How Good Do We Have It? Look to Uganda

A week and a day from today, many will gather to offer thanks to their Creator for the many blessings he has provided. Others will shun such gatherings. Who needs to give thanks for anything? they reason. We’ve got it all, who could ask for more? Instead they will simply gobble turkey and pie, watch football until they fall asleep, then awaken to wonder what time stores will open on Black Friday.
That will be Thanksgiving Day 2014 for a lot of folks. The day, its meaning, jumbled into nothingness, except for the holiday parades that hearken the countdown to Christmas and the frenzied season that brings joy to many and frayed nerves to others. How sad!
Last week, Tom Crouthamel was telling me about his latest mission trip to Kampala, the capital and largest city in Uganda. He’s a member of the Lighthouse Church. Going to far-flung countries to do what he can to help people build structures and strengthen their religious convictions is nothing new for him. He’s been to Brazil, Cuba, and Dominican Republic before his latest odyssey.
Each time he returns, Tom tells gripping stories of how desperately poor those people are that he and others with him have helped. He’s a humble man who has seen poverty as most Americans cannot fully realize in Central America and, lately, in Africa. He believes if more Americans saw for themselves how others live, and are grateful for the little they possess, attitudes would definitely change.
In Uganda, the unemployment rate is 11 percent in Kampala, lower elsewhere, 4.2 percent in 2010, according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics. People who live there claim the rate is much higher. Compare that to 6.6 percent here in New Jersey in August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We know what unemployment is like here in Cape May County when that number swells to over 19 percent in the dead of winter. We know how much it affects families and children, and that’s with welfare and other forms of government aid.
Tom shook his head recalling what he witnessed in that African nation. College-educated people can’t find work. Those who get work are paid a meager wage, and most of that goes for food.
It’s not as if he was wasting his time there. The people with whom he worked don’t want charity, he noted, they want to learn so they can do for themselves. They want to get better, and they can, with help from people like Tom and other nations.
Another very real problem he noted in Uganda, something we don’t consider much are orphans. There are so many in that country and city. One of the men with whom Tom labored took time away from his other religious work to focus on the real needs of those orphan children. It was a need he felt had to take priority.
Travel is the greatest form of education. It teaches without books, and what it teaches lingers.
Tom also learned that the Chinese are reaching out to Uganda to fund road building projects. According to a 2012 article in Uganda’s leading daily publication, “Economic experts argue that Uganda’s poor road network is one of the major bottlenecks to unlocking Uganda’s economic potential. Experts said if this poor road infrastructure is addressed, Uganda’s economic potential, owing to its geographical centrality on the African continent, can be unlocked, boosting both intra-regional trade and domestic trade.
“China, like elsewhere on the continent is helping Uganda to unlock this potential.
“According to a Chinese saying, people who want to be rich should build a road first. Chinese companies are playing an important role in the infrastructure development of Uganda,” Zhao Yali, Chinese ambassador to Uganda, said.
Rudyard Kipling penned in his heart-wrenching poem “The Power of the Dog,” “For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long.” Knowing the eye China has toward being number one in the world, we know there are strings attached to this “good will” business gesture. If the good folks in Uganda haven’t figured it out yet, they will someday. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
When you’re poor, dirt poor, any sort of offer like that can look really appealing, regardless of the price tag that may not be fully understood.
Maybe this will give a reason to be somewhat thankful for the things we possess. As Tom will freely tell anyone who will listen, you may not know how good you have it until you see what others lack.