Kings, Queens and Tragedy

***This is a long blog, but it's a story that radically impacted my life regarding the trials of living as an orphan. I believe that God wants our hearts to break for the orphans in our world, and He used this situation to work that in my heart in ways I never thought possible. Don't let the length deter you, I don't think you will regret being submersed in the life of two orphan girls for a few minutes :) ***

I woke up to the sound of an obnoxious bird screaming outside my window. On any other Saturday I would have been annoyed that my sole opportunity to sleep in was interrupted, but today was a special day. Since arriving in Uganda, I have dreamed of putting a feast together for the children of Father’s Divine Love Ministries (FDLM), and today that dream would become a reality. I have desired to set a tangible example of the way the Father loves these orphan children, the way people who support them from the U.S. love them, and to show them in a unique way how deeply I love them. My heart was for them to know that they are worthy of other peoples’ sacrifices. I wanted them to experience how God longs to give them good things; and for them to see with their eyes that they truly are viewed as treasured, precious, and beautiful. I wanted them to feel like the princes and princesses they are as God’s children and as co-heirs with Christ, and what better and more fun way to get the message across than a royal feast? Thanks to everyone who supported me this past summer, this rare occasion was made possible.

When I walked from my room down to the courtyard of the orphanage, the children were buzzing with excitement. I had gone to the market with one of the matrons the previous evening to purchase most of the food and spices we needed. The children were already hard at work peeling matooke (plantains), cutting vegetables, and washing pots and pans.

Some of the older boys and I drove around the village to find the best price on chickens, and to pick up crates of soda. I grinned as I watched them bargain tirelessly with vendors to make sure they were getting the most amount of meat possible with our budget. As we drove around, we had a great time sharing stories and laughing together. Already, hours before even beginning the feast, they could not stop thanking me for it and saying “Thank you for loving us.”

When we arrived back at the orphanage with a trunk full of chickens, the children ran around screaming and clapping. They quickly carried them to the kitchen area and began preparing them to be cooked.

After working hard making sauces, boiling noodles, cooking a cake in the fire, and cutting cabbage, we took a break for lunch. After eating, David Livingston and I sat on the porch conversing about events of the previous week. In the middle of our conversation, he received a phone call. He answered it, spoke to the person on the other line briefly in Luganda, and then hung up. He glanced quickly at me, and then stared off into the distance. I could tell by the expression on his face that something was terribly wrong.

“Is everything OK?” I asked.

“Not really,” he replied, “It’s Joanne and Phionah’s Auntie, she…she died this morning.”

I gasped and put my hand over my mouth.

Still staring into the distance, David said, “Sometimes it seems like the challenges outweigh the opportunities.”

I thought about the implications of such a tragedy, knowing a bit of the girls’ history, and having just visited their Aunt with them in the hospital the night before.

Joanne and Phionah lost both of their parents several years ago to HIV/AIDS. After becoming orphans, it was their Aunt (who also had HIV/AIDS) that took them in and became a second mother to them. She cared for them as long as she could until she became so sick that she could no longer do so effectively. It was at this point that David Livingston brought Joanne and Phionah into the family at FDLM.

After taking a trip to the hospital last night, and after seeing their Auntie in critical condition, Joanne and Phionah at ages 11 and 12 were shaken emotionally, but did not waiver in their faith. During evening devotions they shared with the other children about the condition of their Auntie and asked for all of us to partner with them in prayer and faith, believing that she would be miraculously healed…and we did. We prayed and prayed, and believed that God would heal their Auntie from the disease threatening to take her life. There was not an ounce of doubt as we stood along side our sisters, and clung to our King.

In my room that night I lifted a desperate prayer to the Lord.

“God, these girls have lost so much…I know you are a God of miracles, I have seen you heal the sick, I believe there is no limitation to your power, and no situation too dire for you to mend…please God, save their Auntie, save them from having to experience the pain of such a loss again. Honor their faith…Lord, honor the faith of your children.”

