Roeper and Lock decided to raise money to construct a basketball court near the orphanage in Uganda, replacing the makeshift hoop that would fall over every time a basket was shot. I have to use it, not just to better myself, but to better others.”
It made me see that basketball is a blessing. It kind of opened up my eyes and changed my view as to why I play basketball. “At night, I would just sit in my bed not knowing what to do, facing the two different worlds,” said Roeper. The excesses of Sin City compared to the minimalist lives of the Ugandan orphans weren’t lost on her. Soon after, Roeper traveled to Las Vegas for a basketball tournament. Hearing stories of the child soldiers and witnessing the effects made for a difficult adjustment period when Roeper returned home. “There’s nothing you can really do to fix it. “People would take off bandages and ask you to help them,” she said. She saw some with gaping, infected wounds, reaching the bone. Roeper saw children whose ears had been cut off. The children were forced to become soldiers and kill, including family members. It was there that she witnessed the effects of the atrocities leveled by the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony, who, according to the United Nations, is responsible for the abduction of more than 25,000 children.
She traveled into the bush with her parents and others. Roeper, meanwhile, headed north to the city of Gulu on a medical mission.
