Ugandan choir expands horizons in Lodi
Watoto Children’s Choir to perform, raise awareness at Emanual Lutheran Church
The Watoto Children’s Choir has traveled all over the world.
Last month, they were in the Pacific Northwest. Next month, they’ll visit Texas and Arizona.
Branches of the choir have recently performed in London and Canada.
“They’ve even played at the White House,” said Pastor Chris Townsend of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Lodi.
This month, they’re traveling through California, from Yreka to San Diego, with a stop at the Lodi church, and the public is invited to come and hear their talented voices.
The choir grew out of a church founded by Gary and Marilyn Skinner in Kampala, Uganda, in the 1980s.
The missionaries had moved their family to Kampala in 1980, when the AIDS crisis was ravaging the country, along with a vicious civil war. The Skinners were inspired to create the Watoto Child Care Ministries, a faithbased movement to house Uganda’s orphans, in 1994.
Today, more than 3,000 orphans and children whose families cannot care for them are being raised in Watoto villages. Some are former child soldiers; others have lost their families to AIDS or terrorist attacks.
Uganda is relatively stable and prosperous in 2017. It has received praise for its work to end the spread of HIV in the country, according to the BBC, although the country still struggles with human rights issues and remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel cult that has been active on and off since 1987 in the northern part of the country.
These ongoing struggles mean there is still a role for the Watoto villages.
Each village is a cluster of homes where children live with adult parental figures, which incorporates outdoor spaces, sports fields, study areas and more. Two villages are located near Kampala, and a third is outside the city of Gulu.
The Watoto children in the choir have the opportunity to travel the world, raising funds and awareness about the Watoto movement and getting an education that includes experiencing other cultures.
“Our congregation, Emanual Lutheran, actually houses them in our members’ homes,” Townsend said.
The choir will arrive in Lodi in the afternoon before their performance. Afterward, the kids and their adult caretakers — called “auntie” and “uncle” by the children — will split up to various homes. They’ll get a good meal and a place to sleep.
Then, in the morning, the group will gather at the church for several hours of schoolwork, before heading to their next stop.
The children, who range in age from 5 to 12, are smart and ambitious, Townsend said.
“It’s a powerful witness for some of our members to hear of that generation ... to hear the ambition that is in their voice and the desires in their heart,” he said.
During the performance, the children often share a little about themselves with the audience, including their hopes for the future.
Last year, one little boy had huge dreams, Townsend said.
“This 5-year-old child announces that he wants to become the president of Uganda,” he said. “They want to do great things in this world and our society.”
This will be the choir’s third performance in Lodi, he said.
Townsend first became involved with the choir when he was pastor of a church in Florida, where the Watoto movement’s U.S. office is located. After he came to Lodi in 2008, he lost touch with them, but reconnected a few years ago.
Their performances are a surprise each time, he said, because children rotate in and out of the choir and between the choir’s various groups.
They also write all of their own music. While the choir may cover a hit now and then, most of what visitors hear next week will be original pieces, Townsend said.
“It’s all sung in English — that’s their dominant language,” he said.
While Uganda has a number of languages, most people speak at least some English. Other languages include Luganda, Arabic and Swahili. “Watoto” is the Swahili word for “children.”
Townsend doesn’t know whether next week’s concert will focus on Christmas songs or a wider range of music. He prefers to be surprised by the selection.
“I like it that way,” he said.
They are always fantastic, he said.
Townsend does hope that the wider Lodi community will come out to hear the children’s stories and their incredible music, he said.
“(Last time) we had almost as many people from outside our faith community join us for that concert as we had from within,” he said.