Camp Life Zambia 2011

Hi from Africa!!!

Before I write anything about Uganda I wanted to share with you some things about being back in Zambia last week. This year of Camp Life was very different from my time there last year. Not necessarily better, but a very good kind of different. Last year I went to Zambia with friends, this year I was with my family. Last year I had some of the oldest girls at camp in my group, this year I had 14 little boys. Last year my group was from a congested compound in the middle of the city of Lusaka, this year they were from a more rural village area. Last year I went home after Zambia, this year I’m still in Africa…for a while. No matter the differences, being back in Zambia even for just a little while was a kind of blessing that I can’t put in words. One of the best parts was getting the chance to serve, love, and share the Word of my awesome God alongside my family. But even if my mom, dad, and sister hadn’t been there with me, I still would have been surrounded by family. It is not Zambia that I love so much, it’s Zambians. I wish that each of you could somehow get the chance to hear a Zambian Christian pray out loud at least once in your lives…they pray loudly and boldly, fearing nothing and emanating nothing but thankfulness for the glorious gift of the life of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know where to begin describing my group of boys at Camp Life this past week…all I know is that they won’t leave my thoughts right now and I don’t want them to. They made me laugh so hard that I would start crying and I didn’t even know what they were saying so I have no idea how they were so funny. They had more joy in them than any group of people I’ve ever come across and they gave me more joy than I could ever hope for in one lifetime, let alone one week. I miss them terribly already. During a conversation with one of them I said, “Andrew, if you could change anything about your life what would you change?” He told me that he didn’t have Jesus in his life and now that’s all he wanted. After excitedly praying with Andrew I asked him when he had been the happiest in his whole life. He said (in English!), “When I got a new sister.” I immediately figured he probably had like 8 sisters, because my other little boy Nyambe did, but I still asked him when he got this new sister he was so happy about. Andrew pointed to his wrist and then looked up at me and said, “About one minute ago.” The love of an orphan child is unlike any other. You hug them one time, and they will never forget you for the rest of their lives.

On Thursday of last week we took our groups into their communities to serve the people there and share the gospel. My group and I were given the job of painting the inside of the Manacha Community School, which was the school where some of my boys go. Most of you would probably think it was a prison. One of my smallest boys, Ndale, is nine years old right now. I asked him on Friday if he went to school. His answer was that he had gone to a school yesterday to paint with me…after lots of translation and looking at his confused little face for a few minutes I figured out that before that Thursday, Ndale had never stepped foot inside a school building before. He’s nine years old. I’m not okay with that. Later that day all my boys were signing my t-shirt and I handed the Sharpie to Ndale, but he looked back at me as if writing his name was the most foreign concept anyone had ever presented to him.

Phinias and little Ndale

My crazy Andrew

I’m telling you these stories because I’m begging you to pray for these little boys. I believe in the power of prayer with every inch of my being and I’m confident that your prayers would not go unanswered. I’m also telling you this because for $40 a month one of my boys could be fed, clothed, and would get to go to school (in classroom that doesn’t resemble a jail cell). Please pray over their names and if you or your family or anyone you know has any interest in sponsoring one of them either comment below or e-mail me at baileygbritt@gmail.com. Also, my dad promised me that for every one of my boys that I get sponsored, he’ll sponsor a different one, so really by sponsoring one of my little knuckleheads, you’d be sponsoring two!

Richard Shikupa

Ndale Kalumwana

Nyambe Mwakamu

Jowao Banda

Supiwa Mubanga

Charles Kayolo

Andrew Masiko

Joseph Kayawe

Mulolo Mutale

Christopher Muleya

Phinias Shawa

Daliso Lungu

Isaac Musaikila

Alick Museteka

I’m safely in Uganda now! Nikukondani! (I love you all!)

Northern Uganda's Past & Isaiah

In preparation for going to Gulu I have been reading a few books about the history of the people of northern Uganda. I confidently hope that reading the tragic stories of these beautiful people will help me to have a better insight into their lives. However, I know that nothing but never-ending prayer to my never-ending God will allow the people I will meet in Gulu to open their hearts to me so that I can truly know their lives. Many of the stories I have read are filled with despair, but in all of them I see hope, and hope is what allows us to continue pushing back against the effects of the Fall. We take hope in the fact that God is working out His glorious plan even in the midst of so much despair. Even among a system that desensitized so many children and turned them into ruthless killers, there is hope. These are the kinds of stories that remind us why Jesus hung on the cross.

