6. The long road

Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 

— 1 Corinthians 13:7

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Sunset on the horizon at the NHU Kasana mission

On the Kasana guesthouse bookshelf, I found a book to read. Called The Long Road to Hope, it is the Dangers' daughter's account of NHU's beginning. At about 400 pages, it's neither a quick nor a very easy read. Namely, in it Jennie describes numerous harrowing and discouraging episodes from the mission's history. They endured a lot to get to where they are today.

In his book Bottom Billion, Paul Collier writes, “In every society of the bottom billion there are people working for change, but usually they are defeated by the powerful internal forces stacked against them.” This was certainly true for the Dangers and the Bakimis.

From armed robberies to untimely deaths, heartbreaking situations filled the pages of NHU's first 15 years. But the internal forces in Uganda seem to have been more insidious than physical maladies. Jennie speaks of much spiritual warfare that challenged the missionaries' goal of bringing hearts to Christ and fathers to the fatherless.

On many occasions, orphaned or abandoned youth raised at New Hope left the organization after several years. They seemingly forsook all the good things they were taught in order to return to the hopeless lifestyles of the locals. Truly, sin penetrated NHU. Myers writes, “God’s rule extends to both the spiritual and material; the redemptive work of Jesus Christ is needed wherever sin has penetrated.”

Even today, NHU needs to be filled with Christ's redemptive work. There is no hope without His love.