LITTLE ROCK — Laura Odom of Fayetteville has discovered that life’s most enriching experiences and deeper sense of purpose often are found where they’re least expected.
For the 45-year-old wife and mother of three, the two weeks that profoundly changed her life came on a two-week-long trek to Uganda with Rodney and Christy Richardson of Hattiesburg, Miss., during late September. The couple (members of Laura’s extended family) cut a deal with her to cover her plane fare if she’d agree to come along and host art classes. She said she agreed and immediately felt a calmness of spirit about the lengthy journey.
“The Richardsons had been physically and financially supporting Ms. Agnes’ orphanage outside Jinja, Uganda, for a few years,” said Laura. “They invited me along to teach the orphans and other children art in hopes it would be a good relationship builder between us and the children.”
And by the time two weeks had come and gone, Laura, an accomplished artist and teacher, had supervised four outdoor art classes for the children. She saved their various forms of artwork to bring back here with a hopeful eye toward helping them through their creativity.
“It’s through this shared experience that I saw a way to raise some much needed funds and an awareness for the orphanage,” she said. “My intention was to bring back their creations, then reproduce and market them. I got plenty of wonderful art thanks to donations from the First United Presbyterian Church and others that allowed me to buy the needed supplies. But reproducing what the children created would not be feasible.”
So her next thought was to hold an art show for the public where the children’s art she saved could be sold and the proceeds returned to help the orphans in a nation teeming with so much poverty and uncertainty. “Most of the children have been orphaned by the AIDS virus,” she said. “Ms. Agnes, who is now probably in her 70s, started the orphanage on her own without the help of a local church.”
Laura said that because government assistance doesn’t exist in Uganda, the children, like so many throughout Africa, need any support they can find. Art supplies are so short that sometimes the youths will fashion jewelry from old magazine pages.
Back in Fayetteville, her hopes for that art show and sale are taking form. Laura said First United Presbyterian Church on Calvin Street has offered a cubicle in its annual Alternative Market to hopefully sell the handmade jewelry, bags and art. The market is set for November 11 and 18 at the church.
I’m hoping, if there is artwork remaining after the market concludes, that some fellow artist with a studio in Fayetteville will offer space to show the orphans’ work to the widest possible number of potential buyers. I’d say the funds will undoubtedly be going to a worthwhile cause.
The journey to this remote African orphanage and beyond was life-altering for Laura in a number of ways. “I came back home a different person than when I’d left,” she said. “I learned it’s okay not to have all the things we have,” she said. “I saw how much we waste here at home. And I was thankful for simple things like having food every day, air conditioning and even a commode.”
Another project on the agenda in Africa was to identify the greatest needs around Jinja and report them to the Presbyterian Church’s global outreach committee. “The need is everywhere,” she added. Laura said she was led to many “desperate places.” For instance, there was the Sangaalo Baby Cottage to see along with the Naigobya village adjacent to the Good Shepherd Nursery and Primary School (where Laura and her husband, Fayetteville attorney Conrad Odom, now sponsor 12-year-old Andrew to attend school for all of $90 a year).
One story that still touches Laura deeply is of the single mothers working with six old sewing machines beneath shade trees. They were learning to sew in hopes of scratching out any kind of meager existence.
Along with art supplies, Laura had taken some boxes of donated adult clothing on her journey. “Just seeing the joy on the women’s faces and hearing their songs of rejoicing as we gave them the used clothes was so touching. They had their hands uplifted and were praising God for such gifts. I starting crying.”
I wondered if Laura will return to this orphanage and Uganda one day. Without hesitation, she said there’s no doubt. “I love the people there and I love the land. It is the most beautiful I have ever seen. I have stories to tell of each place. Stories I’ll never forget.”
She spoke tenderly of a child with club feet she’d held who died that same night, and of teaching baseball to the youth in one village and enjoying their smiles and laughter. She spent some days visiting with missionaries about their experiences, seeing the Nile River and Lake Victoria, and even helping build a kitchen at the orphanage.
How can two weeks filled with those kinds of fulfilling days not help but change anyone’s perspectives and priorities?
It will be interesting to see if the people of Northwest Arkansas respond to the needs that Laura discovered in and around this orphanage in impoverished and often violent Africa, and perhaps purchase a piece of the children’s artwork as a reminder of the world that exists outside our own.
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial, Pages 13 on 10/23/2012