Gulu: The Moving Pictures

I believe I’ve used the word “beautiful” more over the past two weeks to describe what I saw and experienced in Gulu and the Acholi than I have my whole life over. And part of me wishes for a new, better, more powerful – or just different – adjective.

But the truth is, no other word does them justice.

Watch:

more about "Acholi Church on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

The first video above (created by the brilliant Stephen Proctor of gi*inc) is just a splinter from the Sunday church service we attended (to which some incredible Faithful’s walked 50 miles). It portrays the simple honesty and incomparable joy inherent in their worship. It was unequivocally the most vibrant celebration I’ve ever seen happen among the people of God on any given Sunday. The Acholi know joy.

more about "I Need You More (Mocha Club, Uganda) …", posted with vodpod

This second is a piece Stephen put together using only flip camera footage, which captured the reality of their beautiful light and tuned me in to my shadowy life. I still can’t avoid tears when I see it and remember their perfect faces.

To be sure, True Light is brighter than it ever was, and “Beauty” has never been more perfectly defined.

THE Blog: The Africa that Changed Me

This has been such a difficult blog to write. I want so much to share everything about Gulu and the Acholi people, but feel a need to give you the brightest highlights and keep the rest to myself until it rises to the surface of circumstance. Not because it’s not worth sharing, but because I fear in sharing it without context, it might lose power. I don’t know, but I don’t yet want to take the risk. I am certain, though, that as time moves us forward, stories will be shared as they relate to circumstances and my experience will prove itself something beyond time.

Grace - a Women of Hope - with me after the meeting.

For now, I’ll share the part that changed me at my core.

God began something early on that I knew would break me by week’s end. Traveling with a team of artists and musicians whose experience and notoriety far exceeds my own, I confess the desire to prove myself equal. Though my stage and audience are considerably smaller, I wanted to clarify that “I’m just as good.” Quite shameful on its own, even more in light of where we were and why.

So on Sunday, after an indescribable morning church service attended by 150+ Acholi from distances as far as 50 miles, we went to the Home of Love to spend the afternoon sharing music, playing our own guitar-based American songs as the kids giggled with delight, and watching them sing and dance to their own rhythms and melodies. It was both beautiful and terrible, mostly because after sharing my own song and declaring it utterly suckful, I sunk into myself and allowed pride to overwhelm me.

That evening as I prayed and scoured the Word for some kind of encouragement or affirmation, a promise from God that I am, indeed, good enough for both my team and the Acholi, God slapped me across the face saying, “Who exactly do you think you are? Why on earth would your songs matter more here than mine, and why should I share my glory and honor and approval with you? Have you learned nothing of these people? Do you still not realize that they recognize and crave what’s eternal, and the only eternal thing you can offer them is Me and whatever comes from Me? I brought you here to love them with My love, to serve them, to give of yourself without condition and for My glory, that they may see Christ. And here, still, you seek an ego massage.”

I cried myself to sleep that night, overwhelmed but determined to put myself away. There really was no other choice. God is right: whatever I give, in song or deed, if not for and to Him is utterly without and will waste away and be forgotten. And so I would spend the rest of my time seeking only to be a tool. Whether He spoke to or through or around or about me didn’t matter, so long as I was surrendered to Him and lifting Him up. Even if that meant just shutting up.

Monday was a new day. We went back to the school to share songs with the kids and paint their handprints on a mural, and as we sang together and taught the kids American praise songs with all the motions, I felt a clean wave of liberty wash over me. What mattered was that I engaged. Whether or not my vocal or guitar playing abilities were up to par wasn’t the point. They loved that I was there, and so I was ALL there.

And on Tuesday – our last day – Missy, Genevieve, and I had the extreme honor of attending the Women of Hope meeting and sharing songs and the Word with 200+ women living with HIV/AIDS who meet weekly to hear Scripture and to love, encourage, and comfort one another. They sang their welcoming song when we arrived, and I was immediately asked to sing a couple songs, which I did with relish. They applauded, but I think by the end of the second they were ready for the Word. My English songs may have sounded pretty, but still unintelligible to a group of women who don’t speak my language.

