This work is NOT easy!!!

Our last work day was spent with the sponsored children in Fort Portal. Some children are orphaned and have sponsors that cover most of their basic needs. Others are bright, top-scoring secondary students that have scholarships. All of them are extremely poor with tremendous drive and potential. They greet us with prayers and poems of gratitude. They are as young as 6 and as old as 20 and are dressed in their best to meet us. They ask us to stand and say a few words to them. My mom tears up as she tells them about one of her favorite song she sings in the choir that declares, “there are no orphans of God”. Many of the people start to cry. One of the kids comes to me after the meeting and tells me he has 3 others siblings at home with little to eat and no way to complete school. Two young sisters tell us that their brother is getting married and leaving the home. Their parents are already dead. The house is falling down. They are scared. They have no where to go and ask if we can take them with us.

This is the hardest part of my job. It is one thing to sit in the comfort of our offices and analyze the statistics and devise the best strategies. It is another experience entirely to have a desperate child look you in the eyes and tell you they need your help. I can’t start handing out money to everyone that needs it because there would be nothing left. We have to utilize our limited funds in a manner that will be effective and efficient. But how do you explain this to someone who is suffering. I so often have guilt when I tell them, “I am sorry. We are trying to help you, but we must be patient” while I return to the security of my hotel and they return to sadness and an unknown future.

It is inevitable. The day always comes when we are hit with the magnitude of the desperate needs of the children here. I know I cannot cry because once I start, I may not be able to stop. It is so much easier to ignore poverty and the gross inequalities in the world because if we acknowledge it, then we are responsible to do something about it. Sometimes I become frustrated with the lack of response from people who have the means and capability to respond to the hurting people of the world. However, I truly believe that anyone with half a heart and soul would be completely mortified if they saw first-hand the desperate needs of children living in the slums, brothels, and child-headed households of the world. I have to think, perhaps for my own sanity, that we have become numb and desensitized to all of the misery and destruction in the world through melodramatic infomercials pleading for help and the availability of 24 hours news highlighting the world’s wars and catastrophes. It becomes overwhelming to think about and seems a hopeless endeavor to try to ease the endless suffering and actually make an impact.

However, we have to keep our focus on the changes and progress that lie before us. The orphans that have safe, permanent homes, students that have textbooks and trained teachers, the grandmother who can now afford food, clothes, and school fees for her orphaned grandchildren. In fact, if we take the time to look we can see good things happening all around us. It may take time and it may take faith that the help will come, but we have seen so many signs of hope and progress that we can’t let them get lost in the sea of despair. Change is happening. At times, it may not be quick enough to suit us, but it is there.