Ugandan Orphans Choir

This week, I had the opportunity to get to know (and fall in love with) the Ugandan Orphans Choir. These 10 kids, ages 11-14, are spending 11 months of this year touring the US, hoping that people will take up their cause and sponsor a child.

For $38 a month, children in underprivileged countries can receive an education. The group's tour manager, Shay Flaherty, said it best.

"Education provides an opportunity to dream, and an opportunity to pursue their dreams," she said. "They will educate their children, and start the process all over again. By sponsoring a child, you have the opportunity to help break the cycle of poverty."

As a mom, this hit home for me... These precious children, made orphans by no choice of their own, are using their talents to help others like themselves get out of the cycle of poverty they are in.

Their sweet faces are almost always smiling, they are respectful to adults, and they know they are making a difference.

Perhaps the most exciting part for me, aside from watching them perform, was when I asked them all what they wanted to be when they grow up. I'm not sure what I expected them to say, but the answers they gave surprised me.

Three of them plan to be doctors. The others plan to be a nurse, a bank manager, a police woman, an airplane pilot and a teacher. One boy wants to be an electrical engineer and a farmer. And 14-year-old Isaac wants to be an actor. "Like Tom Cruise," he said, "I want to be famous in the whole world."

I told Isaac he was well on his way to that goal.

In some ways, the kids were just regular kids- they love pizza and hamburgers (foods not available to them in Uganda), and they pretend to be asleep at "lights out," then all wake up and start talking after the final check of the night.

And yet, they have a wisdom beyond their years. I think Glenda Halbert, co-pastor of St. Paul Presbyterian Church put her finger on exactly why...

"They're so self-sufficient," she said. "It occurred to me, they don't have anyone to mother them, or to go home to. They don't get that parental touch, that reassures them they are in a safe place."

As a mom, that realization made me sad. That there are hundreds, likely thousands of children in this world who don't have a parent to tell them "I love you" when they tuck them into bed, or "Great job" when they do well in school, just breaks my heart.

I have always said I would like to make a difference in this world. Sponsoring a child might be just the way to do it.