Reunions and Introductions

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Sunday mornings in Kampala bustle with activity, though little of it takes place on the roads.  Uganda is a predominantly Christian nation – roughly 80 percent Christian, 10 percent Muslim, and a smattering of other religions – and the vast majority of Ugandans attend church.  Because there are so many church goers, churches are ubiquitous.  And because there are so many churches, there is bound to be one within walking distance.  Consequently, most Ugandans walk to church, which leaves the roads wide open – a welcome relief from the grinding gridlock (here simply referred to as “jam”) typically encountered in and around Kampala.

This allowed for a smooth and uneventful 45-minute drive to pick up Henry from his Catholic school.  I arrived a little before 9:00 as the students were finishing their morning Mass.  This allowed me to reunite with the Head Teacher at Henry’s school – a fairly young and very capable leader.  He signed Henry’s permission slip to leave campus and we chatted for a few minutes about my work in Uganda.

Henry’s final exams for the third and final term of the year begin next week.  Unlike at most other secondary schools in Uganda, Henry’s final exams make up his entire grade for the term.  There are no mid-terms, homework assignments, class participations points, or anything of that nature — just the four exams (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Math).  In each class, Henry will be assigned a grade between 0 and 5.  In order to advance from Senior Five to Senior Six, after which he intends to apply to medical school, Henry needs to score a cumulative total of 12 points this term.  He is working hard, and praying harder.  He would be grateful for any additional prayers offered on his behalf.  I had seriously considered bringing him to Jinja with me for the day, but thought better of it.  As a consequence of his upcoming exams, we needed to limit the time away from his studies.

Instead we went to breakfast in the mall area.  Café Javas is a favorite among the ex-patriot community and serves American-ish food.  Henry enjoyed his first-ever breakfast burrito and marveled at the flat tortilla, which resembles the chapattis his mother daily prepares and sells in huge quantities in order to make ends meet for Henry’s family. The day before, Henry had proudly shown me his brand-new passport and some photographs taken of him at a school party.  The passport will allow Henry to leave Uganda for the very first time in conjunction with a trip he and some other students are taking to South Africa in early December.  Not only will this trip be fun and educational, but it will begin the process of establishing a pattern of leaving the country and returning, which (I am told) is a critical component of a Visa application to enter the United States.  We are hoping for that opportunity a year or two down the road.  I really liked a few of the pictures of Henry from the school party, so we found a Kodak photo shop in the mall (things are definitely westernizing here) and made digital copies of the photos.  Like American senior pictures, this one makes Henry look older than he really is:

Henry at School

And here is a photo I took of him on our excursion:

Henry During our Field Trip away from School

While we waited for the photo shop to finish its work, we bought some supplies and food items for Henry to take back with him to school.  David Nary met us in the parking lot around noon, and we headed back to drop off Henry.  After hugs and goodbyes, David and I set off to Jinja to meet up with my friend Katie and her girls.

Many of those reading this will recall a few of my prior posts about Katie, but for the new readers, Katie is an amazing young woman (she turns 24 this week) who moved to Uganda just out of high school and has established a wonderful ministry called Amazima, through which Katie feeds, educates, and empowers hundreds and hundreds of the poorest of the poor.  Her book is called Kisses from Katie and has been a regular on the New York Times Bestseller List since its release over a year ago.  It has now been translated into four other languages.  During our time in Uganda, our family got to know (and love) Katie’s family, about which you can read more in her book, or on her blog.

Before I left home, Joline had the great idea of getting autographs from Katie and each of her girls on a copy of her book.  I suspect I am the only one who now has such a signed copy.  And no, it is not for sale.  It is for us.  We had a wonderful visit with Katie and her family, and went to pool with them for their Sunday afternoon swim.  Each visit with her inspires me more to look for ways to surrender my faith to God’s leading in my life.

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Monday was a whirlwind of reunions and introductions.  The main goal of my trip was to connect David with as many players as possible in the juvenile justice project on which I had worked when I was here.  We made a big dent in this mission on Monday.  We met with members of the Criminal Division of the High Court, the Chief Justice, the Principal Judge, and officials at the Ministry of Gender.  The meetings all went well, and we are cautiously optimistic that the baton is successfully being passed to David in the eyes of the Uganda officials, such that the next iterations of J-FASTER can begin in short order.

Along the way, I made a side trip to the Court of Appeals to catch with Alex, a Court Registrar I first met when he visited the United States with a delegation from the Ugandan judiciary in May of 2010.  Alex has been instrumental in so many ways and a blessing to so many families in ways that I will never be able to fully discuss.  Until very recently, Alex worked for the Court of Appeals (he is now in the Land Division).  From his perch there, Alex was able to keep me updated as to the status of the scheduling of my oral argument in Henry’s case.  Due to petitions following the February 2011 elections, which are constitutionally mandated to take precedence over all other court work, the appellate hearing has been delayed on numerous occasions.  The original oral argument date of March of 2011 has been pushed back more times I can count.  Last month, I had been given a glimmer of hope that the argument would likely happen in November of this year, though I was careful to manage my expectations.  I learned Monday that I was right to do so – early next year is what I am now being told.  Thanks to Alex, I now have a friend in the new point person for the scheduling process.

