Comfy?

I learned long ago that in our Christian walk, we are not supposed to be comfortable. When we get too “comfy” that means that we are not growing and learning. It is not a good place to be, but sometimes it is where we think we should be.
God has really not allowed us to be comfortable for a very long time. He has continued to challenge us repeatedly. As we learn one thing, there is something else that we need to know. Even things that we thought we knew, then God teaches us something new about it or takes us to a whole new level of understanding on that topic. Today was another one of those days for me (Lorenda).
Uganda has a history that includes a brutal war that raged in northern Uganda for over 25 years. Most of us in North America knew nothing about it until groups like Invisible Children started making us aware of the situation. Many thousands of children had to walk every night to find a safe place to sleep where they would not be kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  They were called “night commuters” and at the height of the war it was estimated that 52,000 children were commuting nightly. If they were abducted, children were forced to be child soldiers or many of the girls were forced to be “wives” for the leaders of the LRA. Prior to coming to Uganda the first time, we had done a lot of reading and research about the war.
On our visit to Uganda in 2012, we built a classroom in northern Uganda at the Watoto children’s village. We stood on the very ground where many bloody battles took place. It was a very overwhelming experience to stand on that ground knowing the atrocities that had taken place there. It was a whole new level that we could not reach by reading and researching.
On that visit I also had the privilege to meet an incredible woman who shared her experience of living in northern Uganda. She was an amazing, joy filled woman even though her entire family had been wiped out by the LRA. She told me that the war had to happen to cause people to turn to Christ. I cried many times as I thought about her story and all that she had been through- another step deeper.
The boy that we sponsor was actually born while his parents were in captivity of the LRA. He managed to escape when he was around six years old and somehow got himself from South Sudan to Gulu because he had heard his parents talk about Gulu and he knew someone there would help him. Each person's story is unique and I thought I was beginning to understand more about the war.
I have spent a lot of time with many people who lived in northern Uganda throughout the war. However, until today, I had never sat down and spoken with someone who was a night commuter. This beautiful young woman was born into a family where she was one of eleven children. The war started when she was one year old so she would be tied on her mother’s back as the other children walked with their mother to find a safe place to sleep at night. As she got older, she learned that she needed to walk every night to find a safe place to sleep and then get up in the morning to walk back to the village to go to school. I thought I knew a lot about the war in northern Uganda, but hearing it from her perspective was a whole new, overwhelming experience. As I sat there with tears running down my face, she said, “If you came to my village, you would really cry.”
Unfortunately, despite her mother’s best efforts to do all she could to keep her family safe, her husband and seven of her children were killed by the LRA. As a parent, I cannot even begin to get my head around that. Even after being here three times (this time for an extended period), I realize more and more everyday that I really have no idea what it is like for the people here.