I’m in Uganda this week with over 50 students from Liberty University. Also with me is vice-president of Liberty, my good friend Johnnie Moore.
We are here in part for the graduation ceremony at the Good Samaritan Vocational School in Gulu, northern Uganda. 150 former child abductees of the LRA have spent the last year learning a trade such as welding, sewing, and cosmetology.
Johnnie gave a wonderful commencement address not only to the graduates but Liberty students and several government officials.
But to fully appreciate what an incredible day this was, I need to back up and start 5 years ago.
At that time more than 20,000 Ugandan children walked several miles every evening from home to sleep in the relative safety of the Gulu city streets. These children walked because of fear. They were the victims of the Lords Resistance Army who kidnapped children as young as 6. Once abducted they were forced to kill and the girls became sex slaves.
5 years ago I was in a department store getting ready to leave for Uganda, where I had been working for 23 years. I bumped into a Liberty University student who asked if I had heard about the tragedy in Gulu. I had known about the civil war that has lasted more that 20 years, but I asked him why. He told me about a DVD he had just seen on the Invisible Children. I went home and watched it with my wife and son Josh. It moved all of us to tears.
I immediately got on the phone to change my itinerary to make sure we visited Gulu. My son Josh and I, several pastors and businessmen and their sons spent the day there with these forgotten children. We listened to their heartbreaking stories.
One child we met was Moses. I sat down and interviewed him and Josh videotaped. Moses told us how his village had been invaded and both he and his brother had been abducted. The next day the LRA put a gun in his hand and forced him to kill his brother or he would be killed. The last words he ever heard from his brother was, “It’s ok . . . it’s ok . . . shoot me.”
Moses was forced to stay a child soldier for over a year before he could escape. The immense pain of these events was so evident in his voice and tears. I knew he was forced to commit acts that he was horrified of.
After several hours of these intense interviews we took a break and Josh went over to a window. I could tell he was fighting back tears. I walked over to him and he quietly said, “Dad, we have to do something.”
I knew we had to act and my initial idea was to build an orphanage. But Alex Mitala, one of our Ugandan partners quickly talked me out of it. He explained that in the Acholi culture, when a child’s parent’s die it’s up to the extended family to care for that child. But for these people already living well below the poverty line it becomes an impossible task.
So I asked our partners what they would do.
One Ugandan pastor said, “Its not that we lack compassion . . . we just lack resources.” So together, we crafted
a strategy to begin 10 Forgotten Children Centers across northern Uganda. These would provide boarding school educations for over 500 children.
We also started the Vocational Center. These children who had spent years in the bush could not read or write. They came back orphans who had to do anything they could do to survive. They did not have the ability to have what they needed most for their futures, an education and learned trade.
Since that day we have graduated 750 former child soldiers and child mothers. Some of the past graduates came back and told of their success stories. I watched as Liberty students broke down in tears listening to these amazing stories.
Each graduate receives the tools of their trade so they can immediately work for themselves. These are sewing and welding machines as well as other trade supplies. In fact, last year several of the child mothers graduates formed a co-op and received a government contract to make all of the school uniforms for all of Gulu.
These graduates had dignity, self-esteem, confidence, and hope. Many of the mothers graduated with babies in their laps that had been fathered by rebel soldiers. The past 5 years we have also built 52 Homes of Hope throughout Uganda for children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and the civil war. Most of these homes consist of 12 children and a caregiver.
Since that first visit 5 years ago we have impacted 5,000 children. Their lives have been changed forever.
As I watched these young graduates beam with pride, I thought to myself, what would have happened if that Liberty University student had not asked me to watch that video or if Josh didn’t tell me that we had to do something?
But the biggest joy of all that day was when we saw 17-year-old Moses riding in on his bicycle and wearing his school uniform. Josh, Moses and I had a wonderful reunion. He’s a senior in high school and will be attending college for a degree in business. Just 5 years before he was an unwilling, traumatized killer.
Because of that Liberty student and my son Josh and so many others, these children are no longer invisible and they are certainly not forgotten. The war and kidnappings that destroyed so many lives has been replaced with hope in Jesus and in a better future.