The long day ended with a delightful dinner with Alex, his wife, and the just-retired Deputy Chief Justice (DCJ) of Uganda at a lodge perched high on one of Kampala’s seven hills.  I renewed my love affair with Ugandan meat, and renewed my deep friendship and admiration for her Lordship (as they say here).  The DCJ is such a wise and lovely lady and I am blessed to know her.

Tuesday will be another long day of reunions and introductions, culminating a dinner with Bob Goff, judges, and friends.

Beginning and Ending in Prayer

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Saturday started off really early, though not intentionally.  I have previously written about my troubles sleeping in Uganda, and they re-emerged on this trip.  It is hard to discern whether the challenges stem from the natural difficulties adjusting to the ten-hour time difference, the excitement and busyness of my schedule while I am in country, or from the loud-speaker encouragement from the local Mosque to spend some time praying – right then and there.  Sounded like a good idea to me.  Does it count if I was praying that the power source for the loudspeaker would miraculously fail?  By 4:30, I was up and up for good.

When I rolled out of bed and flipped on my computer, I realized that the power in the house in which I was staying was, indeed, out.  I stumbled to the window and look down into the valley, enveloped in darkness, speckled only an occasional fire light.  I guess my power failure prayers had been answered.  And yet the blessed loudspeaker blared on.  Unfortunately, the Mosque’s generator squelched my sought-after miracle.  The public national holiday on Friday corresponded with a Muslim holiday that apparently necessitated some serious chanting while I was trying to sleep in order to be carried to fruition.

After doing some writing and answering some e-mails, I hopped into the driver’s seat of my newly acquired Toyota RAV4 and drove to the Garden City Mall to pick up David for our first meeting of the day.  This meeting was with Mark Riley, who relocated with his family to Uganda from Wales about two years ago to work as a UNICEF consultant on orphan and child protection issues.  Mark is embedded with the Ministry of Gender, which oversees the Remand Homes.  Mark’s focus is on developing and implementing an alternative care framework for how to deal with Uganda’s substantial orphan population.  We became close during my prior stay in Uganda after our paths crossed in conjunction with both my work on the J-FASTER program (he shares an office with someone at the Ministry responsible for implementing various aspects of J-FASTER) and with some advice and assistance I was providing on an ad hoc basis to American families seeking to adopt Ugandan orphans. Mark has proven to be a good friend and an invaluable source of information and insight into Uganda’s orphan challenges and what the best solutions might be.  In fact, my weekly interactions with Mark (and others) inspired me to lobby for Pepperdine Law to host an international conference on Inter-Country Adoption, which will take place in early February of next year.  More information on that conference is available here.  It appears likely that Mark will be attending and speaking at this conference where those on all sides of this important issue will exchange ideas and propose solutions to the world-wide orphan problems, with special attention on how Christians and other people of faith should or should not respond to this global challenge.

We next met with Isaac Obiro, who is one of Uganda’s most influential adoption lawyers, and who represented many of my old and new American friends who were granted legal guardianship over Ugandan children.  I have previously posted about cases where Isaac provided legal services to the Ribbens family and Brown family here and here, respectively.  A touching story about the Ugandan orphan boy adopted by the Brown family was recently published in Pepperdine’s Law Magazine here.  Isaac updated me on how things have been going over the past couple of months in this realm, and we chatted about the upcoming conference.  Isaac embraced the opportunity to speak at this February conference in Malibu, and he looks forward to reuniting with many of his clients from around the United States who will be attending the conference.

From lunch with Isaac, David and I went to see Henry at his boarding school where is in his penultimate year of secondary school and is studying to be a doctor.  Henry will be familiar to those who have kept up with the Gash Family’s Ugandan adventure, but for those who haven’t, Henry is a big part of how and why we ended up moving to Uganda for six months earlier this year.  I first met Henry in the Masindi Remand Home in January of 2010, and we have been close ever since.  More on who Henry is here and here.  We spent an hour or so together at his school, and I am picking him up Sunday morning for a four-hour excursion away from school.

We ended the day with a great dinner with a wonderful group of Americans who were visiting Uganda on a mission trip.  David and I especially connected with a group of six from a church in Huntsville, Alabama, with whom we laughed, cried, and prayed about what God was doing in Uganda and in our respective lives.  We are grateful to our friends from Sixty Feet for introducing us to these faithful seekers of God’s will for their lives.

I am also grateful to you for wading through this quick and often-meandering update.  Sunday should be lots of fun – four hours with Henry, and then a quick trip to meet up with some very special friends in Jinja.

In the Driver’s Seat

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Kampala was as I remembered it – a bustle of activity on the road from the airport into town, even at close to midnight.  David Nary, Pepperdine alumnus who is serving a one-year Nootbaar Fellowship in Uganda, along with the trusty Daniel who has served as the driver for the prior Fellows over the past three years, had picked me up and shuttled me to the large house just outside of Kampala where the Sixty Feet interns stayed.  The Sixty Feet team had graciously permitted me to stay with them during this trip, decreasing the expenses for this trip.