I returned from my memories of the previous night, back to the porch. I began to try and wrap my mind around the reality of the situation. I fought to ignore the questions of “why?” that were flooding my mind. I looked at David.

“How are we going to tell them?” I asked.

“I’m still asking God for discernment on that,” David replied. “Look at them, they’re in party mode, cutting chicken with the kids…when they find out they will be on the ground…they won’t even be able to stand.”

We sat watching Joanne and Phionah talking and laughing with the other children, completely oblivious that their worlds were about to be temporarily shattered.

The day proceeded as if things were normal. We finished cooking and setting up for the Royal Feast. I had brought neon-colored pipe cleaners with me in my suitcase, and we used them to make crowns to wear to our celebration. We organized chairs in the courtyard, and created a spread of all the food we had spent the day preparing. With everyone gathered together, and smiles on every face, David and I explained the reason for our feast.

“This feast is to celebrate all of you,” I said. “To celebrate your dreams, your accomplishments, your value, and your destinies; and to remind you that you are royalty…and that you are very very loved!”

David also spoke for a little bit, we prayed over the food, and the kids got in line to fill their plates with as much food as they could pile on. It was incredible to see their plates brimming with a variety of foods that they rarely get to eat. They were beaming with joy, and overflowing with thankfulness.

I was overwhelmed to be standing in the midst of the courtyard surrounded by princes and princesses, and kings and queens. I was reminded once again how honored I am to get to spend my life focusing on God’s most treasured children. My heart was leaping with unexplainable joy, but at the same time, I could not shake the looming tragedy that would soon be unveiled.

As the feast was underway, time had run out to hold off any longer from telling Joanne and Phionah about their Auntie. David stood up once again, got everyone’s attention, and said,

“I’m sorry to have to do this now, but time has run out…Joanne and Phionah will need to have their food put in a dish they can carry, because today their Auntie went to be with Jesus…”

I was standing near Phionah and instantly she collapsed onto the ground, tears gushing down her beautiful face. I ran to her, and picked her up in my arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Joanne in the arms of Robert, one of the men who helps around the orphanage. The van had been pulled up to the gate at this point to transport us to the village where we would participate in the rituals that take place upon loosing a loved one.

My mind was in a blur as I held the hysterical girl and moved into the direction of the blinding headlights. I got to the door of the van and tried to maneuver both of us into it as Phionah screamed and fought her way away from the car, not wanting to believe that the news was true.

“No!” Phionah screamed over and over, “Mukama, no!” (God, no!).

Finally, I was able to get her into the van with Joanne. David jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the car into reverse, and began speeding towards the town of Bugembe. For the duration of the car ride, the girls were inconsolable. They threw themselves around the back seat, weeping, groaning, and crying out to God.

I was at a loss for what to do or words to say, so I grabbed hold of them and began praying. I prayed for them, I prayed for their hearts, I prayed for wisdom for David and I, I prayed for strength, I prayed for peace, and I prayed that God would make beauty from ashes. Unheard beneath the deafening screams of the girls, I whispered,

“Lord, I trust you, I know I’m here for a reason, but I desperately need your strength. I don’t understand this right now... but I trust you.”

After what seemed like hours, we pulled off the main road and up to a series of cement structures. I got out of the van and turned to help Phionah and Joanne out. I grabbed Phionah’s hand and as she stepped out of the van, her legs buckled underneath her. I caught her before she hit the ground and picked her up in my arms, while Robert carried Joanne behind me.

Silhouetted by the headlights of the van, shadowy figures swarmed around us and began directing us towards a small gap between two of the buildings. I assumed that the people were extended family and friends, and had no choice but to move with them as they grabbed at my skirt, pushed on my back, and spoke at me in Luganda.

We made our way slowly through the pitch-black alleyway. All I could think about was not loosing my footing as I carried the hysterical girl through the commotion. Once we were through the ally, we were directed to turn right. On our left was a long, rectangular hut, only about 5 feet tall with a roof made of corrugated metal. To our right was a cement building with doors to several small “houses.” The hut was lined with about 30 people crammed shoulder to shoulder on benches made of scraps of wood; their faces lit only by the light of a few kerosene lamps.

