I can hardly believe it’s been almost two weeks since my last blog update. Things here are progressing rapidly.
We’ve secured sponsorship for the 2011 school year for 12 children – there are many more children in need so please tell all your friends and family about this wonderful opportunity to bless others in need. (This opportunity can make a difference in the life of a child. If you have the money to go out to eat more than once a week and you actually buy coffee someone else has prepared, chances are good you can come up with the $25/month to help a child. Some of these kids only have 1 meal/day on a good day, so please consider a small sacrifice to you in order to make a BIG difference for someone else!) 100% of the donation goes to the child’s school fees or supplies. And – it’s tax deductible. Ask me how you can help….
Well, thanks to the continuing offers of support from dear friends in the US, it looks like we’ll be able to do a good work for Ray of Hope in the soon-coming days….I’m in the process now of developing web content with the RoH team and confirming the structure for their new website. Hopefully after some technical items are resolved, we’ll be able to proceed and get a great site up and running for them. I’m so privileged to work with these folks and am also very grateful and privileged to know an awesome creative team in the states who are willing to offer time and energy to support this effort. Many, many thanks to you all!! As many know, this can be a rather lengthy process – but in “Africa” time, it seems to be so speedy. The folks at RoH keep talking about how fast things are happening. :-)
This coming weekend I head into northern Uganda to Kitgum. As many of you are aware, northern Uganda has been a place of dramatic struggle and physical and spiritual oppression. So many innocent people have been murdered, raped, or kidnapped. The bloodshed has been so violent…and many families continue to suffer there. Many children were abducted and were forced to become child “brides” or child soldiers….and many still live on the streets and stay in hospital basements or alleys in an attempt to be “safe”. I can’t even wrap my mind around the horror so many of these children (and women and men) face regularly – still!! Even with Kony/the LRA supposedly in the DRCongo, people live under a blanket of fear that just won’t easily be lifted (you can read books like “The Aboke Girls”, “First, Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army” and “The Teeth May Smile But The Heart Will Not Forget” to read just a little of has gone on here). A number of the kids in the family I’m living with have been rescued from those horrible conditions. I am grateful for the opportunity to go with some of the family and some friends of theirs who have family there. It will be an honor to bless some of the families there who are struggling so severely.
Next topic: I’ll be honest, while I appreciate facebook, the updates can make me miss the US a bit…. thinking about Auburn football and football Saturdays with friends – football, food and often a great round of cards! I do miss all my friends but remain in such peace and happiness here. I can hardly believe I’ve been here almost 8 weeks…but sometimes it feels that I’ve lived here for years. All is good!
I will try to send another update once I return from Kitgum… love and blessings to you! I remain grateful for your friendship, prayers and support, and the opportunity to serve the people of Africa!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
August Update :: The Giant "Catch Up" Post
Finally a blog update!
So, life in Uganda has hit a nice rhythm. I feel like I’m making some progress in relationships and in activity. There are several things to tell you about so I’ll just divide it into topics and hope it is readable!
>> Ray of Hope
In Namuwongo slums, I work with and through the Ray of Hope organization supporting their efforts to keep children off the streets, provide an education for them as well as help grow skills and give support to vulnerable women and their children. The women who are part of this organization are awesome – they give more than 100% everyday and make progress one child, woman or family at the time. They give and give…they are not the “takers” of this world. It’s quite convicting to my thoughts of my own needs and wants and it is also such a privilege to work with them.
Basically I’ve created a schedule to be down at RoH every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to be with the women, do bead work with them, help do clean-up in the slums (physically with shovel, rake and wheel barrow – to load and cart trash that’s been piled by the water sources [still not clean water, but..] out to a garbage pile on one end of the slums) with the women and work with the staff there to gather info and develop materials to help them and help all of us work towards a website and more robust sponsorship (for education for kids in the slums) options. I also try to work on their materials from my “hotel lobby office” as often as I can during the other days of the week.
Below is a write up I put together in order to begin building that website info and get a formalized sponsorship process in play. It has not been edited or word-smithed at all (looking forward to some friends helping me with that!) but it shares some history about the organization.