As I tried to articulate to those who had asked why I was coming back to Uganda mid-week, mid-semester, the best response I could muster was “I am looking for someone to occupy the driver’s seat.”  During my six months in Uganda earlier this year, we had initiated several projects that were aimed at vastly improving the efficiency of the juvenile justice system – moving children from arrest to trial in a fraction of the time it has historically taken.  The difficulty in implementing reforms is often not in the initial injection, but in the longer-term integration of the program into the DNA of the organism.

The J-FASTER pilot program had gone off as planned.  The first post-pilot iteration of the program went even better.  We emptied a Remand Home of all twenty-two of the juveniles awaiting trial – some cases were dismissed for lack of evidence, many kids were released because they had already served more time while awaiting trial than their misdeeds warranted, and some were serving out the rest of the sentences they were justly given.  But when I left, and when the Sixty Feet legal intern Abby left, the driver’s seat was empty.  The car was fueled and fine-tuned, but no one was at the wheel.  Unfortunately, this car is not a drone – remote control from Malibu is not an option.

Friday saw four meetings with four possible drivers for J-FASTER.  My court-assigned driver, Michael, from earlier this year picked me up in the morning, but he wasn’t driving the car we had previously used.  In fact, he wasn’t even driving.  Instead, he arrived in the passenger seat of a van driven by another court driver.  The car assigned to Michael was in the shop, so he took what was available.  But what was available was a gas-guzzling 15-seater that came with its own driver.  Accordingly, Michael was simply along for the ride.  I was quite touched by his display of loyalty – Friday was a national holiday, and he could have been home with his family.

I met up with David at the Commercial Court building where we had our first meeting with a representative of UNICEF.  She had arrived in Uganda from India just before I left, and our paths had not crossed.  Abby had been corresponding with her from the United States and had sent her my final report about J-FASTER.  She had read it with interest and wanted to chat further about potentially partnering with us on future J-FASTER sessions.  David had met her briefly the day before, along with Sarah from the Criminal Division of the High Court, and things were looking promising.  After our meeting, things still quite promising, but not necessarily immediate.  UNICEF’s budget coincides with the calendar year, so we are still a few months away from any sense of whether any UNICEF funds can be allocated to this.  Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that UNICEF would not be able to climb into the driver’s seat.  Their role in these types of projects is to work behind the scenes and to assist with funding and logistics.

Next, we traveled to the Naguru Remand Home to check in with the good folks who feed, shelter, and counsel with the juvenile inmates while they await trial.  David and I confirmed that there are now at least a dozen kids whose capital crime cases have been committed for trial.  This means that there is nothing that is preventing their cases from immediately moving forward.  All they need is someone to put the J-FASTER car into gear.  As we already knew, the probation officers and warden at the Remand Home lack the power and authority to move anything along – their role is to react once things start moving forward.  With respect to the data-base project, the data points are being gathered and prepared for entry into the system, but some bureaucratic snags have prevented the entry from happening.  Hopefully, a meeting early next week will get things moving again.

From the Remand Home, we journeyed out to Uganda Christian University to meet with Brian Dennison, an American lawyer who has been working with the UCU law school for nearly four years.  Brian has coordinated the joint efforts we have undertaken with UCU on prior juvenile sessions, including the J-FASTER pilot program.  Brian reaffirmed UCU’s commitment to assisting the Uganda Christian Legal Fraternity lawyers in their representation of the kids in the Remand Homes.  We also talked about future collaborations as we attempt to integrate plea bargaining into the adult criminal justice system.  While UCU is and will continue to be a valuable partner in all of our efforts, they are not in the position to get into the driver’s seat.

From UCU, we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant at the Emin Pasha Hotel.  We were joined at dinner by Duncan, a Ugandan lawyer who represented the adults in the few cases where they had been charged with the juveniles in the J-FASTER session.  Duncan also teaches criminal procedure at Kampala International University and is a proactive, reform-minded guy who truly wants to help change the system.  In fact, Duncan, along with Sarah, served as the lead mediator in the plea bargaining activities in Masindi for the first J-FASTER follow-on session to the pilot program.  With his assistance, all twenty-two cases were resolved without trial.  Duncan is fully on board and eager to play a role, but as a private lawyer, he is unable to climb into the driver’s seat himself.

None of this came as a surprise.  I had no illusions that any of these four meetings would result in a driver.  But these meetings were of critical importance in introducing and connecting these players with David, to whom I hope to be able to hand the keys soon so he can rev the engine and squeal some tires.

Speaking of keys, through a friend from my prior time here, I had a rental car delivered to the restaurant while we ate.  It just didn’t seem right to be riding around in a van while my driver sat in the passenger seat.  Accordingly, I am back in an actual driver’s seat, wrong side of the road and all.  Uganda just became a bit less safe for pedestrians and boda boda drivers.

Goin’ Back to ‘Ganda

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Today, at long last, I was inducted into “good enough.”  No candles on my favorite cake, no balloons congratulating me, not even a whisper of congratulations.  Just some Dutch lady in a KLM uniform grudgingly acknowledging that I was now good enough to enter the VIP lounge at the Amsterdam Schipol Airport.

