Children of God

See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
-Mathew 18:10-14

We proclaim Christ, admonishing and teaching these children with all wisdom, so that we may present all of these children perfect in Christ. To this end we labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in us.
-Adaption of Colossians 1:28-29

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
-Proverbs 22:6

Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
-Psalms 4:1

He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea.
-Psalms 102:17

All of the Amazima children have survived difficulty that I can't even imagine. They have witnessed their parents death, felt the pains of hunger, and often had no human comfort when they were scared and alone. Thankfully now they are learning to follow faithfully, pray earnestly, and seek the Lord in all they do. The truth that the Lord is teaching them will not only change their life here on earth, but more importantly guarantee them an eternity with our Father in heaven. I know the Lord is looking down on them guiding their steps, listening to their prayers, and rejoicing in their praise.

Blessed to be serving the Lord

Jinja, Uganda is now officially home and I can't be more excited about that. The family that I had created here in just 3 months had been on my mind since I left and I was so excited to see them. As I have aged and traveled I have found a new appreciation for the Family of God.

"so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others"
-Rom 12:5

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"
-Gal 3:28

What a blessing it was to greet my Ugandan brothers and sisters in Christ. This past year in Bible study at my brother's house I have really come to understand the unity and bond that I have with my fellow believers. We may not be blood. We may not even be the same skin color, but we share the strongest bond of all, a Lord who adopted us into his eternal family. Hugs and kisses for everyone was the order of the day

I arrived at 8:00 am on Saturday the 13th which means that I was able to attend the weekly Bible study/worship/fellowship for the children in the sponsorship program. Not only were many of the people who I had come to love so dearly all gathered together, but they also happened to be enjoying the final product of my summer work in Uganda, the playground. I say my summer work, but looking at it and seeing the results, it is obvious that it was the Lord's. Going into the project I prayed that the Lord would make the playground what he wanted it to be cause I knew that I was incapable of doing it on my own. It was so relieving knowing that I couldn't mess it up. He would take care of it.

Well, He did. It turned out so great. When I left there was still lots of work to do and many of the finalizing steps really changed its overall appearance. The pure pleasure that you see in the eyes of the children as they hang from the monkey bars, fly high on the swings, or navigate through the rope net reminds me how blessed I have been to be able to come and work here.

Going Home (to my new one)

Well this will be my final post. Sad day…

Wait. No it won’t. I’M GOING BACK!!!!!!!

I’m so excited I think about Uganda all day, every day. The date of my return has not been set but it will definitely be before Christmas. I can’t wait. I’ve been seeking God’s will for my life since I graduated from high school and I finally feel like the Lord wants me to be where I am. I won’t be able to finish my nursing degree, but Amazima asked me to stay and work with them long-term. They are confident that I have a skill-set that will be beneficial to their organization and I am confident in their work for the Kingdom and God’s guidance that led me to Jinja.

Anyway, I’ll say more about that later. This is a photo of Parent's Night we had prior to my leaving. We hosted a dinner for all the local chairmen (they are kind of like mayors of the villages) and the parents of the boys (the few that actually had some). Many organizations have things like this, but the focus often seems to be on what the white volunteers have done for the community. We wanted it to be clear that we were the ones that received the blessing. And that all the work had been done by the boys of these small villages. They built this playground. They pounded every nail, cut every board, and mixed every ounce of cement. The parents and community leaders needed to know that we couldn’t have done any of this without them. It was their boys that will forever be able to come back and say “I built that.” They will also be the ones that will have to explain what it is they built. HAH!

The rest of the photos are of the work that we had completed when I left. We didn’t have enough time to cover the entire allotted area for the playground, but I think I left them at a point that they could easily finish with little trouble. I’m super excited to see the final product because the finishing touches will change its appearance drastically…hopefully for the better. To be honest I spent most of my time running into town to buy materials. I really didn’t carry my weight when it came to actual construction. With that said…Congratulations to Sam, Francis, Joseph, Alex, Julius, Joseph, Alex, Isaac, and Samuel! You have probably just constructed one of the top five playgrounds in all of Uganda. I have no idea if that is actually true but I’m ok with that.

Back in the States

Well, I’m back in the states and my work in Uganda is finished for now. The key word in that sentence is “my” because the playground is technically not finished. I decided to write two final posts about the last week I was in Uganda. These pictures are a bit random and need some explanation.

This is picture of Katie’s girls. All 14 of them were able to squeeze into the back two seats in Katie’s van. You might ask “why the heck would they do that?” Well there are two possible answers. The first would be that they are kids and they are just having fun piling on top of each other. The second, which happens to be the case this time, is that they did it because Katie needed to squeeze in a one day old infant, the infant’s mother and grandmother, a woman severely sick with malaria and her two friends, a drunk Jaja (grandmother) who had a brick fall on her head, her co-leader of the women’s circle, and a volunteer (myself). There is never a dull moment with Katie Davis. She works as an ambulance to the clinic in town. If I remember correctly she made two more trips that day. Both times the van was packed to the brim. I added up the people in her van on the first trip into town and it was only 24. I’m sure we could get 30 if necessary.

