A contrast...

So yesterday I spent part of my day with Oliviah, one of the social workers for Buyamba. The social worker's office has been diligent about doing their visits to the homes of our sponsored children (both in and out of God Cares Schools). Sometimes I go with her on these visits. It's always an eye opener to see the conditions in which these children live.

Yesterday, we visited about 6 homes of the families or guardians of our children. The living arrangements of these families varied widely. Some lived in one room apartments (like a studio minus a bathroom and kitchen...maybe 10' x 10'), others in two room apartments and others were blessed with houses. The purpose of these visits is to check up on their lives and situations...whether or not they meet the qualifications to be sponsored or continue to be sponsored.

Anyway, I digress. The last family we visited was that of a single mother. As I listened to the person giving me directions to drive to the place I just recall hearing Kiwafu Estates. I guess really what I heard was something about "estates". I mean what do you think of when you hear that word. I think of pretty good sized homes and so I just wondered where we were going. It took us a while to find the place where this family stays. As we finally found the road, we parked and began to walk down an alley between two huge homes with massive brick walls on each side of the alley/road. Looking down the road you could see some very small buildings amongst the near mansions of the area. This single mother lived with her four children in a small room.

I just couldn't get out of my mind the contrast in this area. There were very wealthy Ugandans, Sudanese, Americans, British, etc. living in these houses enjoying many of the comforts we have in the U.S. The houses in this part of Kampala might rent for $1000- 4000 per month. (I know, I would have never believe it either) And hidden behind some of them were some small apartments the size of some of our tool sheds. There could be anywhere from 3 to 10 people living in each of them while struggling to pay their rent of maybe $25 per month. It deeply broke my heart that there are such extremes here...the very wealthy and the very poor. Whatever happened to the days of the early church where all shared and no one was ever in need. I wish we could go back to those days.