“I have been inside before, you know.  I know what where the soft drink machine is.  I know where you keep the extra crackers when the bowl on the counter is empty.  I also know what the inside of the ladies room looks like.” I almost said all of this to the lady behind the counter in response to her rather dismissive look.  Or was that just a Dutch look?

I really had been in there before.  But I had spent a whole lot more time sitting outside looking in at the people who were good enough.  On my first trip to Uganda in January of 2010, I accompanied Jay Milbrandt . . . and he was good enough.  He had a card that said so.  They let him right in and he got to bring me along because good enough people get to bring in friends.  This VIP lounge had it all.  It had all the alcohol I could drink.  For free.  I drink precisely as much as Romney, but I could have gotten real sloppy if I wanted to.  Instead, I taxed my bladder like it was a One Percenter in a second Obama term by drinking four times more Diet Coke than is currently legal in New York City.

When my own version of April 15th arrived a few minutes later, I was so sleepy from the trip and so distracted by the excess caffeine about to mount a jailbreak, I little-boy stepped into the little boys’ room.  No urinals?  Those Dutch . . .  Hmm, are those high heels under the stall I see tapping in front of me?  Those Dutch . . . or is that an Idaho Senator?  Is that a couch I see in the corner?  That’s weird.  Oh wait.  Am I . . .?

I retraced my little-steps and confirmed that I am a buffoon.  For the record, there are seven urinals and zero couches in the boys’ room in the KLM VIP lounge.  The lounge also has WiFi, and they proudly display the Security key at the front desk.  On each of my six subsequent flights to Uganda, I have been Jay-less.  So each visit to the VIP lounge has generated the same derisive laughter from the lounge’s bouncer. “But I have flown on KLM twice, thrice, frice . . .,” I pleaded on consecutive trips.  “I have been anointed “Silver Elite” by your partner airline.  Am I good enough yet?”  Once, I even approached the counter like I was in a soup line on a Seinfeld episode.  Maybe I wasn’t following the approach rules, I wondered.  “No soup for you,” Helga barked.  Apparently Seinfeld is syndicated in Amsterdam now.

I always had the last laugh, though, because while I was getting humiliated at the counter, I memorized the WiFi code, then camped out the like the proverbial leper outside the temple gates and caught up on e-mail.  Today was finally different.

“Yes, you are good enough.  Please come in and make yourself comfortable.”  Apparently, having a “Gold Elite” card does the trick.  And apparently flying back and forth to Uganda seven times gets you a Gold Elite card.  So here I sit at the weigh station between Los Angeles and Entebbe, Uganda.

I had not intended to return to Uganda so quickly, having lived in the capital city of Kampala with my family from January through July of this year.  I returned to teaching full time this past fall, having completed a seven-year administrative stint at the law school, which culminated in the Ugandan sabbatical.  The Ugandan judiciary could not have been more gracious and receptive during our stay – you don’t need a Gold Elite card to be considered good enough by the beautiful and kind people of the Pearl of Africa.  With the cooperation of a couple-a-three dozen dedicated civil servants in the judiciary, Ministry of Gender, and in the prisons, we were able to propose and pilot a new framework for moving juvenile criminal cases from arrest to trial that drastically shortens that time frame.  Also critical to the success of this J-FASTER program was the financial and logistical support of Sixty Feet (sixtyfeet.org), a Christian organization based in Atlanta who is pouring itself into imprisoned children in Uganda.

From the beginning, we understood that the hard part of implementing this program was not going to be the initial pilot session, or even the follow-on session we did as I was leaving.  The challenge is, and will be, sustainability and self-sufficiency.  This trip will focus on advancing those long-term objectives.

Pepperdine funds a law-school alumnus every year to live and work in Kampala embedded within the judiciary.  The Nootbaar Fellows, as they are called, work primarily for the Commercial Court as mediators.  (Incidentally, the Nootbaar Fellows are named for the benefactors of Pepperdine’s Nootbaar Institute for Law, Religion, and Ethics – Herb and Elinor Nootbaar).  Herb turns 104 next week, and I scheduled this trip to Uganda to ensure that I was back in time to attend his birthday party a week from Saturday).

The 2011-12 Nootbaar Fellow, Shane Michael, also branched out and provided valuable assistance and vision for the J-FASTER program in the Criminal Division, as will the new Nootbaar Fellow, David Nary.  David arrived in Uganda for his year-long fellowship earlier this month, and one of the goals for my week-long trip is to connect him with all of the wonderful people with whom I was blessed to work early this year.

Also on the agenda is to check on the implementation of the database project we initiated for the largest Remand Home in Uganda.  Remand Homes are prisons where arrested juveniles are held until their trials, which can take up to two years.  Kampala is home to the largest such Remand Home in Uganda, where 150 or so children are kept.  Since we have been coming to Uganda, the Naguru Remand Home has kept a massive, table-sized book where periodic hand-written notes are scribbled about each child.  The credit for bringing this project from an idea I had a couple years ago, to a functional system goes to Sixty Feet, who designed and oversaw the implementation. The Naguru Remand Home now has a computerized tracking system that, if properly maintained, will provide all material information about every child in the Remand Home, including court dates, medical records, disciplinary records, etc.  The official launch of this project came after I left and I am eager to check in to see how it is going.