The next picture is the crew I worked with to build the playground. This was last Thursday--the day I left. The guy in the hat is Sam, my foreman. The younger ones are the 8 boys and the man on the left is some random guy that came that day to help us sand. I hired a couple of guys to help sand and varnish because it is pretty tedious and not much learning occurs. He got in the picture and I wasn’t certain who he was. I thought at first he was one of the boys’ dads or something so I let it slide, but later realized he was just the guy who came that day to help do some sanding. Funny stuff.

This is Patrick. He is the man that works for Katie and lives on the land where the Saturday program occurs and where the playground was built. He is an awesome guy and I will miss him dearly. He works his tail off and has the kindest heart. He actually was the one that fixed the boats. Lucky for me he was a carpenter when he was younger and knew how to repair boats. Who would have known?

This final picture is of some boda boda drivers. The nearest one is Fred. Fred rocks! He is a man that somehow got connected with Katie and now has basically become Amazina’s personal driver. Technically he doesn’t work for Amazima, but he gets all their business and is trusted immensely. I found out how useful he was when I was trying to find various businesses in town. I would call up a welder or carpenter and they would try and tell me where their shop was (side note: most carpenters and welders don’t speak amazing English). I didn’t know my way around Jinja very well so I would just go to where Fred hangs out and give him the phone and tell him to lead me to where the guy on the phone was. It was sooooo useful.

Medical Post

I will start with an update about the twins that Renee was taking care of. My dad has been asking how that turned out and I don’t have very good answers because I have been so busy I have not been able to get back over there. I do know that they are both still here with us. And, although visually they don’t look a whole lot better, it is obvious that neither one is fighting off death with every breath. It will take many months for them to recover from the state they were in. But hope grows with every day that passes.

Next are some pictures of Alepear and Napongo. They are Karamajong sisters from Messese. They don’t speak any English and only Alepear (the older one) speaks a bit of Lugandan. Well, Napongo was terribly sick and her stomach is extremely distended. Their mother followed Karamajong tradition by making incisions on Napongo’s stomach and rubbing salt in them in hopes of making the swelling going down. Katie talked to her and told her that this technique wouldn’t work. Katie offered to care for Napongo for a bit and return her to her mom in good health.

Most often stomach distention is due to malnutrition and worms. Katie got Napongo on a de-worming pill and started feeding her nutritious meals. Napongo also had some bumps on her torso that were filled with a white thick substance. All the medical professionals that Katie talked to told her that it was a fungal issue. After a week or so with no improvement on either the stomach distension or the bumps she was a bit discouraged. I told her that I would email one of my nursing professors and see if she had any ideas.

I contacted Teree Rittenbach--who I admire a lot. I was confident that if anybody would be able to help it would be her. Although she obviously doesn’t have a ton of experience with African parasites and diseases, she was able to come up with a possible cause. It is called Bilharzia and it is a worm-like parasite that is found in dirty water. The Karamajong use water from Lake Victoria which almost certainly carries the parasite. I also observed that Naponga had other symptoms of Bilharzia, specifically liver/spleen enlargement and her skin condition. Katie put her on the appropriate medication and she has been pooping out Bilharzia worms ever since. Praise God!

I have to include a fun story about the worms in the poop. I was curious as to how Katie discovered that there were worms in it. I asked if she was checking the stools before Napongo flushed. She told me that it was unneccessary because Napongo doesn’t use the toilet. Instead she finds a random corner in the house. Fantastic!

So we are hoping that the situation will continue to improve and I ask that you would join us in prayer for Napongo. Pray that we have diagnosed her condition correctly and that we have identified all of her current medical problems. Pray that she can become a healthy, happy, and active child.

Napongo’s sister Alepear joined her at Katie’s house bring the total number of children up to a whopping sixteen! She joined us because she is the one in charge of taking care of Napongo. Many of the children in the villages surrounding Jinja suffer from another parasite that they call “jiggers”. They are in the dirt on the ground and if you walk around barefoot all the time and seldom wash your feet you are likely to get them. Normally they are not a big deal. While they are somewhat painful and pretty gross they aren’t a huge inconvenience. What happens is that the jigger lays an egg sac in your foot and the eggs eat the flesh of your foot as they grow. If left untreated they get bigger and spread. If you notice you have one you need to get the sac and all the eggs removed. Basically you dig a hole around the egg sac and try and remove it all in one piece. They are about the size of a pea. If the sac is punctured it can be a problem because then the eggs are free and can relocate into your foot. The solution for that is using kerosene (I am told).

