So, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Been a busy, but fun couple of weeks as we had more people in the house. One was a family that comes for a few months every year, usually mid January - mid April, but the dad and son came for a short visit now to introduce a couple and their kids that they are friends with to Uganda and what CLD is all about. Also, they had another couple they are friends with that were here in Uganda for 6 weeks adopting their new son Adam. So, the house has been lively and fun. Tonight that will all change as all of those families along with Leigh who has become such a good friend, depart for the airport late tonight for their flights back to the states. Waking up tomorrow in the house with just us will be a big change. We will be the only ones living in the house until a big crew arrives in mid January. This holiday season will definitely be different for us.
Whenever I sit down to blog, I have a hard time focusing on just one thing to write about....I actually started this blog on Monday earlier this week, but never had time to finish, so it will probably seem very disjointed as that was one topic, but much more has happened since then. So, please just excuse the randomness of it all. Feel like I say that in every blog post of mine. Oh well.
Think I'll start with my work on financial literacy as that is what I've been spending a majority of my time on lately, which has been so rewarding and challenging all at the same time. I posted a status earlier this week on Facebook after my afternoon working with the women at Thread of Life. For those of you that I'm not friend with on FB, it said, "I hope that starting by just listening and trying to understand helps when you find yourself in a situation of trying to help people that have challenges to overcome that you cannot imagine yourself ever having to face, let alone surviving them."
This was the best way I could describe how I was feeling after my sessions that day. The last two weeks I have been scheduling individual 30 minutes planning conferences with each of the 7 women in the current Thread of Life Advanced sewing class. The four weeks prior to that I worked with them on Wednesdays from 2 - 4 as a group on general financial literacy, but I felt we were at the point that I needed to work with them one on one to do some goal setting for each of their unique life situations. Well, first thing that I learned is that 30 minutes is not nearly enough time to even scratch the surface. I really used these sessions as an interview of sorts to try and understand their life history and situation as much as I could to know how to best help them to try to move forward. I feel like there is no word that exists that could adequately describe the stories and information they shared with me. So, I'm going to just list a few that make an attempt: amazing, heartbreaking, courageous, unbelievable, challenging, inspiring, and overwhelming, just to name a few.
These past two weeks I have really been questioning my ability to be able to help these women as I have no experience living through the things they have lived through and will continue to live through. My confidence in my knowledge in the area of financial literacy has been shaken as this is a whole new playing field and their lives present such challenges that I don't even know where to start. How do you work on a budget with them when they have no income? Last week I found myself asking an unthinkable question to a woman that lives in the slums and is trying to support two children. She found a job packing fish about a month ago and works seven days a week from 8 pm to 8 am and gets paid roughly equivalent to $1.25 per day, (almost $3 on Sundays). Then, she goes home and gets one child ready for school and brings her other young daughter to Thread of Life for class every day from 9 to 5. She basically doesn't sleep. And even though she does have income, when we were putting together a budget, the numbers don't add up. She will not be able to save anything for her child's school fees that are coming due in January, plus she owes rent from as far back as August, so every time the corrupt landlord comes to her house in the slums, he demands she give him any money she has. She also has no phone and does not use transport. She walks everywhere. I have asked them to write down their spending for the last 3 weeks and we saw that she was spending around 7,000 shillings per day (~$2.50) on food for her family and she can't even afford that. The unthinkable question I found myself asking her was, what is the absolute minimum she could spend daily on food for her family and still survive. As a mother of two children myself, it made me sick to even speak these words....she is so eager to learn English, finances and sewing skills to try and have a better life, but how do I help get her to the reality of a better life? I can't ask her to give up her job as it's at least providing her income, yet it's not enough income to survive, let alone save up for a sewing machine so she could try using these new skills, working better hours and doing something she enjoys? Yes, I could just simply buy her a machine. But, I can't do that for all of these ladies, and what if that still doesn't make a difference?
Then, in my session this week I met with another of the women who has to be one of the most amazing women I have had the privilege to meet. She has a life that no one would want to live, but she has the brightest smile, biggest heart and most incredible work ethic that would put most people to shame. She lost her husband a few months ago to aids and she told me in our session that she is also HIV+. This is the first time I have seen this incredibly courageous woman cry. So, she is left with no income other than what she can generate doing odd jobs and she has three children to support. She has incredible faith in God and is just trusting that he will strengthen her in her journey to keep going. She is never at rest. During lunch time on class days she is either tending to the garden she planted at the Thread of Life property, working on something for her plan to grow mushrooms to sell, working in the sewing room, making envelopes out of scratch paper to sell to medical clinics since she can't work on these at home at night because they don't have electricity, or gathering some kind of leaves that grow around the property because they are edible and they are only able to eat one meal a day (luckily the children get lunch at school). She has a never give up attitude in the face of challenges most of us can't even comprehend, let alone figure out how to live through.
These women are amazing stewards of the little that they have. So many of us could learn so much from them.