The part of the trip I am most excited about, however, is hanging out with Bob Goff for a couple days just before I return home next week.  Bob is completely nuts and has a potentially fatal allergy to anything ordinary.  We are going to have a dinner with a bunch of our judge friends next Tuesday night, then we hope to create quite a stir at a place where lots of locals hang out for long periods of time.  I have no idea how it will go, but I have no doubt that it will be memorable.

I covet your prayers for this trip and for the kids in the Ugandan prisons who are “good enough” to warrant the time and attention we hope to provide them as they seek to gain access to justice.  I am grateful to Dean Tacha for continuing to support the vision of her predecessors of living out the mission of Pepperdine Law School by seeking to serve the forgotten and voiceless at home and around the globe.

How He Loves

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This past week, Monday through Thursday, I went with my school to Arizona. By the way, this is my first post since we returned to the US about two months ago. Nothing in my life has really been “blog worthy” until now. This wasn’t just a camp where we learned about nature and went hiking. No, this was a learn-more-about-yourself-and-your-savior trip. Just to let you know, I was tempted to write saviour instead of savior, which is the Ugandan/British way to spell it.

I feel like I really understood the point of the trip. The verse for the week was Ephesians 4:1-2 which says, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” This verse pretty much tells us what to do to live a life worthy of the calling of God. When I was in Uganda, I was sure I was living the way God wanted me to be living. Since I’ve gotten back, it’s been harder to do that. I’m at school from 7:15 to 5:30 most days and I don’t have time to do anything. Or so I think.

 

One of the first nights in Arizona, we sang the song How He Loves. It tells us point blank how God loves us. Before Arizona, when I was singing that song, or any song, really, I would sing but I wouldn’t really hear the words. What I mean by that is that I would sing but I wouldn’t get anything out of the songs. I certainly wouldn’t apply it to my life.

 

You see, I think that I don’t have time to live a life worthy of the calling of God, but I do. While we were in Arizona, a girl told a story that broke my heart. On the last night, everyone on the trip was sharing something either that they learned about the week or really anything at all.  Her grandfather died from drug use and her mom would’ve, but she turned to God.  She was diagnosed with diabetes when she was four and is now twelve. Her parents recently told her that they were getting a divorce and that she has to tell her little sister. My friends’ sister looks up to her and she knows that it will break her heart when she finds out.

 

As you know, I’m a crier. I don’t know if I’ve ever shed that many tears in one night. Certainly not from one story. This showed me that we all need to love each other no matter what, and especially when one of us is going through a hard time. While at school, I can live a life worthy of the calling of God simply by showing compassion to others. I never knew it could be that simple.

I hope that everyone reading this remembers this. Whether young or old, a believer or a non-believer, rich or poor. GOD LOVES EVERYONE!!!! I wish I could make the words jump because that’s how much those words mean to me.

“He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

-How He Loves David Crowder Band

 

 

Love Always, Jennifer Gash

 

 

The Coolest Gift I Ever Received

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I have received many really great presents over the course of my lifetime.  A train set.  A bike.  Lots of ties.  A trip to Vegas.  And when I turned 40, my wife even bought me a car.

But I have never received a cooler gift than I got last night.  And it wasn’t even my birthday.  The really cool gift?

A door.  Yes, a door.  And not a new door.  It’s an old door.  But it’s not just any old door.  Let me explain.

When our dear friends Tim and Lucy Perrin left sunny, breezy, beautiful Malibu for parched, windy, desolate Lubbock this summer, Joline and I inherited the weekly law student Bible on Wednesday nights that used to meet in Tim and Lucy’s home.  Each week, the group of about seventy students meets to worship, pray, and hear an encouraging word from a speaker, which is typically a member of the law school faculty.

The first gathering was last week, but it was more of an informal get-to-know-each-other kind of thing.  We sang and prayed, but didn’t have a featured speaker.  We wanted to have the first speaker be someone who started the school year off right and who would draw a crowd.  We also wanted to have someone who personified this year’s theme of “Living a Life Worthy of the Calling We Have Received.”

For the four or fifth year in a row, Bob Goff and his law partner Danny DeWalt are teaching a non-profit law class on Wednesday nights.  Since Bob is one of my personal heroes and is perhaps the best storyteller I have ever heard, we asked Bob to kick off the year.  We happened to catch Bob at just the right time in his busy speaking schedule – he is in huge demand to speak all over the country in the wake of the release of his NYT Bestselling Book called “Love Does.”  It is must read.

Bob Goff Speaking to Pepperdine Law Students

True to form, Bob was awesome.  He encouraged the students not to be typical – to use the gifts God has given them to serve others.  He talked about how blessed he has been by those he has met during his travels to Uganda, where he operates a school in war-torn Northern Uganda.  He also talked about how inspired he was by “Two-Bunk John,” who was the Uganda country director for Bob’s organization Restore International for the past five years.  Two-Bunk John (Niemeyer) is now a first-year law student at Pepperdine and is in my Torts class.

