If You’re Looking For God, You’ll Find Him in Uganda

By Lee B. Mulder

Of course, God is everywhere but I’ve never seen Him more clearly than I have in Uganda, East Africa.
You’ll find many examples of God’s hand at work in my book entitled They Call Me Mzee: One Man’s Safari into Brightest Africa released in November of last year but the one thing that strikes me most about this place is how much people rely on their faith every hour of every day. Faith here is as vital to people as air and food and water. Orphan kids often in child-headed families struggling to survive day to day can exist on one meal every other day but they wither and die if they give up the belief that a great and loving God is with them.
Over the last 25 years, many Westerners have been broken by what they have discovered in Uganda. Lynne Hybels, Bill’s wife at Willow Creek Community Church prayed with orphans and initiated a worldwide awareness campaign of their plight. Kay Warren, Rick’s wife at Saddleback Church still bursts into tears from what she discovered in Uganda a decade ago. In his book A Hole in Our Gospel, Rich Stearns describes how, on his first trip to Uganda as the new President of World Vision, his heart was completely broken when meeting orphan kids in a mud hut in Rakai.
The true realization of God’s grace is what happens when an orphan child, lost and hopeless, is given good food, a safe place to live, a loving home environment, the opportunity to go to school and access to the Word of God. These are not difficult things to provide. But time and again, I have seen a sullen-faced waif with a runny nose and glassy eyes, dressed in rags and listless, turn into a vibrant, bright-eyed child with big hopes for a bright future, in a matter of months.
God is in this scene.
In showing us the needy child, He presents us with an opportunity to do His will, to be His hands and heart, to use the resources He has given us to help one of our own. To the child, we are very clearly the answer to prayer and God. Over time, we watch as the blessing we bestowed on a child is multiplied into blessings for others while, at the same time, we are blessed by and inspired by the relationship we have with the child God has called us to rescue.
Come to Uganda with me in the pages of my book. Then let’s go together. God is waiting for us there.

 

 

Lee B. Mulder has been a writer and photographer for more than four decades. Raised in Chicago, he earned a Journalism degree at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Mulder helped found Juna Amagara Ministries (www.amagara.org) in Uganda, East Africa in 2004 and remains active with his work there. Today he divides his time between his family in Chicago and his family in Uganda. Catch up on the latest stories from Uganda at his blog: http://ugandatoday.typepad.com.