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A Ray of Hope
In 2000 a teacher and a civil servant decided to build a home in Namuwongo, an area of Kampala, Uganda. Little did they know that the choices they made in that year would have wide-reaching and on-going positive impact to the people of the Namuwongo slums as well as a view of God’s love to people around the world. This is a story of faith and of the miraculous provision of a loving God.
Emily’s Story
Circumstances outside of their control dictated that this teacher and civil servant, Emily and Richard, move into their unfinished, un-walled and un-gated home in Namuwongo in 2000. Emily soon discovered that not having a wall or gate allowed her to see what was happening in the neighborhood – and what she saw caused her concern and grief. In the early morning, poorly dressed and undernourished children would come and knock on the doors of the neighbors on the street. They would dart into the gates of these homes then come back out carrying bags or old luggage pieces full of garbage. Instead of being in school, which they – nor their parents (if they were lucky enough to have parents) – could afford, they were on the streets trying to earn money in order to stay alive. Most often, these children were “paid” with spoiled food or items of little to no value. And even if it was possible to earn enough to cover school fees, there were still uniforms, food and school supplies to buy – they just didn’t have chance.
That’s where Emily came in. She saw an opportunity to share the love of God with these children. She first began to pray for them diligently and encourage them verbally every day. She recognized the great need of these children and began to meet some of those physical needs by feeding them porridge in the mornings and giving them money as payment for their garbage collection work. She also began to look for organizations that could help these children. The sad news – none of the organizations were able to accept any more children. She was encouraged by those organizations to simply help them herself. So she did!
Emily began looking, and finally found, a primary school teacher who would teach those children in the front yard of their unfinished home. They got their church to agree to let them bring the church benches to the yard each morning and return them back to the church each evening. This was a true labor of love…and active show of God’s kindness to the poor and orphaned. Others began to offer some financial support to pay the teacher’s salary and the children were showing up to learn! Most often there would be different children showing up each day, but a core group was there regularly to learn and grow.
Soon, Emily was faced with another problem. Some of the children were stealing from homes in the area and their gathering at Emily’s house was beginning to attract legal attention. She knew they had to move their “school” to another location. At that time she and Richard knew they would have to legalize this group and in 2001 they first registered Ray of Hope Uganda as an organization.
They moved to a two-room office in Namuwongo and enrolled 45 children for school. Emily was still working as a teacher herself, so they added 2 teachers to the Ray of Hope team and continued educating the children. She also “borrowed” money from her husband, Richard’s, bank account, while he was out of town on a training trip, to pay for 6 months of rent for a house to serve as the school. She did that with the prayer on her lips that “God will sponsor us!” When her husband returned unexpectedly, he agreed to allow her to use the money and wait to see what God would do when the 6 months were over.
A School Comes
The end of the 6 months arrived and a sponsor had not come. Emily and the Ray of Hope team dismantled the school, made repairs to the house and knew they had to seek a new location. Knowing they served the community in the slums of Namuwongo, Richard decided to go down into the slums to try and find a new location. God opened the door and showed him a papyrus building being used as a church. He spoke with the pastor and they agreed on renting the building cheaply to be used during the day as the school. This meant the pastor could still have his evening and Sunday church with no interruption.
This new home for the school was a dirty place and an environment which would generally turn most people away. There were drainage problems and sewage issues, people making the local brew right outside the doors and drunkards hurling insults regularly. But all 45 children showed up for the first day of class, happy to be receiving an education – even without porridge (at this point, there were too many children to feed) – and the school environment was about to change.
God had placed an older couple, from Korea, in the lives of the children at Ray of Hope. This couple would come in and pray with the children and spend time with them just showing the love of God. When they returned to Uganda, they found the children in this new school and immediately wanted to help. The children were just sitting on mats on the ground and the couple knew then just how bad the situation was for these children. They had benches made and sent to this new school and also went to the US to raise money and tell others about the needs of these children. Before they’d left, they purchased the land on which the school was located and had also left money with Ray of Hope to build another structure since the church had removed their structure from the site.