So, after being asked to “give the message,” Missy and Genevieve each read to the women from the Psalms. What’s beautiful about these people is that when they ask for the Word of God, they aren’t asking for a sermon. They believe the Word speaks for Himself, so they read the Word together and applaud and celebrate God for His goodness in teaching them. They don’t need all our hoopla of exegesis and application.

When Missy and Genevieve finished, I was invited back up. I wasn’t sure if they wanted more songs or more of the Bible, so I asked. And, to my good humiliation, they made abundantly clear they did not, in fact, want more music, but more of the Word.

So, having just been over this with God, I said, “Sounds good.” And I began to read from Isaiah 54. I’m not sure why I chose that passage, and I admit I was unsure whether it would mean anything to them. But the day we arrived I remember reading it and thinking, “this is for these people.” For a people who’ve been torn by war for 23 years, ravaged by disease and poverty, homeless and so often hopeless.

So I read to the women.

“Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband—the LORD Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; 
he is called the God of all the earth. The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness 
I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. “To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. “O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children’s peace. In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you. See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD.”

As they heard the chapter in their own language, I watched something amazing happen. Throughout the reading, women cheered and hollered and shouted their “Hallelujah!”s and “AMEN!”s. One woman in the front kept looking at me with tearful eyes, smiling and giving a thumbs-up, apparently pleased with the passage.

And afterwards, when the women gathered to hug us Mzungus (white people) and introduce themselves, many explained their cheers. They are barren women, sick with HIV/AIDS and unable to conceive, abandoned by their husbands and scorned by society, riddled with worry about their children’s futures. They said these verses were indeed from God, a gift for them. They celebrate and revel in the promise of an Eternal Husband, a Redeemer who re-purposes the sick woman’s life, who Fathers her children and establishes them in peace and righteousness, protecting them from danger, terror, and even death.

I was moved to tears, overcome with gratitude to God for letting me deliver good news that day. It was as if clouds opened up and He pointed down and said, “See! I told you!”

I was even more moved when, in thanks to me (for what?), the Women of Hope gave me a new Acholi name.

“Amaro-Rwot.”

Which means,

“I love God.”

Missing [my other home] Gulu

I can’t recall ever taking so long or expending so much energy and patience to write a blog. But what I want to tell about Gulu – and more specifically about my experience and why I’ll hopefully never be the same – deserves more time, more editing, more energy. I want to give you the best of what they gave me, with as few errors or potholes of distraction as possible.  

Or maybe I’m just an obsessively compulsive perfectionist. Wink, wink. 

Either way, until THE blog is ready, I’ll share a few pearls I’ve threaded into a necklace I intend to wear daily.

The Acholi people (the largest tribe in the country, who occupy most of Northern Uganda, and who have for the past two years enjoyed the first tastes of peace after a 23 year civil war waged by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army) are eager and generous with their love and kindness. From daily half-a-block walks to and from the internet cafe marked by countless toothy grins and “How are you? I’m fine!”s, to giggling children who are simply overcome with joy by the fact that Mzungus (white people) want to hear them sing their songs and dance their dances, their love is an effortless and unconditional kind unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They expect and want nothing but a genuine smile. 

Having all lost so much and so many to terror, violence, disease, and disaster, they know how fleeting a moment can be and embrace each with ferocious joy. It’s hard not to define them as a dizzyingly happy people, because it’s rare to see anyone without a smile. Even when they’re feeling ill and asking for prayer, they do it with a smile.

But still, you know they carry the burden of recent history and understand in a special way that life can change or end at any second, so if this one is good, it ought to be celebrated. And celebrate they do. 

