Micah Center in Biloxi, Walt Disney World, Gulu... My last three weeks have been something great and not without these worlds colliding. Most people who read this blog are used to everyone over the age of 14 having a $600 iPhone and 14 might be too old as primary school children are not asking, begging for new phones. Occasionally those with the cell phones collide with those without, it is never a happy experience.
Story 1. A high school kid is told not to bring her cell phone to a homeless shelter and she complies, but somehow that afternoon after meeting another high school friend she brings her phone to swap numbers and probably pictures and probably 5 more things that an old guy does not know about. Some guy with too little takes the phone when seeing it on a chair. An hour of tears and sadness and thanks to electronics we get the phone back. The kid who brought the phone is a great kid who made a mistake, the man who took it also a mistake. And to be fair to our student a lot of her tears were of regrets and embarrassment. She spent a week helping those with too little and did a great job. A good cop helped us get the phone back. Another cop said, "You should go nowhere near the homeless shelter, those people are thieves, liars, drug addicts and the worst people in the world." After we got the phone back, I asked to talk to the 2 young students who witnessed this whole story. I have a different story to tell, " The people that come to the Micah Center are troubled, they have made mistakes, and will make more mistakes, but we believe they still need our love and support, our help, and our prayers. That is why we drive 10 hours each year, because we believe in a different story."
Story 2.. I had a wonderful time celebrating my parents' 60th anniversary in Orlando. One of the days we spent in Epcot, where all of the people visiting talk like they are actually in different countries. "We love Mexico." "There is a fun restaurant in Germany" "Let's go the pub in England." Here is what I would love to see in EPCOT, a real world trade-off exhibit. You could have a coke in Uganda, if you spend the next 7 hours working in the sun to earn it. Or you could have 5 potato chips in India if you spent two hours mopping the bathroom. The India story is a guess, but I know two Ugandans, my friends, intelligent and bright young men, who are happy in their new jobs and will earn about 124,000/= (ugandan shillings) this month that is less than $40 dollars for a month of work. I will try to help them with something before I leave, but . . .it will be too little.
Story 3. This story is very similar to the first story. A Surface tablet was taken from a friend on the bus from Kampala to Gulu. A thief, maybe with too little, maybe not, took it. I jumped on the bus after several other attempts to find it and pleaded with a whole bus load of Ugandans to please return it. I told them it meant a lot to my friend. It did not work, the thief still has it. The Ugandans on the bus responded differently, and I really do not know for sure because they were talking in Lwo. Some were sad and ashamed that this could happen and maybe some were perplexed because in their whole life had nothing even close to the value of this small tablet, I was discouraged also because, I pretty much looked into all of the faces on the bus, and the one I wanted to respond did not. They had too little in most of our world, a Surface tablet is too much. There was not a good ending to Story 1 or Story 2. But Story 3 has people in it, people who had shared a classroom, and had shared a laugh, they had struggled together to write stories and solve math problems. Like myself and many of you who have seen different parts of the world, know we have too much. I think if you asked the person who lost her Surface she would agree. After we settled in and talked to the Priest, the teacher with too much walked down a path, heads turned of a group of girls preparing for their studies. The first student with too little came running down the path and embraced her teacher with a hug of joy and so much good laughter. The teacher hugged each girl and greeted them by name, although they had been apart for 10 months, their joy and their embraces erased that time, and they now stood shoulder to shoulder jumping up and down. Then another girl in a bright red sweater with several tears in it came flying down the path with arms open like she could reach the 50 feet between her and her teacher. Hayley and I joined our friend as the walk continued and 5 boys greeted their old teacher with shrugs. The teacher was explaining to us the difference between boys and girls, when a group of Senior 4 boys cam running up the path to greet their beloved Madam. One boy with too little stayed behind and he was fidgeting with something. He walked up and said, "Madam, this is for you." He extended his hand a gave her a small stick that he had used to pierce 5 leaves. This "flower" was quite simply ......too ______
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