Friday morning began with a torrential rain storm mere words are ill-equipped to capture when uttered by anyone other than Noah himself.  Imagine yourself standing under a high capacity shower head.  Then turn on two more.  Then turn on a Vornado fan so the water blows sideways.  Then plug the drain.  Then kneel.

At one point, the water through which Daniel navigated was a hair under four-feet deep.  I wish I was exaggerating.  Vans such as the one in which we are traveling, by necessity, divert their exhaust pipes up the side of the car so the exhaust blows above the roof.  Without this modification, the rain storms would cripple these vehicles, and I would wear floaties under my suit jacket.

When it rains this hard, the boda drivers lose their customers (and their will to navigate the streets on motorcycles), which further swells the vehicular traffic.  This, coupled with the newly birthed rivers flowing through the streets, naturally leads to gridlock.  So we were late getting out of town on our way to the Ihungu Remand Home in Masindi.

*          *          *

Life in Uganda is lived in the moment.  The vast majority of the population grows its own food, fetches water daily from community pump wells, and worries not about tomorrow – today is simply enough.  I often wonder if this at least partially explains the deep and abiding faith in God of most Ugandans.  Likewise, emotions reside quite near the surface here.  And for me, these emotions spill over whenever my work summons me back to Ihungu – where my first glance down into the well of desperation of children waiting for justice came.

I will forget my name, my birth date, and most other things I have seen and done in life before I forget what I saw when I first walked into the boys’ custody at Ihungu three years ago.

“Is this OK with you?” I felt myself being asked.  “What are you going to do about it,” nipped the next question at the heels of the first.

“Nothing.  Not me.  Someone else.  Where would I even start,” came my feeble, but emphatic, reply.  But the questions persisted like a cold sore.  My tongue kept flicking at it, hoping it would be gone each time I checked.

One of the many images I couldn’t shake was of Katwesige Scovia, sitting in the dirt on the periphery, giggling and casting her eyes down every time one of us looked at her or tried to talk to her.  She was fourteen years old.  My Jessica was also fourteen.  My heart broke for her innocence lost, and my mind mourned her hopeless future.

I was overjoyed to learn, however, that John Niemeyer on behalf of Restore International had arranged for her to be enrolled in a Cornerstone program when she was released.  A few months later, however, my sorrow returned when I learned she had dropped out of the program.  Time first scabbed, then later scarred over, this wound.  Every month or two, a memory of Scovia re-surfaced, but she had mostly receded into the teaming masses of memories from my multiplying months in Uganda.

Until yesterday.

“How many girls do you have here now,” I asked Carol.  (Carol, simply known as “mom” to the inmates, is the matron who stays with and cares for them.  Were it not for Sixty Feet, who pays Carol’s salary and provides other necessities for her, the inmates would be motherless (twice over) and unsupervised).

“There are two – one on remand, and one who is leaving on Sunday,” Carol said.

“Where is she going Sunday,” I asked.

“She was released by the court earlier this week, and we are taking her to Kampala so she can go back to school,” she responded.

“Why is she going to Kampala for school,” I inquired.

“She cannot afford to go to school, but she has a sponsor who has admitted her into a program,” she said with a smile.

“Who is sponsoring her,” I queried.

“Sixty Feet,” she said as she pointed to Kirby across the way.

God bless you, Sixty Feet!

I explained to Carol that we needed to talk to each of the children at Ihungu on remand (waiting to go to court) so we can get them lawyers and move their cases along.  She understood and mobilized the troops.  David and a UCLF lawyer set up one station, while Sarah and I set up another.  Kirby set to work assessing the material needs of the Remand Home.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw through the door to the girls’ custody and noticed something familiar.  The open door was relatively new because the old door is actually mounted on my wall at home.

There is more about that here and here.  The familiarity that Deja’d my Vu, however, had nothing to do with the door.  It was the girl inside.  She looked to be about 17 and I felt like I had seen her before.  But where?

“We will start with her,” I said to Carol as I motioned to the open doorway.

“Scovia, you come and talk to him,” Carol instructed.

My breath caught as the nickel dropped.  She came and sat directly across from me, her almost imperceptibly smiling eyes meeting mine.  “You are Katwesige Scovia,” I said to her in a whisper, because a whisper spent all I had in reserve.

“And you are Jim Gas,” she declared with a grin.  Close enough.  While I did take a photograph of her, I hesitate to put both faces and names together of children inmates on the web.

