Perspective: Uganda Reveals Where I Fall Short

The path is long and difficult to walk.

With several minute mud huts on one side of the path and a wide, deep ditch on the other, there certainly isn’t much room to maneuver on the way to the orphanage. But before we know it, our team from Crossroads Baptist Church in Memphis finally make it to the center meeting room where the majority of the orphans and staff members are.

The room is very compact, dark and hot. The windowless walls and the musty, battered wooden benches certainly do not make our meeting in there a more pleasurable experience. After an hour inside the claustrophobia-inducing room with over 30 children, I decide to walk outside for some fresh air.

As I really look at the dilapidated world around me, I can’t help but wonder how these children can live in an environment that is in such ruinous disrepair. The paths surrounding the orphanage that the children usually walk barefoot are filled with muddy, grimy dirt and often contain dangerous debris. The beds that they sleep on are stained and sometimes supported by damaged frames. Many of their clothes are tattered and torn because they simply do not have many clothes to wear.

While I knew that Uganda was a nation in what we Americans arrogantly refer to as the “third-world,” maybe I had ignorantly underestimated the full extent of the impoverished conditions in which these people live. To be sure, one of the most important lessons that I learn is that it is one thing to understand that there are people living in extreme poverty in the world. But it is another thing entirely to experience it for yourself.

After many of the children leave, I step back inside the room to find that twelve of the older orphans remain. As one of the leaders of the team, it is my job to help disciple them so that they can in turn disciple the younger kids after we are gone.

The discipleship lesson begins with a simple question that doesn’t take a seminary professor to answer. “How do you know that God loves you?” I ask them.  They merely respond with clear confusion and naked skepticism.

And I start to feel frustration creeping up my spine.

Even after my numerous attempts to enunciate clearly and slowly, I still see that the kids are struggling to understand me. They may speak English, but my deep, distinct God-given southern drawl might as well be another language barrier. How can I help them understand the Gospel if they can’t even understand me?

To my relief, a girl finally raises her hand. She appears to be about 15 or 16 years old, and she has a beautiful white smile thats contrasts well with her darker skin. She wears a bright blue coat over a darker yellow shirt with a pair of longer grey shorts. I glance at her name tag. Her name is Priscilla.

“I know that God loves me,” she says thoughtfully in a thick Luganda accent.

I grin at her with just a hint of skepticism. “And how do you know that?”

Her wide smile simply radiates joy. “Because He has given me everything.”

I fall completely silent. Is she joking? Did I hear her correctly? Everything? 

This girl has nothing. Although she considers her friends that she has grown up with as her family, she is an orphan that has never known her real parents or her family. She has to walk nearly 45 minutes barefoot just to get to her local school every day. She doesn’t have a clean bed to sleep in every night. She doesn’t have many clothes to wear, and the ones that she does have are often tattered and torn. How in the world can she look me in the eye and tell me she has everything?

After I recover from my momentary shock, I notice that she still smiles at me with that same joyful sparkle in her eyes. “I know that He loves you too,” I hear her say.

And my previous frustration turns to shame.

***

As I got off the plane in Atlanta, I was excited. Uganda was an incredible, life-changing experience, but my delicate American sensibilities had me more than ready to get some Chick-fil-A.

But before I could indulge the holy pleasures of the chicken sandwich, my team and I had to go retrieve our bags that were deemed too large for the plane. I headed over to claim my luggage with a steady bounce in my step. After all, God’s gift to fast food was only a food court away.

However, once we made it to the baggage claim area, a problem quickly arose. No matter how many times I looked, my bag was simply not there. All of my clothes from the trip, including my priceless Uganda pottery (that was roughly worth around $5) were in that bag.

Now if you know me fairly well, then you are already aware that I have a bit of a temper. And as hilariously sad as it may be to think about now, I was seeing red in that Atlanta airport. Gideon, another leader on the team, told me that he was glad he no longer had his pocket knife with him because he was afraid that I would use it on the first person that looked at me with a slightly aggressive expression. He was probably right.

But as I finally started to mercifully cool down, I was convicted by a stark realization. Why would I throw a tantrum over something so ridiculously insignificant like a bag of clothes, especially when I have many more clothes at home? In fact, why would I become infuriated over any minor inconvenience when I have literally everything, especially when there are those who have nothing? I attend a prestigious college in Union University with two different majors. I have a Macbook and an iPhone. I have two parents that love me unconditionally. There is nothing that I desire that I cannot have. And with this absence of true adversity, it has been all too easy to allow complacency a consistent place in my life.

The children at Mafubira orphanage in Uganda do not have this problem. Priscilla and the other children may have nothing according to worldly standards, but they realize that they have everything in Christ. It may be a cliche at this point, yet it is true all the same: We truly do not realize that Jesus is all that we need until Jesus is all that we have. When Jesus said that he was the bread of life and that whoever comes to him will never go hungry (John 6:35), I believe that He told the truth.

However, there lies something truly frightening at the heart of this truth, especially for those who are as privileged as I am. And it sometimes haunts me whenever I think about it. Jesus once said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25). As an American who is wealthier than 99% of the rest of the world, and far richer than anyone else in world history before modern times, that is truly terrifying.

Complacency is the enemy of God, and complacency is unfortunately a consistent companion of the rich. After all, how can we retain God as the primary focus of our lives when we have countless concerns, agendas and pleasures that often become a priority over him? It is truly sobering to think about how the way I live my life as a wealthy American may be the antithesis of what God desires from His people. Will not the first be last?

As difficult as it is to admit, I sometimes feel like one of Jesus’ most skeptical disciples. I am a person that many people believe has all the answers. But in reality, I am a person who is overly aware of his own shortcomings and unearned status, continually asking God how He could have possibly saved me. And the answer I receive always is, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Whether you are rich or poor, the path of salvation is still a free, simple gift created by God’s unfailing love.

But just like it was in Uganda, the path is still long and difficult to walk.