Kelly and Natalie Klubeck made an impact during their recent three-week visit to Uganda through their love for God and others, Iola Kiwanians learned at their weekly meeting Tuesday.
Klubeck, pastor at Iola’s First Church of the Nazarene, hosted Victor Kukakira of Kabale, Uganda last year for a weeklong revival on the Iola square and at the church. Kukakira invited the Klubecks to visit him, and they traveled there in May to visit the Kabale Soul Winners Church as well as the House of Grace operated by Kukakira and others.
The House of Grace is where “outcasts” live with their children, get an education, learn a trade and are loved and accepted in a country and culture that have otherwise disowned them, Klubeck said.
“This is the main reason we went there,” Klubeck said. “It was for the girls.”
He explained that in Uganda, teenage girls who become pregnant outside of marriage are vilified by families and society. Up until five years ago, there was no law preventing families from killing the daughters who shamed them. Klubeck showed pictures of Lake Bunyonyi, which at 6,500 feet deep is the deepest in eastern Africa. In the lake is Outcast Island, where unmarried pregnant teens were left to die because they could not leave the island.
“The families disown them, the father is nowhere to be found, so they’re outcasts,” Klubeck noted.
At Tukakira’s church and the House of Grace, 40 young mothers, referred to as Addi Girls, and their children are cared for, educated, and assisted in raising their families. The babies and toddlers are fed and cared for in a day care center, then attend preschool and receive an education.
A store at the House of Grace sells baskets, backpacks and other items made by the Addi Girls to help fund operations. “My friend (Kukakira) is trying to get these girls back in society,” Klubeck said, noting that their children also are shunned by the nation. “Because of their status, they’ll never be able to get into school,” he noted.
Addi Girls gave testimonials which related horrors of physical and sexual abuse in their homes. One girl’s father stabbed her to try to end her pregnancy, but both she and the baby survived and were given refuge at the House of Grace. Another was promised to be taken care of by the young man seducing her – the story was repeated in various fashion many times, Klubeck said – only to be pregnant, abandoned, and infected with HIV.
Klubeck preached at the church during their visit. The country, he said, is about 60 percent Christian and 40 percent Muslim.
Despite cultural difficulties and civil rights oppressions from the government, the people of Uganda are friendly, helpful, and generally optimistic, Klubeck noted. “You’d think that living in one of the poorest nations in the world would make them have no hope, but there’s a lot of joy in the Ugandans,” he said.
The Iola Kiwanis Club meets weekly, noon Tuesdays, at Allen Community College and welcomes interest in membership. Email [email protected] for more information.
