I can’t believe I come home in less than a week. A month seemed like forever before I came and now it is hard to believe I will be leaving all of my new friends and the kids I love so much.

The other day I decided to go check out an organization that I heard about called hands for hope. It is relatively small but the work they have done is amazing. Basically they focus on the population of people in Uganda that live in the slums. They go out into the community to find families that they think are vulnerable and then they find sponsors for the kids to attend a small school that the organization has put together themselves.

They also provide loans to some of the families so that they can start their own businesses so that they can feed their children. They whole purpose of this group is to provide children with the opportunity to receive some kind of education and to have an escape from the slums. I spent most of the day at the school with the kids in their classrooms. They sang songs for me and all wanted to be held and hugged throughout the day. When naptime came they all laid down on the hard cold floor to sleep and when it was lunchtime, not only did the kids eat with their hands but they literally licked their bowls clean (for most of these kids this will probably be their only meal for the day). A lot of the people who live in the slums are refugees that escaped the Congo when the civil war started and they were all forced out of their villages with no money so they did not have a choice to live in the slums. We got the opportunity to go walk through the area where nearly 7,000 people live and it was absolutely heartbreaking. The slums were full of dark, sewage infested alleys that have 8 ft by 8 ft houses squished together with tin caved in roofs and at least a family of four living in them. There is no power, no running water and the people were all wearing clothes that had holes ripped into them.

I know that God did not create humans with the intentions of them suffering like this. That is where we come in. I can’t help but think about how comfortably and luxuriously we all live at home. To the people that live in the slums, three meals a day would be unheard of. Most of them live on less than a dollar a day and the sad thing is that we are the minority. This is the real Africa. We are called as Christians to help our brothers and sisters but how much would we really be willing to loose? I will never be the same after spending time in the slums.




In the evening I got the opportunity to work with the premature babies in the clinic, which was so special. They are so fragile and tiny. One of the little boys named Wilson is four months old and was born six months premature. He nearly fit in the palm of my hand. This is him....