Jim and Darla with Bob, after we were awarded our Honorary Doctorate Degrees

I got a solid eight hours of sleep – from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. and then got up to catch up on what was happening in the world.  During breakfast, the team (which has been joined by two recent female college graduates from San Diego who are working here in Uganda with Restore for a few months) prepared the diplomas for each kid.  Bob goes big with graduation, and the diplomas are no different.  He “borrowed” the diploma template from an Ivy League college and makes the Restore diplomas really fancy, including dripping a pile of candle wax on the page and then creating a seal with a Restore insignia.  They look awesome.

Restore International has recently completed the paperwork for the purchase of a huge piece of land (called Seven Corners) down the road from where the school currently resides.  They are feverishly working to put up the buildings for the new school and decided to have graduation at this new property that it took three years to secure.  When we arrived at Seven Corners, it was about 11:00 a.m.  Everyone was already there and they were waiting for us.  A huge troupe of students in traditional African garb escorted us down the road toward graduation field, dancing, drumming, and singing the whole way.

Henry had decided he wanted to surprise his parents so he didn’t tell them I was coming.  Henry greeted me and pointed out where his parents were sitting (front row).  When he did, I could register their surprise.  We hugged and I took some pictures of them just before the four-hour ceremony got underway.  Go big or go home.

Since it was Sunday morning, the graduation ceremony blended in a worship service, and consisted of about a half dozen tribal dances/performances, a couple choir performances, and several speeches from local dignitaries.  As you might expect, Bob is adored around these parts and he got rousing applause when he spoke.  That guy has more enthusiasm than anyone I have ever met.  At some point, he asked me and Darla to each say a few words of welcome and greeting.  Eventually, we got around to awarding the diplomas and wrapped up the ceremony with a meal.  Bob went nuts each time a graduate was introduced – 38 from S4 and 25 from S6 – his enthusiasm for making each graduate feel special never waned a bit.  I took some more photos with Henry and his family, and just in time, as the rains came – and oh did they come.  The dirt roads soon turned to rivers, which masked the potholes that we had to maneuver on the way back.

Before I left the graduation, I arranged to meet up with Henry and his parent that evening at my hotel.  They arrived at 5:30 and we ate dinner and talked until 8:00 p.m.  While they understood and spoke English well, they had a difficult time with my Mzungu English, so Henry often had to interpret.  I would say something in English (as slowly and clearly as I could), they would look at me quizzically, then Henry would repeat what I said word-for-word in English, and they would smile and respond in English.  It was a bit surreal.

As we were wrapping up dinner, I took them to the lobby where the internet worked and called Joline and the kids via skype.  Henry had told them about the magic screen whereby they see and talk to people in America, but I am not sure they really understood until they experienced it.

Throughout the evening, every ten or fifteen minutes, one of them would rattle off something in Runyoro, and Henry would tell me how appreciative they were for us helping Henry get out of jail and back into school.  They were also incessant in their gratitude for my assistance in them being able to travel to Gulu for the graduation.  They told me that they had to sell all of their cows when Henry’s father was in prison for nearly two years on the charge that was dismissed when the evidence was examined.  They explained that since the arrest, they have not had any “extra” money to travel.  We eventually said our goodbyes and I promised to come visit them in Hoima early next year.

Throughout the day, I couldn’t help but marvel at what can be done with the “extra.”  There were 63 graduates, most of whom otherwise would not have received an education, and 200 kids in other grades in the midst of their own life transformation because Bob decided that he (and others who joined him on this journey) could make a difference with the “extra” income he had but didn’t need to live on.  Just being there in person really drove home just how rich we are, and just how much others’ lives could be enriched with the “extra.”  Bob has been my hero for a couple years now.  He just moved up a notch to superhero.

I miscalculated . . . badly.  On the flight from LAX to Amsterdam, I had gotten my four hours of pharmaceutical sleep at the time when Ugandans were sleeping.  But on the flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, Uganda, in a moment of weakness and stupidity, I took a nap for a couple hours.  Unfortunately, this meant that when I could finally get to bed on Friday night at about 1:00 a.m., I was unable to sleep.  At all.  I tried twice, but each time just laid there.  Finally, I gave up and just caught up on e-mail and some other work.

