Wow – sorry for the long delay since my last post. Heidi, thank you so much for taking up the slack by transcribing the reports I was able to phone in.
As of this evening (Thursday, 11/17), it looks like things have calmed down in Kampala. The riots are over and the streets in and out of the city have been cleared. As Heidi blogged earlier, although I returned from Kitgum on Monday, I wasn’t able to reach my hotel until midday Tuesday because of the unrest. It’s taken until now for the city to restore internet service to the hotel, so tonight is the first time I’ve been able to get on line since last week. Unfortunately, I also have to pack for my early morning flight for tomorrow.
I have been journaling about my trip to Kitgum. I am going to paste the entries below. I’ve abbreviated some stories to avoid repetition (for instance, I only mention two camps; we visited three. And we went out every night to shoot the night commuters; only one night is described below.)
There are stories here I haven’t yet had a chance to tell anyone. Frankly, some of them are so strange I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell them again. Suffice it to say that Satan is very present, very real and very active in that place, and the landscape is littered with his victims. Praise God that everything the enemy breaks, God can fix; every wound the enemy inflicts, God can heal; and everything Satan plans for ill will ultimately redound to the glory of our father in heaven.
It’s hard to believe the first chapter of this amazing experience is drawing to a close. I know that in many ways my Uganda trip is just beginning. Thank you all for being a part of it so far, and, as always, for your spiritual and temporal support of me and my family. May God richly bless you. I can’t wait to see all of you again.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11
We fly from Entebbe to Kitgum in an old fifteen passenger twin turboprop. The bumpy ride lasts an hour or so. We’re never more than 1000 feet off the ground. The earth below is a patchwork of greens and browns over gently undulating hills. Here and there is a cluster of round huts, a chocolate milk river, a dusty red road. Beautiful country, good for farming; the north was once the breadbasket of Uganda. Now 80% of its food is supplied by NGOs.
As we near the town, we pass over deserted villages slowly decaying back into the bush, their residents long ago herded into protective custody in the camps. Ringing the town are the camps: huge clusters of huts surrounded by fences, fed by roads and flanked by neat rows of long metal structures – NGO storage facilities for relief supplies. A dozen fires burn from town’s edge to the horizon. Their smoke mingles with the fog that cloaks our landing.
For Uganda, Kitgum is hot – at least ten degrees warmer than Kampala. The dirt airstrip fades into an unpaved road into town. Kitgum (population 40,000) is the northernmost town in Uganda. The mountains of Sudan loom in the distance. Between Kitgum and those mountains is the home turf of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) rebels.
The center of town features several streets of gaily colored cement block storefronts with open air markets in the alleyways. Here and there is a church or office building. Everything else is tin roof shacks, thatched round mud brick huts and NGO tents. Lots and lots of NGO tents.
The NGO presence is even more obvious on the roads. Almost all the locals are on foot, bikes or motorcycles. Most of the motor vehicles in town appear to belong to the NGOs. The logos on the doors whizzing by us are a who’s who of relief organizations – Caritas, Red Cross, UNICEF, War Child.
Two weeks ago, a Caritas worker was gunned down on the way to one of the camps. The NGOs threatened to pull out en masse unless the army stepped up their patrols. Most NGO trucks are now escorted by the UPDF (Uganda People’s Defense Forces) when they go more than a few kilometers outside of town.
We check into the Bomah Hotel. Jennifer and Phil have met old friends on the plane and at the hotel, so their first few hours are busy. They both have afternoon appointments in town. I tag along to shoot the meetings and the scenery. Later that night, we visit one of the bigger shelters for the night commuters.
The LRA regularly abducts children from 7 to 14 from the camps. The boys are forced to become “soldiers”. The girls are often made to fight as well but mostly carry supplies and, after age 10, “marry” rebel commanders. As a result, about half the children in the camps – about 2000 in Kitgum alone -- walk into town every night to sleep on sidewalks, the steps of government buildings, and, for the lucky few, shelters provided by local churches and NGOs.