“How have you been?  It has been three years, and I never thought I would see you again,” I said.

Over the next ten minutes, we talked about what she had been doing (not much) and why she was again at Ihungu (theft).  I pulled up computer pictures of her and the others who had been with her three years ago and we laughed together.

“Where is John Niemeyer,” she asked.  “Can he visit me on Sunday?”

“He is in America.  He is one of my students now,” I replied.

“When will he visit me again,” she asked, still not quite comprehending.

As I write this, now 24 hours later, I can’t quite decide whether I am glad I got to see her again, or whether well enough was better left alone.  She is still my daughter’s age, and the difference between their lives could not be more profound.  Scovia will likely be released right about the time Jessica starts her freshman year at Pepperdine.  None of this is yet OK with me, but I am learning that what is bigger than me belongs to God.  I am also learning just how small I really am.

After we concluded the fact-finding interviews of the children on remand, the warden arrived from court.  It was good to catch up with my old friend Mr. William.  Before we left, he reminded me that the last time I was there, I had given him enough money to buy meat for the inmates – a luxury they are seldom afforded.  A steady diet of beans and posho (corn meal) is all they get.

“Will you buy them meat again, Mr. Jim,” he pleaded, more than asked.

How could I say no?  For 50,000 shillings, all 26 could get some protein and a little dietary variety.  I gladly forked over the equivalent of $20.  My paltry “generosity” shames me even as I write this.  I could have given them meat for a week and not even noticed a dent.

Trust, but verify.  For accountability, I made sure Carol the matron knew about the upcoming feast.  Soon, the inmates knew and cheered.  Such a little matters so much here – a lesson I too often forget.

From Masindi, we made our way north to Gulu.  I have made this drive enough that I no longer need to change my underwear multiple times during the trip.  The Volkswagen-sized potholes, the daredevil pedestrians, the suicidal bicyclists, the buses and trucks forcing other vehicles off the road at regular intervals, the brush-clearing wildfires, the urinating-by-the-side-of-the-road-while-looking-at-you locals, the road-meat hawkers, and the begging baboons will never grow old.

We arrived in Gulu just before dark.  David, Kirby, and I stayed at the “upscale” Churchill Courts Hotel, while the others set off in search of a more affordable option on which to spend the customary per diem Sixty Feet had graciously allotted them for the trip.  The less they spent on lodging the more they were able to keep.  This disparity of accommodations produced more than a slight pang of guilt, but clean linens, hot water, and electricity (amenities we enjoyed, and they didn’t) brought our accommodations to within shouting distance of a Motel Six.

We enjoyed a comfortable outdoor dinner in what is usually stifling Gulu heat in the hotel’s courtyard before turning in for the evening.

Saturday will be my first visit to the Gulu Remand Home.

Court holidays in Uganda come early and often throughout the year.  Sometimes they come unexpectedly.  Last Wednesday, the government declared this Wednesday to be a national holiday — NRM day.  NRM stands for the National Resistance Movement, which is the ruling political party of Uganda.  Imagine if President Obama declared next Wednesday to be National Democratic Party Day.

The timing of this holiday was strategic, as talk of a military coup has been dominating the headlines for the last week.  President Museveni, the head of the NRM party, is increasingly embattled this year – his 27^th in power.  As President, he is also head of the military and came to power himself in 1986 as a result of a military coup.  A few of the top generals have made some public comments, implying that another coup has been under discussion, though they have recently tried to walk back these comments, claiming they were hypothetical and only intended to increase pressure on Museveni’s government to crack down on a recent spate of corruption.  By calling a public holiday, Museveni curries favor with the working class (because they don’t have to work), and generates lots of media stories about the progress NRM has made for the country during the past 27 years in power.

The timing of the court holiday, however, put some extra pressure on my meeting schedule while I am here in town this week.

On Tuesday morning, I hired a driver to take me out to Henry’s school so I could pay his school fees for this first term, which started on Monday.  (A quick shout out to my parents, who are graciously footing the bill for Henry’s top-flight education).  I had a chance to spend a little time with one of Henry’s teachers while I was out there, and arranged to hire a few tutors for Henry so he can have the best chance possible of excelling in his last year of secondary education before starting university.

