Christmas tree, dinner, new toys and clothes, and a church service all sound like standard fare, to children at the Restorers of Hope orphanage in Uganda it was a holiday beyond their wildest imaginings.

Bermuda accountant Cheryl Bennett was lucky enough to see the joy on the children’s faces, first hand, when she spent Christmas with them.

“I decided I was going to do a project with some needy children,” said Miss Bennett. “I went at Christmas because I wanted to participate in a children’s activities, and see how different I could make it for them,” Miss Bennett said. “The kids were just awesome. They were really loving kids. I really enjoyed spending time with them. Christmas was a joyful time, and it was a very fulfilling experience.”

The Restorers of Hope orphanage was the brainchild of Bermudian Christine Atcheson who previously started several AIDS related charities in Bermuda. It has been up and running since the beginning of last year, and has been largely funded by the generosity of Bermudians.

When Miss Bennett went to Uganda she took with her a suitcase full of Christmas gifts donated by a woman’s group at The Cornerstone Bible Fellowship.

“I learned so much from them,” she said. “The lessons came every day. For example, one day, we were driving through Kampala. Two children, Deena and David, were sitting in the back, talking. They didn’t realise I was listening. They both used to beg on the streets. David was saying, ‘I used to be here’ and Deena was saying ‘I’ve been here. We used to go there’. Then Deena said to David, ‘I am so glad that God delivered us’. I was like, ‘wow, another lesson’. There were so many; a lot more besides that. These kids are awesome.”

Another lesson came when Miss Bennett passed candies around to all of the children.

While she promptly popped one in her mouth, the children stopped to pray over theirs.

“I was like, Wow! For the smallest things they were so grateful’. That was such a powerful lesson to me.

“I asked a little girl named Hadassah what she wanted for Christmas. I said, ‘if you were going to get a Christmas gift, what would you like?’ She said, ‘A soda’. They do get sodas, but it is a treat. I personally don’t drink sodas so I wouldn’t give it to kids either. But for her, her whole world would have been complete if she got a soda for Christmas.”

Hadassah, about six, was found as a baby under a bush after an attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army in the north of Uganda. The old lady who found her waited for hours thinking her parents would come searching for her.

As night fell the old lady saw no one and took herself and the child to a ‘displaced persons camp’, where the only hope is to get food from foreign aid and people don’t even own a blanket. She lived there for the last four years, no school, no spare clothes, no toys- until the old lady could no longer take care of her and sent for her daughter to come and take her to the City of Kampala.

“We visited the daughter and she had nothing and was barely making it with her own child,” Mrs. Atcheson said in an earlier interview with the Royal Gazette.

“So we took Hadassah in. She speaks no English, Lugandan or Swahilli so we communicate in sign language. At first she was really afraid of me as I was the first white person she had seen, but one day I crossed my eyes and she laughed and trusted me to lift her up so she could climb and play.”

This year, Hadassah and the other kids, got a lot more than sodas for Christmas. They were given dolls, toys and clothing.

“The night before Christmas we gave them their clothes so they could wear them on Christmas day,” Miss Bennett said. “All their names were on bags. They tried the clothes on to make sure they all fit. Their whole countenance changed when they got their new stuff.”

She said despite the hard life that some of the little girls had endured, as soon as they got their baby dolls they strapped them on their backs using sweaters in the traditional Ugandan way, and were off playing.

“I was thinking these girls were so tough they wouldn’t want to play with dolls, but I was so wrong,” Miss Bennett said. “This is probably one of the first dolls they have had in their entire life. They played on for days with their toys.

“Their reactions were out of this world. Some of them have never had personalised gifts. Some of them are coming from camps up in the north. They are not sure where their parents are. They have either died of AIDS or died fighting.”

The children are ages four to 12. Many of them were found by Miss Atcheson and Pastor Milton Agaba, who runs the home, on street corners, or sleeping on the floor of railway stations. Some of the children have parents who have died or are dying from AIDS. Some of them were rescued from refugee camps in the war-torn North.

“Restorers of Hope have rescued these children and are giving them a normal life,” said Miss Bennett. “This certainly would be the first Christmas celebrating it this way.”

She said the children appeared to be happy, and knew how lucky they were to have been rescued by the orphanage.

“They dance and sing a lot,” said Miss Bennett. “Usually, singing is a sign of peace and happiness and these kids were always singing. It was so encouraging. When you hear the words to the songs they are singing it is touching. They prayed so deep. They are just incredible.”

She said the Christmas she saw at the orphanage in Uganda was pretty much the same as here, although the food was a little different.

“While we would have a turkey, they would probably have chicken,” she said. “They don’t eat meat a lot. So Christmas time they would probably introduce a lot more meat into their diet.”

Miss Bennett said just seeing the lives of the children transformed over a couple of days, made the trip well-worth it.

“Seeing the mission of the home coming to life, was very fulfilling for me,” she said. “Just the love you get from these kids... You give love, but they give you back more.”

She has supported other charities, but never really had the opportunity to participate directly in this way.

“What didn’t get out of this experience might have been a better question,” said Miss Bennett. “I am happy that I actually got to do this. I have supported other charities, but I have never actually got to be on site. So that was an accomplishment in itself for me.”

Unfortunately, the children in the orphanage are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of children in Uganda who have been orphaned due to AIDS, poverty or war.

“There are tons more kids on the streets that need homes,” said Miss Bennett.

“These ones are so fortunate to be in the home. They are quite glad to be there. You never, ever hear where they are complaining that they didn’t have something or ‘oh I wish I had’. That really taught me a lot - to be grateful for just the small things in life. There is nothing else I would rather have done at Christmas. It really put things into perspective.”For more information about Restorers of Hope, email Mrs. Atcheson at Godshope[@therock.bm , go to www.restorersofhope.org or www.donations.bm or telephone 297-4876or write to P.O. Box GE 390, St. George GE BX, Bermuda.