The True, Raw, Beautiful Reality

Everyday I’m vividly reminded of why Imprint Hope was sent to Uganda… some days the reminders are so subtle…like a beautiful mother-son interaction in the therapy room, a husband and wife resolving a conflict to better serve their child, a child with a disability smiling for the first time (I know this is hard to believe, but YES this happens so much)…and other days the reminders tear open your heart and have the power to leave anyone feeling sad and discouraged.

One of the mothers we recently had at our center for our 6-week educational, rehabilitative, and business training course tore open my heart countless times during her 6-weeks with us.

I vividly remember during our second therapy session with her daughter, she looked up at me and said,

‘Clare, I have so many problems that everyone always leaves when I share them, so I don’t want to burden you with them.’

This is a mother, who has a child with a disability and has been rejected by her husband because he blames her for their daughters disability. This is a Mom who gets up everyday at 4 am to go to the garden to dig for other people to make a mere 50 cents a day to support her child’s constant medical expenses. This is a mother who has contemplated suicide three times by buying poison to put in her food because she is burnt out and can’t even imagine a better life for her family.

This real, raw, hard and true story is what we combat on a daily basis. For at the end of the day, Imprint Hope’s work boils down to more then therapy, more then classes, more then micro-loans…it boils down to relationships. To walk hand-in-hand through the trenches and triumphs with people, who at the end of the day might laugh at us, might say we are crazy, who might believe we are wasting our time…but regardless we break bread with them, we wash their wounds and love them anyway.

I’m always reminded through the these families, that \”the human heart is always drawn to love.\” Despite the brokenness, despite the rejection, despite the challenges these families endure on a daily basis, we (you & I) are here to BE that love to them.

At the end of the 6-week program, this mother broke down and cried for the first time in a long time. And you know what? I cried with her. The challenges and rejection this Momma experiences have not gone away, but at least now she knows, she is not alone in her struggle.

So my friends, at the end of the day, these challenges can truly only be surmounted through the power of prayer. For no one is strong enough to combat the challenges that exist here. These families desperately need grace and your prayers are that grace. Thank you!

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