Emily and the Ray of Hope team moved into a time of “mad faith” to get a building built and a school operational. God was at work and the miracles began to come one after another. A volunteer from Newcastle, England, Tom, came to help – after the organization with whom he worked had said they couldn’t send anyone because the conditions were so bad. Then, Tom’s mother came for a visit and bought timber to be used in the building of the school. Shortly after, another volunteer came and pushed the walls up. Emily had gone earlier to the industrial area, walking and praying all the way, to try to receive help from an iron-works company for security bars on the school – once the building was ready, the iron works company called to say the iron sheets were ready and that they’d been trying to call for 3 months! It was all coming together at the right time. “Hope for Children” came in and helped divide the rooms so that Ray of Hope could support more grades and get more teachers. Then the Mumford family, connected through one of their daughter’s intership and subsequent volunteer support of Ray of Hope, joined with them to build a support building. The school was complete and children were enrolled. Ray of Hope was providing a foundation of education from nursery school through grade P3.
Current update…
To-date, over 225 children have finished P1 through P3 schooling in the Ray of Hope school or been sponsored for P4 and above – thousands more wait for help. All the children in Nursery Top Class – grade P3 currently receive meals at the school and are also provided basic medical care.
All the drainage and sewage issues on the school property became so bad that the school was forced to close and another temporary location has been found. Currently money is being raised to purchase a building that will be the long-term offices and school for Ray of Hope.
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For more information on how you can help, where you can send donations as well as sponsorship for children in grades P4 and higher, please contact me or just leave a comment here with any of your contact details and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
>> Nawezikana
Below is a write up I put together in order to prepare for a business plan and website information for the women’s micro-business. It too has not been edited or word-smithed but it shares some basic info about the group.
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“With God, all things are possible.” Nawezikana. That’s what the women decided should be their name. What began as a burden on one woman’s heart, to help teach women in the Namuwongo slums skills that would enable them to raise their income level, became a micro-business that is now so much more – it is a community of women sharing life and support of one another while working with their hands to provide for their families and homes. This love and support has transformed the lives of these women, many of whom face tremendous hardship and even abuse, by offering them the opportunity to share with one another and share their talents with the world.
Throughout late 2008, a group of about 8 women were led through many one-off projects that could be used as a skills growth opportunity for the women of the Namuwongo slums. These small groups generally worked on projects like tailoring, cooking and craft projects such as making embroidered greeting cards. In a short time, the group began to grow and all recognized the need to create something more permanent – something where the commitment to one another and the community could be nurtured. The group had already begun to pray together, and for one another, and to commit their work to the Lord.
In early 2009, through the blessing of generous donations from a number of people and organizations, the family helping with this start up was able to work with the Ray of Hope team to find and rent a building where the women could regularly meet and work on their crafts and projects. This new building provided office space for Ray of Hope as well as rooms to work indoors for the women in the group. It was a place they could gather safely and regularly to use their talents and gifts to create something beautiful – beautiful, quality products as well as beautiful relationships with one another.
The group soon increased to about 35 women all working together. Money was raised for the purchase of sewing machines that allowed part of the team of women to focus on tailoring and volunteer teams that came to work in the slums brought supplies for the various projects on which the women were working. The team and the micro-business were growing – because “with God, all things are possible.”
Current update…
The Nawezikana women’s micro-business produces embroidered greeting cards, jewelry purses, bags, African paper beads and various pieces of jewelry. Many individuals have purchased products from this group to re-sell in other places but this has not reached far enough. Nawezikana is now looking to partner with organizations that focus on fair trade as well as justice and equality for the individual in order to create an opportunity to share the stories of these women with, as well as create a sales pipeline that can reach, the world.
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If you would like to help these women in any way (rent $ for their homes [small cement rooms in the slums – 4x6 or so], sponsorship $ for their kids school fees, etc.), help the micro-business (supplies, capital for new projects, rent for other sales stalls or shops, etc.), or generally help RoH, please just let me know. You can leave a comment here with any info or contact emails and I’ll get in touch.
>> The Lake Victoria Serena lobby
I am so grateful for the Lake Victoria Serena. I’ve spent a number of hours in their lobby…sending emails and doing on-line research to support all that I’ve been burdened to do to help create an infrastructure for sponsorship and micro-business support for Ray of Hope. The people who work there are so welcoming and nice and the environment is a perfect “office” with the nice sound of the fountain in the lobby and great internet speed - all for the price of a soda or a latte. I occasionally spend time there when I’m not in the city, slums or supporting the family with whom I’m currently living - and will probably have to spend more time there soon in order to get all my on-line work completed.
