I Can Explain...

Don't jump to conclusions. I promise I have not been ignoring you. This semester has simply swollowed me whole. "What have I been doing?" you ask. Class. Reading. Working out at the downtown YMCA. More reading. Working at Duke Hospital as a Chaplain for the Pediatric Unit. Evening walks around the neighborhood. Having my favorite college roommates in town to surprise Erin on her birthday. What else? Oh, I did yoga once. And did I mention that I'm working as a chaplain? It's taking lots of time. There is something so exhausting and energizing to be with families and kids during both painful and precious moments in the hospital. But these kids keep me so busy. Painting finger nails. Coloring. Video games (I'm so bad at video games). Karaoke. Yes, karaoke. Playing with dolls. Watching Little Bear and Bug Rangers (and occassionally Seventh Heaven). Singing. Praying. Listening. Crying. Hugging. I. Love. It.

Also, last weekend, Erin helped me host my first Uganda Fundraiser. Woo Hoo! We had a Yard Sale. Several Duke Divinity students donated some of their own items to the cause. While it wasn't the busiest day of business, we did raise $300. It was a great start! Plus, we got rid of some serious junk. It was so cleansing. Who knew?

Well, as I write this, I am on call at the hospital, spending the next 24 hours waiting and ready to respond to the needs of families and patients. So, for now, this is Chaplain Alisha Damron on location at Duke University Medical Center.

Three Weeks Since...

It's been three weeks since I got back on American soil after spending three months in one of my favorite places in the world. Three weeks since my clothes have been covered with Ugandan clay from the touch of tiny hands all over the edges of my skirt. Three weeks since I’ve had to spend an hour to log into my email. Three weeks since I’ve eaten the best bananas on earth. Three weeks since I crammed into a public taxi van to go to the grocery store. Three weeks since I’ve held four children in my lap at one time. Three weeks since I have been called by my African name “Namubiru.” Three weeks since I’ve taken a basin bath by candle light. Three weeks since I have cheered on my favorite Christopher House Ministries football team (which now I have to refer to as soccer). And three weeks since I’ve hauled jerry cans of water from the well to the kitchen.

Now when I wake up in the morning I hear the hum of the air conditioner instead of birds chirping or children playing in the early hours of the morning just outside my window. And from the first moments of the day I know I’m not in Uganda anymore. I’d be lying if I said that my heart didn’t quietly ache for Christopher House, for the kids, and for my life and work in Uganda. But still, returning to North Carolina for my last year at Duke Divinity School offers its own whirlwind of elation and richness of struggle. This semester I am participating in a course of Clinical Pastoral Education at Duke University Medical Center. Basically, I will be learning the ministry of a chaplain. I have been assigned as the chaplain of the Pediatric Unit. While I have barely spent a week on the floor, I am quickly falling in love with these people and find myself so honored to briefly collide with their lives during moments of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, death and new life.

So it’s true. My location has changed, but God continues to put children in my path for me to love. And as I love on them I continue to learn from them and pray that God would continue to teach me and prepare me for the many locations that I will encounter on this journey of ministry and life.

P.S. I am beginning now to pray and plan for my return to Uganda in June of 2009. I am committing two years initially to serve at Christopher House Ministries and The International School of Missions. At CHM I will be working with the Creative Drama Department, creating programming and discipleship for the youth at the center, and helping to coordinate volunteers. At the International School of Missions I will be serving as a lecturer of Basic Theology. The school is a training center for Ugandan pastors, and they are in desperate need of more teachers. Pray with me as I begin this long and exhausting journey of planning and searching for financial support. For all the ways you love and support me already, thank you. Now, let the fun begin…

This is Alisha on Location in Durham, North Carolina

Bath time Disasters

Don't you just hate it when you go to take a basin bath late at night, and you take your phone because it has a flashlight in it (and that's clearly genius--thanks Nokia!), and you've just soaped up when your phone falls, the battery goes flying across the floor and you're standing there soapy and slightly panicked by the huge spider you saw climbing on the wall as your flashlight cascaded to the floor? I hate it too!

Well, these last days are filled with cooking dinners, drinking coffee with friends, preparing for the new school term drama class, gathering supplies and creating lesson plans, and saying goodbyes. I'm sure I'll write once I get back on American soil.

Until then,
I'm probably eating a samosa and chatting with friends,
And if I have a free hand I'm most likely pinching a cute kid,
This is Alisha on Location

They'll Know We're Christians by Our Love

Here's my second reflection paper that I wanted to share with all of you who have been keeping up with my journey. This paper focuses on one person--Shelly Grivette. Shelly is one of the directors at Christopher House. She has spent five years in Uganda, and our friendship began when I first came to Uganda in 2005. This summer Shelly has served as my supervisor, and I decided to spend some time reflecting on her work and ministry. I wrote this paper at the end of July.

