“OF” Uganda, House of Love

This article was written by Oreste Pesare, director of ICCRS and one of the Community’s general managers. The article is also being published in Come and See, the magazine edited by the Community.

Operation Little Brother, a nonprofit association of the Magnificat Community, is committed to offering a service of love to the world’s poor and abandoned children. Since 2004, more than 80 Romanian children (there are currently 51) have been continuously assisted until they come of age, within their own families. Among them, many are dramatically scarred by separation, alcohol, violence and deep poverty.

The service provided to these Romanian families, then, is not just an alms-giving, albeit important, for the growth and education of children, but first and foremost a gesture of love and closeness to those who – many times – really have no one with whom to share their difficulties and sorrows. Constant visits from our community brothers and sisters and listening attentively and lovingly to “the voiceless” are key features of our service. Several members of these families also participate more or less assiduously in our community prayer meetings in Romania. We deeply praise God for this.

Recently, the Lord has opened new doors for us to serve abandoned children in Africa as well, specifically in Uganda. During one of my missionary trips in October 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the “House of Love” orphanage in Rubirizi, near Mbarara, a small town located in the westernmost part of southern Uganda: a very poor area where, in most cases, children are not allowed to wear shoes until the age of ten to eleven. Only then, forced by the country’s laws, do they get shoes in order to attend school, which otherwise would not admit them to continue their studies.

A careful journalist writes about this: ” In this beautiful country there are two million AIDS orphans, an entire generation of parents has died out. Here the infection is contracted within families, 77 percent of married people are HIV-positive, 130,000 infected children, a great many abandoned. They are the last inhabitants of the remote inland villages, under the banana trees, among the lush greenery. The shacks in which they live are without water and services. There is no sign of schooling or health care. They greet you smiling, the oldest holding the youngest. Only a few old women, exhausted, act as mothers as they can. Now I am amazed at how many gradations of pain the world can have.”

“House of Love” is a little paradise in the hell of poverty that surrounds it. Born out of the many-year-long efforts of the father of Fr. Emmanuel Tusiime, a local charismatic priest and founder of the Yesu Ahuriire community, it is now an experience of service of this community, especially to orphaned children suffering from AIDS. The work began in Fr. Emmanuel’s very paternal home. Lilian, a young educator of about 28 years old, gave her life to the Lord in service to these “last ones”: “The innocent should not have to pay for the cruelty of adults,” she explains speaking of her mission. She was the daughter of a single mother and because of this she herself suffered poverty and humiliation. She graduated with sacrifice and now cares for about fifteen AIDS orphans and all the other children she visits and helps in shacks in the area. In this part of Uganda there are more than 850 children waiting to become part of the orphanage’s aid and services…

Various organizations have offered help to the “House of Love” in recent years. These include a group of American students, who actively provided savings and time to build the orphanage’s first actual building with their own hands. ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services), which is committed to supporting, among other things, projects serving AIDS patients, also bore the cost of building a new dormitory.

Among the house guests, I particularly loved John, a child of about eight years old, found at the age of four to five in the nearby jungle that divides Uganda from Congo and Rwanda. Certainly, a child abandoned by refugees fleeing war. Doctors say he must have lived at least several months alone in the jungle, feeding on grass and nothing else. The entire right side of his body is atrophied and, unable to speak, John expresses his feelings through more or less intense, truly expressive cries. By watching and getting to know him, you can understand how much one can love life to the point of miraculously surviving even with nothing. During a short prayer meeting and the celebration of Mass that we experienced together with all the children of the orphanage, I could hardly take my eyes off him, sitting on a rough high chair, unable to move. He smiled and emitted a cry of joy whenever he noticed that I was staring at him… To my questions about John, I was told that his condition could be significantly improved if only five hundred euros (a very large sum for them) could be found to pay for the very expensive hospital and physiotherapy expenses he needed… For me – at that moment – thinking about John and Operation Little Brother was one and the same. As soon as I returned to Italy, I shared John’s story with the Rome fraternity and, incredibly, in less than a week the Lord gave us to raise about 1,300 euros. Thus was born what we joyfully called “John’s fans club.”

At present, treatment is progressing and from the latest updates received, John is beginning to eat independently with his left hand. Hallelujah.

Now, with the general managers of the Magnificat Community we have decided to contribute to the development of the “House of Love” orphanage by bearing the expenses for the construction of a chapel, a project long desired by Fr. Emmanuel and Lilian. In this regard, it is not difficult to guess how in just two months we managed to raise more than ten thousand euros for the project of a little chapel that currently has the capacity to accommodate 35 people. Our dream is to build one that has capacity to accommodate 60! Will we succeed? We would need at least another 10,000 euros for this. God help us realize this project! It is also good to know that this chapel in the heart of Uganda will be dedicated to the “Virgin of the Magnificat.” Operation Little Brother will, of course, also take care of creating an artistic work on this subject, to be placed inside the church. Isn’t that wonderful?
“Operation Little Brother…”: when the Lord-now many years ago-suggested to our hearts to give this name to our desire to put ourselves at the service of the smallest and poorest in this world, we did not yet imagine where this project would take us… And it is only the beginning…

This is not our dream — this is God’s dream — God’s little dream to build a little piece of new humanity. We need everyone’s active cooperation.

Give your willingness to spread “Operation Little Brother” there where you are … you will make yourself an apostle of a project of love; you will spread the fragrance of Christ with us, according to the Word: “For we are before God the fragrance of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15).

Contact in this regard our secretariat: Operation Little Brother Association, 51/l Teracati Street – 96100 Syracuse (SR) – Tel/Fax 0931 441073 – Email: segreteria@operazionefratellino.it, or visit our website www.operazionefratellino.it, where you will find all the information for joining and paying your contribution to these projects.
Praise be to God, “…who stirs up in you the willing and the working, according to his plan of love” (Phil. 2:13).

Orestes