Five o’clock Monday morning, and we are drinking our coffee. Then it’s out the door before the sun crests the horizon with Mama Sarah and Pastor Moses for our pre-dawn walk. We are greeted by groups of young school children and villagers on their way to their classrooms, fields or shops.
There is a flurry of physical activity here in western Uganda each morning to beat the mid-day sun. Early mornings to work the fields or prepare for long days of schooling makes good sense. Lots of outside activity either on your way to or already at work… “KORE”.
Work (‘kore’ in Runyankore) can feel very different here than in the States. The American stress of early rising, hopping in your car and battling traffic can be a test of nerves for sure…….and not much fun.
But we live in a different rhythm. Our diet has been good for our waistlines and heart health, it’s the kind of living and working with nature that our great grandparents understood. Hard physical labor to “eke” out a living or moving step by step to create a better life.
One of our friends, Brian, recently approached us for a sit-down conversation. Brian is a young well-spoken man who had gone for culinary training after high school. High school students here attend boarding schools and wake up two hours before sunrise, so they can do their homework revisions and do their laundry before a porridge breakfast at six in the morning.
He returned home to our small village after training at culinary school with his wife and baby. In Kampala, (the capital city), finding work is difficult. Unemployment and the cost of living in the city are high. Even with his lack of job prospects, Brian wasn’t deterred. He and his wife jumped back into work life here and started a small business. He still longed to pursue his dream of being a chef, and they started to save little by little toward that elusive opportunity.
We met Brian not knowing about his cooking skills. He was just a friendly guy who had helped Paul get his sandals repaired in the village. One of Moses’ friends told us more about him, and his culinary skills, so we hired Brian to cook a special meal for us. It was wonderful! He got to practice what he’d learned but he wouldn’t accept pay, only accepting the cost of the ingredients. It was his way of thanking us for coming to stay here in Kiburara.
Mary soon “recruited” Brian to help with some baking classes for some of the local women. Not a paying gig, but again, an opportunity for him to use his skills and help others in the village. At the end of those classes, he had begun to strategize with us, a way to parley these classes into a business opportunity. We were doing some brainstorming of our own of ways Paul, and I could help.
The day Brian asked us “to talk”, he wanted our advice as he considered leaving Uganda to go work in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We were surprised but understood. There are so few good paying jobs here that many men leave their families for the promise of regular full-time employment…but they must agree to be away for a two-year contract.
Two years of steady work, with only a few visits home. You can imagine the challenges. This challenge is especially hard for young brides who often have several small children to feed, clothe and shelter. Relational challenges and temptations abound for both husbands and wives. Many succumb to them leaving broken marriages and lives in their wake. There are so few employment options here in Uganda that many Ugandans are willing to risk this situation, and potentially destroy their families.
We counseled our friend, knowing his situation, and cautioned him about the “down-sides”. How had he planned to protect himself and his family when away? We prayed with him and about the pitfalls of working abroad but told him he needed to make the decision. Early the next morning, he accepted the offer and was on his way to Riyadh with the hope that he could improve his situation at home, (maybe even save enough money to continue his culinary training and follow his dream).
In the states, we sometimes imagine a simple way of living to be a life without the interruptions, and all the technologies text, emails, that barrage us daily. We can romanticize “the days of old”, when our great-grandparents worked the farm, grew their own food, and didn’t deal with the stresses we face now. But it was HARD work. Working, and doing hard work, was a way of life 100 years ago and is still a way of life here in central Africa.
In a New Testament letter written to the church in Philippi, the apostle Paul wrote “In all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—-whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:12)
Christ words from the Gospel of Matthew are words that show us a way forward into rest………..a special kind of rest that can’t be matched even after a hard day’s work. Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)
People here work and work hard just like Brian, and they are grateful for each new day. We see more smiles and hear more laughter here than you’d think possible under these harsh situations, not having the luxuries we enjoy today in the west…
Many of our friends lack indoor plumbing and cook over charcoal, they don’t have ovens let alone microwaves or an air fryer. They don’t have vehicles that can get them from here to there in a quick minute, spending their days walking and talking to neighbor’s.
But there is something to be said about the hard work, the “KORE” and the reward of an unharried life. A rest that can elude us in western cultures where we seem to have so much of what we want and live with such constant discontent.
Jesus invites us to HIS REST from all our efforts to earn our way to God. We can’t do it through our efforts at “being good”. By taking ‘His Yoke’ and trusting in Christ’ death for our sins and resurrection we don’t need to work our way to eternal rest with God.
It’s true that work here on earth can be hard, but it can also bring us rewards. The greatest reward we can ever experience is one we don’t earn at all, but one gifted to us because of and through our God’s sacrifice.