The Theory of Relativity

Our perspective has changed on a lot of things in the time we have been here.  Probably one of the greatest eye-openers is in the difference in quality of life between Oregon and Uganda.  Let me start by talking about hotel we stayed in t Mubende.  It was called the Pride Travellers Hotel.  To say the least, it was a shock for all of us the night we checked in.  Here are a just few of the deficiencies we found in the hotel:

• There is no hot water.  Well, there is, but they carried it up to our rooms each night in 2 gallon buckets.
• The “shower” in  my room consists of a shower head on a hose connected to the water spout.
• There are tiles missing on the floor of my bathroom with standing water.
• The lights hang from the ceiling by a bare wire – no fixtures at all.   Certainly not up to American electrical standards.  Many of our lights just didn’t work at all.
• We were on the 5th floor of the hotel and there was no elevator.  We had to climb the stairs every time we wanted to get to the room.
• There were no 2 stairs the same height.  They ranged any where from 3” to 14”.  One of the stairs near the lobby had a loose wire strung across the stairs.
• Most  nights, the power went off at 8pm and stayed off all night.
• The beds feel like sleeping on  the ground they are so hard.
• Most of our toilet seats were broken (I won’t even go into the toilets…)
• There are cockroaches roaming the hallway.  BIG cockroaches…
• The windows don’t close and Bryan’s room was missing a pane of glass altogether.  It actually rained into his room one night.
• The restaurant doesn’t have a menu.  They  set out the food for the night for us and that’s what we get.
• The mosquito nets didn’t necessarily fit the beds – many left large gaps around the edges.  Nor did the screens necessarily keep mosquito nets out.
• The showers in the bathrooms don’t have curtains and no hot water – there wasn’t even a drain..  The entire floor was the drain and water filled the bathroom until you were standing in water wondering when it would pour out into the room. There was a small drain in the floor near the outside wall that the water eventually drained through.
• The restaurant in the hotel did not have an inside kitchen – they cooked outside over a fire.

The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say that this was a totally unacceptable hotel by any of our standards.  If I was asked to take a room in a place like this in the US, I would promptly turn around and leave.  There is no way I would pay to stay in a “dump” like that.  There is absolutely no way that my family would want to stay.
Then we had the opportunity to see how people who have nothing live.  Most have one set of clothes, most of the people we saw outside of the school didn’t have shoes.  Their mud huts were so small and the conditions are like nothing I could have imagined.  Let’s list a few of the deficiencies they had:

• They have no windows
• They have no floor – other than dirt.  Actually, the the walls are made of dirt as well.
• They have no kitchen – they cook outside on  a fire
• They have no shower
• They have no  bathroom – they go outside.
• They have no food besides what they can produce in their fields.
• They have no transportation  besides walking – or sometimes a beat up old bike.
• Children have to walk to school.  Often they have to leave before sun-up to arrive on time.  Many walk as many as 10 Kilometers (6 miles) each way to/from school.
• The furniture in these homes usually consists of 1 or 2 wood benches and a straw mat to sleep on.
• They have no dining room.
• They have no silverware.  They eat with their hands.
• They have no garage to park their cars or store their camping supplies.  I suppose that’s because they don’t have cars and most do not even have motorcycles or cars.
• They have no electricity and thus no lights after dark. 

This list goes on and on and on and on and on…I can’t even begin to tell you the scope of what the people don’t have.  It would be a far shorter list to tell you what they do have.  And that is just in their homes.  In their community, they have no stores, no pharmacies, no police, no roads (well, there is the one that runs through town and into the school, but the main method of transportation is walking on a maze of trails), no fire department, no supermarkets…

Let me stop and talk about that last one a bit.  Food has been on our minds a lot since we have been here.  We have been fed like kings while we have been here. But not kings like American standards.  Our usual meal consists of 3-4 types of potatoes/yams, beans, rice, matoke (pronounced muh-toe-kee – it is mashed plantains – a staple food here in Uganda), some kind of meat in small quantity (usually chicken, but sometimes beef – though not beef as WE know it) and fruit.  There is  no bread and we have seen virtually no vegetables.  I haven’t seen a green salad anywhere.  For supper last night we had chips (actually french fries though not as we know them), grilled plantains, ramen noodles, chicken and pineapple/watermelon. 


