My friend Joanna

As promised, here is the story of Joanna.
I (Lorenda) met Joanna while working at Watoto’s Babies’ home. She arrived in early May and planned to work with Watoto for five months and then she was going to work with Youth for Christ at their home for pregnant teens. Because of the timing of her arrival, my sister-in-law, Tanya and all three of our kids got to know Joanna as well. So here’s the story- I am trying to edit it down, but I don’t want to miss any exciting details so this may be a VERY long post with links and an amazing video at the end!
One morning I was sitting at my desk and Greg calls and asks if I want to go to Suubi children’s village with him. My first thought was “Why on earth would I want to drive out to Suubi and turn around and drive back?” But for some reason I decided to go along. Greg was already out on Buganda Road (street behind the church)- he was already on his way and for some reason he decided to call and ask me to go along. Little did we know that there was going to be a huge “God moment”- or more like “God hour” when we got there.  As we arrived at the metal fabrication shop at Suubi, there was Joanna. I hadn’t sat down and talked to Joanna for quite some time so I was eager to find out what was new in her life- boy, was I in for a big, long, exciting adventure.
A couple of months ago, Joanna decided to go to a dance competition at The Miracle Center. Most of the dance groups were youth groups from various churches, but there was one group that stood out- so much better than all the other groups. Joanna came to find out that they were street kids and God planted in her a desire to know more and to meet these kids. Through a friend she got connected to Cyrus- the young man that works with these kids. He agreed to take her to the slum so she could see where these kids live.
But how did Cyrus get connected with these kids, you ask. Three or four years ago Cyrus had a dream one night. In the dream he saw a slum area of Kampala, then he saw a specific building and behind that building, a bathroom (outhouse). In that building was huddled six children and God told him the name of each of the children- Sharon, Beatrice- sorry I don’t remember all the names, but Cyrus did. The next morning he got up and said to a friend, I need to find these kids and off he went. God led him to that slum, to the building and to the bathroom behind the building. He opened the door and there was six children huddled inside. He said to them, “You are Sharon, you are Beatrice…” and named each one of them by name. The children asked, “How do you know who we are? No one knows who we are. We are no one to anybody. No one knows our name.” Cyrus told them, “God knows your name.” The kids asked, “Who is God?” Cyrus told them, “I am going to show you.”
Cyrus took these six children home to live with him in his very humble dwelling. Cyrus too lived in a slum as a child and got money by dancing on the street- that was the only skill he knew so he taught it to the kids. Then the kids started to tell him about other kids who live in the slum so he would go back to the slum and teach all the kids to dance so they could earn money. There are now 46 children, but Cyrus did not have room to house anymore than the original six. The others slept in the “homes” of people from Cyrus’ church, but the families did not have food to feed an extra mouth. The children learned to dance to earn money to pay their school fees (sometimes they had enough to pay school fees) and some very basic food-posho (corn flour and water cooked together).
Now back to Joanna- she meets Cyrus and the kids (who immediately fall in love with her) and she knows that she has to be involved in some way so she starts to pray and seek the Lord for what her involvement is to be. God reveals to her that she needs to rent a house for Cyrus and the kids to live in so they begin the search for a suitable home. They finally narrowed it down to two homes- one that Joanna preferred (but was a long walk from the school) and one that was nearer to the school. Joanna spoke with Cyrus and he said that they should take the one nearer the school- even though she wasn’t completely settled, she agreed and went to bed.
The next morning Cyrus called and said, “No, we need the other house.” Why, you ask? These children have been praying for a house ever since Cyrus started working with them- these kids have such incredible faith. Cyrus and Joanna had not discussed any of the house stuff with the kids- I don’t think the kids even knew that Joanna was planning to rent them a house at this point. On that morning, one of the boys said to Cyrus, “God is so good. He has shown me our house.” Cyrus asked what he was talking about and the boy described the house in detail- the exterior colour, the interior layout and colour, the other buildings in the compound, the trees and plants that were growing in the compound. He described EXACTLY the house that Joanna thought they were to have!
So Joanna heads off that day to go and meet with the home owner- up until that point she had only been meeting with a real estate type person. As soon as Joanna met her, the woman started to cry and told her that she too had a dream the night before (lots of dreams going on!). The homeowner had dreamed that a Mzungu lady who was going to do great things was coming to rent her home!
When they told the kids about the house, they were so excited and were praising God. THEN- they took the kids to see the house. They were running from room to room screaming in excitement. NONE of them had ever seen a shower before- they were standing in the bathtub screaming and singing into the shower head because they didn’t know what it was for.
One twelve year old boy came up to Joanna and said, “I am so glad that I have never had a home before. If I had then I wouldn’t appreciate this one so much.” If that statement doesn’t humble each one of us, I don’t know what will!
I had planned to shorten up the story to fit into a one day blog, but that is impossible! God is in the details and that is certainly the case in this story- I don’t want you to miss out on any of the details. So we will continue with this story tomorrow…