A New Kind of Vulnerable

By Mike Warneke

As the Executive Director for Fields of Dreams Uganda, I am fully aware of our mission statement: to provide hope for the orphaned and the vulnerable children of Uganda through the vehicles of soccer and education. Well today I have witnessed a new kind of vulnerable, as I spent time in the presence of some incredible hearing and visually impaired children at two different primary schools in Gulu, Northern Uganda. The obstacles that children face in developed countries is great when it comes to disabilities of this stature, now throw in civil war, heart-breaking poverty, and the ill-conceived cultural understanding that you are nothing but a nuisance to society. If anyone is in need of hope, it is the two audiences that our team met with today.

But what is amazing, in the midst of these children we found joy. We found laughter amidst the crying out for their needs. We found dreams in the face of unthinkable odds. A sweet child by the name of Wilsee lost both of her eyes at an early age due to measles, and she is now a student in Primary One at the Gulu Primary School. And you want to know something amazing, Wilsee dreams of being a doctor when she grows up.  The kids that Fields of Dreams Uganda serves have always been in need of our support, but none quite like the children we met today.

We made no promises today, as we are visiting 8 different campuses during this journey, and we will then put our hearts and heads together to select the partners that we feel called to assist during this season of life. But we did promise the children and staff that we met, that we would knock on doors on their behalf. That we would share their plight back in Kampala, and back in the States. So consider your door knocked upon. There is little we can do on our own, but there is a lot we can do together. Please join FoDU in bringing hope in tomorrow in these children’s lives.  And more than anything, I invite you to join us on a future journey to meet the children that we serve, because I can guarantee that you will find the best version of yourself in their midst. Their joy, their laughter, and their perseverance will move you to action, and it will cause you to never see or hear the world the same way again!!!!!!!!