"I Was Hungry, and You Gave Me Food"

I thought I was coming to Uganda solely to share the Gospel with orphans. After being here a little over a month, I am beginning to see that is only a small part of what I am called to do here. While that’s still my main focus, there are so many other opportunities that just can’t be passed up.

The adults here are aching for something worth living for. You see it in their faces. It often manifests itself in extreme depression, alcoholism, and mental illness.

While I have extreme sympathy and compassion toward their hurting (which is almost always a result of pain inflicted by the LRA), that feeling is not shared by the Ugandans I work with. It has been so perplexing to me, sometimes even making me angry. There have been multiple times when intoxicated people have come up to talk to us and the Ugandans do nothing but laugh. They respond this way because they feel that since everyone here has experienced pain the alcoholics should just learn to deal with their problems better. It is often shocking because I know the staff loves Jesus, but alcoholics are a specific group of people that they don’t want to tolerate.

Because I have absolutely no pain that could even compare with years of war, I view this issue totally differently. I don’t see people making stupid decisions, but rather people who are hurting and needing healing. I long to share with them the hope of Jesus and the truth of the Gospel – give them something worth living for!

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Yesterday we were driving home from Tegot and we passed a woman lying in the ditch on the side of the road. Wanting to make sure she was OK, we stopped. Simon and Pato (two of the Ugandans I work with) got out to check on her and after a couple minutes, Chrissy joined them.

It turns out the woman (Angela) was passed out drunk, but still able to be aroused. Simon and Pato weren’t very happy about taking care of a drunk woman (remember the culture!), but at Chrissy’s insistence, they helped her sit up. Then, once again at Chrissy’s leading, they shared the Gospel with her. They told her that being filled with the Spirit was far better than being filled with alcohol. They told her that Christ would make her path straight.

And you know what happened? She smiled. And she prayed to accept Jesus. And she got up and walked. Stumbling at first, but eventually on a straight path. We walked with her a short part of the way home (I joined at some point in all of this) as she sang, clapped her hands, and began down a path of new life.

When we got back in the car, both Simon and Pato thanked Chrissy for her insistence that Angela needed to hear the Gospel. And this morning, they shared the story with our friend Kent, thrilled to have a new sister in Christ. Kent said, “Isn’t it awesome that, just like Angela, Christ saved us when we were drunk and lying in a ditch?” I watched the faces of everyone in the room when he said that and I seriously believe I saw heart-change happen before my eyes. I think that they realized for the first time that yes, we were all just as bad off as someone dunk and lying in a ditch before Christ came in and changed our hearts. I’m pretty sure there are now at least a group of Ugandans who believe that alcoholics are just as valuable as other people. And that makes me smile (and cry, but mostly smile).

So I know we didn’t actually give Angela food or water or clothes, but we shared with her something much, much more valuable. And that Scripture (Matthew 25: 35-36) is just what came to mind during the whole thing.

“For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” -2 Corinthians 5:21