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Christmas Team 2009 - 2010
I love Christmas. It’s the one time of the year when it doesn’t matter how cold it gets if there’s the taste of snow in the air, the one time the living room disappears under a sea of shiny wrapping paper and the one time we’re forced to sit with obnoxious old dears who are somehow distantly related to us. And then there’s the food.
But not this year. This year, we decided to do something a little bit different.
On 19th December, 12 of us flew to Uganda with Abaana to spend two weeks working with street kids in Kampala. Our mission? To serve these boys over Christmas time, make them smile, give them Christmas presents, love them with everything we’ve got and to try and be like Jesus to them – He is, after all, the true meaning of Christmas.
Each morning we met the street boys in a field near the centre of Kampala. We chatted to them, heard their stories, shared their pain and shared our testimonies. We played football using a giant yoga ball, frisbee with dog toys, coloured in with crayons, blew bubbles, gave them food and treated their wounds at our make-shift clinic.
It’s the little moments that make a trip like this. Like the moment when I sat for two hours just watching over a little boy with malaria whilst he slept. I remembered one of the boys telling me last time I was in Uganda that when you get sick and you’re a street kid, you’re on your own. There’s no-one to look after you and no-one who cares. So I really wanted this boy, Joseph, to know that he wasn’t alone. We cared, God cared, and everything was going to be alright. Sitting with someone for two hours might not seem like much – the prospect may even bore you – but it meant a lot to him. We took him to hospital at the end of the morning and paid for his treatment. Two days later he was as right as rain again, bouncing around with a huge smile on his face.
It’s sometimes so easy to forget that these boys have nothing and live on the streets, especially when you watch them chasing bubbles or a football, smiles lighting up their faces. But then one of them tells you about his friend Martin who died yesterday, and reality comes crashing down on you. He was only 9 years old. You suddenly realise that this is the boys’ every day reality – a fight for survival. Whilst we’re back at the guesthouse eating lunch, back in Northern Ireland worrying about exams or stressing out because we’re running late for a meeting, those kids are still there, on the streets, fighting for their lives. Which makes the work Abaana does all the more important.
A couple of years ago, Abaana built the “New Life Rehabilitation Homes”. They house around 40 boys who used to live on the streets, who now have a better chance at a future. It was here that we spent our afternoons, our Christmas Day and our New Year’s Eve. Every day we ran workshops for the boys, such as crafts and sport, and spent time doing Bible studies with them. But the moment that will always stand out to me at these homes has to be Christmas Day.
I don’t really know what I expected my Christmas day to be like, but it certainly blew me away. First of all, it was above 20 degrees, it was raining, and we were outside. We piled out of the bus and danced, laughed, hugged and chatted. We shared a church service with the boys, played party games like pass-the-parcel, ate a massive buffet lunch and gave each boy a Christmas present. Some of them had only moved from the streets into the homes a couple of days before the team arrived, and so had never seen so much food on their plates before or even received a Christmas present. The ginormous smiles on each of the boys’ faces made every stress about fundraising so incredibly worth it, and the opportunity to do something so radically different for Christmas – to give instead of receive – was fantastic. There was also the interesting experience of the Turkey running around our garden. His name was Bertie. On Christmas day, he was no longer there...
New Year’s Day was also unbelievable. If I was at home, I probably would have spent the whole day sleeping. In Uganda? Not a chance. Our team returned to the field for one final time, and held a massive party for the street boys. We battled with the rain, splashed in puddles, chased a football, ate a massive buffet lunch and gave each boy a new pair of shoes and a bag of sweets. You will be amazed at how much joy a pair of flip flops can bring. Then, when you’re saying goodbye and the boys tell you in broken English that you are their best friend and that they will never forget you, you know just how important those two weeks have been.
Some of the things we did may only seem like tiny drops – wiping away tears, sticking on a plaster, giving out chapatis, throwing a frisbee – but as Mother Theresa said, the ocean is made up of thousands of tiny drops. This Christmas was incredible, and it is one that I will never, ever, forget.
Article by Hazel White
Date Added: Friday January 22nd 2010