Arrow Boys

This Sunday I went to church with Harriet, and at one point the pastor prayed asking God several times to have mercy on Uganda, and it got me to thinking more about what I've seen and learned since coming here. Over the past couple of weeks the biggest market in Kampala burned, a school also burned, and a couple buildings have collapsed. The thing that I thought the most about was the fact that the pastor asked God to end the bloodshed in Uganda, and a chorus of "amens" sounded throughout the church. How strange, I thought. I've never heard that prayed in my church at home.

For over twenty years now, northern Uganda has suffered from one of Africa's longest-running conflicts as a guerilla army known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has battled the Ugandan government in an attempt to take control of the country. The LRA has been widely accused of murder, rape, mutilation, sexual enslavement and forcing children to become soldiers and join the fighting. In fact, I've been told that abduction is the only recruitment tool of the LRA. Why would anyone freely choose to join?

Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm fine - the fighting has just been taking place in the north and the LRA has actually moved to neighboring Congo and Sudan - but still, the evidences of war are not hard to spot. People are weary of war; they talk about it in church. Harriet herself is actually from the north, and she was just telling me today about how difficult it was to be treated differently by the other kids in school because she was one of those kids, the ones from the war zone.

Before going to Kaberamaido last month, though, I did not expect to hear war stories there. I was surprised to find that the area had been under attacks and insurgencies by the LRA for at least three unsettling years, until early 2007. Though the threat from the rebels has been gone for two years now, people in Kaberamaido still count those insurgencies as one of the main causes of their current problems. People were driven out of their homes; some were killed. Survivors returned home to find their possessions looted and their property taken.

To counter these attacks, young men and boys were recruited to form a group called the "Arrow Boys" which would protect villages from the LRA. These were not professional soldiers, but they were trained to fight and some even sacrificed their lives protecting their homes. When Harriet and I were in Kaberamaido we met with a group of Arrow Boys and some widows whose husbands were killed in action. As is common here, we met under the shade of a tree and they shared with us the struggles they have faced since returning home - some with no property, some with no education. Many left school to join the group, and they were not able to finish their education upon returning. Now they want help with their education. They want skills to help them make a living, such as carpentry, brick laying and driving. They would like a grinding machine for their maize. They want hope, and I want to offer it to them.

I'm just not sure how. What a challenge it is to have so many needs and limited resources. With each day that passes I am realizing more and more about my limitations, and it is humbling. I don't know yet how we may engage with the Arrow Boys, and if I'm honest with myself I have to think that it probably won't mean getting them a grinding machine. But I do pray that God will open up a way for us to be involved with them in some way and to offer them a tangible sense of the hope that we have in Christ.

Who knows, though, maybe a grinding machine will pop up somewhere along the way!

"When wars end and swords are at last beaten into ploughshares, what happens to the children who were beaten into warriors?" -Ben Kilpatrick