It doesn’t take long to see Shelly’s strength. She’s just tough. For the three years I have known her, it is her strength that has always amazed me. But when she least expects it, Shelly shares glimpses of the richest compassion and the most beautiful pieces of her life’s pain. It’s always the highest honor to see these parts of her life as a woman in ministry. In the last few years Shelly has been a dear friend, a guide in this strange country, a voice of wisdom, a person with which to exchange dreams and ideas, but this summer she has been my field education supervisor. And as I watch her work and minister here, I see a model of ministry that inspires me.

This past week when I returned from a few days of rest in Zanzibar, I found Shelly at the airport with a bright grin. “We have a small visitor,” she said as she unlocked the van and lifted my suitcase into the back seat. For several months Shelly has been taking baby formula to malnourished babies in the neighborhood, but when one of the babies was abandoned by his parents, and too sick to be cared for by his extended family, Shelly offered to take him for the week and make sure he got to the clinic. And when I got back to the apartment, there was Moses, our small visitor sleeping soundly. By the end of the week, the baby who was barely able to keep his eyes open began laughing and crawling and making the sweetest baby noises. Returning him to his family on Sunday was not an easy task for Shelly, but she never hesitated to stop her plans or put the demands of her work on hold for a few days for the care of this child. Whatever the cost—medical fees, gas money, baby clothes, and the pain of letting him go—she spared nothing to lavish love on him. And when giving Moses back to his family brought up the painful memories of the loss of her own son, Christopher, she began to cry. And in her tears I saw love, a kind of love that is pure and yes, sometimes painful. It’s the kind of love I hope to have for people I minister to and with.

When a house fire took the life of a toddler in our neighborhood and burned most of the clothes and personal belongings of nine of our kids at Christopher House, Shelly was the first to talk solutions. “What can we do? How can we surround this family with support? Let’s do something.” She brought the kids over to the center to lie down after an exhausting day of grief. And for a few hours they rested. She made them sandwiches and juice. She held them as they cried, prayed over them, and cried with them. Then, she gathered her money, went out and bought them some clothes. Shelly is quick to respond to the needs of others. She knew she could not bring that child back. She was limited in what she could offer this family, but that didn’t hinder her efforts to do what she could to help. It is this beautiful balance of care and awareness of her limitations as a minister that I hope to model. Things will sometimes be too broken to fix, but offering presence, prayer and comfort is sometimes the most powerful gift to those in pain.

In Shelly’s life and work I don’t see perfection, but I do see a person open and willing to be used by God in powerful ways to lavish love and care on people in this broken and confusing world. It’s that openness that I pray for as I prepare my own life for ministry. May I always be willing to sacrifice for the call Christ has made on my life. May I always be willing to reveal my own struggles, pain, and humanity before others as I strive to love people the way Christ first loved us.

For all your love, prayers and support, THANK YOU!
This is Alisha on Location (for a few more days at least)

Don't hate me, people. Turns out things got kinda busy out here. Oops! Trust me, I haven't forgotten about you, but I've been cramming lots into these last few weeks and time just slipped away. I'm pretty seriously cheering on the Christopher House football team who is participating in a community tournament. Currently, we are undefeated and moving toward the semi-finals! When I'm not handing out water at the games and pretending to be a soccer mom, I'm smothering kids with hugs and kisses, going on lion hunts with my creative drama classes, playing in the mud box that I'm pretty sure used to have sand in it and doing mosaic art with my girls' Bible study group. But just yesterday I looked up and realized that it was already the end of July! What is happening?!

Before I know it I will be back in the classroom, surrounded by the gothic architecture at Duke and overwhelmed by the amount of reading that the professors think is actually possible. I'll be writing papers and missing this place like crazy...but until then, I've gotta run. One of our kids just walked by the Internet cafe, and it looks like they need a hug.

Don't panic! I'll write more later...
This is Alisha on Location

Duke Divinity Reflection Paper

As part of my summer abroad, learning and ministering in Uganda, Duke has asked me to report back with short "Reflection Papers"... this is the first of many more to come...



Home Sweet Uganda

I knew exactly what I wanted to write in this reflection paper until I sat down to actually write. Now I feel lost in the layers of details, memories and experiences that have flooded my heart during this month of ministry. From the moment I walked through the gate to Christopher House, something felt familiar—something felt like home. This place became part of my life in 2005 when I ventured out to Africa after graduating college. It was an adventure that will forever have a grip on my life. I think God knew what great companions Africa and I would be. This summer ministry placement, while familiar and comforting, has opened a new chapter in my book of Ugandan experiences. I have come to see what kind of ministry I might do in the future. Since my first trip to this country I have been energized at the possibility of returning to work and live here. Exploring why I fit here and why here fits with me has been dominating my prayers, thoughts and conversations. And so, this question of calling and gifts of ministry seems to cast this bizarre but beautiful light on all the work I am doing this summer. Teaching creative drama, facilitating a teenage girls’ Bible study and being with members of the community during moments of grief have been such essential elements of the ways I see God’s presence in this place.