The next stop was a meeting with the registrar of the court of appeals.  I am trying to manage my expectations (because I have been disappointed before), but it now looks like the appeal I will be arguing will take place in mid-March in the capital city of Kampala.  I should know more next week.

Since I released my driver when he dropped me at the court of appeals, I took a boda from there over to the Commercial Court to meet up with David.  This time, I selected a driver without a helmet.  This equalized our survival incentives.  Unsurprisingly, this ride was much less harrowing than Monday’s.

David’s driver Daniel drove us to our scheduled lunch with a US Embassy official.  I had met this official when I lived in Kampala last June and wanted to both re-connect with him and to introduce him to David.  When I last met with this official, I had told him about J-FASTER and about the plans we had for it.  He was quite interested and wanted to be briefed on the successes since we last talked.  We also talked about the potential of partnering on future adult justice projects.  It was an excellent meeting, but nothing firm emerged.

From there, I went to the High Court and met with Chief Justice Odoki – the father of Uganda’s legal system.  He will be sorely missed when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 in the next few months.  We then met with the judge who is handling the J-FASTER session scheduled to open next week.  This judge is the one I worked for most directly during my sabbatical stay in Kampala in 2012.  He was pleased to hear about the successful plea bargaining session on Monday.  We also discussed my idea for taking the next step in the expansion of plea bargaining to the adult realm.  No announcement yet, but it looks quite promising for a June launch.  (Joline, Jessica (my oldest), and I will be returning to Uganda for four weeks this summer).

David and I closed the evening with a great dinner with Justice K and his wife, and Justice Mike Chibita and his wife.  I had only briefly met Justice Chibita during my first trip to Uganda in January of 2010.  At the time, he was not on the bench, but was running Uganda’s version of the IRS and was also serving as President of the Uganda Christian Lawyers’ Fraternity.  He is now the Resident Judge for Fort Portal, which is located in southwestern Uganda, near where the Gorillas chill in the mist.  Justice Chibita has been a great friend and mentor to two of our prior Nootbaar Fellows – John Napier and Brett LoVellette.  It appears that our June project will allow me to work rather closely with Justice Chibita, and perhaps to get to know a few of the Silver Back gorillas in the region as well.

My date with Nyquil ended the evening on a rather pleasant note.

*          *          *

The national holiday on Wednesday slowed down the pace of things considerably, except on the roads.  The nightmarish Ugandan traffic all but disappears on Sundays . . . and on holidays.  Everyone stays home or goes to church.  This allowed me free reign in the city.

Next weekend, Pepperdine Law’s Nootbaar Institute for Law, Religion, and Ethics is hosting an international conference on Inter-Country Adoption.  I had the idea for this conference after getting involved in a handful of these cases while I was here in Uganda in early 2012.  This conference will wrestle with the theological, ethical, political, and legal aspects of what some call “orphan care” and others call “child trafficking.”  Here is a link to this conference.  Speakers from all over the world will spend two full days discussing best practices and potential solutions to the world-wide orphan crisis.  Two such speakers (Mark Riley and Isaac Obiro) will be traveling from Uganda to participate in a case-study panel focusing on what is happening on the ground in Uganda.  The third panelist will be Sara Ribbens who, along with her husband Andy, adopted two Ugandan children in 2012.  I have become quite close with, and fond of, both Mark and Isaac, both of whom occupy different ends of the IA spectrum.  Mark is a Brit who works with the Ugandan government and UNICEF to develop and implement systems to resettle abandoned children with either their families or with other Ugandan foster parents.  For his part, Isaac is a lawyer who handles both domestic and Inter-country adoptions.

We met for an hour or so discussing next week’s panel, on which I will be serving as moderator.  I also had a chance to meet an American woman named Darby Priest.  Darby is a fellow ACU grad and a friend of my dear friends (the Istres).  She has been in Uganda for a few months working with Mark and Keren Riley is assisting them with the in-country resettlement of orphans.

David and I later had lunch with Edith Ssempala, former Ugandan Ambassador to the United States.  During my time here last year, I introduced Ambassador Ssempala to my friends at Sixty Feet, and she has since begun working with them in an advisory role.  It was good to connect her with David.  This woman’s faith permeates everything she says and does, and I always feel refreshed after spending time with her.

In the afternoon, David and I met with a lawyer who is working on a country-wide (and well-funded) project with UNICEF dealing with all aspects of caring for children.  She said she had been hearing about the J-FASTER program from lots of quarters and wanted to explore ways to partner with us.  The meeting was quite successful and will lead to several meetings with various groups who could assist in expanding the reach of our work.

