In Busia

Well we finally made it to Busia. When we arrived late yesterday. As we pulled into town and it like we were celebrities. People were waving; kids were chasing the bus yelling Mzumba which means white person. We pulled into to the Guest House where we are staying and there must have been 30 kids at the gate. I got out to greet them and the first conversation I had was with a little girl about 10. She said that her mother had died and she had not eaten today and wanted to come in for supper. Welcome to Africa. I spent the next 30 minutes crying .
Today we started work on the medical center. For the first hour or so I played with the kids. Getting to know their names, and just playing around. Most of them do not speak English, but were really excited to learn some english words.
A quick note about Busia and how we got here. It is a border town that is both in Uganda and Kenya. Busia Uganda has one of the highest HIV rates in Uganda. Prostitution is ramped here. A lady named Sophie (who is a volunteer at the jail is from a village just outside of Busia). She now lives in Canada, but here whole family is here still. Douglas her son has helped Darrin coordinate all this.
So today I met a handful of other kids who were orphaned because of Aids, and many of them had HIV themselves. They live in mud huts, sleep on the floor, carry their drinking water, and as we found out do not see white people very often. We had 3 or 4 small children balling because they had never seen a white person before.
Today was a great day. We accomplished a ton on the building (we are building a brick building). And many of us got to spend time talking with people. We are extremely fortunate to have Douglas here with us. He knows these people, and he’s passionate about what we are doing.
It is so funny how my perspective has changed about what I can do. What is going on in Africa seem like such an overbearing, unattainable thing. But when you narrow it down to one town and one village all of a sudden there is excitement and anticipation for what we can do.
We have sporadic electricity, no running water and the Muslims call for prayer each morning at 5am, IT IS AWSOME!!! I love being here.
Tomorrow we are going to attend a church service in the village. This is not mandatory but a lot of the group is planning on going, please pray for this. Please pray for safety as we work and that we will be able to work hard to complete our tasks and form relationships with these people.