The Children Arrive

Day 5 - from Katherine's perspective

Greetings to you from Uganda! On this day we met the primary Timothy Children. We drove from Soroti to Kangole, a village in Karamoja. It was over four hours long on a dusty, somewhat bumpy road. I made a friend on the drive. Frank, a six year old boy, is one of the CLIDE staff nephews. He is one of the Timothy children from Soroti. At first he was very quiet and fell asleep. When he woke up I gave him my Quaker chewy peanut butter and chocolate chip granola bar. He then discovered my camera and quickly figured out how to work it and became my official photographer on this drive. When we got out of the van at the border of Karamoja, which was marked by a tree, Frank joined our group picture. He is quite the kid!

The local flora of Karamoja is the thornbush with thorns bigger than I've ever seen before (click on photo). The fauna is cattle and the Karamojong historically believe all the cattle in the world belong to them.

We arrived at the church compound in Kangole where the primary retreat was held. We had left Soroti and arrived in Kangole before the CLIDE staff. The children were sitting quietly on the benches. "What do we do?" It was a little awkward just having the children sit there. We greeted them and shook their hands.

"Ejoka." Then we taught them Simon Says. That brought smiles and laughter. Afterward some of the kids huddled around those who were showing their photo books from our team. I pulled out a little notebook and children wrote down their names. A young girl wrote Awas Kuno. I was so happy! It even brought tears to my eyes. I told her my mom sponsored her. An older girl translated. Her face lit up and she smiled. I also met Amei Monday. Bethany, if you're reading this I wanted to let you know that Amei Monday would like to be president of America someday. : )

My immediate impression of the children is that they are very respectful and very well behaved. They must train them well in school. : ) The children just finished school for the year. After the retreat they go back to their homes/guardians. Life for them during the two month break can be very difficult. We should all pray that the children will not be tempted to go back to the streets and will return to school on February 1st. Praise God for the Timothy Project and for these children!

Proverbs 22:6- Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.