My Teachers (Part 2)

Mark- Man of JOY

 I first met Mark a few months ago. I was visiting a home out in a disabled community and Mark heard that there was an American around. He walked to find me and I instantly fell in love. His accent, his passion and his joy overtook me.

He has been blind since the age of six months. He doesn’t know life to be any different and when you meet him there is no doubt that he has not let losing his sight stand in his way. He has experienced pain and struggle in every sense of the word. He lost his first wife and six of his children to the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). Only one child remains and his son now lives by him with his wife and their two children (with another on the way!).

Mark shares with me that numerous times he had to run from the rebels. Can you imagine not being able to see and knowing that people were being killed, kidnapped and mutilated all around you? He told me that his children would take his hand and run with him, he trusted them completely to lead him to safety.

Mark is now married to his second wife Helen. She is crippled and he communicated that because he is blind it is expected that he marry another who has a disability. He walks to Lira Town every Friday, 8 miles, to go and beg. If he makes enough money he can catch a ride back to his hut with few shillings left over. The last time that I was with him he shared with me that having a disability does not mean inability. Amen! Mark is determined, strong, witty and most of all incredibly joyful. When I run up to see him he is dancing, grabs me in an embrace and starts jumping up and down. He shared with me that he NEVER would have imagined that a white person would visit him. Oh Mark, you have changed my life. You have taught me what JOY means…not happiness which is fleeting and inconsistent…but inner, ever-lasting JOY, which can only come through Jesus!

 

Evelyn

Woman of Obedience

I travel to a community Agweng once a week and this is where I met Evelyn. She always greets me with singing, dancing and the high pitched “aye, aye, aye, aye!!”…not sure what they call that here J

It wasn’t until I visited her hut when the Colorado Team was here that I truly saw her soul and her pain. She knelt before us, holding her child and began weeping. She shared her struggle and her suffering. She was married but her husband was killed by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). She was barren, but she did not let that stop her from being a mother. She took in a girl and a boy and raised them as her own. They were both captured by the LRA and taken into captivity. The boy never returned.

The girl returned…..pregnant and with HIV. She gave birth to a son and then she passed away due to illness. Evelyn now cares for the child and she has contracted HIV from him. She shared with us that she has been living in intense pain for the past year due to fibroids in her stomach. I never would have known. She never shared before about her physical pain. She walks miles every week to see me when I come to Agweng. She works so hard every day to take care of the children and provide food…..all in intense pain.

Through some very generous donors we were able to get her to the clinic and arrange for her to have surgery! Actually, as I am writing this she is getting operated on! She was so thankful and communicated that this has changed her life.

However, through it all, even before she knew that she was getting the surgery, Evelyn taught me about obedience. She says “yes” to God even when it is hard and even what it hurts. She still dreams even when her desires are not yet met and she doesn’t know if they will ever come true. She says “yes” to caring for orphans that need a mother to love them, even if she might not have any money or any food. She says “yes” to life….no matter what comes with it.

Thank you Evelyn; for showing me what it looks like to be obedient even when it is hard and you want to give up. Thank you for CHOOSING to take in orphans as a single mother and loving them like they are your own. You are being obedient and faithful to God’s commandments of taking care of the fatherless.