A Boost from Uganda

Two girls and a chaperone from the African Children’s Choir are living with us this week. They arrived on Sunday and will stay through Saturday, after they perform a free concert for our community Friday night at 6 PM. (You should go! Here’s the link for more info: http://www.mlckaty.com/news/33).

I’m not exactly sure what I expected this week. We volunteered to host the girls months ago; then we sort of forgot about it. We scheduled lots of other commitments this week, forgetting Nina and Patience would be living with us. Swim practices, three sleep-overs, a birthday party, Mumford & Sons concert, dinner with friends, appointments, beach house details, and even more work responsibilities. This week was shaping up to be another busy one, filled with suburban burdens and blessings.

On Sunday we worked to get our house ready for company. Our family talked more about the logistics of three house guests than about who these girls were or where they were coming from.

Then, on Sunday night, Nina and Patience walked into our kitchen, hugged me, and said, “I am so happy to meet you, Auntie Tina.”I looked into their bright, beautiful eyes and squeezed them.

Immediately something woke up deep inside me; something like compassion and love. Something like the deep emotion I felt when my own babies would cry, and I felt desperate to help them.

But stronger than that because this love and compassion was tinged with anger and disappointment in myself. How had I read about the situations these girls were coming from and not let it change my heart? How was I so distracted? So selfish?

Looking into Nina and Patience’s earnest eyes, I remembered a hundred little sentences I’d read. I remembered the stories of the young boys and girls in the African Children’s Choir. These kids are from the very poorest families in one of the very poorest countries in the world. Many of their stories are tragic.

Because of the African Children’s Choir, these kids have a way out of the poverty . They are so honored and humbled to be able to go to school through ACC. You can feel that. They are thankful for everything: every sack lunch, every bowl of rice and cabbage I fix them, every chance to sing about their beautiful faith in a God they love.

Patience and Nina, our girls this week, just exude humbleness and gratitude and faith. Deep, beautiful faith. They pray with fervor, sing constantly, love to look at our kids’ Bibles, and listen in rapture when I tell them about our faith. They smile and hug me and tell me how good life is.

And I swallow hard and dread Saturday, when they will leave our family.

Because there is no question about who is blessing whom here.
Watching my kids with Nina and Patience, I can see the same love stirring in them. All the Hergenraders want to be near these girls. We want to smother them with hugs. We want to be more like them, finding joy in little parts of our lives that we thought were tiresome. We want to pray like them. We want to see the world through their eyes; eyes that have seen true pain and therefore must celebrate any joy in life.
My kids love their simple African games, the toys they make from sticks and leaves, their faces when they taste honeysuckle, and their questions about why we keep such a large dog in our house. (Lots of questions about our Greyhound. Of everything, keeping such a big dog in our house is the most troublesome to Nina and Patience.) Seriously. Our kids cannot get enough of these wonderful kids.

Nina loved the taste of the honeysuckle. She reported it was sweeter than the Red Honeysuckle that grows wild all over Africa.

Even though our kids love to talk, most of the lessons they are learning from Nina and Patience are silent ones. Like how to make the coolest propeller, how not to get frustrated with little annoyances, and how to carry someone when they need the boost.
Yesterday our kids learned another valuable lesson. Sam and Nate couldn’t run fast enough to make their propellers work. Without even thinking, Nina and Patience hoisted the boys onto their backs and told them to hold out their propellers. “We can run fast!” they said. “We will run for you!”
Let that be the lesson we learn the best this week. When our brothers and sisters in Africa can’t run, let us run for them.
Let us bear their weight a little bit so they can feel the joy of a refreshing breeze on their faces and the fun of watching their own propellers spin.
Most of all, let us remember the families Nina and Patience have left behind in Uganda, who still need a boost.

A Boost from Uganda

Christina

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