How long the books sat on the shelf in the library is unknown.  Actually, no one really remembers how they came to be there. The pages were yellowed and the smell was …well, the smell of old books. But no one could throw them away. They were valuable. They were the Bible….in braille.

The librarian had a heavy heart as she began to give away the books in the Library. You see, the church decided to close the library and use the room for offices. With internet and kindle, google and social media, the library was rarely used anymore. She asked us if we could use some of the books in Africa.  Of course, here they would be treasures.

What about this braille New Testament?

Why not? We might be able to find someone who could use it.

That was about 6 years ago. No one can throw away a Bible so we kept the four volumes in a trunk. We came across them during a cleaning spree and I remembered a friend we had met about 10 years ago who was blind. Patrick is the younger brother to a man, Willie Alango, who had helped us so much when we first made trips to Gulu. Shortly after this rediscovery, Willie called us after not hearing from him or seeing him in over two years. God’s timing is perfect. I told him I had a braille New Testament that I would like to give to Patrick.

When I sat down next to Patrick and laid the first volume in his lap he immediately began to search the hard cover with his fingers. Suddenly with his blind eyes closed he began to read as his fingers moved over the tiny dots on the cover. He whipped it open and continued to read God’s word, the book of Acts.  We were all so captivated by his passion and awe as he spoke the words his fingers revealed.

After reading a couple of chapters, he stopped and lovingly ran his hands over the pages. He closed it and thanked me and told me he had never read the Bible for himself. He had only heard others read it to him. I must confess that I had no idea that it would mean so much to him. I suppose I had given these volumes as I would have given someone a good book that I had read and was passing it along.

After he left, the image of him reading with such joy remained with me and I was humbled and even convicted.  I want to have that same awe and joy each time I read my Bible. Then I began to think about the children in Sanctuary of Grace and other schools and our Village Learning Centers and the idea of just a high standard Christian education was totally replaced by a passion for these kids to love God and His word intimately as Patrick had... even more.

Even now as I write this tears come to my eyes when I think of all the people in these villages in Uganda and all over Africa, who cannot read and have never heard anything of God’s word. I see in my memory our children at SoG proudly carrying their Bibles to school each day and learning to read and understand what the Lord is saying to them. 

“Lord, may you awaken an insatiable desire to know you in all your amazing greatness; intimately and to love your word as though it were our only food. Help us to reach the children and the people in these villages and teach them about You. Provide the way and means to do this for Your Name’s Sake! And thank You for using Patrick to remind us of the urgency to do this.”

Please pray for us and for the teachers and Educators of Our Call Missions and other schools. Each child matters!!