Brooks
Sophie was
a Muslim. She attended the mosque and read her Koran faithfully, even
though her spiritual community treated her harshly and with cruelty. She
also lived in abject poverty never even thinking or daring to hope that
life could be any different. School fees had not been there for her to
attend school as a child, so she had no education, no life skills for
even the possibility of a better life. Young and looking for love in all
the wrong places, Sophie became pregnant at a young age and now has a
child “with a very large head,” who her mother and she must take care of
constantly. Life for her was very, very difficult at best.
Sophie
That was until the day Irene
came to her village. “Irene came to my home and she showed me love. Even
when I was hungry, she gave me 2000 shillings so we could eat. She
taught me about life issues. She is teaching me how to read and write. I
can even write my name and all the names of the women in my class. She
is teaching all of us savings among our group and table banking, and
even how to manage our homes.”
Sophie is one of many students
we met whose lives are being changed. Last February monies from Women
Walking for Women and Team Uganda were used to fund the Functional Adult
Literacy Program (FAL) in Eastern Uganda. Several women were taught how
to instruct villages and women living in poverty in the subjects of
functional living (hygiene and life skills) and literacy. The target
students are women who had been forced to drop out of school (if they
ever went) due to finances in the homes they were raised in or pregnancy
or because they were used to work and/or raise their siblings.
Today there are 10 centers
where teachers have committed (without any pay) to go out to villages or
neighborhoods twice a week to meet with 20-30 students. The class cost
nothing for the students. The ones who attend are faithful. They want a
way out. Those who are not committed are replaced with others waiting in
line who are willing. As you can imagine learning to read and write at
age 18-45 is not easy. Zituna told me that Irene came to her home and
told her that she would teach her how to read and write and that God
would help her. When Irene gathered her first class it was under a tree.
There they met for many months before a small structure could be built.
After talking with some of the students, it was quickly apparent to
have someone come into their lives to begin to speak love into their dry
spirits has been life-changing. For someone to use their own small
money (Irene sells charcoal just to get money for transport) to build
real and lasting relationships is unbelievable to them. These women are
experiencing the love of Jesus in real, practical ways. Many practice
their newly found skill of reading by gathering in simple, small home
churches where they find faith in the God who loves them and believes in
them and is there to give them strength and courage to embrace a new
way of living, letting go of so much that traditionally has kept them
bound to merely surviving. There is joy on their faces and laughter in
their hearts…it’s very obvious. Today they have hope. Far too long they
have lived under the blanket of superstition, fear, and oppression for
simply being a woman. Thank you, all…for enabling women in Uganda to go
and be all they can and were created to be.
The tree where students met for the first few months in this particular village.
Four different families live in this one structure.
The structure that was built
for the women to meet in to keep from being disturbed and distracted by
onlookers or held back by weather.
Irene teaching her students.
Students taking a break “to clear their minds” by playing “sheep, sheep, goat”…what we call “duck, duck, goose.”
Students anxious and willing to learn.
Children forever curious and present…
And, one little boy who could
not hold back and just had to touch the hand of the mzungu. Because one
Ugandan woman reached out to another with love and compassion, chances
are extremely good that she will see and make possible for this little
one to go to school, be educated and come out of a life of poverty.
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