My senses were overloaded. I had no idea where we were being taken, or what we were about to walk up on. The smells of sewage, kerosene, and death pierced my nose. I could barely even hear my own thoughts and fears in the roar of the crowd’s wailing, Phionah’s screaming, and the voices still talking at me in Luganda as if I was able to decipher what they were saying. I held tight to Phionah as people put their hands on her while we pushed our way through the crowded walkway. I kept repeating under my breath,

“God, let me find your strength. I know you’re with us right now…let me find your strength. I know we’re not alone…help me find your strength. I trust you Lord…I trust you.”

We were brought to an open door on the side of the cement building. Being pushed into it from behind, I stumbled up a few steps, struggling to keep my footing. When I looked up, I tried to orient myself. We were in a tiny 8-foot by 8-foot room, lit only by a red light bulb in the corner that cast an eerie glow on the cracking cement walls. It took me a moment to see what the purpose was for us being in the room, but when the people moved from in front of us and went back out the door…Phionah and I saw her. The room was completely empty except for a banana leaf mat on the floor, with the body of their Auntie lying on top of it.

Phionah instantly threw herself on the ground and moved to the body. At this point Joanne had also been brought into the room and did the same. The two girls began climbing on the body and rubbing their hands over her face and through her hair. They wept in a way that I have never before witnessed. A kind of weeping that comes from the very depths of one’s being. The kind of weeping that comes with the realization that you are completely alone, that more so than ever you are…an orphan.

The girls began to pull away the white cloth covering her body in order to lie down next to her. I had to fight to pull them away. I wrapped an arm around the stomach of each of them and braced myself against the wall in order to hold on to them. They struggled to break my hold, but were unsuccessful; and finally after a few long minutes, Joanne and Phionah began to calm down.

They sat on the floor next to me on either side of me, with their heads on my shoulders, one arm around my back, and clasping each other’s hands in my lap. My dirt stained clothes became drenched with their tears, as they mourned the loss of their only remaining close family member on this earth.

“God, hold them as I hold them,” I whispered.

Never in my life have I seen, heard, and experienced so much pain. As I sat holding these two precious girls, so young and innocent, the strength and perhaps the shock that had held me together in the previous minutes had dissolved. As I felt the cold cement floor underneath me, Joanne and Phionah’s quivering bodies leaned on mine, and their hot tears on my skin, reality began to sink in. The hope that all of this might be a terrible dream was no longer present in my mind. The walls I had put up in an attempt to guard myself from the pain of the situation began to crumble. I could no longer distance my life and emotions from those of these two girls…I was a part of them and they were a part of me. We were not just friends, but sisters…family. I did not have the option of writing the situation off as their problem and not mine. Our lives were intertwined in a way that could not be revoked.

It was as if in that moment, God took their hearts and poured them into mine…and I began to weep with them. My heart reeled in pain as I was confronted in a more raw way than ever with the reality of the lives these children live. I could feel their fear, loss, doubt, worry, questions, hopelessness, and the exhaustion that comes with battling the obstacles of poverty. But somehow, in the midst of all of that, was this unexplainable peace. An overwhelming knowledge that everything was going to be okay, that this tragedy would not overcome Joanne or Phionah or I, that all of God’s promises to His children still stood. I began whispering loud enough for Joanne and Phionah to hear.

“He is the father to the fatherless. His plans are to prosper us and not to harm us. In Him we have a hope and a future. In Him we are more than conquerors. In Him there is wisdom, beyond what we can fathom. In Him there is truth. In Him there is clarity in the midst of confusion. He is light, even in the darkest of nights and in the worst of tragedies. He will never leave us or forsake us. He mourns when we mourn. He collects our tears in a bottle. He holds our hearts. He is hope to the hopeless. In Him, it is safe to dream. In Him we have healing. In Him we have life. In Him we have perfect love, and perfect love casts out fear. We won’t be afraid, we won’t fear evil, and we won’t fear death. We will laugh, and dance, and sing, and dream, and hope. He will heal our hearts and restore our souls. And…Joanne and Phionah, He is going to prove to you over and over again how much He loves you, and how much He cares about even the smallest details of your lives…I know He will.”

