By Mike Warneke,
Today is a difficult post to write. It seems as if our team has left such an incredible place of joy from yesterday’s tournament and traveled into some of the greatest despair we have ever been witness too. As often happens here in on our trips, agendas change, and new plans are made. Our team arose this morning fully expecting to spend the day at our partner school, New Kabaale Busega, but with a visit day for care givers on their campus our plans quickly detoured to Masaka instead.
I must quickly give you a little background information so you understand the full picture of why today was so difficult, yet also so powerful. I had the joy of getting to know a man by the name of Paius on Facebook through a contact I made at a music festival in May of 2013. We became friends and shared about our various activities, as we are both attempting to empower the children of Uganda through the means of soccer and education. This online friendship lead our team in early March of this year to travel to Masaka and see their work first hand. Upon our trip we were able to offer Paius a chance to select three of his most vulnerable children to get a fresh start at one of our partner schools in Wakiso, and he choose three remarkable young men, Paul, Paul and Fahad.
These young men have been at Wakiso Children’s School of Hope on scholarship, a huge form of gratitude that our partner school has shown us in appreciation for our FoDU programs on their campus. It has been five months since they have seen their families, and we thought it wise that we take them home to share with their communities how well they are doing, and how this new school has completely embraced all three of them. It was an exciting ride as we made a brief stop at the equator, and then continued on to Masaka. When we first entered the city we met up with the incredible young gentlemen that are behind Divine Soccer Ministries, and are the ones that introduced us to these special young men now living in Wakiso. Our time in Masaka started out joyfully as Paul, Paul and Fahad were able to come back to their friends as heroes sharing what they have been able to accomplish, and looking like changed people. One of the Paul’s had recently scored the first goal for Wakiso at the tournament yesterday and was placed on the select team, and the other Paul and Fahad were just placed on the Junior District Team for all of Wakiso. They were coming back to town as heroes, that all of their friends in the Divine Soccer Ministries could look up too.
And then the winds shifted. It was time to say goodbye to their friends, and take the boys back home to let their families know that they were thriving in their new environments. I have seen poverty both domestically back home in the U.S. and throughout Uganda, but our entire team was moved to tears at different times of our visits, as the situations these boys were raised in were indescribable. Each of these boys faced difficult challenges growing up: one struggled to feed himself and his younger brother living in very dirty surrounds; another faced an entire family of drug users, himself being a recovering addict at the age of 14, and the last young boy growing up in the slums of Masaka amidst drunkards, raw sewage and a mother who seemed to have no empathy for her own son. These three boys are survivors in the richest sense of the word. They have already overcome more than I can imagine, and somehow they are still dreaming for the future.
As difficult as it was to see their environments in which they were raised, it was confirmation once again that we are doing the right thing. For a child growing up in such a hopeless place, soccer is often the only bright spot in the glaring darkness that can easily consume them. As we drove back to Kampala we were able to take these boys to their first meal in a sit down restaurant, for two of them their first taste of ice cream, and they got the chance to simply be kids as they jumped and laughed on a trampoline. Our team is still struggling to make sense of what we witnessed today. There are simply no words to describe the painful environments that these boys were raised in, and yet we left them with smiles on their faces tonight. We attempted as best we could to let the boys know that they had nothing to be ashamed of during their home visits. They did not choose these environments or the neglect that was handed to them. However they do have a say in what happens in their future, and right now it is getting brighter each and every day.
Some questions simply cannot be asked, because no answers will do. All I can do tonight is trust that God knows what He is doing, and perhaps if enough of us wake up to the state of the world we are living in, then maybe, just maybe, there will be a few more Paul’s and Fahad’s getting a true chance to achieve their dreams. Words cannot paint the pictures of joy and suffering here in Uganda; you will only get half-truths and half-blessings until you come and discover this land for yourself.
I cannot thank Paius, Fred, Andrew, Joseph, and Robert at Divine Soccer Ministries enough for going into the shadows of Masaka and showing the children in their care that they matter, that they are loved, and that a brighter future awaits them.
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