I turned in early because Thursday promised to be a long day of driving and meetings on the eastern coast of Uganda.

One year ago – to the day – I made the same journey from California to Kampala that I just completed this weekend.  So many things have changed during that intervening year.  I have changed in ways I am still trying to fully appreciate.  Our kids have changed in ways we can see, and ways we daily pray about.

Too many things, however, remain the same.  The three-flight, 24-hour energy-draining marathon journey still bites.  Hard.  Try as I might, I can’t seem to get the scheduled sleeping thing sorted out.  Not that I didn’t try.  I went to the doctor to get a prescription of Ambien so I could catch some pharmaceutical “zzzs” on the plane.  She was a new doctor, so I didn’t tell her I had a few pills left over from an earlier trip.  Hey – she didn’t ask.

Dr. Feelgood told me that she could prescribe the 5mg or 10mg pills.  Last time, Dr. DoLittle had given me the 5mg type, which had proven rather ineffectual.  I think I responded a little too eagerly to the 10mg suggestion, so Dr. Feelgood hesitated and told me “the FDA is concerned about over-prescription of Ambien, and that their studies show that 5mg is sufficient to blah, blah, blah, blah.”

“I don’t want the nickels – I need the dimes.  Can I have some please, please, please?”

She paused for a moment, so I pointed to the pictures of twin girls on her wall – “Are those your daughters?  They’re soooo cute.”

She beamed, told me their names, then wrote me the script for the dimes.  Flattery works every time.

Well, fast forward to the first leg of the flight on Saturday.  When the time was ripe for me to pull a Rip Van See Ya for the last four or five hours of the LA to Amsterdam flight, which is when my Ugandan counterparts were sleeping, I pulled out the magic bottle of dreams and shook it into my palm.  Out came several dimes . . . and a nickel I had added to the bottle when I was packing.  I was pretty tired, and since Dr. Feelgood had said that the FDA studies showed no difference, I popped the nickel.  Dumb.  Really, really, really, dumb.

To say the nickel didn’t do Jack Squat to put me to sleep would be charitable to Jack.  Jack didn’t crouch, or even hunch, let alone squat.  His knees stayed locked the entire time.  This, of course, meant that I slept most of the second flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi, Kenya.  On that flight, Jack not only squatted, he folded like he was dealt a 2-7 offsuit up against a pair of Aces.  Consequently, I managed to get myself exactly backward on the sleep cycle.

And things only got better from there.

The layover in Kenya was 90 minutes – plenty of time for the hard-working, quick-thinking luggage jockeys to ride the suitcases from Gate A to Gate B in the relatively small airport.  I was sure things were on the right track when I was upgraded to First Class for the one-hour trip into Uganda.

But TIA – the oft-repeated phrase acknowledging things don’t always go according to plan in a developing world.  After all, “This is Africa.”

Having had my luggage delayed on two of my nine prior flights to Uganda, I was the first in the crowd to sense a problem.  I raced to the baggage desk and got there just ahead of the other 29 passengers whose luggage was also playing hide and seek.  Anarchy would be an understated description of the scene that followed.  Fortunately, I got my paperwork in and got out of the airport before the two South African mothers of screaming infants could completely dismember the hapless (and helpless) paper pusher at Kenyan Airways.  The one bright spot in this episode is that I learned a few new cuss words in Africaans.

David Nary (Pepperdine Nootbaar Fellow in Uganda for a year) and his trusty driver Daniel were waiting for me in the passenger arrival lobby.  The next flight in from Nairobi was not due to arrive until 9:00 a.m. the next morning, so there was no reason to stick around.

“Let me just stop at the Barclays ATM and get some cash,” I said.  Insert card.  Enter password.  Select amount.  400,000 shillings ($150).  Thank You.  Printing receipt.  Take cash.  Take Cash.  TAKE CASH.

No cash.  Just a metaphorical middle finger staring at me through the blinking slot where my cash was supposed to be.  The good thing, however, was that I had a receipt that said I actually received the air cash.  Perfect.

I looked around and noticed a security camera pointed at the ATM.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to make a record of the unfolding events, so I played a little game of charades.  I did my best your-satanic-machine-ate-my-money-and-I-am-about-to-throat-punch-the-keypad skit.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it made some sort of year-end YouTube awards show.  It was that convincing.

