In 2013, I was an 18-year-old student in a 5-month training program that Ten Thousand Homes ran. Our multicultural team of 10 individuals spent 3 months at the TTH campus in South Africa and 2 months working with similar organizations across Eswatini and Uganda. This story comes from our final month in Uganda. – Rebekah Thorman
It was a small room, with a window halfway up one wall. The Ugandan sunshine flowed in. On the concrete floor lay a single mattress, and there sat a woman.
Her name was Joyce.
She didn’t look to be any older than my own mother. Her eyes were kind and she wore a radiant smile, like a sunflower raising its face to the light. But her thin frame told the story of a disease that was consuming her body. Her time was limited.
Even so, from that place of pain, she chose to lift her voice in grateful song and prayer. In that small room in rural Uganda, brokenness collided with joy and peace like a kaleidoscope in the moonlight.
I knew the facts, the statistics of AIDS. But the day I met Joyce, those statistics became a glaring reality. Too many mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters have been lost. They each had a name, a story of their own.
Over the years, few families across Africa have remained untouched by the harsh realities of HIV. Too many broken families have been left behind. They also have names, but their stories continue on.
And so we too carry on, in hopeful pursuit of brighter futures and a world where families can thrive.
let’s build a world where families can thrive.
