By John Kunz

After a strange morning full of cold showers, odd breakfasts, and a long, bumpy, cramped, but beautiful and exotic bus ride, our team arrived at our destination for the day: a center for female street beggars and their children run by nuns. We piled off the buses and took a moment to take in the scene. There was a run-down brick building in front of us that appeared to be abandoned, though it probably wasn’t. On either side of us were fields full of some crop I didn’t recognize. The road, or rather, the muddy path, ran back behind us. The air carried what would become the familiar scent of acrid smoke, mixed with a fishy smell coming from Lake Victoria, just a few paces from the edge of the center.

We were greeted warmly by the nuns, and quickly directed through a few open yards surrounded by the little huts where the ex-beggars made their abodes. I was shocked as I looked quickly at the huts. They looked more like jail cells than anything else, with bars on the windows and padlocks on the outside of the doors. The doors to most of the rooms were closed, but I managed to get a glimpse of the inside of one as a young child hurried out of the hut to get a good look at us. Inside the room was nothing more than a small reed mat and a little wooden stool. One small, barred window was the only source of light for the hut.

As I finally made my way out of the maze of muddy courtyards, I was greeted with a wonderful view of Lake Victoria and the smell of fried fish. Our group was asked to wait there for just a minute, while the nuns went off to do something. A few moments later, I heard the sounds of young children coming towards us. Sure enough, a whole group of children, all dressed in their threadbare school uniforms, rounded the corner and formed a group in front of us. We smiled and said, “Hello,” and they returned the greeting, smiling and waving and then whispering to one another. Bishop Rukirande stepped forward to bless them, and they all knelt down and recited something I didn’t understand. I was surprised, as I’d never seen a bishop treated with such reverence before. I wasn’t quite sure what to think.

As the bishop finished his blessing, the children stood again, and began to sing us a song of welcome. When they finished, most stayed together, but a few brave kids wandered over to us. Charlene Turner, a pastor’s wife who served as the youth mission team mother to us all, had come prepared and began distributing sticks of spearmint chewing gum to the children. They all said, “Thank you,” very politely, but none of them put it in their mouths. It took me a minute to figure out that they didn’t know what it was. Charlene, too, realized what was going on. In a few minutes, a couple of us had shown the children what the gum was for, and they were all merrily chewing away.

Charlene wasn’t finished, however. She had also brought along some balloons, which she was now blowing up while the children watched with wide eyes and timid smiles. Charlene tossed the balloons to the kids who began to run around, trying to keep the balloons in the air. We watched them play for a moment, and then a few of us joined in. We ran all over the dirty yard, laughing as we chased the balloons together. It was at that point that a profound feeling of shame and humility came over me. These little children with whom I was playing had next to nothing. They lived in little cells with bars in the windows and ate whatever the nuns managed to prepare for them. They had only one set of worn out clothes, and most had nothing to wear on their feet. None of them knew their fathers. It occurred to me then that these children, most of whom would probably not live to the ripe old age of forty, were happy. All it took was a few balloons and a couple of sticks of gum to turn an ordinary day into a holiday for this group of Ugandan street children. I, on the other hand, had been feeling sorry for myself because I was a little hungry after the bus ride and wasn’t sure when lunch would be.

As I ran through the yard playing with children who spoke only enough English to sing a welcome song to our group, I realized that these little children were actually giving me more than I could possibly give them. I decided that, for the rest of the mission, I would try to learn from the children and take whatever happened in stride, making the best of whatever situation I found myself in.