*          *          *

The kind folks from Sixty Feet (Kelsey, Kirby, and crew) have graciously allowed me to stay with them (again) while I am in Uganda, so I arrived at their place around 1:00 a.m.  This time, however, I wasn’t messing around with The Sandman.  I popped a dime like it was a Skittle – 10mg of Ambien.  Ten minutes later, I couldn’t see straight.  Eleven minutes later, I couldn’t stand up.  Twelve minutes later, I was drooling.

Four hours later, it was time to get ready for fun-filled day of plea bargaining.  And hey, I was already dressed in the best clothes I had available to me.

*          *          *

Since I will be spending most of the week with David Nary, and since he has own court-provided driver, I decided not to rent a car during this trip.  This left me responsible, however, for getting myself to and from the Kampala suburb where I am staying each day.  Kampala’s automobile traffic makes LA gridlock feel like Utah highway driving during the annual BYU v. Utah football game.  There is simply no way to get anywhere quickly in the city . . . except on a boda boda.  So against my better judgment (oxymoron?), I sauntered up to a motorcycle stand and pointed toward town.

My next mistake was picking a driver wearing a helmet.  My facially Einsteinian logic reasoned that people who wear helmets are safety conscious; people who are safety conscious about themselves will be safety conscious about others; I am an other.  Makes sense, right?

Well, had my head not been wedged firmly in my own tailpipe, I would have would reasoned that people who wear helmets are less likely to get injured in a crash; people less likely to be injured in a crash worry less about being in a crash; people who worry less about being in a crash do less to avoid a crash; I am on the back of boda being driven by someone not worried about being in a crash.

On the bright side, it had started raining.  Still more encouraging was the fact that it hadn’t rained in a while so there was a thin layer of dust and oil on the road.  Better still, the driver’s tires were balder than my kids keep telling me I will be someday soon.  At least I didn’t have to change underwear once we arrived (remarkably safely) at our destination – I didn’t have any underwear to change into because . . . they were still in Kenya with the rest of my belongings.

Speaking of my kids’ tendency to shovel compliments my direction, the one about me getting fat also resurfaced Monday morning.  David was kind enough to loan me a shirt, tie, and suit jacket, when I arrived at court.  I fell just a hair shy (only a sixth of a yard) of being able to squeeze myself into his 32-inch waist suit pants.  The result threatened to land me on the front page of the Onion’s parody of GQ.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look.

 

Can we agree that I had a bad day?

Over the past few years, I have done several things I had previously been certain I would never do.  Bungee jumping, living and driving in Uganda, admitting I needed glasses, etc.  Continuing this stretch of firsts, last week I was asked to name a newborn Ugandan boy.  In fact, the father of the boy insisted that the baby would not have a name unless I stepped up.  Talk about pressure.

So who is the baby boy?  He is Henry’s little brother.

Near the end of our stay in Uganda, Henry’s mother (in her early 40s) was experiencing what she thought were problems associated with high blood pressure.  Dr. Jay Gregston (father in our Twin Family) reviewed the meds she had been prescribed and provided some friendly physician guidance.  When Henry arrived home from school at the end of November, his mother told him that she just learned that she was pregnant . . . and due in less than a month.  As you might expect, the pre-natal care in Uganda falls well below western standards.

For a while, labor pains and contractions pointed toward a Christmas Day birth.  Henry and I talked or texted day after day, but no baby.  Finally, just after midnight Uganda time on January 7^th, I received a text from Henry asking me urgently to pray for his mother.  I immediately complied.  Fifteen minutes later came the news that the child had been born and that all was well.  Praise God!

A short while later, Henry texted me again saying that his father wanted me to give the baby his two names.  (In the Ugandan villages, there are no family names – just two names.  Usually, one is an English name and one is an African name).  I immediately picked up the phone and called him.

Me: “Um, your text sounded like I am supposed to give this boy his names.  Are you serious?”

Henry: “Yes, my dad said you need to provide both of his names.”

Me: “I wouldn’t know where to start.  Is your father serious?”

Henry:  “Yes, he said that the boy will not have a name unless you name him.”

Me:  “Well, I guess I could give him his English name, but I don’t know any Runyoro tribe names.”

Henry:  “Any two names you choose are fine.  He does not need a Runyoro or African name.  Just pick two names.”

