Grace...

For the past few weeks I have been somewhat quiet and not posting a whole lot. For the past month and half we have done basically the same thing every week. While I love some of the projects we do, I get bored very easily and the things I encounter every day become more and more commonplace. But God got me thinking this week about something.

We were at a school called New Brainstorm Primary School. We go to this school a couple of times a week. On Tuesdays we go in the afternoon and teach them English and on Fridays we go and do our normal kid's program with them.

Emily and I teach the P3 class which is somewhat equivalent to second grade in America. So these kids should be around 7 years old. Some of the kids in our class are very bright and I believe they will do great things. But there's this one kid who tugs at my heart every time we go... His name is Ssebagala Grace and he is 14 years old and in P3. I don't know his circumstances: whether he's failed grades or started school late or something else all together. My heart goes out to him so much. Not only is he in a class with kids half his age, he has no confidence. I have a feeling that he is teased in and outside of class, called stupid, made fun of for being in P3. I have such a heart for this kid. I think about the likelihood of him continuing in school considering how far behind he is. It is likely that he will drop out and give up on  a successful future.

As I see him I think of the babies that are put on street corners to beg for money, the kids who come up to our car window begging for any and everything we have, I think of all the kids who will probably have no future because of the circumstances they were born into. I search for God's answer to all of the things that break my heart every day... Well, He hasn't given me the answer and He probably never will.

This week I will speak to the headmaster of New Brainstorm about giving Grace personal tutoring 1 or 2 times a week. While I can't solve the problems of a nation and society, I might be able to (with God's help) be able to change the confidence of one young man who I desperately want to see succeed.

Pray for Grace. Pray that God would continue to give me ideas on how to change Uganda one life at a time...

until all have heard,
lauren michelle gross