So I made it safely back from Gulu about 10 days ago now and unfortunately just getting around to writing about my trip. Sorry about that.
But so I left for Gulu in Northern Uganda on March 7th arriving late that evening at the Watoto Guesthouse, which I have to say was quite comfortable and really nice. We were treated very well. If anyone ever wants to come help Watoto here in Uganda, I would recommend it. They take great care of you.
Our welcoming at 10 PM they all were out to greet us.
Where to start, so maybe a little background on the area of Gulu. Gulu is where all the rebel wars, fighting and just atrocities took place. Children were abducted and forced to kill their families in order to be in the rebel group. Gulu is just an incredibly heart breaking war torn part of Uganda where the hub of much rebel activity was, led by Joseph Koni and the LRA, but there were also other rebel groups including the current president was actually a leader of one of the rebel groups and that is how he came into power was through the fighting. So then Gulu became the center of where this civil war started between the Ugandan army and the LRA, both corrupt and killing anyone and anything standing in their way of one another. Neither was really "good" or trying to help. The Ugandan army would kidnap children and train them to be soldiers as well because if they didnt the LRA would take them and train them. Just this awful vicious cycle that destroyed so much.
This forced many people into Internally Displaced People (IDP) Camps. Essentially all of Northen Uganda were forced into these becoming refugees in their own country. I kind of wish we would've got to see an IDP camp because many still remain and all the remnants do. Picture 8 to 10 huts with a family of 6 in each one living on one tennis court, now multiply it by one thousand tennis courts or maybe picture all those huts on one football field. Like 6,000 people living on a football field. That is an IDP camp. The even sadder thing is that though the war ended 5 years ago, a lot of those camps are still 50% full because the people are too scared to go home and if they do go home their land has been taken because Uganda has Squatter's Rights so if someone started living on their land while they were in these IDP camps it became that persons after 5 years. And these people were stuck in these camps for almost 25 years with war and destruction all around them. Truly, atrocious and heart wrenching. Sorry that is probably enough about that, but if you are interested research it or there are good books about it. So sad.
Enter Watoto. So 25 years ago a young Canadian couple came to plant a church in Kampala which now has turned into a 5 campus church all over Uganda and now expanding to South Africa with over 30,000 people consistently attending and people finding Jesus and forgiveness left and right. Just an incredible ministry that is amazing and HUGE now. Watoto has built 3 Children's Villages (New better orphanages) that house over 2500 orphans throughout Uganda with many more they are looking to build.
My friend that I made at one of the Children's Villages, Dad killed by the LRA and Mom died of HIV as did ALL his brothers and sisters (6 of them), but God healed and saved him.. Guess what he wants to do?
Be a Pastor and preach the Word of Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior!
We also hear another story of 13 year old that had been abducted by the LRA forced to kill his family and cousin, but wouldnt. So he was beaten within inches of his life, then taken captive by the LRA for years until he was rescued by a helicopter because he would just pray to God asking for help and the Lord hears prayers! He knew he would be fine... Guess what he wants to be?
A lawyer because he wants to fight for Justice because God is just. So Just that He crushed His own Son for our iniquities so that we may be His sons and daughters.
In addition they have two babies homes with about 30 babies in each.
Come on in to Baby Watoto :)
It was lunch time when we went :) They still there until they are 18 months then moved to the Children's Village
This little guy had HIV : (
Little Bonnie really liked me and I got to feed him, if you look on my pant leg you can see how much liked his food. I thought I was doing so good getting to feed a baby for my first time and he opened his mouth perfectly and I was like oh ya look how good I am, I am going to be a great dad first try feeding no problem, But the Lord is quick to humble as he spit it out time after time on my pants :)
About 75% have HIV which is so sad. Many of the babies have been found on the side of the road or many places just abandoned with no chance of living without Watoto. Often some of them are fished out of Pit Latrines as parents cannot take care of them try to get rid of them in a Pit Latrine (if you dont know what a pit latrine is, it is a deep pit with concrete slab placed over it with a hole to go to the bathroom, so picture a 30 foot deep hole filled with...). Many are very malnourished. Without Watoto, these babies would have no chance just like many of the orphans, who are also malnourished until Watoto cam along.
My other friend I made, you can see there big malnourished bellies :(
They also have a program for trauma rehabilitation in these IDP camps that we got to hear the director speak about while we were in Gulu. He has been in Uganda 2 years and his goal is to go one IDP camp a month until he goes to all of them with a team of counselors and do two week intensive psychological help and he has been to 25 IDP camps and isn't stopping until he goes to them all and then he just wants to go back and follow up with how people are doing. People are finding forgiveness and truly being helped and though the goal isn't to get them to be a Christian but to psychologically help them. Ninety percent of the IDP camps are meeting JESUS because that is where they find forgiveness and HOPE. He is the only true Hope. Amazing.
So I guess with that kind of segways into our project and purpose for being there. So each of the Children's Villages have a school on site, but where do they go after that.... That is where we come in to design there new Agricultural College and Technical School.
My job entailed a lot of water testing and calculating how much water they will need for the site, where it will come from and what to do with the wastewater on site and as always some surveying...