>> The family
The family I’m living with is a large family of American, Ukranian and Ugandan children – biological and adopted. The adopted children were rescued from horrible situations in life – abuse, neglect, results of war, etc. So, any help I can provide to the family is also helping children who have survived atrocities I can’t even imagine. To see these kids getting an education and being provided a chance to grow and learn in a secure environment , where food and clothing are readily available and love is shared, is awesome.
I’m on breakfast preparation duty on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and dinner preparation duty on Monday and Wednesday evenings. I also make grocery runs regularly for them (imagine the Duggar family shopping without a SuperWalmart in sight!) and those happen almost every day –I’m one of only a few adults that can drive here. Feeding 25 people per meal (that includes the kids, adults [family and not] and the occasional guests) takes a LOT of food and many hours of cooking every day. Lately, most of the cooking has been done with only gas and with no refridge or freezer since the power has been out every day for over 3 weeks now. We run the generator periodically, but very sparingly because of the cost of fuel. Kerosene lanterns at night when it’s out and just window light during the day.
I’ve also gotten to help with some admin/business stuff at the house…good to use some of my "career" experience while here.
>> The house
I get the priviledge of living in an awesome house in a beautiful setting. It’s a large house – with home school rooms, girls side, boys side, great room, good kitchen, laundry room and a laundry dry-house outside. There is a view of Lake Victoria from the back screened porch and there is a constant breeze off the lake that keeps the lower floor of the house fairly cool, even on the hottest day. The views are 360 – the lake and the valleys on either side of the hill. It’s really awesome for the kids who have joined the family here because they have come from slums and the bush and would have never imagined living in a house like this. I have my own room and share a community girls bathroom.
Some things not so cool…. there is often no power, some cold water showers and you have to carry your laundry down to hang on the line – no dryers. You make do with kerosene lanterns in the evening and have to go to a hotel lobby to get internet service. There is no phone line and no cable tv (which I’ve been really used to over the last year or so – really grateful God got me used to that!!)….and also it’s REALLY noisy quite often (which for me is a great growth opportunity since I’ve always enjoyed having silence in my house and being able to get plenty of alone time when I felt I needed it….not the case for me at the moment). Imagine no walls in the common areas and lots of kids screaming, listening to music, running and playing and watching DVDs…all those things are great and happy family things, but it takes quite an adjustment for one who has never been part of that kind of environment (or has had an opportunity to escape it when needed). I need some more highest-decibel possible earplugs since I now have to sleep in them nightly. Anyone is welcome to mail some to me – the ones you can use when shooting a weapon!! : )
>> Transportation
Transportation is the fun part. This is some of worst traffic I’ve driven in (including Seville, Spain and Boston during the “big dig”) but it’s awesome because there seem to be almost no road rules – it’s a bit like Cairo. I get to drive the equivalent of a tank (big Toyota Land Cruiser – the old kind… nice and square and huge) and can make my way through most any intersection or roundabout without an issue. Imagine being able to take a 4 lane highway and drive in 6 lanes worth of traffic – with people running across the street constantly (and sometimes even cows – by accident – got to see that a couple of days ago), taxi vans and boda boda’s (motorcycle “taxis”) EVERYWHERE coming into traffic randomly and the bodas weaving through all the lanes of traffic. Bodas are often dangerous, but in town they are the best way to travel because they can get through all the cars. Everywhere people are walking and there are street markets all by the side of the road.
