{"id":5933,"date":"2005-07-01T08:51:40","date_gmt":"2005-07-01T08:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html"},"modified":"2005-07-01T08:51:40","modified_gmt":"2005-07-01T08:51:40","slug":"night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html","title":{"rendered":"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the UK Tablet:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The old Italian priests bark at each other as we try to navigate our way across a dark field on the edge of Gulu, a Ugandan town 300 kilometres north of the capital, Kampala. \u201cNo, I said turn right. Right, I said!\u201d Fr John, the driver, is not following the directions of Fr Joseph, whose parish this is, and we find ourselves weaving wildly across a football field as we try to reach the church at Layibi. The two Comboni Fathers have been friends since they were small boys, growing up together near Milan, and although there is laughter as we criss-cross the playing field is there also tension in the car. We are all aware of the approaching curfew and of the horrors waiting in the ink-black forest around us. <\/p>\n

At last our headlights shine on the gates of the church compound, which swing open as we approach. Inside the tiny courtyard, hundreds of small children and a few adults sit huddled in tight rows. They stare at us in curious silence, blankets draped on their shoulders. Some of the smallest children are already asleep, curled up beside their older brothers and sisters. The priests introduce us and the children clap their welcome. Whispered conversations begin. Fr John chats to the people in Acholi. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the UK Tablet: The old Italian priests bark at each other as we try to navigate our way across a dark field on the edge of Gulu, a Ugandan town 300 kilometres north of the capital, Kampala. \u201cNo, I said turn right. Right, I said!\u201d Fr John, the driver, is not following the directions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNight Commuters of the Ugandan Bush - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From the UK Tablet: The old Italian priests bark at each other as we try to navigate our way across a dark field on the edge of Gulu, a Ugandan town 300 kilometres north of the capital, Kampala. \u201cNo, I said turn right. Right, I said!\u201d Fr John, the driver, is not following the directions…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-01T08:51:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush - Via Media","og_description":"From the UK Tablet: The old Italian priests bark at each other as we try to navigate our way across a dark field on the edge of Gulu, a Ugandan town 300 kilometres north of the capital, Kampala. \u201cNo, I said turn right. Right, I said!\u201d Fr John, the driver, is not following the directions…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-01T08:51:40+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html","name":"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-01T08:51:40+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-01T08:51:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/night-commuters-of-the-ugandan-bush.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Night Commuters of the Ugandan Bush"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}