Tiger, an elderly Uganda man, was furious.

Rather than greet Suzy Gillies inside of his internally displaced person (IDP) camp, he began shouting at her in broken English. Having survived the horrors of the Lord’s Army Resistance insurgency, which had engulfed the northern region of Uganda for 18 years, he couldn’t understand why the outside world still remained seemingly oblivious to their plight in 2008, three years after the war had ended.

“He pleaded with us to tell the (American) people of what was happening in his country,” Gillies said. “He asked us ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to go back and tell your people?’ I made a promise that I would.”

Two years later, when Gillies returned to the Gulu district in northern Uganda, she and her companions inadvertently arrived at the same IDP camp that she had originally met Tiger. With an interpreter in tow, they were able to eventually locate Tiger, who was brought to them on a motorcycle.

Finally, Gillies was able to tell him personally that she had kept his promise.

After she returned to the states in 2008, Gillies, a substitute teacher in the Tahoma School District, created the African Promise Foundation (APF). The APF serves as both a humanitarian effort for the people of Uganda as well as way to raise awareness about the hardships the people of Uganda have endured at the hands of the LRA. APF is composed entirely of volunteers, most of whom are from the Maple Valley area.

On its website, APF sells beads and necklaces created by northern Ugandan women, which are also sold at local craft bazaars in cities like Issaquah and Bellevue. While some of the money gives the women a source of income, the profits generated from the sales goes to provide Ugandan children, especially girls, the opportunity to go to school.

At first, Gillies sold beads made by Ugandan women were to help support a child her family sponsored – and later adopted – but then realized there was not only a strong marker for the beads, but they helped increase awareness about Uganda.

“As much as I love donations, I think the beads are a way to connect with people on the other side of the world,” she said. “Every woman has stories about (their experiences with) the LRA.”

Gillies and other APF volunteers are planning a two week trip to Uganda in July, running a soccer camp and building huts, among those volunteers have been her own children, including her 14-year-old son, Benson, as well as her 12-year-old daughter Brinlee, who has been saving up since she was four to pay for the trip.

Gillies’s involvement in Uganda first started in 2005 when she worked in Kent with World Relief, an international organization that deals with the needy on a local level. After helping a refugee family from Somalia, which suffered from malnourishment and malaria. This led her to search other African nations. What caught her attention most was Uganda, which at the time had just ended the longest running civil war in the continent’s history.

The civil war started when the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, sought to overthrow the Ugandan government and establish a theocratic state. In addition to over 2 million people displaced during the ensuing war, the LRA is also believed to have abducted a total of 66,000 children to fight as child solders. This practice led to “night commuters,” Ugandan children in remote areas who walked up to 12 miles to spend the night in towns where they would be safe until daylight.

Gillies said that when she discovered all of this, she was appalled she hadn’t heard of it in the news.

“I thought, ‘This is going on and I don’t know anything about it. I’m not doing as much as I should be.’ When you know and have knowledge of something you have a responsibility. It’s finding something outside of yourself.”

After the north was stabilized and the LRA was ultimately defeated, Gillies went to Uganda as it began recovering from the aftermath.

“I didn’t know why, but I just felt like I had to go,” she said.

Tiger’s impassioned words at the IDP camp during the trip, she said, had a profound effect on her.

“It was, aside from the birth of my children and my wedding day, the most impactful moment of my life,” she said. “I realized that I was put on the Earth to help people. It made me realize that there is something bigger than myself.”

Having observed a noticeable lack of opportunities for girls, she came back in 2009 with an American girls soccer team under a project called “Goals for Girls,” which she founded with Jackie Skinner.

Gillies also met former child soldiers, many of whom had extreme difficulties recovering from their ordeals. Forced into the army, they were forced to kill, while the girls were used as sex slaves by their commanders. Some of them had no hands, while others had had their lips or ears cut as punishment for their disobedience. Gillies even encountered one woman who had been paralyzed after her children had been forced by the LRA at gunpoint to break her spine.

Despite their pasts, Gillies said they have an unusual degree of faith and ability to find joy in their circumstances.

“These people rely on God in a way the people in American don’t know how,” she said. “It kind of goes to show you that wealth can’t buy you happiness.”

To learn more about the African Promise Foundation, go to http://africanpromisefoundation.org.