Dear Family,
I’m embarrassed
to write, since this is two weeks late, but want to contribute even if it is
old news. It is so rewarding to read
each of your letters and find out what is going on in your lives; thank you for
taking the time to share yourselves with us!
In February, we
got the chance to spend a bit of time with family and friends. It wasn’t a lot, but what we did do was
great. One Monday we joined the
Trubnikov family for FHE, spent another Monday night with Whitney Goodman who
is going to Utah University, and had a quick but warm visit with Aunt Marlene,
Uncle Winslow and Dwayne in company with Carole and Susan. I also got “my nose cut off to spite my
face”—had a pre-cancerous growth removed from my nose—and went to the
ophthalmologist to tune up my vision.
Sigh…can’t get contacts good enough to make up for the loss of
elasticity in these old eyes, but I’m grateful to at least see well enough to
get done what needs to be done. After
observing how many people with poor vision don’t even have the benefit of
glasses, I’m not going to complain about a little lack of acuity.
I spent the last
week of February and the first week of March (12 days total) in Uganda on a
trip with UNICEF, visiting refugee settlement centers about 8 hours drive from
the capital of Kampala. It was
fascinating as well as reassuring to see the orderly process for meeting their
desperate needs, as they went from a hand-washing station to getting
immunizations, being medically screened, fed a hot meal, and were photographed
and registered with the government before being given non-food items such as
tarps, sleeping mats, hygiene kits and jerry-cans for water they would need
when they were trucked out to their 30x30 meter plot to start a new life.
It was also heart-rending
to see the families—mostly mothers and children—who had walked for days through
the uncertain fields of civil war and famine in South Sudan to reach relative
safety over the border. And it was
heart-warming to hear a gentle female voice come over the PA system as the
buses unloaded their road-weary, war-shocked passengers, who said, “Welcome to
Uganda. We are good people here!” And they were; despite their own economic
uncertainties, the Ugandans have not turned away any refugees, but are using
their scarce resources and joining with a consortium of aid providers to care
for the 900,000+ refugees who have already entered their borders. It was startling to learn that nearly half of
them are children, and more than 32,000 of the children have come alone. Many of the fathers and older brothers could
not escape the war, but hope to slip away independently and join their families
in the future. The question, “What if their story were my story?” becomes very real when you look in those mothers’ eyes
and see both the love they have for their children and the fear that they may
not be able to protect them or provide for them. What would I do in their situation? What help would I welcome?
Some of the
things LDS Charities are helping with in the refugee centers—your Humanitarian
Fund donations at work—are immunizations, clean water, sanitation and hygiene
services, medical help for malnourished mothers and children, and early
childhood development centers. We toured
several refugee settlement centers (one alone has 272,000 people!), observing
each of those initiatives and how they bless the people. In one early childhood center, there were an
average of 550 children ages 3-5 attending every day, with only 9
teachers! They met mostly in large tent
enclosures, but the Church also provided a playground with sturdy, colorful
equipment that the children swarmed during their play times. I am so grateful for the way the Church uses
our funds to both save and improve lives. And I wish we could do more! When I gave my report to the refugee working
committee after my return, Bishop Waddell asked, “If you were queen for a day,
what else would you do?” I replied that
schooling for teenage refugees is a great need, but as yet, there are little
funds for that. I saw grown men who were
attending primary 5 (5th grade, elementary school) because they were
so anxious to learn and had never had the opportunity to get to that
level. You who are able to go to school,
to learn skills that will translate into meaningful employment some day, are so
blessed, so take advantage of it!
Before we went
out into the bush, I spent a couple of days in Kampala visiting members of the
Church and providing auxiliary training as well as visiting Primary in a couple
of units. It was fun to see the children
acting as the music leaders in Primary, and the leaders often had their baby
nestled on their back with a swath of fabric as they taught the lesson,
sometimes jigging and dancing a bit to soothe a restless infant. We visited a couple of families in their
homes, and it was a delight to hear them share their testimonies of the
gospel. One family had five children,
aged 8 and under, and had also taken in two teenage girls who had no place to
live. This family of nine lived in a
tidy space about the size of my front entry hall, with the “living” room (including
fridge, sink, and dish cupboard) divided from the sleeping area with a curtain. Meals are cooked outside over a charcoal
fire; I’m not sure what they do to cook during the rainy season. And yet they were dressed in spotless Sunday
clothes in honor of our visit—which is a mystery to me, since they do their
laundry in a plastic basin in the dirt yard, sloshing and slapping the clothes
in soapy water to get them clean and hanging them on a line that flaps in the
dusty breeze between buildings. Another
family of five (including parents, two older teenage girls and an 8-year old
boy) lived in one small room that held a set of single bunkbeds, a couch and an
upholstered chair, all crowded so closely around a coffee table that you could
barely walk around it. They were “so
much grateful” (a common phrase of members) to have their 19-year old son on a
mission, and were working towards saving money to go to the temple to be
sealed. Again, we are so fortunate—and
maybe spoiled—to have so much!
Although this
was not a safari trip, we were delighted to see some African wildlife on our
drive up north. At one swampy spot, an
elephant was feeding and squirting itself near the road; at another spot, we
swished by a family of baboons grooming each other as we crossed the Nile River
on a bridge, and nearby, a cluster of slender, black-faced vervet monkeys hung
from the trees, ogling us in the car as we tried to take their picture. Later, we crossed the Nile again in a ferry, because
it had become as wide as a lake, and saw a hippo in the shallows feasting on
water plants. We also tasted some local
delicacies, but I declined the offer of goat stew, opting for the safer chicken
instead. I tried a small fruit that
looked somewhat like a pecan, but after removing the hard shell, there was a
soft brown center that tasted a bit like dates.
I learned later that the fruit is useful in getting rid of intestinal
worms—and what a marvelous gift in nature for people who are constantly exposed
to that menace!
I’d better quit;
the page bottom is near, and I want to express our love for each of you. You may think that we don’t know you well
enough to love you, but we DO, and we treasure our family association with
you. We send our hopes and prayers for
your continued progress and success!
All our love – (Aunt)
Jean & (Uncle) Bruce
No comments:
Post a Comment