Me:  “OK, let me call you back.”

I tracked down Joline and informed her of my (our) weighty responsibility, and then we got started.  We got on Google and tooled around a bit looking for inspiration.  We had only named three babies before, and each of those names started with a J.  Make it four.

We immediately gravitated toward Biblical names and kicked around a few of those before settling on Josiah – the Biblical boy king who found favor with God – for one of the names.  For his other name, we decided to suggest a few names that would have significance to how Henry and I met.  The names we suggested were Robert (after Bob Goff, the guy who inspired me to journey to Africa in the first place), Justice (what we jointly sought together after we first met), and James (my given name).  I texted these three names to Henry.  A few minutes later, the boy had a name – James Josiah.

In other news, the door to the prison where I met Henry, which Bob Goff brought me last fall from Uganda, is now installed in its final resting place – pictures in the next few days.

Also, on Friday, I booked a ticket back to Uganda at the end of this month.  I will be there for just over a week as the next juvenile justice session begins.

As I reflect on the almost unimaginable events of Wednesday in Kampala, a line from one of my favorite songs continues to loop in my head “. . . from the inside out, Lord, my soul cries out.”

I am beginning to feel like the Boy Who Cried Goff.  There are only so many times one can characterize a day as “one of the most memorable in my life” before some serious integrity questioning seeps in.  But put me under oath, hooked up to a polygraph machine, and water board me – my story won’t change.  It was truly one of those had-to-be-there-to-fully-appreciate-it days, but I will give it my best shot.  Though this post will be longer than usual, I promise to make it worth the read.

Let me begin with some important background information.  There is this fantastically whimsical guy named Bob Goff.  I met him in mid-October of 2009.  Nine weeks later I was on a plane to Uganda.  Two years later, I was sitting in the warden’s office at Luzira, Uganda’s maximum security prison, with Bob, a court official named Margaret, and an honest-to-badness Witch Doctor name Kabi.  (Kabi was serving life for castrating a young boy as part of a ritual ceremony.  Miraculously, the boy I have called Hero in prior posts survived and testified against Kabi in a trial attended, funded, and orchestrated by Bob).  Bob had invited me to go with him to visit Kabi at Luzira: “I am going to talk to him about Jesus, you should come.”  So I did.

I have previously written about that memorable encounter here, but suffice it to say that Bob talked to Kabi about Jesus, and Kabi listened.  Not only did he listen, he obeyed.  It was surreal.  About six months later, while I was living with my family in Kampala, Bob returned to Uganda and again invited me to join him on a visit to see Kabi.  He was a changed man.  Exit witch doctor, enter Jesus follower.  I wrote about that encounter here.  At the end of that visit, Kabi declared that if he ever got out of prison, he wanted to be an evangelist.  As we were leaving, Bob said, “Next time we come, we should totally talk to the rest of the prisoners in Luzira about Jesus with Kabi – how cool would that be?”  “Next time” was this past Wednesday.

It pulverized the cool meter.  Nothing left but dust.

A group of about fifteen of us arrived at Luzira in the late morning.  Accompanying Bob on a week-long trip in conjunction with a graduation ceremony at the school in Gulu he runs were folks from all over the United States, including Bob’s film-maker son, Richard.  Also in the group was Margaret, the court official/preacher lady who was with us when Kabi surrendered his life to his Savior.  Hero, the boy Kabi carved up, lives with Margaret now and he came as well, though he stayed in the parking lot, far from the prisoners.  We were ordered to leave in our cars all phones, cameras, or anything else that could record what would happen inside.  Things were a bit chaotic as we went through security because of the size of our group.  Consequently, one or more of our team members didn’t actually get frisked or wanded.  From security, we were ushered into the warden’s office.  The memories of the first two meetings with Kabi flooded back.

The warden, who had been lurking in the background during both of our prior visits with Kabi in his office, instantly remembered Bob and greeted him warmly.  After exchanging some pleasantries, the warden informed Bob that all arrangements had been made and that the prisoners had been told that some people were coming to preach to anyone who was interested in listening.  Bob was effusive with gratitude and explained that he had gone shopping and brought some things with him for the prisoners – lots of soap and sugar.  The warden was pleased.

What happened next was quite remarkable.  Bob used some sort of mind control techniques I have only seen on television to convince the warden to do something he never would have agreed to do, even for a scrillion shillings.  It went something like this:

Bob:               We also brought a balloon we want to inflate and then let it float into the sky.

