Meet Jackie

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.