BANGOR – The children of Uganda have little in common with the kids in northern Maine. The AIDS epidemic and years of civil war have left thousands of children orphaned in Africa. The poverty, disease and destruction that has been a part of their short lives is light years apart and a mighty ocean away from the whirring world of video games, the Internet, cable television and the latest Star Wars movie.

This week, however, Watoto, a children’s choir from Kampala, Uganda, will try to bridge that gap with song and dance in area churches and at the Bangor Mall. The choir will perform at 7 p.m. today at Columbia Street Baptist Church in Bangor and throughout the afternoon beginning at noon on Saturday at the mall.

Wearing brightly colored African clothing, about 25 children will sing traditional Ugandan songs, as well as some written for the choir, and hymns familiar to many Christians. They will play traditional instruments like drums and an antelope’s horn and dance, using moves even Michael Jackson might envy.

The choir is an outreach of Watoto Child Care Ministries, formed by Christian missionaries Gary and Marilyn Skinner a decade ago. The Skinners moved with their family to Kampala in 1983 to plant an English-speaking church in the heart of the city. Kampala Pentecostal Church now boasts more than 7,000 members, but is only a part of the couple’s ministry.

Watoto means children, and in Uganda some 1.1 million children are orphans, having lost one or both parents to AIDS since the epidemic hit the continent in the late 1980s. In the last 10 years, nearly 2 million Ugandans have died of the disease, according to Watoto Child Care Ministries, formed by the Skinners and church members in 1991.

Through the program, the church members built a series of children’s villages, designed to help address Uganda’s orphan crisis. The villages include more than 50 individual homes, which house eight parentless children and a housemother. These communities are intended to provide shelter as well as academic, vocational and spiritual training for the children, according to information on Watoto’s Web site.

Nearly 1,500 children are cared for in these villages and the goal is to build enough homes, which cost $10,000 each in American dollars, to care for 30,000 orphans. Watoto Child Care Ministries recently completed the first and second phases of the I. D. Raymer School, which 250 elementary school children attend. Plans for a new high school are underway. Other projects include a secondary school, technical training college, retreat center and children’s camp.

“Our goal is to equip these precious children with the essential moral values and life skills,” said the Rev. Gary Skinner, found of the Watoto Child Care Ministries, “that will enable them to make a significant and lasting impact on the future of their country.”

About 60 children are trained each year. The group that will visit the Bangor region includes about 25 children and six adults. They will stay with host families while in the area, probably sharing much more than music. The donations received at the free concerts, in addition to the sale of videotapes and CDs of the choir’s performances, help support the ministry.

The choir also will perform at the following locations during their visit to the region: 7 p.m. Thursday, May 20, at First United Methodist Church, Bangor; at 7 p.m. Friday, May 21, at Ellsworth High School, sponsored by the Ellsworth Evangelical Church; 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 22, at Essex Street Baptist Church; and 10 a.m. Sunday, May 23, at the Community Evangelical Temple in Lincoln.

For more information, contact the local churches or visit the choir’s Web site at www.watoto.com.