14th June, 2004

LENA JOHNSTONE recently encountered Watoto when they performed at The Wave in Ocean Grove, Victoria. She writes of her experience...

When I first heard about the Watato Children's Choir and agreed to allow our house to be a host home, I’m not entirely sure what I expected. I think I expected to be confronted by their poverty and by their pain at having lost parents and other loved ones to poverty and disease. Yet what I found most confronting - what moved me most - were not these things, it was their extraordinary joy and their unfailing gratitude.

From the moment I met the girls who were to stay in our home and their guardian, an American, I was struck by their smiles, their laughter and their thankfulness. They were thankful for everything from the meals, to the opportunity to sing and dance and a bed for the night. Yet it seemed so little; too little.

Each of the children and their guardians gave so much. They hugged us, they sang, they danced. They told us of their lives, they shared their pain, yes, but they shared even more of their joy. Their quietly spoken testimonies - stories that moved me to tears - were not stories just of their pain but of how their God had met them in the midst of that and of how He was calling them to stand for Him in a country ravaged by war and disease.

The children spoke of God having a purpose for their lives; they knew His love and walked each day in it. The whole concert was a testimony to this, not just their spoken words, but also their dancing and praise.

I don’t imagine there was a person there that night who was not touched by this: no sermon preached, no altar call, but God moving amongst the people through the joy of these children. If these children are the future of Uganda, then Uganda is indeed a blessed country!