Psalm 28: 7 “The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.”
My husband and I were given this unbelievable blessing to go to Uganda to introduce Umbrella Ministries to hurting moms. It was a gift given to us by a generous person who saw a need and filled that need. We both are filled with gratitude for the many lessons we gleaned from this experience.
The women of Uganda taught me so much about faith in God. These are physically strong women in tiny bodies and women who are courageous in what they face each and every day. I found them to be most kind and appreciative in anything they received. I felt I had traveled back in time. A time when women were undervalued and blamed for all that goes wrong, even when it comes to the death of a child.
In Ecclesiastes 3:4 we are told that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. When we mourn, we take the internal feelings of grief and express them outside of ourselves. We mourn because we have loved and been loved. In Uganda, women are basically given one week to mourn and then they must put their heads down, shut their hearts off, and get on with the tasks at hand. Some of this is cultural, but I believe it is also driven by necessity. There is so much loss and there is also so much to do.
In these small villages the women is the worker. The family depends on her for everything. She does not have the luxury to mourn. So everything gets pushed down and grief is ignored. Often times her grief is ignored because they are often blamed for the death of their child. Many of these women when they marry, leave their villages and relocate to their husband’s family. When a mother has lost a child, many times the husband’s family will instruct him to leave this wife and find a new wife. You see this child must have died because the mother is evil. I heard this story over and over. Some were shunned from the whole village because they had lost a child. So where do these women go? Many become single mothers with no land or income. This is where the churches and missionaries are trying to help the best they can.
While I was in Uganda I held three days of conferences in two villages. I was told by Americans who have lived among these people that these women would probably not share their stories with me; it was culturally foreign to them. My plan was to share my story about the loss of my seventeen year old daughter Katie. I was hoping after I shared my loss and how important it is for us to mourn that these women would trust me enough to share with me their loss. On the first day of the first conference I had no idea what my plan would be after I told my story especially if they were not comfortable in sharing their stories. I reluctantly asked the question, “Is there anyone here who would like to share their stories with us?” There were 24 women each staring blankly at me and instantly a panic came over me. How in the world was I going to fill the next seven hours if no one was willing to share? In my head I prayed, “Okay ,Lord, now what?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny older woman stand up and slowly come forward. She proceeded to share her story of how she lost her husband and daughter both to HIV. She too also has HIV because of her husband’s unfaithfulness. She also shared how after the loss of her husband, his family took her house and land and sent her packing with three kids and no income. My heart broke for her as tears came streaming down out of her tired and sad eyes. The flood gates opened and as I listened to the next 23 ladies speak, you could see a release of pain slowly leaving their hearts. I will tell you the same was true at the next conference where 97 women attended. So much pain dammed up and they just needed someone to give them permission to grieve, and they did. They mourned and then they danced.
I witnessed women who have every right to be downtrodden and broken. They worshiped the Lord like I have never seen worship before. They used drums, clapped and danced with every part of their bodies, all with smiles on their faces. As I stood and watched these broken women praise and worship the Lord, I realized I was seeing women who truly lived each day depending on the Lord for everything. You see, these women have nothing else to cling to but the promises of the Lord. The promise of a future and a hope, the promise that God is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and the Lord is their strength and shield: and their hearts trust in Him. They believe in God’s character – he is who he says he is and they believe in his promises -- he will do what he says. These women showed me how the joy of the Lord is their strength.
– Michele
