Uganda’s Lost Children
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006I’m here at Panera again, blogging as Denise does our shopping… this is wonderful and peaceful… and it’s a long way from Uganda… a real long way.
My nephews (names withheld to preserve their privacy) were talking about the lost children of Uganda and how they would like to do what they can to help these victims of the most brutal civil war imaginable. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) under the command of Joseph Kony continues to ravage the northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum in Uganda along the Sudanese border. You can follow the links for the details of this devilish “rebel” leader and his recruiting methods, along with the different ways that people are helping the “night commuters” — children who make the nightly trek into town to avoid being abducted in their villages. The civil war has been going on for about twenty years, but as is often the case, many people in the west are just now becoming aware of the problem.
I’ve wanted to write about Uganda a number of times before… I’ve visited twice, made lifelong friends and hope to return in the future (with Denise and the kids, too). Camille has been there to teach accounting to medical staff and she has expressed a desire to return.
The first time I traveled to Uganda with Emma in 2000, our hosts took us to a “safe place,” well out of range of the LRA. We were in Nakasake in the Luwero district, just north of Kampala. Our church team taught the Bible, preached in the open air, operated medical clinics and worked with the many schools in the area. Immediately upon arrival, we received news that there were elements of the LRA on “the prayer mountain,” which was a hill about a mile away! We continued to do our work, but the presence of paramilitary security men became more visible and they kept us near the center of town or watched us closely as we traveled to nearby villages. These security men did not like their photos taken, so you will have to settle for these shots of one of our “guardian angels” from a later trip.
I have dozens of stories to tell (ebola outbreak, goat on a stick, naked muzungus showering, etc,) and hope to blog about them later, but the subject at hand is the crisis in northern Uganda. Our first trip to Uganda was the result of a call for Christian workers to establish and support ministries to women, who had been abducted, raped and/or mutilated by the LRA. When they escape or are returned to their villages, they are often treated as outcasts. We helped set up training centers, where these women learned trades like sewing, bicycle maintenance and other skills to earn a living. We also sent food and medicine.
My second trip was with another team, which headed south to take building materials and the Gospel to a small village, where we also held a huge medical clinic. Then, we went north to Kumi, which is very close to the frontlines in Uganda’s war with the LRA and even shuttled people to a leprosy hospital there. We never saw or heard anything about the LRA in Kumi. However, on that trip we arrived in Kampala at the same time our host was just returning from a harrowing escape from southern Sudan, through LRA territory in Gulu. He and another missionary had gone up and met someone with a bulldozer in Sudan, where they had built a landing strip for relief cargo planes to use to supply refugees, fleeing the fighting in Darfur and other places. The first plane to use the strip landed to pick them up, taxied to the end of the runway and planted the nose of the plane in the ground! So, they had to walk out of Sudan into Uganda and then seek safe passage back to Kampala. Life is never easy in Uganda!

I found a site I like, 
It’s been 15 years since I last saw
Today I got my 

I found this band,
I called them up immediately and asked for an audition. That’s me on the left jamming with Mike Goodnight, the bass player. I’m pretty much a blues player, but I thought if I could don the leather and “get into character,” I could pull it off. No dice. All was not lost… what they were really looking for was a drummer, so…