For me, just being an observer among them for a week was liberating. It may be because the economy won’t allow for it, or more likely because they just know better than to waste time with such pettiness, the Acholi have little time and patience for vanity. Clothes don’t match and are rarely perfectly clean. Cosmetics are an expensive luxury, one most refuse in favor of covering their feet or feeding their families. Self-expression through fashion or hair style seems unlikely, as their clothing is either the “imported” castaways from America’s thrift stores or made from cheap materials; and most men, women, and children alike wear short or shaved hair. It’s better to keep away lice and other bugginess. And deoderant? What’s deoderant? 

I can’t describe how freeing it was to be among people who aren’t silently analyzing my fashion choices or checking my legs to see if they’re shaved. It was nice to know that if, after a long day of painting, my Secret was all worn off, no one would notice much less care. I’m white, so I’m going to I stand out. Any details beyond that aren’t worth following.

What’s more, I saw in them a desire simply to show us they’re kind and warm, forward-moving and modern; That they’re cheerful and can find beauty and humor in nearly anything; That they’re resourceful and creative, hard working, intelligent, and most of all good. They love and crave God and His goodness. They have much more to offer than war. They want to learn and teach. They want to create.

Above all, they are a community-driven people. They’ve all lost family and friends to war, so they ferociously grip the relationships they now have as a life source. It was rare to see anyone walking anywhere alone. And in the evenings, when most Americans are holed up in their giant homes on acres of “private property” watching fake lives play out on flat screen TVs, safe from the annoying distractions of other humans, the Acholi are hanging out and enjoying one another. One evening, we saw a group of at least 50 people gathered around one small TV for a major soccer event! They don’t go home until the restaurant’s generator is turned off and they’re sent away. And whether they’ve known you for years or you’re meeting for the first time, they treat you as a kindred soul and intimate friend. Even the Mzungus.

The children are no different. Whether walking home from school in groups, navigating the market for dinner, giving you the tour of their school or orphanage, or selling sugar cane across the street, they’re quick to extend a hand to shake and even quicker to offer a wide grin to a stranger. I guess, to them, no one is a stranger.

Quite simply, they want to love and be loved.

They were concerned not with appearances – with impressing us with fancy clothes or fresh scents, huge hotel suites, or five-star meals (though they did an incredible job at making our stay as comfortable and upscale as possible within the context of their culture) – but with making us, the Mzungus, feel welcome, comfortable, and at home. 

And I did. I felt as at home with them as I ever have in America.

Toward the end of the week I took a moment to sit down with Judith, one of the hotel staff who seemed to rather enjoy my silliness and my inability to speak their language correctly despite both our efforts. She thought my self-depricating jokes were hilarious. She liked that I wore crazy-looking shirts. And, pulling me aside, she said, ‘Miss Ahh-mee, you are very down to ground. Most Mzungus don’t like us…they think we’re bad and useless, just full of war and disease. But you…I like you. And I like that you like me.” I told her she was quite easy to like, and she liked that too. We both decided we were soul sisters, and that one of us – most likely me – was just born the wrong color and on the wrong continent. 

One of our team later told me that Judith told him I’m actually African.

And recalling that makes me miss my other home, my other family, even more.

The Heights of Success

Yesterday morning, as I ate some cereal, drank some (delicious) coffee, and perused Little Rock’s local-yokel magazine, Soiree, reading about “women to watch” in the area, I got to thinking about success.

I suppose it was a natural progression of thought springing from the definitions given by the watchable women, most of whom agreed success was tied either to greater levels of wealth or power in the ever-changing, dangerous organism that is capitalism at work.

And perhaps it had a little to do with the fact that I was waking up from a two day stint in Little Rock, where I gave two of what I’d consider my best concerts ever.

Neither was particularly “well attended.” One was a private concert for the men and women served by Little Rock’s Union Rescue Mission, and followed a couple hours of serving them dinner and hearing some incredible life stories. Including the kiddos, there may have been fifty people hanging out on the lawn in the balmy evening heat to listen to me sing and talk. The second concert was   open to the public but predominantly attended by young people ranging from 13 to 16 in age. Again, when all was said and done, numbers counted and all, there were probably about 50 of us hanging out for the evening.

