MAF’s journey with a resilient person with disabilities, who has been orphaned and is now a refugee in Uganda.
It seems to be like a season of open heavens right now. Even amidst war and brokenness, we get glimpses of God’s inestimable mercy and goodness. After searching for two orphans we met five years ago in Kajo Keji, South Sudan, we successfully located both Jackson and Josephine in two separate locations in North Uganda. Jackson’s story has already been told but after finally collecting a donated wheelchair for Josephine, we can now update you on her story. It seems to be like a season of open heavens right now.
The wheelchair was donated from the very same person who donated a chair for Josephine five years ago. The donor, Francis, is also a paraplegic. She is completely unstoppable and with a huge heart for importing chairs for other people with disabilities.
One of our partners, Pastor Edward Dima had helped us find both Jackson and Josephine and also helped arrange transporting Josephine to Adjumani airport. There we met with a technician Francis had sent along with her new wheelchair, boxed and ready to be put together on the side of the runway. We flew into Adjumani and spotted Josephine waiting in a broken wheelchair in the shade. To embrace this woman was a delight, a relief, an encouragement among all of the discouragement of seeing so many of our partners projects looted, relocated, closed or in some cases defiantly continuing even after the war ripped through South Sudan.
There are days when one is reunited with a soul they didn’t expect to see again. Josephine had been through a lot since our first introduction in 2013, and yet she still has a beautiful smile. After shooting broke out in Kajo Keji on 30 January 2017, everyone in the area ran for the border. Josephine’s chair was broken, but two friends, Florence and Babiya carried her to their car and drove her to the border of Uganda where she was registered as a refugee, along with millions of others in that same week. She was suddenly not only a person with disabilities and orphaned but also displaced and facing starting her whole life over.
She came with her ”mama” or carer to Morobi Camp in Moyo. In the short hour I had with Josephine, she was keen to let me know her earnest desire to finish her senior school year, which was abruptly ended. Because of MAF’s vast connection with so many incredible partners, we’re able to once again hopefully link Josephine with one of the ones we know can best help provide her with the senior year she needs within the Morobi Camp.
Please pray that this can become a reality and that Josephine’s dreams can be realised in the same way Jackson’s dreams of becoming a doctor are on their way to becoming true. Stories like Josephine and Jackson’s need to be told and broadcasted…the ones that give hope and show God’s goodness working through mankind turning beauty into ashes and lifting tired souls from the dust.
MAF is taking part in seeing and hearing these many stories because of being in partnership with so many saints whom we fly in and out every day. Thank you for taking part in this venture.
Story and photos by Jill Vine