I met John during my first trip to Uganda in January of 2010, which had been inspired by a talk Bob Goff gave in October of 2009, along with some heavy encouragement by Jay Milbrandt (author of “Go and Do”).  I met John at a juvenile Remand Home (prison) in Masindi, Uganda.  Over the course of a week, John, Jay, and I, along with three Pepperdine Law grads, interviewed the 21 juvenile prisoners and prepared legal briefs on their behalf, which helped them gain access to justice, and eventually freedom.  When I was back in Uganda earlier this year, we went back to that same prison and helped the 22 new prisoners there get access to justice as well.

As Bob was telling a bit of this story last night, I saw John slip out the back.  While I momentarily wondered where he was going, I thought little of his disappearance.  Near the end of his talk, Bob explained that he and John had gone to the juvenile prison in Masindi and ripped off the doors, adding a symbolic exclamation point to the idea of setting the captives permanently free.  (They, of course, bought and installed new doors to replace the ones they took).  As Bob concluded with a flourish, John re-emerged carrying a door.

I immediately recognized that door as the one that detained the female prisoners since the prison was built in the late 1960s.  I got goose bumps, and once again marveled at the power of Bob’s storytelling – he told a story about setting the captives free, and then he brought the door that had been ripped off the hinges in the process.  Genius.

And then the nickel dropped.  Bob turned to me and said, “John and I have been talking about it and we want you to have this door.”  Words on a page are incapable of describing the emotions that overtook me.  I concede that it sounds silly to be blown away by a gift of an old door, but I was.  I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t breathe, and I could barely see as tears welled up.  I eventually composed myself enough to join Bob at the front to receive the coolest gift I have ever received.

Bob, Jay, Jim, and John with the Door to the Masindi Remand Home

Joline, the kids, and I have figured out the perfect place for the door and will be posting a picture of it when we get it installed.

Welcome!

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I can hear the cheers through my kitchen window this morning as I wash the breakfast dishes.  It is New Student Orientation week at Pepperdine and the new freshmen are arriving.  Every time a car drives up the dorm road, the NSO counselors cheer so loudly that I can hear it from my house, which is located in the neighborhood next to campus.  This is their way of saying, “Welcome to Pepperdine!  We are glad you are here!”  We hope to hear those same cheers next year as we drive our daughter Jessica across the street to Pepperdine when she begins college.  How did she grow up so fast?

In Uganda, we often heard people say, “You are welcome” when we arrived at their home.  They said this before we said “Thank you” so we were a bit confused at first.  But we learned that when they say, “You are welcome” it simply means welcome to my home.  Ugandans do their very best to make visitors feel welcome.  Many times when we visited a home, we were served cold sodas and a meal that included some kind of meat.  Sodas and meat are luxury items there, so it meant a lot to us that they would spend their limited resources to treat us to something special.

Our kids started school last week at Oaks Christian School.  Lots of food was involved in welcoming them.  Jennifer is a new 7th grader there, and enjoyed a nice lunch of pizza, chips, and cookies for new middle school students.  Joshua is a new freshman, so he attended the mandatory ice cream social.  Why does it have to be mandatory?  If you serve it, they will come.  Jessica is a senior, and went to the In-N-Out Burger night for high school students the night before school began.  They all felt welcome and were excited to start school on Thursday.

First Day of School

What would my kids think if, when they came home from school today, I cheered at the top of my voice and handed them a cold drink?  They might think I had lost my mind!  Or they might just feel special.

Our friend’s mom passed away last week.  I bet she received a welcome in heaven that was better than anything we could imagine.

Even Faster Than J-FASTER

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Delivering the Final Report to Chief Justice Odoki

One of the hardest things about leaving Uganda three weeks ago was the fact that the Masindi J-FASTER session for children imprisoned at the Ihungu Remand Home was scheduled to begin the following week.  While the Kampala J-FASTER session had taken the full 90 days we had allotted for it, we believed we could deliver justice to imprisoned children even faster.

Accordingly, the Masindi session was fast(er) tracked.  Our goal was to reduce by 30 days the time it took to get the children through the process.  The Pepperdine lawyers flew in from Malibu and the Pepperdine students drove up to Masindi from Kampala to interview the kids and prepare their cases in mid-June.  As mentioned previously, joining the Pepperdine team was Abby Skeans, a Regent Law student who was also spending her summer in Uganda.  While in Uganda, Abby served as a legal intern for Sixty Feet – a Christian NGO headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.  Given my close friendship with the Sixty Feet team, and given the good relationship Pepperdine enjoys with Regent, I had the privilege of “supervising” Abby during her eight weeks in Uganda.

From the beginning, Abby blended in easily with the Pepperdine students.  She was also very proactive and eager to get things accomplished.  For example, Abby took Pepperdine’s idea of creating a digital tracking system for all juvenile prisoners in Uganda (so that no kids would ever fall through the cracks again) and ran with it.  She and I initially met with the various Ministry of Gender officials who could approve such a project, and then she took the baton and sprinted forward.  Since I left Uganda, the final approvals for a pilot database project have been secured, and the database has been developed, thanks in no small part to computer wiz Dan Owens of Sixty Feet.  We hope to have the database project in place in the next few weeks.  A more complete description of this program and its current status is here in Abby’s blog.

