Breakfast with Cannibals
A letter from the Director -
Between 2011-2013, I went to Uganda, Africa on three separate trips. I first joined a friend and mentor who had adopted from there and was organizing a group of women to volunteer at the same orphanage. Next, I lead my own “team” of friends, family and random encounters to go serve many of the same organizations I had met the first time. In 2013, I went alone to spend Christmas with those who had, by then, become my friends.
My first clue that something was wrong was with my back against a mud wall between two huts in a cannibalistic island village of Lake Victoria with children clawing at me for candy and toys that we had brought as donations. The second nudge was when my American friends and I ostracized an abandoned and single mother and her baby from the very community we tried to place her into because of her association with us that created a sense of resentment. And as I enjoyed a quiet night with a Ugandan family in a remote village during my “holiday,” I realized that I had nothing really to offer them at all.
So after returning home from my last trip, I was convicted that I wouldn’t return again until I could ensure that my “help” wasn’t, in fact, bringing more harm than good. I wasn’t convinced at that point that anything I had done wasn’t more for myself as it was for them - a pat on the back in the name of short term mission.
To this day I haven’t been back yet, but I feel that day coming closer and closer. In building support through this organization and with national partnerships inside of Uganda that empowers its culture to support itself, I’m more confident than ever that we can shift the culture of poverty toward redemption without intrusion.
Coming out of the unique circumstances of 2020, I know without a doubt that you have faced struggle - financially, emotionally, relationally, in business or in health - maybe in all of the above. So I don’t ask that you carry any more burden than you are able or that you are empowered to do so.
With a financial contribution that is equal to little more than your drive-through coffee, deli lunch or night out, you could save lives. You won’t get that “missionary rush” of handing out toys and I’m sorry because I actually get that. You won’t get to see the smile of a dirty, naked kid yelling out “Mzungu!” as they chase you to play or for a high-five. In so many ways, I crave that, too. In fact, they won’t even know who you are. They won’t know your name or where you’re from or that you made a sacrifice for them. They won’t tell you thank you for the food or for the medication or for the net to keep them safe. But they will feel love and they will get to experience the fullness of life and I hope that that may be enough.
Because helping that hurts is not helping at all. Even helping in comfort omits the victory of redemption. But helping that gives choice and freedom to escape the grip of fear and isolation… there is nothing more gracious than that. Life and Jesus have taught me at least that much.
We partner with Nets4Life, a nonprofit organization founded and operated by Ugandan nationals to support the most impoverished communities of Uganda. By cooperating with this ministry, we are able to maximize the impact made to help those that are starving and dying of malaria while empowering the culture to make these very provisions. Are you ready to make a donation?