After removing several from Napongo’s feet Katie took a look at Alepear’s. She almost couldn’t believe how many she had. As you can see in the photo her feet are in poor shape and it was hard to tell what were live jiggers, dead jiggers, and dead skin. Katie began digging away. The first night she removed six egg sacs before it got dark outside. The power was out so that was it for the night. The next night Alepear had fifteen more removed! It was the worst case any of the locals had ever seen. Imagine twenty pea-sized bloody holes dug out of the bottom of your two small feet with a safety pin. Alepear sat very still as they worked and only a few tears streamed down her 10-year-old cheeks. I held her hand and Katie spoke the few Karamajong words of comfort she knew, “I am sorry” and “Jesus loves you.”

The Playground

We took a field trip into town to the lumber yards last week. I think all the boys had been into Jinja at least once, but most had not spent much time outside of their home villages. I showed them the table saws, planners, jointers, and lathes. I’m pretty sure it was all new to them. The guys working there actually let the boys try out a few of the machines. It was both funny and scary watching the lumber yard guys work because they are incredibly unsafe. There are no guards on anything and any of them could easily get seriously injured at any time. But that’s how it goes I guess.

At the beginning of last week I was in poor shape. I sprained both my ankles and the index finger on my right hand was swollen and “paining me” (this is how Ugandans say that it hurt). All my boys and several other Ugandans offered to help me treat my injuries by putting hot salt water on them and pulling on them or rubbing them. I declined for two reasons. First, my injuries already “pained me very much” so I didn’t want anybody touching them. Second, pulling and rubbing and salt water wouldn’t help. Anyway, I could hardly function. I was struggling to walk and couldn’t really grip anything with my right hand. As you can imagine this made it very difficult to do construction. With only 1 month remaining Uganda I knew that the show must go on. I don’t know how Satan works, but it sure seems like he was beating me down. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” I kept telling myself. I limped around for a few days and then decided I needed to get an X-ray on my finger because it was only getting worse. The good news is that X-rays here only cost 10 bucks. Thankfully there were no broken bones. This means it is probably a bacterial infection. I was put on an antibiotic (costing only two dollars—awesome!) and didn’t have to worry about injuring it further by continuing to work. Since then the swelling has been going down and function is coming back. Praise God.

Last week we had visitors from the States that came out and worked with us a couple days. They were great with the boys and it was nice to have more English speakers around. Anyway, they were talking to me one night after work and told me how much the boys looked up to me and how they thought that several of them see me as a father figure. Holy buckets! I don’t know why it surprised me so much, but I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m pretty inadequate. Yesterday I thought about it more and talked to Katie about being the mother of 14 at the age of 21. We discussed how it is such a huge responsibility to raise children. Not only is their health and well-being in your hands as a parent, but also their spiritual future. Your interactions and decisions are either leading them towards or away from Christ. Obviously, I’m not a father, but I may have a similar impact on these boys. I am so blessed to have and know my earthly father and my Heavenly Father. Only by their examples will I ever be adequate. My earthly father, James Raymond Lang, is the man I hope to be one day. This is because he daily strives to be more like our Heavenly Father. Praise be to God for loving me unconditionally and sending Christ to be an example for my father, myself, and my someday perhaps my children.

This photo is of the boys posing for a photo with their sodas. We took off work early after our field trip and drank sodas on the shore of Lake Victoria. Thanks Dad.

The playground is coming along. We are getting structures built and it is starting to look like something. As for what that something is… we will see when it is complete. It is kind of crazy that something from my imagination is what will be used by hundreds or thousands of Ugandan children for years to come. The first photos are of the boats we purchased. One day I was thinking about what would be fun to play on and remembered the fantastic wooden fishing boats all around Lake Victoria. So I looked into getting one or two that are no longer sea-worthy to mount as part of the playground. It turns out that I was able to pick up two of them for around $250 dollars. The boats are fairly large and I’m pretty excited about them.

Here is what I envision for the playground. I’m trying to avoid metal structures for a couple reasons. First, the boys wouldn’t be able to learn much from it since we would have to hire other people to do the welding for us. Second, a lot of playgrounds around here are mostly metal and are very unsafe.

They have tons of jagged edges and poor welds. I also thought it would be a good idea to avoid too many moving parts (e.g. merry-go-rounds). Since there is no Parks and Recreation department here I worry about upkeep. Again I have seen several playgrounds here that were just built then forgotten about. Without regular maintenance there can be lots of problems. Right now I’m thinking we will have ten to fifteen swing sets along with a bunch of fort-like structures to climb around on. I also hope to have monkey bars and a couple slides. I need to get in contact with a welder this week to make sure those can be completed before my time here is up. Katie also likes the “natural look” to the playground so all the wood will be varnished rather than painted and the gazebo will have a grass roof. Also, for all the railing I am going to use a 2x4 frame and then cover it with bamboo. In my head it looks fantastic.