Over breakfast, we had a heartbreaking meeting with a couple who had been in Uganda for the better part of a year and had been granted legal guardianship (a step toward adoption) over a little boy, but had been unsuccessful in their attempts to do the same for a little girl.  They had been foster parents for both kids for several months and both kids clearly considered them to be their parents.  Please pray for them as they try to complete the difficult adoption process.

We also met with a couple Ugandan officials (I am being purposely vague), one of whose children had attended the excellent prep school that I am hoping to get Henry admitted to early next year.  She graciously offered her assistance in the upcoming admissions process, but cautioned that Henry would have to score very high on the national exams to even be considered.

We also met the bravest boy in the world.  Having previously heard about him, it took all I had not to just pick him up and hug him.  To protect his identity, I will refer to him simply as Hero.  I had a chance to sit with Hero (who just turned nine) and to help him cut up his breakfast before he ate.  He made a paper airplane out of a napkin, and borrowed my pen and started writing and solving math problems on the napkin.  When interacting with Hero, one would have no idea that about a year ago he had defied all odds and had somehow stumbled out of a field bloodied and disorientated after having been kidnapped and ritually carved up by a witch doctor.  Not only did he survive, but he stared the witch doctor in the eye at the trial and identified him as his assailant.  That witch doctor was convicted, representing the first time in Ugandan history that anyone had been convicted under the trafficking in body parts statutes.  Bob Goff and his Restore team orchestrated the trial.  Later this week, Hero will fly with Bob back to the United States for a series of reconstructive surgeries over the course of about six months.

After breakfast, we packed up and set out on the five-hour drive north to Gulu where Henry was in the midst of the next-to-last day of the national exams.  I was in the car with John Niemeyer, Bob Goff, and Darla Anderson.  We talked about Niemeyer’s law school plans (perhaps this next fall at Pepperdine?), Darla’s life at Pixar (fascinating), Bob’s hopes and dreams for Restore International’s work in Uganda (expansive), and Henry’s plight so far and his hopes and dreams for the future.  After we crossed the Nile, which serves as a de facto dividing line between the North and the South in Uganda (Kony and the LRA rebels never made it south of the Nile), we stopped to feed the baboons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oZWuaHZOVY.

Upon arriving in Gulu, we checked into the hotel and then set off for the Restore Leadership Academy, which is about fifteen minutes outside of Gulu.  The students all know Bob and love it when he comes to the school because that means something big is going to happen.  Last time he came, he brought huge tarps and a skateboard and the kids learned to “tarp surf.”  Last time Bob’s law partner Danny DeWalt came to Restore, he lugged with him two “portable” basketball hoops and introduced the kids to a new sport.  Niemeyer bought the kids some jerseys and the big year-end game was scheduled for Saturday night.  After we arrived, the game got going.

Before we arrived, Niemeyer had called Henry and learned that he and Joseph were actually in Gulu getting his parents settled at their hotel.  Their father had been to Gulu only once, when he dropped off the boys for school in June of 2010.  But their mother had never been to Gulu.  About twenty minutes after we arrived at Restore, Henry and Joseph arrived in a taxi.  I had positioned myself behind Niemeyer’s car so they couldn’t see me as they walked up.  I had also given my Flip camera to Hunter so he could capture the reunion.  As hoped, they were quite surprised http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ujndtJe7U.  They told me that their families and friends had been asking them for several weeks whether Mr. Jim was coming to for graduation, but he had told them what I had told him – that I couldn’t leave work in the middle of the semester to come.  (Thanks Dean Tacha and Dean Perrin for the Hall Pass).

The three of us talked for the next half hour, but there wasn’t a ton of new things that had happened since we had spoken by phone earlier that week.  Henry did tell me, however, that he felt very good about how the three-week long national exams were going and that his last day of exams was this coming Monday.  When it started raining a bit harder than the light sprinkle we had been experiencing, our group set off back to the hotel.  Henry told me that he wasn’t going to call and tell his parents that I came because he wanted to surprise them in the morning.

Back at the hotel, I skyped with Joline and the kids for a few minutes, but was starting to show narcoleptic tendencies, so I went to bed at around 8:00 p.m.  Tomorrow is graduation day, and Bob’s motto has always been “Go big, or go home.”  It should be a full day of action and whimsy.