But wow. As I drove away this morning, I felt pretty successful.

After the concert on the lawn for the URM, one woman wrote and passed me a note about her experience. She said she couldn’t explain it in a conversation, because she’d end up crying her way through. But in her note, she spoke of the lost years she lived as a prostitute and drug addict, which were odd juxtaposed to her upbringing under a Baptist minister. She appreciated what she called “fearless” songs; songs that look at the darker, harsher, deeper sides of life – sides so many people can’t relate to, much less discuss, much less publically. She appreciated the “real”ness of it. And while thanking me for being usable in Lord’s hands, I was quietly thanking God for affirming me and my passion. And what a gift it was to go back to the Dorcas House today and spend a bit more time with those women who spend their days overcoming.

The second concert was equally encouraging, though in different ways. Like I said, it was for youth. Teenagers who don’t have a lot of money to either buy CDs or join Mocha Club. Teenagers who typically don’t appreciate the deeper things as much as we old soul’s do. Teenagers who might have been humoring their youth pastor by sitting quietly through my concert. But these guys…they were fun. They were generous. And they gave of themselves. They came and served with me at the URM. And after the concert, they gave up their money for bigger things. Many of them joined Mocha Club, and set the age of selflessness just a couple years younger. Many wanted to buy CDs and purchase jewelry or bags created by women rescued from sex slavery, but only having the money for one, chose to be part of the rescue efforts. And a few of them even let me sign their arms…and thought THEY got away with the best end of the deal.

Yeah.

As I look back over the last couple days, I feel lucky. I feel affirmed. I feel hopeful. I feel an overwhelming sense of awe as leaves take form on the branches of trees that were mere seeds in my palm just a few years ago. And I know I’m moving in the right direction and tilling the right soil when I am part of the passing out of Hope to people who know to grab hold of it, or am able to facilitate – or just watch! – young people stepping into the role of giver while most of their peers remain content simply to receive.

Indeed, money or no money, tour bus or no tour bus, arena or no arena, fame or no fame…Tonight, I am satisfied in my soul and in want of nothing.

Unto the Least of These

In the midst of the current political climate as we all explore the foreign and economic issues that will inevitably (and have already, in so many ways, proven to) define a generation of a nation, it’s often difficult to pull out the lens and widen the perspective. To remember to look at things in terms of morality and individual responsibility, and bring the health and progress of our country – and our world – back to our own level, taking it into our own hands.

But then there are times we hear or read encouraging clips reminding us that ultimately, we have the power to change and rearrange the way things are. In fact, it is the calling for which we’ve been especially enabled.

Over the past couple days, I’ve stumbled across some incredibly engaging and empowering stories of people like you and me refusing to leave our world and its care – especially that of the least of these – in the hands of politicians, or really, anyone else. These people refuse to assume anyone else will do what must be done and choose to use their voices to empower the weak and provide for the orphan and widow.

Yesterday, I read Relevant magazine’s review of the Art*Music*Justice tour with Sara Groves, Drek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Brandon Heath, and Charlie Peacock. And while the article certainly highlighted the sickening ability of the artists to weave melodies and lyrics in such a beautiful way, the focus of the article was on emphasizing the purpose of these artists whose mission is to use song, video, and prose to engage and empower listeners, driving them to action on behalf of worldwide victims of injustice. And as an artist and singer-songwriter, I have to say how righteously jealous I am of these artist’s ability to tell a story of injustice and hope in song. It is such a struggle for me to get out of my own head and thoughts and write about issues more important than me, especially because I feel so inexperienced in the writing. But they inspire me…to go, see, experience, and bring it back as fuel for the engine that will drive us to the end of poverty, sex trafficing, genocide, and all worldwide injustice.

