Jackie was born
in a remote village in Northern Uganda 22 years ago. Her father left when she was young and her
mother did not have money to send her to school. When her mother got a new “husband” he did
not want the kids that were not his so her mother sent her to live with her
aunt. She was in charge of taking care
of her aunt’s babies.
She did get to go to school until P 4 or about
Grade 4 but after that there was no money for her to go to school. Her Aunt’s kids got to go to school but she had
to go to the field to dig weeds. She
cried all day long because she wanted to go to school so much. She did not get much food because she was the
niece and the aunt’s children were fed first.
She got what was left which was little.
From there she
went to stay with her Cousin and his wife.
They had young children for her to tend and she also had to go to the
garden. In Northern Uganda the people
survive on subsistence farming. The land
is owned by farmers and the villagers, usually the women, and children do the
digging. They leave for the field early
in the morning and stay there until almost dark. They are paid a small amount at the end of
the year for doing the digging. It
amounts to enough to buy one set of second hand clothes. She told me that she still went to dig
because she said, “If I sit I get
nothing.”
When Jackie was
20 she moved into Kampala and found a job as a guard at a restaurant working
nights. The pay was small but she
managed to save enough money to buy a sewing machine and took some sewing
lessons from a neighbor.
Her cousin,
Vincent, was a member of the church and they were good friends. Vincent died of Rheumatic Heart disease at 21
years old and we met Jackie at the funeral.
I was so impressed by her spirit and determination to be successful in
life. She came to church by herself
every Sunday after working a night shift and wanted so much to be baptized but
had to wait 8 months because she was a single woman with no family members in
the church. She waited patiently and kept
coming to church and singing in the choir.
She taught herself how to speak
English and she served the senior missionaries by buying vegetables for them at
the market and delivering them to the apartments. She now works at the mission home cleaning for
the mission president and sewing on her days off. She
has the responsibility to care for her younger sister, Delise, who is 11 years
old. Delise has been baptized and Jackie
pays her school fees and provides a home for her. Her little sister loves going to church and
is learning English.
Jackie’s goal
is to go back to school and get her senior high school diploma and then become
a teacher because she loves children. She is saving her money to be able to pay for
it by herself. She opened a bank account
and deposited 300,000 Uganda Shillings.
I have no doubt that she will be able to accomplish her goals.
I like her
quote, “If I sit I get nothing”. She showed me that you just have to keep on
trying and working, even if it doesn’t seem to produce much pay. Something is better than nothing.
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