Since Abby came to Kampala a few weeks later than the Pepperdine students, she was also staying in Uganda several weeks after we all left.  This meant that she would be around when the Masindi J-FASTER session started.  Additionally, a court official named Sarah, who had worked very closely with us in the Kampala session, also agreed to travel back and forth to Masindi in order to ensure that the J-FASTER procedures were both understood and observed by the court officials in Masindi.  Sarah’s expenses were covered by Sixty Feet.  An additional bonus is that Sarah had previously worked closely with the High Court judge who would be presiding over the Masindi J-FASTER session.  This same judge had worked closely with the Pepperdine team that had first traveled to Masindi for a juvenile justice project in January of 2010 during my first visit to Uganda.

As I experienced during my time in Uganda, it is foolish to expect everything to go according to plan.  That simply never happens.  Indeed, in Masindi, plenty went wrong.  For example, the lawyer who was supposed to represent the children went on leave the week before the trials were to start.  Fortunately, Abby was able to cajole her back from a different part of Uganda just in time.  As with the Kampala J-FASTER session, Sixty Feet generously funded the costs of the session so that these kids would not continue to languish in prison – some had been there for more than two years just waiting for someone to do something.  Additionally, as the session began, some “irregularities” developed with respect to the funds that had been deposited with the court.  Abby, Sarah, and others got this straightened out and recovered the “misplaced” funds. Abby and Sarah also gently, or not so gently, urged the rest of the players to complete their tasks – the role I had played in Kampala – and the session finally got underway in late July.

Just before I left, I had traveled to Masindi with Sarah, another Ugandan attorney, and two Pepperdine law students for a plea bargaining session with the prosecuting and defense attorneys. During that meeting, we had reached plea agreements on approximately three quarters of the twenty-two cases.  At that time, the lawyers agreed to continue discussions about the others.  When the court session began two weeks ago, however, they attorneys had reached deals on all but one of the cases.  Accordingly, the session moved forward with virtually no work to be done by the trial judge.  The following week, almost all of the children were sentenced, mostly in accordance with plea deals had been reached.  Most of these kids are now being resettled back home as I write this.  While each case is unique and tragic, one case really stands out from the others.

One of the boys, call him Sam, had been charged with murdering his father.  There was no dispute that his father had been killed, the question was simply who did it.  Prior to his arrest, Sam was in school and doing well, even though his father had moved his family from place to place about once a year.  Sam’s father was a physically abusive alcoholic and dabbled in Ugandan traditional healing (witch doctor stuff).  The family’s frequent moves were usually occasioned by his father being driven out of town by the locals.  From everything we could gather, it appeared that either Sam or his mother had killed Sam’s father after a particularly brutal series of physically abusive episodes against Sam and his mother.  After Sam was arrested, the police say that Sam initially confessed that he had killed his father, but he later insisted that he didn’t do it.  While in the Ihungu Remand Home, Sam had become the spiritual leader of the boys.  He also ached to resume his education.

During the plea discussions, the attorney representing the children reported that Sam would not plead guilty to a crime he did not commit.  Since he had been at Ihungu for less than a year, and since the maximum sentence for a juvenile is three years, he very likely faced more than two additional years in prison if he was convicted of the crime.  After I returned to the United States, I learned that a plea deal had later been reached that would result in Sam serving only an additional ten months in exchange for a plea of guilty.  Reluctantly, Sam accepted the deal, even though it is increasingly clear that he is taking the fall for another family member who actually killed Sam’s father.  Sam’s plight had so captured the attention (and heart) of Sixty Feet that they had agreed to sponsor his continuing education after he finished serving his additional sentence.  Earlier this week, I learned that after hearing about Sam’s case, the sentencing judge rejected the plea deal.  The judge had been so impressed by Sam, and had been so touched by Sixty Feet’s willingness to sponsor Sam’s return to school, Sam was sentenced to . . . time served.  Abby reports that upon hearing his sentence, Sam dropped to his knees and began offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God.  He has since been transported to Kampala where he will resume school in two weeks.

Here are a couple other quick updates.  First, the trial in the final case in the Kampala J-FASTER session concluded just before I left, but the judge had not yet entered her verdict.  The two adults charged with murder in this case (the juvenile had been dismissed from the consolidated case) were convicted and sentenced to 40 and 35 years, respectively.  Had they accepted a plea bargain, they would have saved themselves about twenty years each.  Hopefully the word will spread around the prison so that more will be willing to plea bargain.

Second, Henry has now finished his second of three terms of his Senior 5 year.  He continues to very much enjoy school and has lots of friends.  It is difficult to tell for sure how well he is doing because the school intentionally grades the students very hard the first two terms.  (Henry’s understanding is that he is somewhere near the middle of his class in the top school in the country where he is studying).  Only two of the two hundred in his class met the standard that the school says it will require everyone to meet next term in order to advance to the final Senior 6 year of secondary school.  I understand from numerous sources that the top schools routinely give low marks in the first two terms as a motivational tool for their students.

