Jinja Town.

It has been too long. I know. I’m just, I don’t know. Just so bad at this updating thing. If you know me, you know I am the WORST text-er, the worst call-you-back-er, the worst email-er, the worst at anything that has to do with keeping in touch. I suck. My problem is, when I leave a place and then return, I pick up exactly where I left off with any of the relationships I had. This is fine for me, but not everyone else is like that, and I end up leaving people hanging. For that, I apologize. Anyways, to the update…

I’ve been in Jinja for the last month and have most definitely gotten a lay of the land. Jinja is a town 2ish hours outside of Kampala, right on the Nile. It’s been such an interesting transition from Kampala because the two are just so different. Worlds apart really. It’s impressive how close they are, yet so the pace of life, the traffic, the shops, and the people are so different.

As you probably know, I’ve been interning at Abide Family Center, where their goal is to reduce the number of orphans in Uganda, and they do that by empowering families through things like business classes, emergency housing, and parenting classes. My focus coming in has been in the pastoral/ministry realm, but I’m working on something a bit outside that umbrella, which is not really surprising being in Uganda and all. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been helping to create a program called Abide Advocates that focuses on getting specific people from back home information about orphan prevention and family preservation, with the hope being they will then share this information with people in their own circles of influence. It’s an interesting concept because the focus is not on fundraising or money, it’s truly about building relationship with people back in the states and getting them access to new information regarding orphan prevention.

I think one thing I have valued most about my time here in Jinja is that I am being exposed to vocabulary and concepts that finally put words to what has been going on in my heard. A lot of the time I have felt like there has got to be something more for these families, more for these kids, but I didn’t know how to express what was going through my mind. Now, things like spectrum of care, kinship care, double orphan, foster care, resettlement, and others have been shared with me and have given me a better way to express my feelings on what I see not just here in Uganda, but in the states as well.

I love that I have had such different experiences each time I’ve been in country; it gives me a broader perspective on the things going on. I don’t know if we’ll ever come up with the perfect way to ‘help’ families, or give ‘aide,’ it’s all just so subjective and dependent on learning culture and being immersed. I’m thankful for the chance to see another way of doing things though and I am so thankful to all of you who helped to get me here for this new experience.