They come in groups of two to ten by many different roads. Months ago they came in larger groups, sometimes a hundred at a time, but such groups were tempting targets for the rebels.
The shelter we visit is operated by the local Anglican (Church of Uganda) diocese. At 8:30, the kids are still trickling in. They are milling around, shouting and playing. Everyone seems to be having a good time – it’s like a big sleepover or scout jamboree. Almost every child is barefoot. Few have blankets; instead, they are wrapping themselves in strips of used plastic.
When I turn on my camera and light, all the kids crowd around. Everyone wants to be in front of the lens. The boys in particular make a game of trying to get in front of me in every shot. If I make a stern face at them and shake my head, they melt away for a moment. But soon they’re back, and I have a hard time being too annoyed. Finally I pull a trick that always wins them over. I motion the kids into a tight bunch in front of me. Then I zoom in on the smallest one and flip over the LCD viewfinder. As they realize they are looking at themselves, a shout goes up and they crowd around the camera to get onscreen. Invariably, the boys strike karate poses; the girls just smile bashfully and stare for as long as they can.
Phil and Jennifer are just magic with the kids. Phil pulls out his guitar and, like iron filings to a magnet, they are instantly drawn in a circle around him. He sings softly to them in English, Swahili and the local tongue. They are mesmerized. Most seem to know at least one or two songs, and chime in on the choruses. “I will change your name/you will no longer be called...” Jennifer moves through the crowd, laying hands on bowed heads. At the end, Phil asks if anyone would like to receive Jesus into their hearts. Every child raises their hand.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12
The unpaved street in front of our hotel is nearly empty at 8:30 a.m. There is no sound except for the bleating, lowing and clucking of livestock, the squeak of the occasional bicycle (none with fewer than two passengers) and the distant hum of NGO generators. Across the street, a UNICEF tent is pitched in the middle of a cluster of round, tin roofed huts. As I sip tea under a palm in the hotel courtyard, I watch uniformed schoolchildren swing bent-bladed machetes at the grass around tent: night commuters at their morning chores. In the afternoon, after school, they will walk back to their camps and, if they are lucky enough to have them, their families. When darkness falls they will walk back here.
The biggest truck in the hotel parking lot belongs, of course, to an NGO; I can make out the word “Lutheran” on the door. At around 9 a.m., a woman strides purposefully out the hotel to the truck. She looks like Dana Carvey’s church lady on safari. A few minutes later, two small pickup trucks roll into the parking lot, beds bristling with heavily armed UPDF. The LRA has been spotted on the road to Muchwini, the biggest camp near Kitgum (pop. 60,000) and the one we were supposed to visit today; now no one is to move without a UPDF escort. (“I wonder who was behind that? Hmm? Could it be…”)
We can’t scramble an escort in time, so we choose another camp closer in – Akwang. We set off in a battered old Land Rover Defender at a blistering pace – flying over the deeply rutted dirt roads at what seems like insane speed. Of course, it’s the safe thing to do in ambush country. But those of us in the back of the vehicle are sitting sideways on benches with no handholds, so it’s a workout of a ride.
My first impression of the camp is formed as we drive in on the dirt road at its southern edge. The identical round, mudbrick huts with thatched roofs are spaced perhaps five feet apart. The occasional gap reveals long rutted tracks traversing the camp and lined with children, women with jerry cans and the occasional skeletal dog. Few men are in sight.
We pull into the camp and march in to see the commandant (the camp’s mayor, appointed by the local government). We are welcomed to stay as long as we like and see what we want. Phil grabs his guitar and we head into the maze of huts.
We have an instant escort of small children, joined moments later by several middle aged women who shoo the kids and welcome us. (So far, aside from the commandant, I have yet to see a man in the camp.) I try to shoot the parade, but my camera has the same effect here as in the night commuter shelter: it draws the kids like moths to flame. And all of them want to be right in front of the lens, mugging and posing. I try to shake them by moving around the huts, but they stay on me. It gets harder and harder to shoot, but I finally decide that it’s worth putting up with the frustration because it’s so much fun for them.