After about 20 minutes, we were directed back outside to the benches lining the hut. I sat with Phionah in my lap, trying to talk her through her breathing as she hyperventilated. As she was going in and out of consciousness, I could not shake the question from my mind, “God, why do some people have to suffer so much?” I reminded myself that we see one side of eternity and God sees an entirely different one. I thought about the enemy who seeks to kill, steal and destroy. I thought about the gift God has given us of free choice, and how that gift gives room for our sinful human nature to destroy our own lives and the lives of others...but without a freedom to choose, there would be no love. Love that is forced is not love. I thought about the beauty in having to choose to give our hearts away, and to accept the love of another. I thought about how faith is not faith if everything makes sense; how it goes against what is seen and trusts in what is unseen. And how hope is not hope if there is not something threatening it. And how if everything on this earth was perfect, we would be in heaven, and clearly that is not the case.

I thought about a quote I had just read in A.W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy. Tozer was discussing the wisdom of God, and stated, “ All God's acts are done in perfect wisdom, first for His own glory, and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time. And all His acts are as pure as they are wise, and as good as they are wise and pure. Not only could His acts not be better done: a better way to do them could not be imagined.” It was not God who killed Joanne and Phioah’s Auntie, but it is God who, in His perfect wisdom, will make himself glorified as He shines through the lives of these two remarkable girls.

At this point, Phionah’s breathing had become normal, and she had fallen asleep in my arms. As I looked down at her face, she looked strikingly peaceful. Her skin was glistening as the light of the kerosene lamp illuminated her face that was still drenched with tears. As I gently ran my fingers down Phionah’s face, there was no doubt in my mind that He would make something beautiful from these ashes.

Joanne and Phionah were supposed to stay that night with their extended family and friends, as is the cultural custom. When it came time to leave however, they begged us not to go without them and to bring them back with us to FDLM. We of course agreed to this and all got back in the van, very ready to be back “home.” When we arrived at the orphanage, we were greeted by several of the children and the matron who had all waited up for us, even though it was extremely late. They surrounded Joanne and Phionah in hugs, sympathy, and loving words. They had saved us some food from the Royal Feast, and I was thankful to see that both of the girls were willing to eat. Knowing that the girls were in capable hands, I went up to my room after a while, exhausted and in need of time to pray and process. I was broken beyond words, but so thankful that God had connected my heart with that of the orphan in a deeper and more real way than ever before.

If David Livingston had not become aware of Joanne and Phionah’s story several years ago, and if they had not been brought in to the FDLM family, these vulnerable girls would have been going back to an empty hut all alone that night. With no one to comfort them in their mourning, and with no one to take care of even their most basic of needs, they would have been left to fight for their survival on their own. This is why it is so critical for us to empower those who are doing the work that Jesus himself highlights as the most important, and the most pure and faultless…taking care of orphans and widows in their distress. Even as you read this, there are children experiencing similar situations to the one you just read about. Unlike Joanne and Phionah, they are alone, without arms to hold them, a safe home to go to, or people who care about their hearts, destinies, and general well being. We have the ability and the opportunity to change this.

My challenge to you is to allow your heart to be broken for the orphans and the widows. It is painful, that is guaranteed…but it is also indescribably beautiful. Being broken for the broken is what we were designed to do. If we do not care about the desperate, the vulnerable, and those who have been deemed “refuse” by the rest of the world, then who will? We are to be carriers of Christ’s love to those who would not get to experience it otherwise. To bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the broken, freedom to the captives, love to the unloved, life to those surrounded by death, and to allow those whose wings have been damaged by the world to climb on our backs…and learn once again how to fly.

Let this be the song of our lives.

With love and hope,

~Morgan