Warden:        A what?

Bob:               A balloon.  We have a little bit of helium we are going to fill it up with and then it will float away.  It’ll be cool.

Warden:        Oh, I don’t think that will be . . .

Bob:                You’ll love it, it won’t be a problem (nodding).

Warden:         We cannot allow . . . (shaking his head).

Bob:                Awesome, it’s right outside with the sugar and soap.  We’ll bring it in now.  It will be great.  Thanks for letting us do this (nodding).

Warden:         (Stunned Silence).

Bob:                (Standing and reaching to shake his hand). Thanks, Warden.

Warden:         (Cracking a smile and starting to nod) It is OK.

Everyone Else in the Room:  Did that really just happen?

Shortly thereafter, we were escorted outside into the prison courtyard where a thousand or more inmates in yellow prison garb stood, sat, and milled around in a horseshoe pattern facing a table, behind which was a row of chairs for us.  While there were a handful of guards scattered around, the prisoners were not restrained and there were no barriers between us and them.  In fact, as we approached the chairs, an older gentleman hurried up to Bob and embraced him.  “That’s Kabi,” I whispered to a few of the others.  It would have been a rather sweet moment, were it not bathed in irony – a prisoner serving a life sentence warmly embracing the man who was both responsible for putting him prison and helping him secure eternal freedom.  Kabi wore a soft smile of validation and nodded along quietly as Bob spoke gently into his ear for about two minutes.  As their embrace concluded, Kabi spotted me and gave me a warm smile.  I came over and hugged him.  “Do you remember me?” I asked.  He replied in much-improved English, “I remember you from before in the warden’s office.  It is good to see you.”

All the while, gospel music blared through the loudspeakers facing the prisoners, who were, in turn, facing us.  After a few minutes, all eyes turned to a handful of inmates as they struggled through the security gate lugging two eight-foot-long cylindrical helium tanks.  They gingerly set the tanks down in the red-dirt courtyard between us and the inmates.  A steady stream of inmates who had been conscripted into pack-mule duty followed with a half-dozen body-bag sized sacks of sugar, a dozen huge cases of soap bars, and four boxes of one-liter water bottles.  The booty was placed in full view of the prisoners, just to our right.  The sugar and soap I understood because there was enough for everyone, but the 96 water bottles perplexed me.

A hush came over the crowd as the music faded and an inmate who introduced himself as the pastor of the Luzira Pentecostal Church took the mike and welcomed us as their guests.  Over the course of the next twenty minutes, a “prison choir” led us in a few songs, followed by a prayer.  Whenever someone spoke, another interpreted – either from Luganda to English or vice versa.  The pastor resumed his emcee duties and announced that one of their fellow inmates would be sharing his story of how accepting Jesus changed his life.

With his arm around Bob, Kabi approached the microphone.  He proceeded to tell the other inmates about the kind of person he was before he “born again” and the difference it has made in his life.  Bob stood with his friend throughout this powerfully emotional testimony.

Next came Margaret, who brought it Ugandan Pentecostal style.  She paced, she bounced, she stomped, she raised her hands, she pointed her finger, she yelled, and she whispered.  As Margaret was reaching her crescendo, Bob snuck over to the boxes of water, pulled out a handful of one-liter bottles, and noiselessly handed them out amongst our group.  That’s when it clicked.  I grinned broadly as I finally realized why Bob brought the water.

Margaret finished with a flourish, inviting any of the prisoners who had not been born again to accept Jesus right then and there – “Jesus wants to give you a second chance,” she bellowed.  “Raise your hand if you want to accept Jesus today.”  A few hands went up.  “Come forward so we can pray with you and help you receive Jesus.”  A group of a half-dozen or so emerged from the crowds and stood in the middle of the courtyard in front of Margaret.  Bob’s barely perceptible head nod prompted us into action.  We converged on the penitents, open bottles in hand.

I approached a young man in his early twenties.  His slightly trembling body and penetratingly pleading eyes conveyed the sincerity and urgency he felt.  He told me in somewhat broken English that his name was Ibrahim, revealing the fact that he was born Muslim.  He told me his other name (there are no last names in Uganda, just two names), but I couldn’t quite understand him – Margaret continued to preach and the others who had come forward were talking and praying with the others in our group.  He pulled out a scrap of paper and wrote his other name down. “I want you to remember me,” he said.  “I promise I will remember you and that I will be praying for you,” I insisted as I pocketed the piece of paper.

