Not From Her Own Surplus

“It's okay! It's good! Just jump!” Our guide, Tom, was telling Jon to jump off a small rocky cliff, into the base of the 9 foot falls, running into stream below. I watched the narrow cold mountain river swirling at the bottom of the falls, the current dragging on through rocks and curves downstream. I love this type of adventure back home – leaping off rock ledges into rivers, riding rapids – here I shuffled my feet a bit more and hesitated. All that was coming to mind, as I watched Jon pace the ledge, was those videos of African initiations into a tribe. I've seen the structures they build, of branches and logs nailed up 200 feet high, in some sort of homemade fashion – then they lead their potential group member onto the top of the platform and get them to “bungee jump” off with only a twine tied to their ankles. Not safe. No, don't do it. Bad idea. Structure + twine = unstable. I glanced at the place where the falls landed – narrow, and who knows how deep - saw the stream running below...and thought just about that video clip. Not safe. No, don't do it. And Jon took one last hesitated glance...and jumped. The river gurgled for a moment, and all we saw was the foam. Then he came up, gasping. “N-o-o rocks! It was good!” I leaped up. Perfect.

It did take your breath away, but it was exhilarating – all of this land was. When most of us had made a run, leap and plunge into the river (multiple times) we continued on the beautiful mountain trails, past more streams, stopping under more Falls (these ones were 50-100 feet), climbing through empty caves where the Ugandans used to live over 100 years ago. The rock ceilings were black with the smoke of their fires.

“We had to move out, because the people from the North were stealing our cows while we were in the caves. So the tribes begin building huts on the land, and growing more food...like bananas and coffee beans.” the guide explained. Many of them continued to live in this way. We passed many grass roof huts with kids playing outside, and men and women picking red “cherries” off the coffee plants, in rows by their homes. (The “cherry” is the outside fruit that contains the two coffee beans inside).

Stunning

Above Sipi Falls

Through the Forest

One of the volunteers had just come from visiting her sponsor child in another town of Uganda. She is with Compassion, an organization who selects some of the poorest children, enabling them to attend school and a weekly program, funded through a monthly donation from their sponsor. Walking through the mountains, and by so many huts with children outside in tattered clothing, it was difficult to realize that although there are so many sponsors, so many more are needed. And sponsors, I found, could come from unlikely places...

She is a widow, and raising two children on her own. “Julie” is a tall and thin Ugandan woman - a hardworker at Noah's Ark hotel. She was there when we went to bed at night, and arrived early in the morning for our breakfast to be on the tables. Whenever I saw her, she was always smiling and asking how we were doing. Today, she was bringing us through the production of coffee. As we picked the cherries from the tree and dropped them into the bucket, we asked questions, and her story unfolded little by little:

Julie

Julie has worked as a chef at the hotel, for 17 years, to support herself and her young ones, yet helps run a small coffee plantation on the side, with nine other widows. Some of these widows have children of their own, whom they need to support with coffee sales. However, it isn't only their own children they support. They'd started using any extra of their earnings to help orphans in the community. Over time, they'd built two grass huts for them, and fully supported 16 children, buying them uniforms and sending them to school. Julie and these nine widows, didn't work dawn until dusk to merely feed themselves, but used everything extra they could and couldn't spare, to give every last bit to young ones with no parents.

“We are working to one day buy a coffee grinder!” She said smiling through deep breaths. She was pounding down the coffee beans with an old and well-used mortar and pestle. “It would be good to make more coffee, quicker, so we can sell more!” It was clear that some of their own needs they had put aside, while reaching out to the orphans.

“You hope to support more children?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“How much is the coffee grinder you are all saving for?” Lauren spoke up.

She had seen them for 600K at the store in Kampala – that was 240$ Canadian. That was her dream – an item that would help production, in order to provide basic living to themselves, while house and educate those without.

Coffee we roasted right on site

Not only did these ten widows give away a part of her own needs in life for others, they gave away any extra of what they could have had, to give a better life to those who had nothing. I watched the beans, now roasting in a dented, worn out pan over the fire, and thought of the widow Christ had once so highly acknowledged:

“And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.” Mark 13:41-44

I couldn't help but think we were sitting right in front of this widow.

Julie wasn't giving to others from any surplus she held, rather giving all she had to live on, for the cause of others. It was easy for me to come from a rich country, give a percentage of what I had to a good organization, give part of my time to help others who have had less in life, but Julie had gotten something right – She wasn't waiting for donations and sponsors, she wasn't waiting until she got a job promotion, she wasn't waiting for extra money that probably wouldn't come. She wasn't waiting until her basic life would be comfortable, and moreover, she could give comfortably. The needs wouldn't wait. She understood the concept of caring for others, even at the expense of her own comfort. I don't know if she ever had hesitated, but she had seen the rivers currents that held so much risk, weighed the need and taken the jump.

Julie and I. Homemade coffee!