Friday

Today was a rather full on day. In the morning some of us headed to the Home of Hope with some of the older kids from the Village of Hope. Others headed to Youth Support Uganda to do some painting work. For those of us who went to the Home of Hope, we took a lot of the disabled children for a walk on wheelchairs. It was a pleasant experience as I could see that the kids from the Village of Hope was eager to interact and show love to those at the Home of Hope. It was especially nice that a bunch of us learned the alphabet in sign-language from the deaf kids.

After coming back, we had lunch and prepared ourselves for the slum visit. For me personally, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought I had gotten used to the poverty in Jinja, and felt as though the slums would have little effect on me. I was proven wrong on so many levels. The conditions in the slums were overwhelmingly poor. We split into groups of 4 and visited some families to pray and give them some aid in food materials. That whole experience was very emotional and tough for me. To hear what these families were going through, and the conditions they were forced to be in, it was hard to control my emotions. It was painful to imagine the suffering these people had to endure to survive a day at a time. It was truly devastating, and it was very hard for me to maintain my smile to the swarm of children following us around.

Overall, today was a very emotionally draining day. I feel the experience I had today will live with me for a long time; and I hope it does. It will serve as a reminder that there are so many people who are in desperate need of our help and prayers. Today I saw true poverty.           Ben