3A Blog — poverty

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Pastor Charles Bameka, who is a Lutheran pastor in Kampala, Uganda, and surrounding villages. Charles himself has an amazing story. He was born and raised in Uganda, very poor. He was able to get an education and get a good paying job. He quit his job to become a pastor. Charles does amazing work all throughout southern Uganda. But, this post is not about Charles. Charles told us the story of a street kid in Jinja, Uganda. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, street kids are typically young, orphaned children. They...

The hotel that I stayed at in Jinja, Uganda, had a business center. The business center consisted of 5 or so PC’s with internet access. For a small fee per minute, you could get online. A few of us would head down there each morning to check our email and send our families a quick note. The first day I was there, I headed down to use the computer. When I was done, I went to pay my fee. The woman running the business center told me my fee was 50 shillings.  That’s about two cents. Since it was our...

Prior to visiting Uganda in January, 2010, I had no idea what the ‘water crisis’ was. I can truthfully say I had never thought about the 1 billion people on this earth without access to clean water. I literally thought that if a village didn’t have indoor plumbing, they headed down to the river and grabbed some water when they needed it. I had no idea the water they got, they often times walked 4 miles for. Or that the water they are getting has the potential to kill them. Or that it’s often little girls going to fetch water....

My wife would absolutely love to know the inner workings of my brain. In fact, I’m quite sure numerous people would. It’s always been extremely difficult to read me and figure out what I just may be thinking. Now, add in my trip to Uganda in January 2010. I think some things get more clearly defined and others get even more obfuscated. The one thing that seems to hold a constant place in my mind is the people of Uganda. The images that I saw driving through that country. The people that I met. The video reel that plays over...

I need your help. I need to sell some coffee. A lot of coffee. Why? Two reasons. First, there are people in Africa that you’ve never met, that I’ve never met, that are in pain. They hurt. Physically and emotionally. There are orphans, widows, and babies being born with AIDS. There are children that can’t be fed. There are children getting sick and dying from drinking the very water they must drink in order to live. We can’t ignore them. We can’t pretend they don’t exist. At least I can’t. Second, my heart aches to help these people. To give...