of it.
They do not take for granted what HOPE has done for them, their neighbour is a constant reminder of where they have come from. The neighbour has 6 kids, 15 down to 3 months. Of the four that are old enough to go to school, none of them do. When the 11 year-old was going to school he was promoted from P1 (1st year of primary school) to P3 and came top of his class. That was in 2009. He did not go to school last year and has not attended this year either. The mum and two older children (13 and 15 years) work to try and earn money to pay rent and to eat. School is last on the list. Nickson told me that their family gives their old clothes to the neighbours and they help out with food when they can.
Nickson is in Senior 4 (two more years of high school to go) and Ritah is in Senior 3. When Nickson leaves school he would like to go to University to study Engineering. University is expensive - the average sponsorship barely covers Primary School, does not cover the full fees for most Senior Schools and barely makes a dent in uni fees. But he has hope that he will get there because school was an impossibility and now he is close to completing.
The lunch we had was amazing - so much food - and I felt very honoured to be there. After lunch Mama Ritah spoke through Nickson (who interpreted for me) and told me how grateful they are as a family for the help that they have received from HOPE - she told me her story and how far they have come. She thanked me for my love for her family and for looking after Ritah when she came to Australia. She told me she knew God loved her because of people like Bill and I and that other people have also come to know God's love for them through the example of her life. She spoke with grace and dignity about a life that has been full of disappointments and struggles.
This is what made me want to cry. And unlike the times when it is friends and family at home that I miss and I could fall into self pity, this moment sitting on one of the 'good' chairs in this families house reminded me that this is why I am here. Because what HOPE does brings hope to people. I know that I could bring hope wherever I am but sitting on that chair, feeling incredibly humbled, makes me think that this is where I want to bring hope. Because just outside the door is someone else who desperately needs it.
Blessings, bron
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