Driving in the city is fine – but there are “traffic cops” standing on many corners with their whistles ready to pull you over for a driving infraction. They are also terribly crooked and expect monetary bribes in order to prevent them taking your license and making a hard time for you. So, last week on a money exchange run, I made an illegal u-turn (mind you there was no sign and the intersection was completely open) and had 3 of those dudes running after me with their whistles blarring… scared the living daylights out of me at first. Anyhoo – the meanest looking one got in the car with me and started telling me, in a fairly direct and loud tone, that I should know better and shouldn’t be on the street and I’ve broken the law and all about how horrible I am…. Well, he was working on a bribe because he would never get his pen and pad out to write me a ticket. I just sat there saying “Mercy, ssabo (sir, in Luganda), mercy…I saw no sign and I would never want to disobey your law, please give me mercy, ssabo!” He then began to harass me that anyone I knew in Uganda should be with me because I shouldn’t drive without knowing the road, so I had to start in on the story of how they’d told me all about the roads and I was just the one making the mistake – pleading for more mercy and trying my best to work up some tears. Finally they seemed to figure out that I was a not going to offer to bribe them (I’m sure they just thought I was an idiot “muzungu”) and one of the officers outside the car called the other gentlemen out and said they would grant me mercy – but just for today! Phew!!
The streets in the city “proper” are bad, but the streets outside of town center are HORRIBLE!! Potholes everywhere and sides of the streets just chunking off because they only pave a few inches over top of a red dirt road – so it certainly is not able to stay together. It’s like driving in a mind field. You certainly have to know where you are before you’d even consider taking a sip of anything to drink….it’s enough to jostle your brain out. There are also people all over and these huge trenches on either side (that can’t even contain much of the flash floods that rampage during a hard rain carrying red water everywhere along with so much trash it makes you want to cry or be ill…reminds me of the litter commercial from my childhood with the Native American guy with a tear running down his cheek) – trenches that would certainly cause an axle to snap in half if you drove off into it! And of course these trenches on both sides leave little room for navigating around the people and bodas without running the on-coming traffic off into the one on their side…. It’s like an advertisement for a “Driving Extreme” training camp. At night loud music is booming through most of the streets and the place stays alive all night. And one other note on driving during a hard rain… many of the streets do suffer flood-like conditions so the UN trucks (shiny white and new – don’t even get me started) and their closed-engine, above cab air intake are not such a bad thing. Driving through it is horrible because you just don’t know what you’re driving over or what pothole you’re about to get lost in!
The road up through the bush to the house is a teeth-loosening road to say the least. Just when you get a good feel for the right ruts and the least jarring spots to transition, a good rain will come and just change the map! Ruts that were once good are suddenly rock filled, bone rattling traps…and once gentle humps now have mini-Grand Canyons carved out either side that make them strut/shock killers to be sure. But the always present African red dirt on these roads is still a beauty to me.
>> Food
Food in Kampala is great… awesome Indian food (lots of folks of Indian nationality – mostly business owners and many are VERY wealthy), tasty local fare (personal favorite – goat or pork muchomo), EXCELLENT avocados, great fruit and even some really good thin crust pizza.
I plan to do a separate “food blog update” so stay tuned.
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Hope this update has been one that you enjoyed.
Love and miss family, friends and many of the conveniences of living in the US, but my heart is at such peace here and I am happier than I can share in the written word. It’s a more than a full time gig here but there is also such fun and great people with whom I get the privilege of engaging.
Looking forward to sharing more information soon on school sponsorship opportunities (for something like $25 a month) for children in the slums who can’t afford a desperately needed education – a personal project here that I’m beginning to work on. I can’t even begin to describe the need accurately, but I will do my best! Their Term 1 for the next academic year begins in late January and I’m hoping to have sponsors lined up for as many children as possible for the next school year – be on the look out for more to come on that!
So, life in Uganda has hit a nice rhythm. I feel like I’m making some progress in relationships and in activity. There are several things to tell you about so I’ll just divide it into topics and hope it is readable!
>> Ray of Hope
In Namuwongo slums, I work with and through the Ray of Hope organization supporting their efforts to keep children off the streets, provide an education for them as well as help grow skills and give support to vulnerable women and their children. The women who are part of this organization are awesome – they give more than 100% everyday and make progress one child, woman or family at the time. They give and give…they are not the “takers” of this world. It’s quite convicting to my thoughts of my own needs and wants and it is also such a privilege to work with them.
Basically I’ve created a schedule to be down at RoH every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to be with the women, do bead work with them, help do clean-up in the slums (physically with shovel, rake and wheel barrow – to load and cart trash that’s been piled by the water sources [still not clean water, but..] out to a garbage pile on one end of the slums) with the women and work with the staff there to gather info and develop materials to help them and help all of us work towards a website and more robust sponsorship (for education for kids in the slums) options. I also try to work on their materials from my “hotel lobby office” as often as I can during the other days of the week.
