Long may the adventure continue...

It is with great excitement that I write tonight. Tim and I are moving back to live in Uganda! This time we’re going for a year and we’ll be living in a town called Mbarara about four hours South West of the capital Kampala. We’ll be volunteering with our friends Carl and Julie Gaede and their newly formed organisation, Tutapona  Karl and Julie Gaede are both trained psychologists that felt God’s calling on their lives to work with those most traumatized by war and violence.  While the UN and World Food Program are taking care of the immediate needs for many refugees and former child soldiers, Karl and Julie set up a not for profit organisation called Tutapona that provides trauma rehabilitation services to victims of rape, mutilation, abduction, former child soldiers, and anyone affected by the horror of war. We think they’re awesome and so we’re going to join them on January 7^th.  

 

Tutapona trains local Ugandans to deliver their trauma rehabilitation program and they’ve just been given permission by the Ugandan government and UNHCR to work in every refugee camp in the country. Their next program is set to open in the largest refugee camp in central Africa, Nakivale, Uganda. This camp has been serving displaced people for decades. It’s home to 70,000 refugees from upwards of 10 African countries, including Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

With an opportunity that big, their organisation needs some serious man power to get to the next level. That’s where we come in.  Many of you will know that we’ve recently settled into life here in New Zealand by purchasing our first home, securing stable, secure jobs that we adore, and building up relationships with our incredible friends and family after living overseas in Dubai and Africa. It sure didn’t seem like perfect timing to be making another international move. BUT, that’s just our human understanding. God’s thinking is much bigger, and always better than ours. The ways he has shown us that this is where we need to be blow us away - everyday. More on that later. Meanwhile, I made the decision to accept the role reluctantly as I LOVE my job at TEAR Fund (and that’s an understatement).  In the end our decision was made based on our strong sense that God was calling us back to Uganda to work for him, to help our friends out and to trust him to take care of the details.   

Tim will be doing teacher training with the guys who have been delivering the programme and may be involved in some delivery as well. I will be helping them with their marketing and communication needs as well as staying connected to everything we do at TEAR Fund through a contracting capacity. On the ground and in the field experience is priceless and only helps us become better at our jobs, more empathetic to the cause and more passionate about why we do what we do. Both of our jobs have ever so graciously given us this time as a sabbatical and we are so grateful! We’ll be back in November ready to start back at our jobs and excited for the next season.

There was a quote I mulled over a lot before I sat down with Tim to give him my verdict on his grand decision to move our lives again. Mother Teresa said, “Love has a hem to her garment that reaches the very dust. It sweeps the streets and the lanes and because it can it must.” For me it was simple. Because I can, I must.  We can’t wait to get stuck in.

We’ll be blogging about our time in Uganda right here on this blog and would love you to join us! Feel free to comment and ask questions, we love hearing from you!

Long may the adventure continue,

Love Helen and Tim xo

 

 

 

 

Our favourite quote...

Kolkutta, India

Our favourite quote at the moment has to be from Mr. Theodore Roosevelt.. "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Our thoughts on Kony 2012

Kony 2012

There is no doubt that this is a very successful attempt at raising awareness about a series of atrocities that have taken place over the past 25 years in central Africa. It is by far the best example of the power of social media to spread information about social justice we’ve ever seen!

Having lived in Uganda for 6 months in 2010, I have a bit of knowledge about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). While there my wife and I had the privilege of working with some of the escaped child soldiers of the LRA. It was a life changing experience for us. We were deeply impacted by what we saw. Some of the things that we heard about were horrendous and some of the examples of resilience and healing amongst those children who had been affected were nothing short of miraculous.

Invisible Children have long had a goal to end the work of the LRA and to arrest Kony. Since 2009 Kony has been in hiding away from Uganda. He was pushed away from his base of support and was (and is still) in hiding in another African country- last reports of his whereabouts centre on the region around the border of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Some of the credit for this can be attributed to Invisible Children. They succeeded in raising awareness about what had gone on. This latest campaign is, as far as I can work out, an attempt to finish the job.

