the children...

i was talking with my host mother a few nights ago and i found out that the three youngest boys in our home (Isaac,6; Emmanuel aka: Emma, 4; Jackson aka: Jack, 2 1/2. their father is the brother of out host father) will be returning to their parents home next week. they have been staying with our family while their parents, who are both finishing their college education, are on school holiday. edith (our host mother) said that she doesnt want to send them back because their mother doesnt care for them. she said that whenever they come to stay at our house they are weak and dull. their mother doesnt feed them properly so they are often undernourished when they arrive at our house. isaac is a bit better off because he is old enough to be in school so he gets at least one full meal each day and gets to be active like a 6 year old should be. jack on the other hand has suffered side effects of neglect. he is small for his age (only a little bigger than his one year old cousin) and has not yet started talking. edith says that his mother often leaves him with an old woman all day....he has to sit all day having no physical activity or social interaction from which he could learn to speak. the poor nutrition has not only affected his growth but his belly is distended as well from lack of protein. a while ago when edith went to pick the children up from the home their mother had left them at she found that, as a result of being left in bed for a number of days, jacks legs had bowed in. having experience in the childrens ward at a hospital, she took him home with her and did physical therapy of a sort to straighten his legs out and taught him how to walk. ive noticed that all three children eat excessively, probably in response to their not being fed well at home. when i asked if the children ever want to go home she said that isaac always says that he just wants her to let him see his parents but he doesnt want to go home with them.
i almost started crying while she was talking. i looked at emma who was sitting next to me, covered in rice and ground nut sauce, thoroughly enjoying his large meal. i didnt want to let them go. ive already fallen in love with all three of them individually...isaac and his gentle spirit and timid curiosity, emma and his endless joy and constant singing, and jack with his continuous energy and tender affection. i wish i could just take them home with me. i cant even articulate yet exactly how it made me feel. i love those precious children it is so unjust that they are treated as almost less than human.
in addition to breaking my heart, ediths words made me realize something else...coming from a different culture it is easy to judge that which we have no idea about. this whole time ive been wondering why isaac has to do house work all the time and why they wont just let him be a kid...but what i didnt realize is that they are purposefully providing him with the physical activity that he lacks at home. and ive been critical of how nutritious the food we eat is for growing children. bu t once again, this was a misguided critique. i didnt realize that what i considered to be inadequate nutrition is actually, by ugandan standards, a balanced diet. our family does the very best they can to provide a 'balanced' diet...while it still consists mostly of carbs and starch they try hard to incorparate meat, vegetables and fruit whenever possible. the more i learn the more i realize how little i actually know.

White God

When I came on this trip I expected to find out what God looks like in Africa. What I have found, however, is that God looks very European. Before coming here I assumed that God would take on African characteristics in Africa but I was puzzled when I discovered that in Uganda, God is dressed in European clothes, much resembling the God I know at home. Something about that fact seemed very uncomfortable.

While I was at the church service on Sunday I couldn’t help but cringe at how Westernized everything was. It seemed that nothing going on in that service (with the exception of the actual sermon) had any tangible connection to Ugandan life. I thought that John V. Taylor's words (from his book The Primal Vision) were a perfect description of what I was observing :

This is the inner significance of the complaint that Christianity is the white mans religion. It is bad enough that religious pictures, films and film-strips should have almost universally shown a white Christ, child of a white mother, master of white disciples; that he should be worshiped almost exclusively with European music, set to translations of European hymns, sung by clergy and people wearing European dress in building of an archaic European style; that the form of worship should bear almost no relation to African ritual nor the content of the prayers to contemporary African life. (Taylor, pg 5)

Sitting in the service I felt like bringing Christianity to Africa has almost done more harm than good. There seems to be an unspoken theology here that says African culture and race is not good enough for God. Instead of helping people uncover their true identity in Christ, it seems that Christianity has stripped the people of the dignity of being African. It seems like in accepting Christ as savior and committing their life to Christ they are also committing to becoming Westernized.

Such an idea is disturbing to me and i want no part of such 'mission work'. I've been struggling to identify how foreigners (especially Westerners) can take to Gospel to a culture without destroying it. currently this experience has left me disillusioned with foreign missions but thats part of why i came here...to be challenged. To allow all my questions to surface and to battle through them.