Final Dinner with Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice

My intent is to resume posting once or twice a week from this point forward.  In my next post, I will add my perspective, for what it is worth, to the recent debate about Chick Fil A, free speech, and marriage.

So what now?

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I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s thinking this. I know some of Throwing Starfish’s readers are wondering, “So what now?” Believe it or not, but some people checked our blog every day. The truth is I don’t know what’s next. Ever since I got back, I’ve been wondering the same thing. I feel like I have this part of me that’s screaming at me to go back.

Back where I feel accepted. Where I know that someone loves me. Where I know that there is a little boy who will be so grateful for medical attention that he will stick around the building until we leave just to say thank you. Someone that will run and grab my hand and never ever let go. I want God to hold my hand and never let go. Please, God, don’t ever let go.

I know that God is always with me. I know that. Sometimes, there are certain places where the signal sort of gets weaker. The signal is the strongest in Uganda. Back “home”, or at least what’s supposed to be home, I don’t feel God with me as much as I want to. I want to feel like God is always sitting right next to me in the car. And I just don’t feel that.

When I look outside at the mountains to my left and the ocean to my right, I feel truly blessed. Even though I missed my ocean in Uganda, I still yearn to go back to the place where I left half of my heart. To the Pearl of Africa. I’m very proud of Uganda as a country. Since the genocide, they have had to rebuild what was torn down. The Ugandans have built facilities that help the woman who have had their lips cut off during the genocide. They have received new lips. Those women are gaining back their confidence.

I was watching the Olympic opening ceremonies last night, and when Uganda walked across the stadium with their flag, I was proud of them. Even though there were so few competing for Uganda, I’m glad they came. I think it’s amazing that those men and women can represent their country. Uganda is a beautiful country with beautiful people. And they deserve to be recognized.

So what now? I hope that this helped you to see “what now.” I know that a part of me will always want to return to Uganda. I’m sure that I will someday, I just don’t know when. But for now, I’m stuck in California. I guess I’ll just have to see what God has planned for me.

Thanks,

Jennifer Gash

Final and Fond Farewells

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We made the most of our last few days in Uganda.  On Sunday, we visited the Kampala Church of Christ for the first time, and got to say goodbye to a couple of good people we met shortly after we arrived.  We also spent two hours with Justice Kiryabwire, who runs the Pepperdine/Uganda Judiciary program from Uganda’s end.

Monday was delivery day for the sixty-five page Final Report I had wrote about my work over the prior six months.  I felt like a paperboy as I drove around town dropping off copies of the report and saying goodbye to those who had worked so hard to ensure the program was successful.  The day culminated in a very nice dinner party Chief Justice Odoki hosted at the Serena Hotel for me, my family, and the highest ranking members of the judiciary.  There were lots of speeches, gifts, and fond farewells.

On Tuesday morning, we got up early and drove out to the Naguru Remand Home, which is the juvenile prison with which I have been working.  I had a chance to say goodbye to the officials and to give the kids there a final word of encouragement.

Talking to the Kids at the Remand Home

With Probation Officers Marie and Hussein

On the heels of our successful Crocodile Farm trip the prior weekend, we ventured out to the Snake Park out near the airport in Entebbe.  We brought with us Sarah Nassimbwa, with whom I had worked closely at the court, and her five year-old son.  Sarah took him out of school for this educational field trip.  We saw pythons, cobras, and other dangerous snakes native to the region.

The Kids with Sarah and her Son, Rayan

I had called the week before to make sure we were there at feeding time, but they had inexplicably fed them the day before instead.  Accordingly, we saw lots of fat snakes and several lucky baby chickens who had barely survived the carnage from the day before.

Later that afternoon, we visited Henry one last time at his school.  We cherished the time we had to pray with him and his wonderful physics teacher.  Henry’s end-of-term exams begin next week, so prayers are welcomed.

The Gash Family with Henry and his Physics Teacher, Jonathan

We ended the long day at my driver’s house with his family.  They killed the proverbial fatted calf for us, and fed us his liver.  Apparently, nothing says “welcome to my home” in Uganda quite like a plate of liver – Henry’s family had done the same thing when we visited their home in Hoima in early February.  My family doesn’t like liver, but we did our best to gratefully accept what they offered.  In fact, Jessica repeatedly told them that “this is the best liver I have ever had,” which was true, but seemed to be leaving out some important other details.  Michael informed us that we were the first Mzungus ever to visit his house.

Joline and I with Michael's Family

On Wednesday, we loaded up and set off for the airport in the afternoon.  The flights were uneventful, and we landed in San Francisco at noon on Thursday and were greeted at the airport by my folks and Joline’s folks.  As I type this on Friday morning, the kids are still sleeping so we have adjusted well to the time difference.  Later today, we will celebrate Jessica’s 17th birthday.  Later this month, we will drive back down to Southern California to resume our lives in the United States.

We are grateful those of you who have kept up with our adventure, and who have prayed for us along the way.  Your prayers were felt and very much appreciated.  We are eager to catch up with you in person, and to hear about what we have missed.

We intend to continue to provide updates about the ongoing work in Uganda and how our time there has changed us.  God bless you.