COMPLETE - T F I O n l i n e

Robin
Nyx with a patient
Mother and child patient in front one of the murals
I offered him one part of the
wall that needed to be painted—the
angel’s wing. It was very large, taking
up almost half of the entire wall. He
was more than happy to put his artistic
talent to that, and it came out very
well. Later on, we prayed for his little
daughter and the continued recovery
of her tiny body.
It was an exhilarating feeling to
see the volunteers all hard at work.
Each was doing what they could—
not that they all were artists, but that
didn’t matter. It was a project that
was as invigorating for us as I hoped
it would be for the ward occupants.
One of my friends, Daniel, was
excited about helping to paint. He’d
been away from Uganda for over a
year, and I was surprised to meet
him at an Irish pub one night. He
congratulated me on a recent newspaper
article covering our efforts
(included below), so I invited him to
come and help us with the project
that week. He brought along two
other friends—wealthy young men
educated in London universities.
These boys, although half-Ugandan,
had never even seen as much of the
country as I have, much less been to
the poorer parts. The sights of the
hospital freaked them out at first.
They walked the corridors nervously,
and I had to stifle a smile at
their nervous reaction. “Aw man,
I gotta go,” one of them said to
Daniel.
I interrupted. “But you just got
here. Leaving so soon”
“Yeah, I got stuff to do … you
know,” His eyes darted across the
room.
But I insisted they stay for at
least five minutes and help out. They
protested that they’d make a mess of
the wall, so I gave them full permission
to do so. A corner with penciled
❪❪ Outreach Focus ❫❫
5