On Wednesday 11th January, I was gathering with the children I serve with. We had an amazing time together, laughing , dancing and sharing once again together. This is a routine we do everyday during holidays. The children in the community come around and are part of this Art program of music dance, drama and Bible teachings. The past years, we used to gather them and then let them go without sharing a meal or something to eat together. This year, God placed it on our hearts that we should include the snack on our program . We had done this before and it became too costly for us that we had to stop doing it. When you read Jesus’ stories, most of the time he gathered; either with his disciples, or a crowd he was going to preach too, he always shared a meal. He fed the large crowd of 5000 people on bread and fish, and he shared a meal on the Passover.
One of my friends always reminds me of the fact that, “If you want people to understand what you’re sharing, always include something to eat because Jesus did this in most of his gatherings.” My friend also has a funny understanding that if you have a girl you want to date, always meet her where there is food. She will always remember your words of affection towards her.
We then included this as part of the program. We wanted to always share a meal with these children as a family. Some of them come to our programs on empty stomachs and they find joy there. Including having a meal together, would then give them a sense of belonging and a family to always think of. It would also become part of a way of teaching them the spirit of sharing with each other, loving each other and sharing funny stories with different children. We loved it, they loved it and this led to a great number of kids joining the program. On the first day, which was a Monday, we had thirty kids coming through for the program. It was fun gathering together. We provided them with tea and a slice of bread. By the third day after opening, we had seventy kids joining the program. The number was overwhelming, we didn’t not anticipate this number increasing on such short notice.
As we were having the meal, I sat down and asked how we were going to manage feeding this large number, we were surely not financially stable to sustain this. I was the only leader available that day and It made me think of so many things and ask for God’s guidance and provision. We do not want to have a group of kids coming for the program and then going back home. We want to have a family that prays together, works together and lives together. Which family doesn’t eat together?
The kids left for their different homes and I was left at our gathering place alone. I then decided to take an evening walk to check on an old woman my mom’s age, she roasts Maize at the roadside as a way of raising money to sustain her family needs. On my way there, I decided to take a short cut. I do not know why I took that path but something kept on telling me to take it. The short cut is between a primary government School, an American Embassy in Uganda property and a big Catholic church. It is a sloping path and if it’s the evening, you see the beautiful sunset up the hill and the sunset reminds you of how beautiful God’s creation is. I took out my phone from my pockets and I took a beautiful picture of the sunset. This made me take a few steps looking at the picture and seeing how great it was.
As I was reaching the exit of the short cut to join the main road, I found myself in the middle of a colony of bees. It was the most frightening moment of my life. I was in the middle of it. It reminded me of my childhood life when my childhood friend was stung to death by bees. It was a bad experience. May his soul rest in peace.
When I found myself in the middle of the colony of bees, I asked myself how I got there, how they got there and what I was going to do about it. I don’t know the science of bees because I really don’t like them, they just have honey that I enjoy sometimes.
Look at me now in the middle of my enemy. I stood still and thought of what to do. I then took one step and another and walked out of them. To my surprise, I wasn’t stung by any of the bees. They were flying around me and making all the noise but they didn’t do any harm to me. I didn’t not protect myself there for one moment. There were two boda boda men (men on motorcycles) at the extreme end and they asked me two questions. Were those not bees? How did you go past them! My answer was constant, “Yes, they were bees but I do not know how I survived them. I really do not know.”
Later that day, I went to a church to see a friend. We had both lost our jobs the previous year and this year, 2023, we were desperately looking for jobs. He had a popcorn machine and he chose to start selling popcorn just at the church as a sustainable project. Through our conversations, we were all discussing how we should serve. It was a conversation that was clearly showing that we were hungry to serve. We wanted to go out there and say; ‘God, here I am, use me for the advancement of your kingdom.’ Throughout the conversation, we shared about this but we never included money. We just wanted to serve. And this young man told me one thing when I shared with him that I did not want to search for jobs. I wanted to sit down and serve fully with Joyful Hearts of Hope. This young man told me, “Sit down and serve, God will take care of your needs.” I felt relieved. My heart was at peace from these words and I had to meditate upon them.
When we gathered on Saturday, which is our HOPE SATURDAY- where the kids find Hope from Biblical stories, I told one of the leaders the fact that kids had increased in number and we do not have what to feed them this day. He just told me, we are going to feed them with porridge. Lemme go and tell this lady to make porridge for them. Later on in between these fellowships, I was at peace because I knew my fellow volunteer at the children’s ministry had taken care of the kids’ meal that day. To my surprise, one of the kids was sent to me by the lady. Joachim, the one that ordered the porridge, had told the lady making it that we had sugar. I did not have it, neither was it there in the store. I told the kid, we may end up taking porridge without any sugar. Then when I was still thinking about it, one child, who is now taking up leadership in the ministry, asked if he could go home and get sugar. He was eager to help his fellow children and he told me that his mom had stocked sugar at home and he wanted to go and ask his mom. I told him not to steal it but to ask. He came back with a black polythene bag of sugar. God had provided already.
As they were serving porridge to the kids, the leader in charge of this came and asked me what shall the children have to accompany the porridge? I didn’t know. And I didn’t know how to respond to this. I told her, today we are only taking porridge. As they were taking porridge, a man came through, he was very dirty and disorganized. He had taken alcohol. We take in people the way they are. Someone told me that sometimes we are the light placed in the darkness to light it up. This man tells me how he enjoyed the kids drumming and dancing and he wants to give them money, he removes out five notes (each one thousand Ugandan shillings) and gives it to me to pass it onto the kids. At first, I refused, but who are we to refuse God’s provisions over his work? We used this money, however little it was, to find a small snack for the kids. We improvised.
God Kept Revealing Himself
Through all these events, God kept on revealing himself to me. He kept on showing me that he is God of protection, provision and love. I kept on remembering the bees and each person I shared the story with kept on asking how I survived them. He saved me from the bees without my intervention. I couldn’t do anything. I was in the middle of the bees just like how Daniel was with the lions. God kept on providing the children’s feeding even when we thought we had nothing for them. Our faith sometimes is so little that we forget how much God can do. Sometimes we do Ministry and think we are there to provide, but God always provides for his work. When the disciples came to Jesus with the pieces of fish and bread, they didn’t know what to feed the crowd. Jesus knew that his faith was in his Father who can do exceedingly, abundantly and above all we ask or think.