Oh and some on site water testing of existing springs and wells, which consists here really of just drinking some of it and seeing if I get sick...
Just Kidding :)
So we planned a 435 acre site for 400 students with on site housing and 100 staff with housing including 100 acres of agriculture to provide food for those on site and some of the orphanages and 100 acres for livestock for the site, a reservoir for fish, soccer pitch, a retreat center for the trauma rehab folks to do seminars and things for those affected by the war, and of course complete with 1000 person church because it is all about Jesus and the Glory of God.
So we had a unique and awesome partnership with a Australian architecture firm that had 3 employees there including the CEO and the other two staff were the two non believers.
They are the three sitting on the rock next to me, Angus next to me just graduated high school, Andrew next to him is 28 and has had a neat life living all over the world including Angel's Camp California not far from me and had been to Cal Poly, and next to him is there leader Tony. An amazing man of God who humbly and faithfully leads that team with such an amazing heart to serve. This was his 5th time to Gulu. He met with the mayor and Tony has master planned the future of Gulu and what it could look like and wants to be instrumental in rehabilitating Gulu with the hope that other cities will follow that example. Brittany our one girl on the trip is next to him, a new staff member to EMI and Chad our structural/seismic engineer from San Diego born and raised, crazy.
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Our team exploring the site Some more water we tested, good thing I actually didnt try this one because it had E Coli, but this is the quality of the water they use here often because water is hard to get.  |
So after many 12 hour days of planning and working on every aspect of the project
The rest of us working in the other half of the room
All leading to the presentation to many of the Watoto ministry as well as the Mayor of Gulu came to our presentation. Crazy
Tony our leader presenting.
Yes I presented too
So this is us relaxing playing cards, which I felt like putting on here with a little story, but we also just need time to relax because working 10 straigh 12 hour days gets tiring. So at the closing time we go around and share our highs and lows from the trip as well as why we thought God had us on the trip then John our leader gives some encouragement or affirmation. So mine were that I had passion for what we were doing, but more so for devotions and sharing about Jesus and being passionate about that, which is awesome, what a compliment so I am thankful for that, but then my other trait was I was the comic relief for the trip and keeping people at ease by joking around or playing cards :) so I thought that was really nice.
So after each EMI trip, we get to do something fun, which this time included going on SAFARI! So here are some pictures from that.
The first animal we saw...
And thousands more, literally thousands of all different kinds of deer, then we drive another 2 minutes and what do we see....
oh hello heard of Giraffes, and we saw probably like 100 of those as well....
So from there we saw quite a few more animals including some huge water buffalo, lots of wart hogs, and more and more deer then we drove down to the lake and saw....
A herd of elephants
This isnt zoomed in we were literally probably like 20 feet from this heard of 20 elephants in our cars....
Our sweet ride to see all the animals :) I am sitting on the back.... This was acutally as we are chasing the elephants... There were also probably like 50 Hippoes in the lake right behind us.
A monkey and baby
So ya we continued around still bummed not to see a lion but we had heard that this national park isnt where you see lions very often so that was a bummer, we might go to Kenya to go on safari thats where the lions are, then all the sudden our driven veers off the road and starts driving out in the bush even more so than the picture above, he thinks there might be a lion judging by the antelopes so we turn this corner and....NOTHING... bummer so then we looked the other way and thought we saw one in the distance in the tall grass so we start creeping towards it and we ask Tim if it is one because he has zoom lens on his camera and he says oh ya I can see its head moving, YES this is it....we get a little closer and.....
Its a termite hill... dang it strike two....
So once again our driver veers off randoms and goes around into these bushes and turn and....
Boom the King and Queen of the plains...
Mama lion didnt even care we were there, probably like 10 feet away from these two... AWESOME!!!
Thats as were leaving, we were even closer than that...
YAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!
We saw a LION, mission accomplished, we are pumped. Thats Dan my fellow intern next to me and Chad from San Diego on the other side.
Well I am tired, time to go to sleep after seeing the lion... wait whats this we get to wake up to the noise of right outside our camp right on the Nile...
Oh hello, Hippo on my deck... ha ha isnt that crazy
Then in the morning...
Pumba the Warthog and other warthogs wonder the camp... he he..
Yep well the next day we went on a boat ride to see Murchison Falls and saw a bunch more hippoes, Elephants, and Crocs... Unfortunately, we didnt get good pictures of Crocs, but Nile Crocs are known to be 20 feet long and can jump out of the water near 15 feet... so maybe it was a blessing we didnt get too close to them to take pictures.
The Falls, pretty amazing
well lets see hopefully I can write more later, but the trip was amazing. God is so clearly present here and moving and advancing His Kingdom. I feel so blessed to be here. I see more and more the potential of wanting to do this always. So blessed to see what God is doing here I love it!
All for the Glory of God the Father. Jesus is alive and moving, We are His hands and feet, Show somebody His grace, love, joy, and passion today.
I love you all!
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God is Still so Good and I see Him so often everytime I look to the sky and see His Radiance Really? How can you not believe in God? That cannot be an accident. God is So Beautiful! |
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