I support a push for the arrest of Kony as he is a war criminal and bringing him to justice is important. It is also refreshing to see people caring deeply about something going on in Africa. However, I have reservations about the oversimplification of the situation and the proposed methods outlined in the video. Central Africa is a very complex region of the world. In 2010 (while we were in Uganda) the United Nations released a report about atrocities committed by the Ugandan army in the DRC. These atrocities included massacres of civilians and mass rape. Most of the military efforts to capture Kony have come from this same organisation- the Ugandan army. In effect we are being asked to agitate for the capture of Kony by any means possible. The most likely way this would happen is through the Ugandan army operating in the DRC with US military advice and support. Perhaps this is one of the dangers of social media campaigns. Is it action based on emotion rather than thought?

A last thought- there are other massive and urgent needs right now in Africa. In the Sahel region of West Africa there is a looming food crisis. Another one. Just like the Horn of Africa last year in East Africa. A lack of rain has resulted in widespread crop failure. It is reliably estimated by the UN that 7-10 million people could face starvation if nothing is done. My wife wrote about this here: http://www.tearfund.org.nz/sahel

There’s some food for thought. Excuse the pun.
 
Tim and Helen Manson

Theo Altenberg

Theo Altenberg is good.  There is an intriguing drama in his yummy olis-on-cardboard . In these seemingly random splashes and smears of mixed oily color, the viewer finds him- or herself looking for scenery, people, recognizable forms.


Whether this was Altenberg’s intention or not is irrelevant. What matters is that it gives us pause. We look. We see.

The 59-year-old Altenberg was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany, and lives in Berlin

something i like

New York artist Tom Fruin’s outdoor sculpture Kolonihavehus in the plaza of the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.

Fruin’s sculpture is constructed of a thousand reclaimed pieces of plexiglass ranging in size from 2x2 to 24x36 inches. They originate from many sources, including a closed- down plexi distributorship near Copenhagen, a framing shop, the basement of the Danish State Art Workshops, and the dumpsters outside the Danish Architecture Center - nice work Tom!

Kolonihavehuses were originally small garden sheds that were designed to give cramped and often impoverished city-dwellers a small plot and a refuge from city life.

Little Miracles

just a little story i wrote for the Watoto website :)


Watoto’s youngest students in Nursery, Kindergarten, Prep A and B classes today celebrated the end of the school year with a Graduation and Christmas Party. Coordinated by Teacher Evelyn Namboozo, the standard multipurpose hall was transformed into a wonderland of Christmas trees, ribbons, twinkling lights, balloons, streamers, gifts, sparkling tinsel.

As the mothers, teachers and leadership of Watoto Suubi Village filed into the hall, the atmosphere both inside and out was truly alight with the magical sounds, smells and sights of Christmas. Beginning with an opening prayer by a young kindergarten student “We thank you for our Mummies, we thank you for our party, we thank you for our daddies, In Jesus name I have prayed, Amen” the event was then broken up into three distinct themes. Nursery students were celebrating ‘God is creator’ and kicked their section of the event off with a number of songs, a quick drama and absolutely gorgeous faux paus all over the show. One in particular to note was when 2 year old Abigail got dressed up as baby Jesus and climbed into a crib wearing a onesie, beanie and sucking on a dummy. Only to promptly decide that she didn’t like playing Baby Jesus one bit and so climbed out of the crib by herself and went over to her Mum. Of course there was microphone grabbing, little ones forgetting their lines and enthusiastic waving to Mums going on as well.

Next up was the Kindergarten year level. Keeping in line with their theme of ‘God’s servant’ their colourful costumes and animated dance and drama kept the audience well entertained. Following them was the graduating Prep A and B students who carried on their theme ‘God is love. This year level will now go onto Primary School. After every year level had completed their performance, awards were given to students that had shown exemplarily behaviour and academic results during the school year. Awards were given out for categories like ‘Most Improved, Best Groomed, Academic Excellence, and Best Handwriting. Each student that received an award was applauded, congratulated and handed a special Christmas present.

Of course the morning wouldn’t have been complete without a visit from everyone’s favourite holiday character- SantaClaus! His arrival drew gasps of sheer delight followed by squeals of excitement. Topped off with some Christmas carols and candy for all the kids, it was a wonderful morning for our little miracles indeed.