Becoming part of a new family

In July, our team of 17 from the Crossing Church in Costa Mesa set out for Kampala, Uganda, on what is called a short-term mission of 10 days. We were accompanied by several staff and volunteers from Compassion International, an organization dedicated to serving the poor children throughout the third world.

The 29 hours of flights and layovers were immediately forgotten the moment we landed at Entebbe, Uganda’s main airport. Loading all our bags into a couple of old minivan taxis, we set out through the bright tapestry that is Kampala traffic -- mopeds carrying multiple passengers, bicycles carrying huge loads of lumber or green bananas, no lanes, no traffic lights, constant honking, roundabouts, and all the while pedestrians and goats making death-defying dashes across the road. After months of planning and prayer, we were finally in Africa and were barely able to contain our excitement over what the following days would bring.

We had made the decision to include Uganda on the growing list of countries to which we would send mission trips because of one reason -- the children. During the previous 18 months, members of our church had become sponsors of nearly 150 Ugandan children, all through Compassion International, and most concentrated in the southwest, near Mbarara.

Our hearts were aching to get to the children and our first stop brought us face to face with the reality of life in Uganda. At an AIDS-CHILD clinic we met 35 beautiful children -- all orphans, all HIV-positive. Two of the boys we met were wearing Knott’s Berry Farm T-shirts, a poignant reminder that our country’s cast-offs clothe much of the rest of the world.

Fifty-one percent of Ugandans are under 15. An entire generation was lost to AIDS, but the country is fighting its way back and has made great strides in the past few years.

We spent three of the next four nights in Mbarara, dining on matooke -- which is made from steamed plantains and is the staple food in Uganda -- tilapia, goat, chicken, watermelon and mangoes. We were up and away early each morning, visiting Compassion projects in the villages of Ibanda, Rutooma, Kanywamaizi and Kanakayojo.

This was the heart and soul of our trip, this meeting of east and west, black and white, have and have-not. We were continually greeted by squads of uniformed children, singing to us, dancing, costumed, in the red dirt, welcoming us as relatives and friends. Their songs were beautiful, full expressions of their faith and we were overjoyed listening to them.

We met our sponsored children and were invited to visit them in their homes, which in some cases were a mile or two distant, through the banana fields. These homes, for the most part, consist of mud shelters of one or two rooms, a separate cooking area outside, which is sometimes just a lean-to of sticks and banana leaves, and for decoration, perhaps a written Bible verse or a picture torn from a rare magazine. To say we were welcomed into these homes with joy and love is missing the mark by a mile.

Compassion International has a saying -- “You can’t out-give the poor.” We quickly learned what that means. One of our team, Lindsey Greene, was given a gift of four still-warm eggs. Even though she understood that the family might go hungry that day, she also understood that she needed to accept their gift graciously. The daughter my wife, Keri, and I sponsor gave us her only possessions -- a wrinkled Rwandan 500 franc note, and her only picture of herself as a little child. She insisted we keep them, and so we have -- in our hearts as well as in our scrapbook.

After an eight-hour bus ride back to Kampala, we spent the last day at the Nile River Resort, near the source of the river of Moses, Cleopatra and pyramids. Many of our sponsored children were bused to meet us for the day, in some cases traveling 10 to 12 hours to do so. It was an unhurried, relationship-building day that brought about great closeness and great sorrow at parting time.

At our last dinner, we were privileged to hear from three young adults, who had just graduated from the university. All three had been raised within the Compassion project network and had been accepted into a leadership development program for the brightest and best. To hear their testimonies and their vision for the future gave us all an even greater degree of hope and faith in the work this organization is doing all over the world.

We returned to Costa Mesa with a new understanding that, despite what we looked like, we no longer felt like “mzungu” (white people), like Westerners or like the “haves.” Instead, we felt like we were simply part of larger families than we had known before.

This was just the first step in our involvement in Uganda. Further trips may include building projects, education and health-related issues, but the key element will always be strengthening the bonds of friendship created on this first journey.

* TERRY MOORE is a Newport Beach resident.