Below is a write up I put together in order to begin building that website info and get a formalized sponsorship process in play. It has not been edited or word-smithed at all (looking forward to some friends helping me with that!) but it shares some history about the organization.
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A Ray of Hope
In 2000 a teacher and a civil servant decided to build a home in Namuwongo, an area of Kampala, Uganda. Little did they know that the choices they made in that year would have wide-reaching and on-going positive impact to the people of the Namuwongo slums as well as a view of God’s love to people around the world. This is a story of faith and of the miraculous provision of a loving God.
Emily’s Story
Circumstances outside of their control dictated that this teacher and civil servant, Emily and Richard, move into their unfinished, un-walled and un-gated home in Namuwongo in 2000. Emily soon discovered that not having a wall or gate allowed her to see what was happening in the neighborhood – and what she saw caused her concern and grief. In the early morning, poorly dressed and undernourished children would come and knock on the doors of the neighbors on the street. They would dart into the gates of these homes then come back out carrying bags or old luggage pieces full of garbage. Instead of being in school, which they – nor their parents (if they were lucky enough to have parents) – could afford, they were on the streets trying to earn money in order to stay alive. Most often, these children were “paid” with spoiled food or items of little to no value. And even if it was possible to earn enough to cover school fees, there were still uniforms, food and school supplies to buy – they just didn’t have chance.
That’s where Emily came in. She saw an opportunity to share the love of God with these children. She first began to pray for them diligently and encourage them verbally every day. She recognized the great need of these children and began to meet some of those physical needs by feeding them porridge in the mornings and giving them money as payment for their garbage collection work. She also began to look for organizations that could help these children. The sad news – none of the organizations were able to accept any more children. She was encouraged by those organizations to simply help them herself. So she did!
Emily began looking, and finally found, a primary school teacher who would teach those children in the front yard of their unfinished home. They got their church to agree to let them bring the church benches to the yard each morning and return them back to the church each evening. This was a true labor of love…and active show of God’s kindness to the poor and orphaned. Others began to offer some financial support to pay the teacher’s salary and the children were showing up to learn! Most often there would be different children showing up each day, but a core group was there regularly to learn and grow.
Soon, Emily was faced with another problem. Some of the children were stealing from homes in the area and their gathering at Emily’s house was beginning to attract legal attention. She knew they had to move their “school” to another location. At that time she and Richard knew they would have to legalize this group and in 2001 they first registered Ray of Hope Uganda as an organization.
They moved to a two-room office in Namuwongo and enrolled 45 children for school. Emily was still working as a teacher herself, so they added 2 teachers to the Ray of Hope team and continued educating the children. She also “borrowed” money from her husband, Richard’s, bank account, while he was out of town on a training trip, to pay for 6 months of rent for a house to serve as the school. She did that with the prayer on her lips that “God will sponsor us!” When her husband returned unexpectedly, he agreed to allow her to use the money and wait to see what God would do when the 6 months were over.
A School Comes
The end of the 6 months arrived and a sponsor had not come. Emily and the Ray of Hope team dismantled the school, made repairs to the house and knew they had to seek a new location. Knowing they served the community in the slums of Namuwongo, Richard decided to go down into the slums to try and find a new location. God opened the door and showed him a papyrus building being used as a church. He spoke with the pastor and they agreed on renting the building cheaply to be used during the day as the school. This meant the pastor could still have his evening and Sunday church with no interruption.
This new home for the school was a dirty place and an environment which would generally turn most people away. There were drainage problems and sewage issues, people making the local brew right outside the doors and drunkards hurling insults regularly. But all 45 children showed up for the first day of class, happy to be receiving an education – even without porridge (at this point, there were too many children to feed) – and the school environment was about to change.
God had placed an older couple, from Korea, in the lives of the children at Ray of Hope. This couple would come in and pray with the children and spend time with them just showing the love of God. When they returned to Uganda, they found the children in this new school and immediately wanted to help. The children were just sitting on mats on the ground and the couple knew then just how bad the situation was for these children. They had benches made and sent to this new school and also went to the US to raise money and tell others about the needs of these children. Before they’d left, they purchased the land on which the school was located and had also left money with Ray of Hope to build another structure since the church had removed their structure from the site.
