It Takes a Village

You’ve heard the saying it takes a village to raise a child.

Well, in Uganda that is certainly a common mentality.

And it is a definite reality with The Shepherd Center.

In fact, we are a part of the village taking in these boys, coming alongside their families, finding a way to bring them into adulthood in a way that they couldn’t manage on their own.

But, we in turn need their families as well.

A while ago, the TSC staff organized a day to work in a field, and we recruited our boys’ moms, aunts, & grandmas to help us out.

I’m not good at estimating distances, so you’ll have to just imagine the size….but trust me it was much bigger than your family garden in the back yard.

We decided to plant beans, but first we need to dig up the soil that was overgrown.  No rototiller for us.  We had one man with a metal slasher (piece of thin metal about an inch wide and probably 2 1/2 feet long, bent at the end, with a handle) who cut down the overgrowth.  Along with our staff, several women walked in, each with a hoe on her shoulder.  We started out with about 10 of us, and ended up with over 25 hardworking people.

Those of us with hoes made a line, each person standing just a couple of feet away from her neighbor.  Slowly by slowly we lifted those hoes above our heads, and let them chop up the ground.  Some ladies had their babies tied to their backs, while others had sat their children down on a cloth in the already-hacked-up dirt.

When I showed up with my own hoe, the few ladies who had already gathered couldn’t quite believe what they saw.  Not to mention, I’d just created a bit of a commotion as I’d walked past some shops and people saw where I was headed with my garden tool.  Throughout the morning as more of our boys’ family members joined the line, they first stopped to marvel at the American woman who was barefoot in the dirt and hoisting a hoe into the air and slicing the earth.

I had wanted to join the work that day.  Afterall, I’m a part of these boys’ village.  So, I put my back and sweat into it.

Before you get too impressed with my manual labor in a Ugandan field, know that I did not last nearly as long as all those hardworking women.  Maybe I tried a little too hard to keep up with their years of experience within one day.  I don’t know, but I’m telling you, the next day I could hardly move!  Even so, it was a great day of working side by side.

Now we wait for those beans…

At The Shepherd Center we are so thankful that our village is bigger than our neighborhood, the town of Kabale, or even all of Uganda.  Our village is global.  We have supporters and friends in the USA, Australia, Germany, England, and more!  And YOU are a part of that.

Whether you pray for us, occasionally give financial gifts, sponsored a child, visit us, or something else, YOU are a part of our village!  We need your efforts, encouragement, and support in helping us to raise these children.

As always, let us know if you want to know how to become an even more active member of our village.