While six Methodist missions volunteers from Alabama survived a recent terrorist bombing in Uganda, a volunteer connected to a Baptist church in North Carolina was not as fortunate.
The group from Birmingham’s Asbury United Methodist Church was working with Sozo Children International, which provides homeless children with shelter and safety in a loving, Christ-centered environment in the capital city of Kampala, in early July. On July 11, it was at the Ethiopian Village restaurant located outside Kampala watching the final World Cup match between Spain and the Netherlands when the bomb exploded.
“A sound we didn’t expect — the sound that every person fears — shook the earth,” 23-year-old Asbury member Allen Nunnally wrote on his blog July 12. “The window my shoulder [was] on imploded into the room. A bomb? I almost didn’t want to say the word, fearing that me stating it would confirm our biggest terror just became our biggest reality.”
All six Asbury members — half of them recent college graduates and the other half college students — managed to escape without a scratch. The restaurant was one of two venues attacked by the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab on July 11. Less than an hour after the restaurant was hit, two bombs exploded at Kampala’s Kyadondo Rugby Club, where more people had gathered to watch the final World Cup match.
The two terrorist attacks claimed the lives of at least 74 people, according to CNN.
“The church is so grateful to God for keeping a hand of protection on our children,” said Mike Gibbs, Asbury’s church administrator.
Nunnally, an Auburn University graduate, and Jay Clark, a University of Alabama graduate, went to Uganda in March and April, respectively, to do missions work. By the middle of May, the two had helped start Sozo.
On July 2, a team from Asbury arrived in the east African country to work with Nunnally and Clark at Sozo. Most of the team members left July 9, but four remained with Nunnally and Clark.
Early on July 11, Nunnally told one of the others that he wanted to be early to the restaurant in order to get good
seats in front of the 25-foot screen on which all the World Cup games were being shown. The group was delayed, however, and was forced to sit behind a small brick wall and a curtain covering a window in the wall.
“The curtain I wanted gone just minutes before just saved [us],” Nunnally wrote on his blog. “The projector screen we all flocked to watch now lay in pieces.”
He also wrote that he and the others recognized God’s protective hand on them as people just feet from them were killed while they were left unharmed.
“We checked ourselves for injuries. Nothing. The blood that stained our clothes we realized was not our own,” Nunnally wrote. “We were untouched, unharmed, unscratched. … We circled, with our arms shaking around each other’s shoulders, and prayed to God.”
But Nate Henn did not live to tell the same story.
Henn, whose parents are members of the North Raleigh campus of Summit Church, Durham, N.C., was killed at the rugby club.
He had been in Uganda working with Invisible Children, a San Diego-based nonprofit organization that makes documentaries with the goal of ending the use of child soldiers in northern Uganda.
In a statement, his family wrote that his “heart was for making the world a better place.”
“Nate’s legacy is the pursuit of peace and a future for the children of Uganda and the Congo,” the statement reads. “We glow with pride at the man he was, and while we mourn today, we will celebrate him forever. We hope people will feel compelled to join his legacy and support others to live this life of service.”
The Alabama group arrived back in Birmingham on July 14 and was provided counseling by Asbury.
To read more about the Asbury group’s experience, visit Nunnally’s blog at www.foundationonrock.blogspot.com.
(BP contributed)
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