And it all leads me to one inevitable conclusion. If we, who even in the midst of economic crisis, are still among one of the wealthiest nations on earth, then certainly we have the means to act on behalf of those Christ loves. No longer is it simply an opportunity, or even an obligation or responsibility (though I do believe, given the commands of Christ and the sheer volume of Scripture’s references to making the care of orphan and widow our primary concern, as they are His dearest).

Instead, it is our greatest honor.

That we humans who so often find thousands of reasons to avoid others and focus on ourselves have been not only commissioned with the care of the victims and impoverished, but entrusted with their care tells us that not only does God want this from us and for them, but that He believes we can do it because He – the Almighty God of the univerise – has equipped us to accomplish it.

Besides the fact that our God is so passionate for the fatherless and the widow that He has embedded in each of us a similar passion (that only needs to be uncovered), it is the greatest hope to realize He has chosen and specifically equipped we who love Him and love what and who He loves to accomplish His will among the least of these.

My heart bursts with fiery passion that you would know the deep riches of the love of Christ, and to pour this same love on those He so desperately loves and longs to see us serve. There is no such great hope, nothing so exciting or empowering among politicians, no matter who we each believe ought to be the next President of the United States.

Ultimately, beloved ones, we are the ones with the tools to change the world. We have been entrusted with the care of the victim, with stewardship of the Created earth, with the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development of our children, and most importantly, with the love of Christ going into the world. We are His ambassadors whose fight is for justice and peace around the world.

This is our charge; this is our responsibility; this is our honor.

Let us not sit idly by waiting for someone else to do what is only ours to do!

GET INVOLVED THROUGH ANY OF THESE (AND SO MANY MORE) ORGANIZATIONS:

ONE-TIME INVOLVEMENT
(Give a one-time gift to any of these organizations and watch it go for miles):

Freedom’s Promise (rescuing victims of sex trafficing and restoring hope through freedom)
Blood:Water Mission (digging wells and providing medicine to meet the two greatest needs of Africans today: clean water and clean blood)
Charity:Water (100% of donations taken in are applied to clean water projects throughout Africa)
ONE (Eliminating poverty worldwide)
Food for the Hungry (FHI provides the basic physical needs of children worldwide while developing programs for education, spiritual development, and international advocacy.)

MONTHLY INVOLVEMENT
(Make a monthly committment to supporting individual children and village projects with as little as $7 per month)

Mocha Club (This organization, with which I’m an artist sponsor, takes $7 per month – the cost of two mochas – and funds the development of orphanages, rescue villages, universities, medical facilities, and more throughout the continent of Africa. Bonus: If you join my team supporting the Child Mothers Village of Hope in Gulu, Uganda, you get FREE downloads of BOTH my CDs!)
Compassion International (Through Compassion, we can sponsor children from almost everywhere in the world, and with just $32 per month provide for their education, medical care, clothing, food, and future hope.)
World Vision (Similar to Compassion, one person with about $30 per month can become a child’s sponsor and watch their growth and development over the course of their youth.)

USE YOUR HANDS (Donate Your Time)
(Call your local organization headquarters and get involved on the ground either in your own hometown or around the globe through any of these organizations.)

Habitat for Humanity (HH not only builds houses for lower-income families, but offers financial and lifestyle coaching for all its receipients while giving everyday people an almost weekly opportunity to serve our neighbors.)
Youth for Christ (Contact your local branch and find out how you can serve the youth in your community by either coaching a group or hosting a party, etc.)
Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army, etc. (Locate your nearest store and ask the manager how you can volunteer.)
Mercy Ships (Join a Mercy Ships crew for a minimum of one year and be part of saving lives through providing FREE major medical operations and basic health care for the impoverished in Africa and the region.)
American Peace Corps (Similar to Mercy Ships, you can join for a year and travel the globe meeting basic needs of people in thousands of impoverished or developing areas.)
Contact Your Local Homeless Shelter, Domestic Violence Shelter, or Teen Shelter and find out how you can help, whether by volunteering your time (or gathering a group to serve), or gathering goods for their use.