Please explain to me why one would want to deal with three airports — waiting, running and riding for roughly 24 hours, sleeping only briefly.

Or ride an old bus with a very hard seat, cramped between luggage for five hours, over roads that were often not paved and often painful to bump across!

Or travel to an area where you check into the hotel and the room is suddenly dark — no electricity — and there is only a stream of cold water for your shower.

Or sit down to a breakfast of very hard fried eggs, untoasted bread (the electricity is off again), much too strong coffee and funny-tasting orange juice.

Then you ride another hour or so over a rutty dirt road to a remote village way back in the country. There are no electricity poles anywhere, your cell phone is dead, it is hot, and food you cannot identify is ready for lunch.

And the bathrooms … well, those take you back to the days of your great-grandmother!

After all this, you begin the adventure of a lifetime — and the most wonderful missions experience of your life. After a week and a half, you feel God has really blessed you with His greatness by allowing you to experience life in Uganda.

We’re not in America anymore

We arrived in Uganda, tired and dirty and late into the evening. It was dark, and we piled into a bus, which was too little to handle us and all the things we had brought. We traveled another six hours over main roads of dirt and some pavement to the city of Kumi, where we found our hotel with nice, clean rooms. We were ready to get a shower and be tucked in, but just after we got in the room, the electricity went out. I tried to take a shower; the water was cold and only a little stream, but it felt so good to have the tiny stream run over my tired and sore body, even though I could not find the soap in the dark. Then to bed, where I felt like a princess with a net around my bed to keep the mosquitos out.

I was assigned a wonderful roommate, Florence, who worked for the Hands of Kindness children’s ministry and for Michael Okwakol, pastor of Agape Baptist Church in Kampala. She was a wonderful young lady who serves God in everything she does. The next morning, the beautiful sun welcomed the day. Breakfast consisted of buttered bread, coffee, fruit, and several other items that I did not venture to try.

We got on the bus for a long, bumpy ride down a red dirt, rutty road. We encountered sights I never believed could exist in the modern world. Soon the power lines stopped, and there were little villages of round huts made of brownish red bricks with roofs of palm branches. Kids with tattered clothes waved at the bus as it went by, and we saw people hoeing vegetables or plowing with cows. There were chickens running wild, along with an occasional cow or pig along the side of the road. Occasionally there was a village store or a well with a hand pump, where people with big yellow plastic containers were getting their clean water for the day.

We finally arrived at our location, the village where we were going to have Bible school, and a crowd of barefoot children and adults met us with funny sounds and waving arms. They knew we were coming, and they knew they would have our full attention and love and, just maybe, some special things the Americans had brought.

The children and their leaders lined up and began a program of songs to welcome us. They had learned one song in English, and the others were in their village language of Ateso. Our group soon began to play soccer with them — with a new ball that had air in it. The children yelled and laughed as they kicked the ball with their bare feet and tried to get it to their friends.

I found a chair and set up my paints and began to let the children enjoy a new experience of face-painting — blues, purples, yellows — making butterflies, pink-and-white flowers, red hearts, red-and-blue hot rod cars and super trucks, spiders and lions, dogs and cats. As the soft paintbrush touched their little faces with colorful paint, a look in the mirror brought a big smile and frequently a hug by a dirty child in a ragged dress or shorts. Soon I had lines of kids eagerly awaiting their turns. This was the scene each day: many kids surrounding my chair within minutes after they were released from a nearby school; they lined up or huddled around, begging to be next for the treat. The last day, I only painted a heart or a flower on about 300 of them. As the bus started pulling out, I left a group of children — a lot happy, and some disappointed. My heart was broken because I wanted to stay just a bit longer and experience the love and appreciation poured out by these wonderful, beautiful children who were happy and proud of their painted faces and hands.

Sharing the gospel one life at a time

Some of our group read them stories about Jesus and the teaching in our Bible. They gave their full attention and asked questions about God’s love. They sat on the ground eagerly listening. One day when we ran out of things to do, we offered to take them on a lion hunt, a game where you take the kids on a long walk and look along the way for a scary lion. These kids looked at us like we were crazy, because they knew what a lion was and did not want anything to do with a lion, but we convinced them to join us in a nice, long walk through a field near the well in some trees and bushes. When they got back in front of one of the huts, one of the men jumped out with a lion roar, and they laughed and ran quickly.