Phil and Jennifer stop to talk to several camp residents. One is an 85 year old man, clearly the elder of the camp, who tells of the many children and grandchildren he has lost to the LRA. He is blind and unable to walk far, but the children crowd around him and listen intently as he tells of life before the camps, ten years ago and more. I realize most of the children here have known nothing but life in the camps. To them, the world this man is describing is as foreign as their world is to me. If the war ended tomorrow and they were free to return to their homes, what would they do? How does a child whose every meal is supplied by an NGO learn to grow his own rice and tend his own flocks? Will God raise up a Nehemiah for each village that has been emptied to fill this place?
Phil stops under a tree and pulls out his guitar. With the very first song, the children start to sing along. Even though it’s in Swahili, the words seem familiar to them. (Swahili, a mixture of Arabic and Bantu introduced by slave traders to East Africa 300 years ago, is the official language of Kenya. However, it is not widely spoken in Uganda except by the military. Because Idi Amin tried to impose it as the national language, it has a negative connotation among most Ugandans. However, one word everyone knows is “mzungu” – white person. You hear it everywhere you go in this country – usually from vendors, beggars and children trying to get your attention. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a negative connotation. But buzungu (the plural of mzungu) are still rare enough up north that the sight of us sends a few of the smaller camp children screaming back to their huts.)
I remember asking Phil what it was like to sing about the love of God and the compassion of Christ in a place so filled with suffering. He told me, “at first I wasn’t sure how it would be received. Would they say, ‘don’t talk to us about God – how has he helped us? What has he done for us?’ Instead, I found that our simply being here communicates that God cares. We call it the ministry of presence.
“I think human beings are hardwired to hope. When you give them something to hope in, they respond. And that’s what I see when I sing about the love of God. It brings hope and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it brings healing – even if they don’t understand the words.”
Sure enough, the response of Phil’s audience is amazing. They sing their hearts out, lift up their hands in worship, respond to every invitation. God’s presence is palpable.
As the singing draws to a close, Jennifer begins laying hands on children’s heads and clasping their hands in blessing. Everyone crowds around for her touch. She seems to have a special way with the littlest ones. I pray for as many of the children as I can reach.
We continue to wander through the camp, led by impromptu tour guides who show us various foodstuffs cooking and drying on the ground between the huts, the open air latrines and the showers (a circle of sticks wrapped with plastic sheeting). We peer into several huts. Somehow entire families live out their daily cycle in these cramped, shelfless interiors – six feet across in the average interior. Grandparents, parents, single adults, teens, children and infants all eat, sleep, cry, play, convalesce and procreate within these walls. I don’t see a single hut with a door.
At the end of our tour, we come across a woman stirring a giant pot of fermenting millet, hops and yeast – waraji, the local brew. Finally, we find the men – and they’re absolutely delighted to see us. Soon we are surrounded by a gang of very friendly fellows, a bit too loud and unsteady on their feet, who have clearly been quality testing the waraji since sunup.
It’s funny and heartbreaking at the same time. As far as they are concerned, there is nothing else for these men to do. The unemployment rate is 100%. They aren’t allowed to leave the camps to farm, herd or pursue a trade. So they get drunk, get AIDS and generally make themselves and their families miserable. The children need rescuing, but what about these men? They are a lost generation as well.
Without too much effort, we outrun our new best friends and pile back into the Defender for the brief, bone rattling trip home. How easy it is for us to escape their nightmare. All of us are lost in thought, prayer and sorrow.
After recharging at the hotel, we decide to try to shoot the night commuters on the road into town. It’s a frustrating experience. First, it’s hard to find them. They approach the city from all points of the compass. They travel in small groups and rarely in straight lines. When we do spot them, they caper for the camera in a most unhelpful way. (Whose heartstrings will be tugged by the sight of boys making funny faces and striking Jackie Chan poses?) After some experimenting, we figure out a way to position the Defender so that its highbeams cut across the road; I stand behind the truck and catch the children as they’re temporarily blinded. True, most of them shield their faces, but anything’s better than karate routines. I decide most of the Human Rights Watch video on the night commuters must have been staged.