So, how do I help these women realize their dreams? I have no clue.....I am just amazed they are able to have dreams despite what they have been through in their lives. This week is the last week of class for these women and I only hope that I can find a way to continue working with them. In what way and how I will help I do not know, but I hope to have the chance to figure that out. Three of them actually live on the Thread of Life property, so I know that I will be able to continue a working relationship with them, but I have no idea if this week will be the last time I see the rest of these women. I think I just need to make it a priority to find a way for that to happen. They have become a part of my life in such a short amount of time and while I know that I cannot pretend that I can fix their lives, I have a hope that I can continue to walk beside them to try and help, even if it may be a very small way.......
Meanwhile, I did my first session on financial literacy with the teachers at the school, WCIA, in our normal Friday afternoon professional development session and it was another great two hours to end the week. These individuals still struggle financially, but at least they have a good income and have bank accounts, compared to a lot of the population here that are unbanked. They are so eager to discuss these topics and I think the main excitement they took away is that they didn't realize how it is possible to have different accounts at the bank to separate your spending and saving money. As far as I can tell (have to research this much more), they have checking accounts here, they just call them current accounts instead. They thought only businesses could open accounts like these for daily spending. Overall as a country Ugandans struggle with the concept of savings, but I told them that this was definitely not a problem unique to them. I shared the dismal US savings rate of -.5% right before the big recession that began in 2009. Everyone is in these financial struggles together.
And lastly, I'm looking forward to beginning work with Sherinah, the administrator at WCIA, to begin savings circles as part of the new community outreach program she is developing in the Wakiso community. She has attended training on Village Savings and Loans Associations (VS&LA's) and I'm trying to sift through the manual and learn about them so we can implement them. We are having the first interest meeting this coming Friday, so we'll see where that takes us. In concept it's a great model as it gathers 15-30 people together to pool their savings and create a fund for individuals to be able to take out loans from the circle and then repay them with interest. Therefore they are paying themselves back instead of banks. It also creates an "insurance" of sorts as members also contribute to a wellfare fund which members can use for emergencies like burials (very common here), etc.
So, that's been a lot of my work lately. Then in between we're working on many projects at the school and then investing some "human capital" as Troy calls it on the farm. We try to go out at least one day a week and help weed, slash, harvest or whatever might be the need that day, and it's such a blessing to be able to just do a task that is physical and solveable and just enjoy the time talking with each other and being amazed at the beauty God has created. Every time you visit you are in awe of how the crops have grown since the last week. I wish I had appreciated this more growing up on my dad's farm............
Much more I could describe, but that's a least a glimpse. Like I said at the beginning - amazing, yet amazingly challenging work.
Now, total disconnected seque to the entry that I had started on earlier in the week. I had originally titled the blog post, "A New Book in my Life." As you can probably guess pretty quickly from reading below, I was referring to the bible. I am still working through other books and enjoying them (and Troy rubbed in the other day he has read 13 books since we've been here, PLUS the New Testament). I tease him he's not working hard enough since he has all that time to read, but we all know that's not true. I'm just too tired at night when I read before bed to make much progress.
But anyway, I am realizing that the bible is one of the most important books in my life that I have neglected really reading. While I am still not up to reading it straight through like Troy is attempting, I have felt a new connection to the wisdom it offers and how it can speak directly into your life through its stories and how encouraging it can be while at the same time demanding more from you. One verse can cause you to look at your life in a very different way or remind you of something that you have been looking for and didn't even realize it. I have a long ways to go to be disciplined enough to spend some time with this book every day, but it's a great goal for me to work on. I included just a few passages below that people have shared with me lately in one context or another that spoke to me for various reasons. I'd encourage you after reading this (if you have any free moments left after this novelette!) to consider opening your bible for a minute, opening any page and just read a bit and see if you find a verse that might be meaningful to you in some way.
Colossians 3: 3-4 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory!
~Shared by Leigh in devotions a week ago. To her it was a comforting thought that we are safe in God's protection as our life is "hidden" with him. It spoke a really different message to me - I can sometimes get frustrated that God's plan for me seems "hidden" as I try to figure out what he is really calling me to do. For example, why did I end up here in Uganda? Still trying to figure that one out.
1 Corinthians 7:17 Each one should go on living according to the Lord's gift to him, and as he was when God called him. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.
~A verse that just caught my eye one morning flipping through the bible. Hoping that I am using the gifts he gave me this year while we are here and he called me here because of certain gifts I have.
Deuteronomy 6: 6-9 Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.
~A verse shared this past week by Josh Brink here at CLD as some of us were discussing how you integrate Jesus into your everyday lives and how they are so amazing at it here.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart.
~Think I shared this one last week on FB when I was spending some time with Henry and he shared that he found the verse at school that day and he really liked it. I think that is a large part of what I'm trying to do this year during our time here - really seek him out and see where that takes us. Thanks Henry!
Last thing to share in this post if you've managed to continued through this marathon. At the request of our church back home to write something for the Advent daily devotional book they are putting together, I asked the kids in Avery and Henry's class at WCIA to write about what faith means to them. These are just a couple of my favorites. Hope they are mostly readable if you click on the pictures to enlarge them.
Thanks for reading the randomness. Until next post.
~Heather