My second-best experience started weeks before we went on the trip. I drew a coloring book and wrote a story, “Timothy, Grace and Me,” about God’s love and the “salvation beads.” I illustrated each bead’s meaning with pictures. We gave each child a box of crayons along with the book. We also had a small bag for each child, with a black, red, white, blue, green and yellow bead and a piece of colored plastic string to make a salvation necklace. They could take the book and crayons home with them for the parents or caretakers to read and share with them. These were truly happy children who had never had a box of crayons, a necklace or a story and coloring book.

We gave them dolls — many made by our church, Berea First Baptist of Greenville. We gave them flip-flops, and we had some clothing. There was a rush of probably 300 children when we were giving out these items. They were begging for every item, and most were barefoot; many of their clothes had holes and no buttons. If we did not have clothes, we sewed on buttons and patched holes with our small sewing kits. They are really desperate for clothing. We also gave them toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Others in the group with medical experience worked with the children, who had absolutely no medical supplies. They worked with over 600 at a school and, on the last day, the medical group gave attention to the children at our village. Many had only scratches and wanted the attention of a Band-Aid. Others had problems that we could not treat adequately, but many got some kind of medication for scratches, sores and hurts and, most of all, love and attention from caring people who had come to be their friends.

Another wonderful group checked eyes and gave eye drops and reading glasses to people who could not see to read. One lady walked for about seven miles to get a pair of glasses so she could read her Bible again. Eyes were checked by several in our group who had been trained to use a simple eye chart hanging on a tree. As you gave them the glasses and they could see improvement, a smile would appear. We gave out all the eye drops for a couple of days and bought all the pharmacy in the village had in stock, and people were still begging for them. Many had red and swollen eyes and no way to travel to get anything. We helped as many as possible.

Most of the men in our group constructed bunk beds and desks to be used in a new dorm that is being built. Little boys were so interested that they helped as the wood was sawed and screws inserted. They had never even seen a bed, much less slept in one. Many of the children live with a mother, a grandmother or anyone who might care for them in a small dirt-floor hut made of brick and dried branches for a roof. Some have mats to sleep on, and other just sleep on the ground. At the mission site, they were fed each day a rice- or other locally grown wheat-based meal with broth and a bit of chicken or goat meat and some cabbage or greens. The food was cooked in one of the huts over an open fire by three ladies. They lined up to get their hands washed with water from a big yellow plastic jug, and the food was dipped out of the big pots into plastic bowls. The children sat on the ground and ate with their hands. They were very hungry, and this was the only meal many of them got each day.

Children do not always get to school because of rain or having to care for smaller children. Some of the children about 6 or 7 years old were carrying their little brothers or sisters around with them all day — beautiful children who were very wet if you took them in your arms (no diapers).

Many of these children need someone to sponsor them through Hands of Kindness children’s ministry (www.handsofkindnesschildren.com) with a small amount of money each month. If you wish, you can sponsor a needy child with a small amount per month. We have pictures of the children who need to be sponsored. With this money, their school expenses are paid, and they receive needed school supplies and uniforms.

At this time, Hands of Kindness children’s ministry is trying to complete a children’s center. This will be a place where children can receive encouragement through tutors, meals for the hungry, and even a bed for those who have nowhere to lay their head at night. Hands of Kindness is working to raise the $12,000 needed to complete the project.

A challenge to serve

If we do not go to these mission fields as ambassadors with kindness and love and teach them about our faith, who will they turn to? God gave me an opportunity to serve the people with love and kindness and has given me a talent as an artist to do very special things for His service. Along the way, He blessed me most of all with appreciation for a remote village in Uganda. I so appreciated their wonderful spirits and a chance to serve God.

— Alice Peace is a senior adult and a member of Berea First Baptist Church in Greenville.