Arriving in the north of Uganda, I couldn’t wait to give Wiki the help collected for her. On April 21, after dinner, we finally found a car and went with the pastor and his assistants to the Bidi-Bidi camp. This camp holds 270,000 people and they are all refugees from Southern Sudan. When we were approaching the camp the sky became dark and thick clouds formed. Shortly after, the rain started to pour! I was lucky to sit in the cab of the truck but my friends with pastor Alfred sat in the back of the truck and got all wet.
Vicki happily greeted us and invited us to her shack and she had water standing in her entrance. In a small, dark room, we sat down, and Vicki began to tell her story.
“I grew up with four brothers and sisters in Loa, in Southern Sudan. My parents live in Juba with my brothers. My sisters fled to Uganda, just like I did. Unfortunately, none of them know God! At the age of 18, I got married and gave birth to 4 children, three boys and one girl. After 12 years of marriage, my husband left me. In 2017 he was killed by rebels, unfortunately he didn’t know Christ.
In 2010, after our divorce, I began to seek God and accepted Jesus as my Savior. In 2013, after the outbreak of the civil war and the bombing of Juba, my children and I fled to the south of the country in Nimule. I had to leave my home and my work as a hairdresser. When the war reached Nimule, we fled to the Bidi Bidi camp in northern Uganda!”
The life of the widow, especially with the amputated hand is very complicated. Today, she cuts grass in the camp and tries to sell it to earn something. Her eldest son, who is 19, helps her when he can. He built two houses for his family. We were glad to hear that at least the UN doubled the food ratio per person and again gives out 12kg (26lb) of beans and people no longer starve as they did before.
When we asked how we can help her, Vicki replied: “I want to go to the hospital to get a prosthesis for my arm. With a prosthesis it will be easier for me to learn how to sew. If I had a mechanical sewing machine, I could sew things and sell them! ”
I handed her an envelope with the words: “This is from your brothers and sisters in the United States. They care about you and they wanted to help somehow. ” She modestly took the envelope, put it on the bed and said: “I thought that God left me behind and forgot about me.”
Ministry in Uganda – President of New Fields Ministries
Willi Dick