We had been traveling for most of the day.
We were driving north, in a rural stretch of Northern Uganda, outside of Gulu, if you want to be precise. We were just about an hour away from the Sudanese border.
I was there with a small group working with Bob Goff and the Love Does Foundation.
We had hit the ground running five days before and had previously met with the Ugandan President to share the Foundation’s plan for development in this area that has known decades of violence.
As we loaded into the van for the umpteenth time, I thought about the overwhelming needs verses the reality of small stabs at justice—and how sometimes it leaves me disconnected and questioning everything. How is justice supposed to be done? How do we make our way in a politically violent world? Smart and courageous leaders go around and around and it can make anyone dizzy.
At 4 in the afternoon, as the sun was baking the land like warm bread, on a ground scattered with mangos, coconuts, and acacia trees, we turned onto a dirt road where young women and children were playing on a huge open expanse.
We walked up open wooden stairs to a small room with folding chairs and plastic tables. A nun, close to five feet tall with her shoes on, offered us juice. Her skin glowed against the pristine white of her coif.
The sister welcomed us and seemed to sense weary hearts in her presence. Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, born in a village near this spot, graciously shared stories about her work in this region spanning thirty years, including facing almost insurmountable odds against rebels and their gun barrels.
Sister Rosemary has spent her religious life defying the Lord’s Resistance Army and welcoming back young women who had been abducted, forced to commit atrocities and bear children by the men to whom they were given.
Shunned by their communities, Sister Rosemary cared for the ex-kidnapped, ex-enslaved, ex-rebel women and their children, offering sanctuary and giving them support and tools to begin new lives.
On justice roads where we serve our brothers and sisters, we first need to feel safe.
As the sister spoke, I could feel heavy clouds parting and the warmth of a bright peace filling my spirit with the word Safe. Before wellbeing, before rest, before solace or strength, we need to feel Safe.
Feeling safe allows us to keep walking with courage and humility. It allows us gratitude to reach out to another. It offers a peace that can carry us through the hard times when we feel the world is spinning out of control.
Sister Rosemary laughed as she explained that while the past will never be recovered, there is a future. As the sisters joined her, laughter rose like spring flowers from the playground as women played with more than 300 children in their care.
In the echo of her voice, I felt safe and ready to keep trying to love the world as I best I can.
At the end of our of time together, one of the other sisters prayed over us and said, …"bit by bit we find ourselves connected to the world through love." Yes I want to shout! We are safe because we are connected in love bit by bit.
I woke up the next morning at a guesthouse nearby and as the sun rose I composed this poem for Sister Rosemary and all who remind us we are safe.
-- Becca Stevens