What does all of this mean for me? It means that while I am here I will be battling with what role Western missionaries should have in taking the Gospel to the nations. I have a passion for seeing God’s name glorified but recently I have been struggling with what role I should play as a white American. This expectation to find the African image of God being presently unmet means that while I am here I’m gong to be working hard to dig beneath the European crust to search for what God looks like here in Uganda. I’m going to make a conscious effort to ask questions and do a lot of listening to what people here think about religion, faith, God, Christianity, salvation etc.

so i finally have a little time to get on the internet and email again. yesterday we were sent on a scavanger hunt in mukono to buy the things we will need while we are here and to help us get orriented with the area. while wandering around the city and during other times since ive been here i've gotten the chance to get a feel for what uganda is like. ill let you in on a journal entry i wrote about my experiences in the city:

uganda is a place caught between two worlds. the national language is english wich seems so out of place...the people here are african but they speak a language no remotely related to their native tongue. many people wear western clothing but some of the women wear traditional skirts, dresses and head wraps or some interesting combination of western and african dress. off in the distance pristine white houses with red tile roofs can be seen nestled in the hills while the area we are currently in displays dirty, cluttered decaying buildings. there are signs advertising broadband technology while the people walking below the signs carry buckets of water from the well and balance large, wrapped bundles on their heads.

it is difficult to describe what how the cities feel...maybe after ive been here a little longer ill be able to better put words to it. i learned yesterday that i am living in nbote village, a small village just above mukono and just below the university. it is about a 35 min walk between our home and the university. on our daily walks the people respond in various ways to the presence of white people in their village. some are very friendly, smiling and asking "how ah you today?" while others scowl and stare at our white skin. the whole way home children yell "bye mzungu!" or chase us chanting "mzungu, mzungu mzungu". another interesting sight both in the village and the city is boda-boda's. they are small motor bikes with a seat on the back...they are like a cheap taxi. i learned yesterday that they got their name because people used to use them to cross the border from kenya to uganda and and vice versa....border to border which, when said with an african accent comes our boda-boda. anway...i should probly get to my homework. ill write more when i have time :).

so this is day three in uganda...so far so good. wonderful actually. ive been surprisingly unfased by this whole trip. i havent been scared or worried or crazy exited... just content. i dont mind the change in lifestyle at all. the only thing that's been frustrating is that we have no storage space whatsoever...which means everything remains stuffed in the suitcases. its beautiful here and im thouroughly enjoying my stay. im staying at a home with another USP student named becca. the family we are living with has twins and apparently it is a very high honor to be the parents of twins (the parents even change their names). so...because they have twins they requested to have 'twins' stay with them instead of only one student. the family is absolutely wonderful. very friendly and hospitable even though they have very little. we are staying in judy's room; she is 18 years old and is the one who primarily cares for us. in the home there is also her twin brother mark, simon who is a little younger than the twins, and two younger boys who are the sons of one of judy's uncles (they stay at the house when their parents are at school). The youngest 'nephew' is named jack. they don't know how old he is....they said maybe 1 -1 1/2. he doesn't understand english but he's become my little buddy already. the mother of the home says that jack love muzungu (white girls) (they have had USP students staying with them every semester for a couple years and every time he attaches himself to them. the food isn't bad either. the staple food here is matoke...a yellow paste made of steamed plantains. it has essentially no nutritional value but keeps you full. it's often topped with 'ground nut sauce' (a purple sause made of peanuts...it gets its color because they leave the red skin on the peanuts). it looks really strange...but tastes pretty good. also, we at sweet potatoes with a beef sauce...kind of like potatoes and gravy and a cubes of a corn meal paste that's kind of like cream of wheat...except sticky-er. we also eat various kinds of bread...always a little stale but decent. and they have tea time twice a day...breakfast tea and evening tea. that's one of my favorite parts of being here :). and i really don't mind showering from a basin...judy heats the water for us so it's almost enjoyable. the bathing room is a room in the house made of concrete with a a small drainage hole in one corner that drains the water outside...this is also where we brush our teeth. and the bathrooms aren't bad....just a concrete whole in the ground with wooden walls. the top is open so it doesn't smell awful either. and....i have been here three days and have managed not to be sick. the interns here said neither of them got sick when they did their semester at USP or while they have been interning...so im hopeful :). well...i guess this is long enough already....ill write more later.