When I introduced our family to the World Wide Web in this blog I neglected to mention that we have another son. His name is Kyeunye Edward and this is his story as it relates to our family:
I was at a Christian women's conference in Orlando in 2008 and they were doing a huge push for World Vision. I really hate those things because I think they are manipulative and I was completely ignoring it and was not going to have anything to do with my heart being softened.
Leading up to this conference I had really been struggling with my desire for another child. My husband and I had two daughters in under three years in addition to my son (whom he adopted.) I insisted that my husband get ‘fixed’ so that we would not have any more children after a rough pregnancy and a C-section with our youngest. I was only 33 but was convinced that I was done. He is such a great husband and agreed and it was all said and done by the time Ivy turned one. This is about the time when God reminded me that I never consulted him about this huge decision. I felt instantly remorseful and confessed and God completely changed my heart. I now wanted another child and I heard the name Edward deep in my spirit.
Back to 2008 and the conference. I was so overwhelmed with emotion and fighting the overt World Vision ads that I finally broke down and went and looked at one of the tables of children’s faces. My attitude was, “fine, I will go over there but I don’t want to.” As you can probably guess, the very first face I really looked at was Edward’s. I completely lost it and completed my transaction while bawling my eyes out. Edward is Ugandan and was 8 years old when we began sponsoring him.
This is how our journey with Edward began and over the next 8 years we wrote so many letters, sent packages and dreamed of visiting him one day. In 2016 we received a letter from World Vision saying that the ‘Masaka Kaswe’ project had been completed and “thank you for your donations”. They sent me a picture of a new child. I was furious but did not really have any recourse. Just a few months later a friend of mine asked me if I had any interest in going to Uganda with her as part of a team that was building a medical clinic - I said, "YES!!" pretty quickly but not becuase I was thinking of Edward. I had pretty much given up any hope of connecting with him. I wanted to go to Uganda because I had been to South Africa twice before and absolutely loved everything about Africa.
It wasn't until the second or third meeting with the team, when I heard the name of the specific town (Masaka,) that I remembered the name of Edward’s project. Masaka sounded familiar and I ran home to look through my files (before #dowdsizing I kept everything.) I reached out to World Vision and asked for help locating Edward. The US office forwarded my email to the Uganda office and they responded positively that they would look into it and get back with me. Weeks went by and right before my first trip to Masaka in August of 2017 I heard from the director in Uganda. He said that they no longer had anyone in the region and could not locate Edward. I was devastated. I tried to find him on the internet, searched social media and tried to locate anything in his letters that would give me a clue about his actual village. Nothing.
Fast forward to my fourth trip to Masaka. I really had given up hope of finding Edward, thinking that I had exhausted my best options in finding him. I stayed at Villa Katwe, a lovely guest house, for the first time in February 2019 and met Ruth. She and the other staff at Villa Katwe are so sweet and kind and they make everyone feel so welcome, but Ruth and I really hit it off. We were chatting about the trivets that she sells to raise school funds for kids in her community and she shared her story of being a sponsor child. I ended up telling her a little about our experience as sponsors and how we lost touch with Edward. She was really upset for me that we had never met him and kept asking me questions. I gave her all the information I had, which was his name, the name of the project and the name of a school that he mentioned in one of his later letters. Ruth promised to “make some calls.” I really did not think too much about it, assuming that she was going to call some friends and that it would not amount to much.
The very next evening when I got back to Villa, Ruth walked up and showed me a picture of a house and asked me if it looked familiar. Then she showed me a picture of a woman. Honestly, they looked a little familiar but it could have been any Ugandan house or any Ugandan woman. Then Ruth told me that she found Edward’s mother and his home. I could not believe it. Apparently Edward was in Kampala working with his brother but his mother called him and he was on his way back to Masaka to meet me. I was so busy on this short trip that I asked if they could come to meet me at Villa. Ruth called and the very next morning they came for breakfast.
Confession time: I am a horrible cynic when it comes to people. This was all happening so fast and appeared to be much too easy. Even when Edward was sitting across the table from me and I had all the pictures we received over the years to compare him to, I still thought that this could all be one big manipulation. All of these thoughts were running through my head at that breakfast table and then Edward reached into his backpack and pulled out all the pictures that we had ever sent him of our family. Pictures from 2008 until 2016 - he had every one. He also had pictures that my kids had drawn for him and several of the letters we had written.
