Purple Clouds Blog

Things have been a little crazy around here the last few weeks...you know how the longer you spend in one place, getting to know the people and the way things work, your perception and understanding changes, grows, and evolves inevitably. Money rules in Kisenyi, crazy cuz there isn’t any. There has been some moderate to severe drama brewing between a couple of the men I do, and/or have worked with in my time here, and regardless of my best efforts to jump in and help facilitate reconciliation, things got a little out of control this week!! I have this awesome friend named Alex, who I met outside of Kisenyi, but he has come to my aid, and is always willing to step in and help. (It doesn’t hurt that he is enormous - 6’4, and the most respectable, and peacemaking Ugandan I have met.)

So...Wednesday we went down to the Community Hall as usual. I sat in my normal spot to work on the medical needs, and one of the older boys comes over and pulls his pant leg up, showing me his completely exposed knee cap surrounded by serious infection. Obviously completely out of my range of abilities, I grabbed his arm and walked him over to the clinic. I called out for the doctor, and one of the guys said, “The doctor will be very busy for the next 30 minutes.” I said, “Busy doing what? DOCTORRRRR....” - and out comes the doc, closing the door to the room with the beds aggressively behind him, shirt half unbuttoned. “GROSS.” (I put that in quotations because I really did uncontrollably say that out loud.) He tried to shake my hand - no thank you sir. Anyways, he checked out the boys knee, we made a deal on payment for the procedure, and John Joshua (my own personal security guard) and I headed back to the Community Hall.

All of the sudden, about 30 big, angry, mostly Muslim, African men start mobbing the Community Hall. John Joshua immediately jumps in front of me to protect me...(I seriously have never with that kid.) Three of them surround me and say, “We know who you are, we aren’t going to hurt you, but if you go inside you will get hurt, and you will definitely get robbed.” Ummmm, okay...but Kara was still in there, and the boys...I called Alex, he has been the translator and peace keeper through this whole ordeal for weeks now, and he was on a boda and there in less than 5 minutes. In that time at least 10 more men showed up, the entire place was surrounded and the energy was INTENSE. Kara came out and we decided it was time to get out of there.

The reality of where the Lord has put me, and the possibility for serious danger and unrest became very, very clear this week. Here is the crazy thing though, it makes me want to be there, and take care of those kids about a 1,000 times more than ever before. I am not afraid, I have our Creator on my side...if God is for us, than who can stand against us?? I hate that I can’t trust a single person in Kisenyi, but then I remember that He asks us for complete and total dependance, surrender, and trust. I do hope that God ultimately gives me a couple of really good people to do this work with down the line, but for now He is all that I need.