Emily and the Ray of Hope team moved into a time of “mad faith” to get a building built and a school operational. God was at work and the miracles began to come one after another. A volunteer from Newcastle, England, Tom, came to help – after the organization with whom he worked had said they couldn’t send anyone because the conditions were so bad. Then, Tom’s mother came for a visit and bought timber to be used in the building of the school. Shortly after, another volunteer came and pushed the walls up. Emily had gone earlier to the industrial area, walking and praying all the way, to try to receive help from an iron-works company for security bars on the school – once the building was ready, the iron works company called to say the iron sheets were ready and that they’d been trying to call for 3 months! It was all coming together at the right time. “Hope for Children” came in and helped divide the rooms so that Ray of Hope could support more grades and get more teachers. Then the Mumford family, connected through one of their daughter’s intership and subsequent volunteer support of Ray of Hope, joined with them to build a support building. The school was complete and children were enrolled. Ray of Hope was providing a foundation of education from nursery school through grade P3.
Current update…
To-date, over 225 children have finished P1 through P3 schooling in the Ray of Hope school or been sponsored for P4 and above – thousands more wait for help. All the children in Nursery Top Class – grade P3 currently receive meals at the school and are also provided basic medical care.
All the drainage and sewage issues on the school property became so bad that the school was forced to close and another temporary location has been found. Currently money is being raised to purchase a building that will be the long-term offices and school for Ray of Hope.
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For more information on how you can help, where you can send donations as well as sponsorship for children in grades P4 and higher, please contact me or just leave a comment here with any of your contact details and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
>> Nawezikana
Below is a write up I put together in order to prepare for a business plan and website information for the women’s micro-business. It too has not been edited or word-smithed but it shares some basic info about the group.
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“With God, all things are possible.” Nawezikana. That’s what the women decided should be their name. What began as a burden on one woman’s heart, to help teach women in the Namuwongo slums skills that would enable them to raise their income level, became a micro-business that is now so much more – it is a community of women sharing life and support of one another while working with their hands to provide for their families and homes. This love and support has transformed the lives of these women, many of whom face tremendous hardship and even abuse, by offering them the opportunity to share with one another and share their talents with the world.
Throughout late 2008, a group of about 8 women were led through many one-off projects that could be used as a skills growth opportunity for the women of the Namuwongo slums. These small groups generally worked on projects like tailoring, cooking and craft projects such as making embroidered greeting cards. In a short time, the group began to grow and all recognized the need to create something more permanent – something where the commitment to one another and the community could be nurtured. The group had already begun to pray together, and for one another, and to commit their work to the Lord.
In early 2009, through the blessing of generous donations from a number of people and organizations, the family helping with this start up was able to work with the Ray of Hope team to find and rent a building where the women could regularly meet and work on their crafts and projects. This new building provided office space for Ray of Hope as well as rooms to work indoors for the women in the group. It was a place they could gather safely and regularly to use their talents and gifts to create something beautiful – beautiful, quality products as well as beautiful relationships with one another.
The group soon increased to about 35 women all working together. Money was raised for the purchase of sewing machines that allowed part of the team of women to focus on tailoring and volunteer teams that came to work in the slums brought supplies for the various projects on which the women were working. The team and the micro-business were growing – because “with God, all things are possible.”
Current update…
The Nawezikana women’s micro-business produces embroidered greeting cards, jewelry purses, bags, African paper beads and various pieces of jewelry. Many individuals have purchased products from this group to re-sell in other places but this has not reached far enough. Nawezikana is now looking to partner with organizations that focus on fair trade as well as justice and equality for the individual in order to create an opportunity to share the stories of these women with, as well as create a sales pipeline that can reach, the world.
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If you would like to help these women in any way (rent $ for their homes [small cement rooms in the slums – 4x6 or so], sponsorship $ for their kids school fees, etc.), help the micro-business (supplies, capital for new projects, rent for other sales stalls or shops, etc.), or generally help RoH, please just let me know. You can leave a comment here with any info or contact emails and I’ll get in touch.