One of the books I read is Girl Soldier by Faith McDonnell and Grace Akallo. Grace was abducted by rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) when she was fifteen years old. My life was so blissful and carefree when I was fifteen that I have a hard time imagining something like that, but it is the horrors that she endured after being abducted that I cannot even fathom. When I was fifteen I sat at school wondering if field hockey practice was going to be fun that day. When Grace was fifteen she sat at school wondering if she would be taken by the rebels that day. Since 1987, fifty thousand children, all from the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda, have been violently abducted by the LRA.

Other than Grace's story, this book taught me some pretty astounding facts. I learned a lot about the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, which the Ugandan government leaders (mostly all southern Ugandans, which I've learned are very different from northern Ugandans) started in the mid-1990s. Eighty percent of the 1.8 million people in these squalid IDP camps are women and children. An average of 1,000 children die EACH WEEK in these camps. But these children have hope and are amazingly resilient. To avoid abduction, a lot of them leave the IDP camps before dark and walk as far as ten miles to the closest town to sleep in safer places like churches or hospitals. Then they wake up and walk back to be with their families for the day. That astounds me for some reason. I smile every time I think of the "night commuter" children. Even after experiencing all that they have, they will not give up. Although they may not know who He is yet, they can feel that there is something (someone) to keep living for.

An IDP camp on the outskirts of Gulu

I could go on for pages and pages talking about all that I learned by reading Girl Soldier. Every page broke my heart, but I loved it. It made me realize that I already love every person in Uganda that I haven't met yet, every single one of them.

I've also been going through Isaiah, reading slowly through a chapter each day pretty much. I have it planned out to where I think I'm going to be finishing right before I come back home from Uganda, which is August 2nd if you were wondering. I've decided that I'm glad Isaiah is long because I can't get enough of it. One of my favorite verses is 1:17, which says, "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." I think that's such a beautiful command. The prophet Isaiah wasn't telling his audience to give money to the poor, pity the fatherless, or read about the oppressed. There are poor and oppressed people all around each of us at any given time and I truly think we should serve them by actions more like encouragement, such as prayer.

Isaiah 1:27-28 says, "Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness. But rebels and sinners will both be broken, and those who forsake the Lord will perish." As you probably know, the organization I'll be volunteering for is called the Zion Project, so obviously this caught my attention. This verse embodies justice to me. Reading it gave me the feeling like I was smiling all the way from the inside out. I did have to look up the word "penitent" though haha...thanks to my dad I have an overwhelming need to immediately look up any word that I don't know the definition of. If you didn't know it either, it's similar to the word "repentant". Anyways, I hope to keep sharing with y'all what I take away from the words that I read in Isaiah.

"No person worthy of being redeemed would need to be redeemed." I read that quote while I was flipping through my journal today and it's been kind of stuck in my head, so I thought I'd share it! Goodnight!

Heading to Uganda on July 3rd!

           As most of you know, I traveled to the country of Zambia, in central Africa, on mission in June 2010 and that experience started a fire in my soul. I believe that God has shaped and molded me into someone that He wants to use to love and serve His lost children in underprivileged countries. My heart longs for Jesus Christ to reign in the continent of Africa, and I feel called by the Spirit to return there this coming summer.

            For the past 20 years, the country of Uganda and its people have been mercilessly destroyed by different groups of rebel soldiers. Due to the rebel attacks, over 2 million people from the Acholi tribe in Northern Uganda have been displaced, living in what is known as Internally Displaced Person's camps. Within these camps 1,000 people die each week due to starvation, disease, and a lack of sanitation. The young girls in these camps are taken by rebel groups to become child soldiers or are entered into the flourishing sex trafficking system in Eastern Africa. There are over 60,000 child soldiers in Northern Uganda, and many of them are young girls. They are violently abducted, indoctrinated, raped, and forced to kill or be killed. My heart longs to share the good news of my Savior Jesus Christ with these girls who have no hope left in this world.

The Zion Project is a Christian ministry in Gulu, Uganda that is trusting in Christ to help them rescue these young girls from the Displaced Person’s camps and bring them to the Zion House where they can be cared for and learn from American staff and volunteers as well as other girls who have suffered the same injustices. God willing, I will be one of the people who gets the opportunity to pour into these beautiful girls and show them His love. He is so ready and eager for these precious ones to know His perfect and complete love for them. Love that is unconditional and limitless, love that provides, and love that heals. God has placed a desire in my heart to make a difference by going to Gulu and I want to invite you to co-labor with me in this ministry to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the war-torn people of Uganda.

            Perhaps more than anything in the past year I have been witness to the power that lies in prayer, so as your sister in Christ, what I would love most from each of you would be your constant and confident prayers. I am so blessed to have you all in my life and I thank God for each of you.