We visit the shelter again; Phil sings and Jennifer prays for the children again. We get back to the hotel at 11.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Today I film both the beauty and joy of the Holy Spirit in action and one of the most horrifying tales I have yet heard of the war and its victims.
After Phil preaches a sermon at the Anglican town chapel, we head to a local girl’s school to interview the principal. The school is named after Y. Y. Okot, a martyr of the Amin era. The principal is a wonderful old steel magnolia, charming but with a hint of the steel that must be required to shepherd 700 girls, 200 of whom are former abductees, “wives,” and other victims of the LRA.
As the interview ends, I hear an otherworldy song from the building next door. I rush over with my camera and find a room full of young women in a full throated chorus. The words are Acholi but the spirit of worship is unmistakable. No one seems to notice I am there; every eye is closed and every face is lifted. I am swept up in the beauty of the moment, simultaneously praising God with them and praying that my equipment is all functioning properly. One girl in particular, who seems to be leading, has the voice of an angel. I stay ‘til my tape runs out; they keep singing. I don’t want to leave, but we have another interview to shoot.
Jennifer sits down with one of the students, a girl named Winnie. Winnie is 14. When she was nine, her camp was attacked by the LRA, and she and her family were abducted. After a couple of days on the run, the LRA forced Winnie to kill her father with a machete in front of her mother and brothers. She became a soldier in the LRA, participating in raids on her old camp and killing several of her hold friends. Her mother was wounded during an escape attempt and, after several months of agony, died in the bush.
Winnie was told that she would be “married” to a rebel commander when she turned ten. She managed to escape before her birthday and returned to the camp, the only other life she had known. Her stepmother (another of her father’s widows) first tried to poison her, then chased her away. She tracked down her grandfather, who had custody of her two brothers. After a few months, he told her it was time to get married and live on her own. That was when she found a place at Y. Y. Okot, where she struggles as a marginal student, sleeping at the school and begging food and clothing in town.
Jennifer spends almost as much time praying with Winnie as talking to her. She asks Winnie whether she was required to participate in any religious rituals by the LRA. (Their leader, Joseph Kony, boasts of being possessed by seven spirits and runs his organization on a complicated set of “spiritual” disciplines.)
Winnie names two. First, they made her drink human blood, and told her thereafter that she would never be able to escape the LRA’s power – that Kony would always know her thoughts and where she was.
Second, she tells of being taken to a mountain in Sudan near the rebels’ base. On top of that mountain, she says, is a clearing in a forest. In that clearing, at night, there appears a giant snake with the head of a man. That snake gives commands to groups and individuals within the LRA. What kinds of commands? Jennifer asks. “Tomorrow, I want you to kill five people. You girl, I want you to marry this commander.”
Winnie could be lying. She could be remembering a bad dream. The snake/man could be an illusion. Or it could be real. What is real, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is Satan’s hold over the LRA, his hatred of these people and his vicious targeting of these children. Multiply Winnie’s story by ten thousand and you would still just be scratching the surface of what is happening in this small, remote, forgotten corner of the world – one of the fiercest battlegrounds on the planet in the long, long war between the kingdoms of darkness and light.
What’s also real is that Christ has been given all power and authority over the works of the evil one. Jennifer knows this and prays to break demonic strongholds, agreements and curses in Winnie’s life. Christ came to set Winnie free, to loose the bonds of her opporession, to replace her tears with joy – and to turn her loose on the one who stole her childhood and her family. I pray that Winnie will receive the healing Christ has for her, embrace his destiny for her and wage war on the enemy just as fiercely as he has on her. I believe that one day, Satan will regret ever messing with her. I believe that Winnie will lead a host of other Winnies to freedom.
That night, I cry myself to sleep. All I can do in prayer is ask God, “why?” Over and over. Does he ask himself the same question? Is that why his heart breaks too? For each of my tears over Winnie, God has shed more than there are stars in the African sky. Tomorrow I will leave Winnie’s world. God will be with her always, even to the end of the age.