Creative drama—it is an odd way of ministering, but it has been a precious addition to my time here. I work to encourage school students to get creative, expressive and silly. In our class, there is this invitation to freedom and comfort. Students cheer one another on. They clap. They cheer. They laugh. It’s a strange concept to the school system of Uganda. Life here is about perfecting skills and performance on exams, so to insert an aspect of fun and unity, love and full acceptance—it’s just so new to them. For the first few weeks, they were reluctant to receive my hugs and affection. But slowly, they began to sneak a hug or two, and now there is a line for hugs as they leave the compound. My prayer is that God will use me as a channel of God’s love, and connecting with these kids has been such a great reminder that God’s work is all about love. I feel it in every hug I give, and every hug I receive. It means something—and somewhere in the middle of it, God is there.

Another place where I see God peeking through is on Tuesday evenings from 6:30PM to sundown. I sit with 7 teenagers and we talk about women in the Scriptures, their lives, their struggles, their courage, their fame, their demise. We try to see how God saw them and how God loved them. Then we think about how God might see us and love us too. Last week we talked about the tragedy of Tamar’s rape. We lit candles for women around the world who have survived abuse. One participant quietly lit a candle and said, “This candle is for me, and the sexual abuse I have survived.” And when she broke through the silence, God was there. We wrote prayers and read them aloud. We told God how angry and confused we were about such hate in the world. We looked for God in those places. We are still searching together to see God in our lives, but for me I do not have to look very far. In each of those young women I see God. In their strength, their survival, their faith—God is there.

It was a scorching hot afternoon when we were told to rush up the road. There had been a fire in the house where eight of our Christopher House kids lived and one of the children had died. In a haze of disbelief we hurried up the red clay road to find a crowd and the faint sounds of wailing. As I approached the house I could smell the burning, and as I knelt down in the living room of a small concrete walled house the smell of burnt flesh invaded my nostrils and made me sick. Just two years old, taking a nap, and within a few minutes the fire had spread and there was no way to save her. Aisha’s body lay exposed, and people crowded in to see. I found her sister Joan and pulled her near me. And then I let her cry, “Auntie Alisha! Auntie Alisha! Auntie Alisha!” And with each of her cries I responded, “Oh God, why? Oh God, hear us!” And in those moments, I felt like I was with them, part of them, not simply a visitor or a missionary, but a family member, a friend. There was nothing magical about my presence. There was nothing I could do but hold Joan and let her cry, but there was such beautiful power in that afternoon. And while that day remains a dark memory from my time here, I will never forget holding Joan and the gift it was to be with her, to pray with her and cry with her. And I must also believe that somewhere, God was there, heartbroken but present.

In the simplicity of hugging a school kid from the city or talking about biblical women with a handful of teenagers or weeping with a friend, God continues to show up, gently guiding me down paths of ministry. Being here this summer continues to affirm that my gifts for mentoring and teaching as well as my passion for the ministry of Christopher House and the work of loving the children of Uganda is something that I desire to spend part of my life doing. I do not know what this next month has in store (or the next few years for that matter) for me or the tasks that I will encounter, but I trust that God will be with me, going before me, and lingering long after I am gone.

A Firebase 4th of July!!!

It's time I introduce you to Seruyange Abdul. Maybe it's past time. Either way, his friendship has been such a gift to my time here not sharing him with you would be silly. Abdul. Let's see. He's the football coach at Christopher House, a kindred spirit, a man who laughs with ease and loves people like he'll never run out of kindness. When the school program began, we had assemblies for each school. Several staff members got up to talk to the kids and welcome them to the center. Abdul rose quietly, walked to the center of the stage and said, "I want you to know how welcome you are here." Then, he walked around to every student and gave them a hug. He's a hugger! He's also a great teacher. He's been teaching me Rudo, a really fun game that people play on the streets here. He's also teaching me Luganda. I want so badly to learn to speak the local language. It's not going so well. We also talk football. Well, he talks and I try to understand. I'm doing my best to learn the ins and outs of this soccer situation. So, far I'm doing really well with cheering loudly and learning what players go where.


















It's Abdul that introduced me to the Firebase. It's a shop where he hangs out with his closest friends in the evenings. There's Mutebi who calls himself my brother because our African names are in the same clan. Then there's Johnson who runs the shop and wants to study law. There's Musa and Vincent. Ben and Toni. And finally, Nestor, the style genius. The Firebase sells juice, water, sodas and other odds and ends. I'm not exactly sure why they've nicknamed it the Firebase, but nobody can deny the level of cool associated with such a name. Come on! It's really an exclusive little club. There are members of the Firebase and friends of the Firebase. I'm not sure if they have membership cards or shirts or a secret hand shake, but it's very serious and very official. Anyhow, for the 4th of July we decided to do it up right. You got it folks, the Firebase got patriotic! We made a flag, sang the national anthem, and they even surprised me with sparklers! We ate icecream and laughed until midnight, and then they announced me an official member. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. It was an unforgettable celebration! A 4th of July I will not soon forget!