That moment was probably the most significant "God moment" of my entire life. Not only did He bring us together in person, He did it in a way that no one could claim any credit in making it happen. World Vision didn't help. I didn't do a single thing except tell my story to a new friend named Ruth. Edward didn't find us on social media. I had been to that same town on three previous visits and never made a single inquiry. But God......
I found out later what great lengths Ruth went to in order to find Edward. We had our conversation about Edward on a Tuesday. The following day was Ruth's morning off and she spent it on a boda-boda searching for Edward's village. The guest house where Ruth works has a favorite boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) driver named Naboth. Everyone knows Naboth and Naboth knows everyone. He is the self-proclaimed mayor of the Masaka boda drivers. He is also very safe and gives Luganda lessons while he drives. Ruth told me that she went to one village and found Edward's home. Naboth later filled me in on the extent of the search. They found a World Vision office in one village and were directed to a home close by. Somehow Ruth knew that it was the wrong home. She kept asking around and was directed to another village school. From there they went house to house gathering clues until they found someone who knew Edward's mom. They located the house and then his mom Rosemary called Edward in Kampala. He immediately left in a van taxi and headed home to his village near Masaka. He and Rosemary then rode a boda-boda from the village to Villa Katwe the next morning in the rain.
After meeting Edward and his mom that morning I was sure that our family was supposed to continue in our sponsorship. Edward was no longer going to school because they could not afford the school fees. Ruth, Naboth and another friend helped me get Edward into a school in Masaka. I am leaving out many details and the hurdles that had to be jumped to make this happen in two days. Suffice it to say that no amount of money or American ingenuity could have made it happen that quickly. But God....
I dropped Edward off at his new school after a whirlwind of shopping for the needed supplies. A friend drove us in his car but had to leave before we were done with the registration so I called Naboth. This is when I found out that Naboth helped Ruth find Edward and was the reason that Edward was accepted into a school so quickly. Naboth the mayor of the boda drivers had a contact at the school. Again, another stranger in Uganda who did whatever he could to help a Muzungu (Luganda word for "white person") and her sponsor son.
Ruth found Edward for me in March of 2019. Later that year I took Ivy and Lucy Pearl back with me to meet Edward and visit our friends. I took them to Uganda the first time in August of 2018 and I think that they will both evenutally end up spending significant time there in their adult lives. Introducing the girls to Edward in person was like a dream come true, eleven years in the making. Their childhood memories are filled with writing letters and planning gifts for Edward. Those red and blue striped envelopes that are used for international mail were waved in excitement from the time they could climb on a chair and check the mail.
Edward met us at our guest house during that trip and then we all piled into a taxi-car for a trip to his village to meet his mom. I brought all of the pictures and letters that Edward had written over the years and Ruth translated for us while we pored over them. His mom could not stop touching Ivy and Lucy Pearl and kept raising her hands in praise. She, too, remembered seeing our family pictures and the two little Muzungu girls. In fact, Edward disappeared to the back of the house and brought back several of the pictures as well as a coloring book that we had sent (every single page had been colored.) Edward gave us a tour of their property, the pig sty that we helped build, the most recent piglets that he is raising and the grave where his father is buried.
I have been to Uganda five times now and, before COVID, thought I would probably go every year. I dreamt of taking small groups of people over and introducing more Americans to a people and a culture that still praises God for everything, even the breath in their lungs. I learned so much in Uganda but, most importantly, I experienced God. I experienced what Hagar did when she called Him "The One who sees me." (Genesis 13)
Edward and I still chat almost weekly through Whatsapp. He calls me "mum" and has taken Dowd as his honorary last name. Uganda has been under a severe lockdown during COVID and all the schools were closed but he and his mom remain healthy. My sweet friends Ruth and Naboth helped get some presents to the village for us this Christmas. Here is Rosemary praising the Lord for His goodness. He alone is worthy.
I'm not sure how to end this post. This is not the end of the story with Edward and we look forward to spending more time with him and seeing what God has planned for him.
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