7/12 - Tuesday

The last day, which was sad. =( We got picked up around 10 and the guys went to a slum called Kisenyi with some of the API staff and the girls went to the Hope House with Gina, Amanda, and Abby. It was a really precious time. All of the women are former prostitutes and are all HIV+. All of them have children except for the youngest, Annette, who was 18. We all went around and introduced ourselves and then the ladies shared as much about themselves as they were comfortable sharing. The first two shared that they were HIV+ and praised God that their children were negative! It was amazing! None of the other women shared about their HIV status and none of them directly said they used to be in prostitution, but hearing their stories was just incredible. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. Some of us shared about ourselves. Mrs. Dodgson and Gibbons shared about themselves and it was very powerful. After all that, we prayed, sang, and I bought some jewelry for myself and some friends. Ruth wrote about this experience here and you can see some pictures as well. After we left we stopped to do a money exchange and some people bought tea and coffee.

We met the guys for lunch at Steers and there was a very present silence about the guys. The slum they went to was apparently about a thousand times worse than Kivulu and what they guys saw really shook them up. I'm anxious to read Andy's post about the experience. (Some photos are here, but they don't do the place full justice. It's just a glimpse.) Please look at those links, it's so powerful.

I don't know how to go on and continue talking about our day, because the prostitutes and slums are such serious issues, but I must.

For lunch I had a Hawaiian pizza which was delicious. We hung around outside the restaurant for a while (I don't know why) which bugged me because I wanted to see the boys. Honestly, I had such an unexpectedly great time with them yesterday and didn't know I would be able to see them again! How I love those boys. When we (finally) got there I just chilled with them and took lots of pictures on my nice camera. Oh, my heart. I miss them sooo badly. I did the gangster fist bump with Abdul and Junior had to make sure I remembered how to count in Lugandan. I hated leaving, the time with them was too short.

After saying our goodbyes we headed back to the Cottages and after hearing the older Abdul's (guy who helps run the street program) testimony we filled out a survey for API and then had an hour to chillax before our team meeting. Despite Kampala living up to it's reputation of having black-outs, I took a shower and then went down to the meeting. Everyone took time to share, so it was good to have the ability to hear people's hearts. I was trying not to cry because, well, Uganda has an uncanny ability to make me cry because I love it so much and did not want to leave. Our time there was too short. After the meeting I packed up and was in bed at 11:30. Crazy how it just ... ended.

One of the many sad things I saw were scadoodles of posters that read: Jobs in America, Jobs in Japan, Jobs in Denmark, Europe. Free Transportation and a number to call. There were hundreds of these all over Kampala. They were scams to get people ensnared in prostitution and other things. It was sickening to see.