Concrete Day

I just got a Harley Sportster back in the States and was super excited to have some time this summer to ride it. Unfortunately, I ended up in Uganda and am missing out on the very short period of nice weather in North Dakota. And by “unfortunately” I mean “Praise God that I am here!” because I am enjoying myself immensely and wouldn’t trade it for anything. The good news is I was able to achieve a goal I had for the summer. I was able to drive a motorcycle. I think any young man that ever owns a bike dreams that their first passenger will be some blond vixen or some sultry brunette. I’ve learned that a random Ugandan boda boda driver is nearly as good. On my way home one day the driver asked if I wanted to drive. My answer was “Um, heck yeah I do!” Luckily his English was good enough that he was able to understand my questions and explain the differences between Ugandan bikes and American bikes. The only major difference was the gears. Here all the gears are down, while in the States first gear is down and second, third, fourth and fifth are up. It was a fun ride for sure.

We also had our glorious concrete day. After four trips to build houses in Mexico I was fully aware how much fun it is to pour concrete in less developed countries. Even in the States pouring concrete is a beastly amount of work. But when you don’t have cement trucks available the work more than doubles. In Uganda we are also blessed to not have a water source easily available. So, on Friday we started mixing and laying the 20 foot by 28 foot (4 inch deep) slab at 8 am. Throughout the day we made eight trips to the local well to replenish our water supply. The well is about three quarters of a mile away and we take sixteen 20 liter “jerry cans” (plastic jugs similar to fertilizer jugs in the States) there to be filled each trip. The “well” is actually a stream that is diverted through a filter and out a pipe. It also happens to be at the bottom of a nasty hill (probably close to 5 flights of stairs high).

The fact that I am the only one that knows how to drive allows me the opportunity to go on each trip with two other boys. While one boy fills the jugs, I and the other start lugging the 5.3 gallon (converted from liters so you understand the size and weight) jugs up the hill to the truck. Needless to say making 4 trips up the hill with two 5 gallon buckets full of water really makes your muscles burn. By the end of the day there were a couple times where my legs nearly gave out. We were pushing hard to try and get the slab done in one pour because it makes it stronger by not having seams in it. The boys were ragged by 6 pm, but I convinced them to press on until dark around 7:45 by offering one dollar bonus pay. Unfortunately we still didn’t finish. It was a beast of a day. I loved every minute of it. I don’t know if it is genetic or just how I was raised, but I really appreciate a hard day of manual labor. I think it may have something to do with the Lang in me. (My brother Brian may disagree.)

This is a picture is of the boys digging holes. I wondered for several weeks what the heck they used here to do this. You can see in the picture why these tools are called “spears” by the locals. Basically it is just a pointed piece of metal on a stick that they break up the dirt with and then scoop it out by hand. It works surprisingly well.

As I promised earlier, I’m going to talk about Scott again. Scott is Katie’s father. He was here for just over a week. I think he would admit he isn’t well-suited for Uganda. Not that he can’t hack it, it is just that he prefers things the way they are back in the States. Either way it was really interesting meeting the man who had to deal with his teenage daughter wanting to drop out of college and move to the other side of the world. From the way they talk about it I think it was hard for him. But he is on board now and seems to be a great foundation for Katie to rely on. While he was here he came to the site nearly every day which was really nice. Most of the time the boys and Sam talk to each other in Lugandan. So I stand and listen to gibberish almost all the time since my Lugandan isn’t spectacular. Scott has a great sense of humor and we got along really well. He also brought the boys soda one day which they really enjoyed. They virtually never get soda so it was a real treat. Every once in a while I will leave a swallow in one of my cans and the boys are quick to ask if they can finish off my (by then) warm soda.

The foundation for the gazebo and the poles that we will construct the roof on.

This final picture is me holding one of the newest additions to Renee’s house. I mentioned Renee in a previous blog. She is the woman that takes in malnourished kids and rehabilitates them. Renee was at one of the local hospitals (this one happens to be one of the incredibly crappy ones) and came upon this little guy and his twin brother. They were both horribly malnourished and dehydrated. The doctors informed Renee that this little guy didn’t need his IV anymore, but wouldn’t tell her why. Basically they had decided that they were just gonna wait for him to die. He was borderline during the week and since they are short-staffed on weekends they had decided just to give up. I’m not exactly sure how the whole story worked out, but they ended up at her place. Last night and the next couple nights are going to be really crucial. He and his brother are still very, very, very ill and this morning it was pretty touch and go with him. Prayers are needed for this little guy and for Renee as well because she has to give him fluids every ten minutes (around the clock). This is because they were unable to get an IV back in his tiny veins and he is still fighting dehydration.