I cannot remember precisely all that I said and that he said, but we prayed together, I told him that Jesus loved him and that he and I were now brothers.  I also tried to explain that if he wanted me to, I was going to baptize him with the water for the forgiveness of his sins.  He said he understood and he wanted just that.  (My baptism experiences and theology strongly lean toward immersion, rather than pouring of water on the head, but there weren’t any bodies of waters handy, so we made due).  By this time, it had started to drizzle, and the rain mixed with our respective tears as we prayed together.  We both got a bit more wet as I poured a small portion of the water bottle over Ibrahim’s head.  He closed his eyes, turned his head toward the sky, and trembled some more.

As I had attempted to describe for him what I was going to do, I had used the term “holy water” in an effort to convey the symbolism of baptism.  I did not intend to use this term in a way that it is often used in Catholic churches, but Ibrahim must have understood it that way.  As I poured the water on his head, I again used this terminology.  After the second small pour, he opened his eyes and said, “I must drink the holy water.”  That’s a new one, I thought.  As he chugged the entire bottle, my mind immediately locked on the song referenced above – my heart warmed as I briefly reflected on the contrast between baptism through immersion of the outside of one’s body and Ibrahim’s experience of being baptized “. . . from the inside out.”

While Ibrahim and I were in our own little world, another handful of prisoners had come forward and about a dozen or so were locked in conversation and prayer with the rest of our group.  After some more hugging and rejoicing, we all resumed our original seats.

The final song was familiar to me and my breath caught when they started singing:

Let the spirit of the Lord come down,

Let the spirit of the Lord come down,

Let the spirit of the Lord from heaven come down,

Let the spirit of the Lord come down.

That was the very song the prisoners at the Masindi Remand Home sang to our group as we departed during our visit in January of 2010.  I will always remember the gratitude and hope in the juveniles’ eyes that day.  And here was that same song again being sung by another group of Ugandan prisoners clinging to hope.

Next, it was Bob’s turn at the microphone.  Bob shines lots of places, but nowhere as brightly as in front of a crowd.  As Bob began to talk about what it means to be forgiven, two of our number snuck in behind him and started to inflate a big while balloon, using the helium tanks that had been lugged in.  Bob explained that in a few minutes, the balloon would be released into the air and carry our sins up to the heavens.  Blank stares.  I could almost hear what was going through the minds of the thousand-plus crowd.  What could he possibly mean?  How are my sins going to be carried to the heavens?  What is a balloon?

On cue, Bob explained the whole thing.  He instructed his son Richard to slowly move through the crowd holding a Styrofoam ice chest with the word “FORGIVENESS” emblazoned on it.  As Richard moved through the crowd, they clambered to touch it, symbolically placing their requests for forgiveness into the box.  What they didn’t know is that a camera had been embedded into the size of the box and was filming them reaching for it.

As Richard completed the circle, the balloon reached its capacity.  The prisoners and all but one of the guards were mesmerized.  The head guard, however, was becoming increasingly agitated and appeared about to put a stop to it at any moment.  He clearly realized that there was about to be a space launch from the depths of Uganda’s only maximum security prison and he was not at all pleased.  He must have realized, however, that intervening and shutting the entire thing down would likely have caused unrest among the prisoners, if not a full-fledged riot, so he kept his powder dry.  For the moment.

As Richard tied the box to the balloon, Bob whipped the crowd into a frenzy and counted down the launch.  Five.  Four.  Three.  Two.  One.  Launch.

A roar erupted as the balloon lifted off.  For the next five minutes, all eyes were heavenward as the space craft gained altitude.  All eyes except for one pair.  The head guard.  He made a beeline for Bob.  Bob saw him coming and signaled for the rest of us to head for the exits.  I feel constrained to reserve for Bob the full telling of what happened next and what words were exchanged, but suffice it say that the guard figured out that there was a camera on the box and at least one or more (there were more) other hidden cameras capturing the day’s events.  Bob, of course, sweet talked his way out of this potential jam.  One of the hidden cameras captured this image of the balloon launch.

Lots of hugs, high fives, and tears in the parking lot as we reconvened.  It will probably take years to fully comprehend and process the day’s events.