Here are a couple of pretty typical supper plates that we have eaten.

I have yet to see anything that looks like Thriftway with it’s row after row of food, huge meat selection, produce area that is unimaginable here.  I had no idea what we had in comparison to the poor here in Uganda (even the rich for that fact). 

As I said earlier, we have eaten like kings – certainly not what the children or those in the village eat.  Below is a picture of the sponsored children lining up for their lunch.  They are the fortunate ones because they are guaranteed at least one hot meal each day.  There is a cost to feeding children and this village is poor and can’t afford to feed all of the unsponsored children.


Sponsored children lining up for their lunch.  Because of the food they receive at school they are far better nourished and healthier than the unsponsored children.  One of the most heartbreaking things we have all had to endure is to watch the “haves and have-nots” live side by side.  The sponsored and the unsponsored.  You can see it in their faces, in their clothes, in their overall appearance.

Ok…I will NOT go into the whole bathroom thing other than suffice it to say that we are blessed in America.  Ok, it will not do to let this one go by without at least one picture.  This is the restroom at the school – really just  a hole in the floor.  No toilet paper there and just pray you are one of the fortunate one who has shoes!


This is the bathroom facility at the school.  The ladies were blessed with the fact that the hotels we stayed at had western-style toilets.  Like I said, we lived like kings in comparison…

So, how is it that the people in Kachungwa are so happy?  So full of joy?  The children laughing, playing and full of love?  I would have thought that they would be so  beat down by having so little and living in such horrible conditions that they would be miserable.  But instead, it was quite the opposite – they have a joy that is unexplainable by our standards.  They rely on God for everything down here and He is very … present.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always singing and dancing – but they rise above their living conditions by the grace and love of God.  Their relationship with God is something that I envy and will strive for in the future.  Their worship, prayer and fellowship are something that Canby Christian Church should strive for.  God is evidenced in their love.

This relationship with God, the trust they have in His provision and the fact that they “pray in the name of Jesus and believe” fill them with love.  As John 7:35 says, and we see here in the people of Kachungwa: “If you love me as the scriptures have said, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.”  I so want that love to be in me and flow from me as I have seen here.

So, who has it better?  It depends on what is important to you.  Many times since I have been down here I have thought of the rich young ruler.  He did all of the right things, followed the laws, but when Jesus told  him to sell all of his possessions, give them to the poor and follow Him, he turned away and was sad.  As I look around, I realize that if I sold everything I owned and gave it to the poor here, it would be like taking a teaspoon of water from the ocean and thinking it might make a difference.  But that’s  not the point that Jesus was trying to make.  Do my possessions own me?  Am I so caught up in my comforts that I am missing the true, unexplainable joy of the relationship that God wants to have with me?   People here have given us everything they have - how can they do that?  I think I'm beginning to learn.  But, like the rich young ruler, will I see the right thing and turn away or will I trust in Jesus?  It's not about things, it's about Who or what I am fully committed to.  I/we have a choice to make.

All of us have had time to contemplate this while we have been here.  We have been blessed with so much, how can we return to it knowing what we have seen here?  What can we do to make a difference?  It would have been so much easier to just send a check and not bothered with the travel to Uganda.  After all, how can a short term mission like this possibly make a difference?  Isn’t that like the teaspoon from the ocean? 

It’s all about what we do when we get home and who we are when we get there.  I pray that God will use this to change me, my family, our church and this nation.  He can do that we have learned…

In the name of Jesus we pray and we DO believe,

Dave