>> The Lake Victoria Serena lobby
I am so grateful for the Lake Victoria Serena. I’ve spent a number of hours in their lobby…sending emails and doing on-line research to support all that I’ve been burdened to do to help create an infrastructure for sponsorship and micro-business support for Ray of Hope. The people who work there are so welcoming and nice and the environment is a perfect “office” with the nice sound of the fountain in the lobby and great internet speed - all for the price of a soda or a latte. I occasionally spend time there when I’m not in the city, slums or supporting the family with whom I’m currently living - and will probably have to spend more time there soon in order to get all my on-line work completed.
>> The family
The family I’m living with is a large family of American, Ukranian and Ugandan children – biological and adopted. The adopted children were rescued from horrible situations in life – abuse, neglect, results of war, etc. So, any help I can provide to the family is also helping children who have survived atrocities I can’t even imagine. To see these kids getting an education and being provided a chance to grow and learn in a secure environment , where food and clothing are readily available and love is shared, is awesome.
I’m on breakfast preparation duty on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and dinner preparation duty on Monday and Wednesday evenings. I also make grocery runs regularly for them (imagine the Duggar family shopping without a SuperWalmart in sight!) and those happen almost every day –I’m one of only a few adults that can drive here. Feeding 25 people per meal (that includes the kids, adults [family and not] and the occasional guests) takes a LOT of food and many hours of cooking every day. Lately, most of the cooking has been done with only gas and with no refridge or freezer since the power has been out every day for over 3 weeks now. We run the generator periodically, but very sparingly because of the cost of fuel. Kerosene lanterns at night when it’s out and just window light during the day.
I’ve also gotten to help with some admin/business stuff at the house…good to use some of my "career" experience while here.
>> The house
I get the priviledge of living in an awesome house in a beautiful setting. It’s a large house – with home school rooms, girls side, boys side, great room, good kitchen, laundry room and a laundry dry-house outside. There is a view of Lake Victoria from the back screened porch and there is a constant breeze off the lake that keeps the lower floor of the house fairly cool, even on the hottest day. The views are 360 – the lake and the valleys on either side of the hill. It’s really awesome for the kids who have joined the family here because they have come from slums and the bush and would have never imagined living in a house like this. I have my own room and share a community girls bathroom.
Some things not so cool…. there is often no power, some cold water showers and you have to carry your laundry down to hang on the line – no dryers. You make do with kerosene lanterns in the evening and have to go to a hotel lobby to get internet service. There is no phone line and no cable tv (which I’ve been really used to over the last year or so – really grateful God got me used to that!!)….and also it’s REALLY noisy quite often (which for me is a great growth opportunity since I’ve always enjoyed having silence in my house and being able to get plenty of alone time when I felt I needed it….not the case for me at the moment). Imagine no walls in the common areas and lots of kids screaming, listening to music, running and playing and watching DVDs…all those things are great and happy family things, but it takes quite an adjustment for one who has never been part of that kind of environment (or has had an opportunity to escape it when needed). I need some more highest-decibel possible earplugs since I now have to sleep in them nightly. Anyone is welcome to mail some to me – the ones you can use when shooting a weapon!! : )
>> Transportation
Transportation is the fun part. This is some of worst traffic I’ve driven in (including Seville, Spain and Boston during the “big dig”) but it’s awesome because there seem to be almost no road rules – it’s a bit like Cairo. I get to drive the equivalent of a tank (big Toyota Land Cruiser – the old kind… nice and square and huge) and can make my way through most any intersection or roundabout without an issue. Imagine being able to take a 4 lane highway and drive in 6 lanes worth of traffic – with people running across the street constantly (and sometimes even cows – by accident – got to see that a couple of days ago), taxi vans and boda boda’s (motorcycle “taxis”) EVERYWHERE coming into traffic randomly and the bodas weaving through all the lanes of traffic. Bodas are often dangerous, but in town they are the best way to travel because they can get through all the cars. Everywhere people are walking and there are street markets all by the side of the road.
Driving in the city is fine – but there are “traffic cops” standing on many corners with their whistles ready to pull you over for a driving infraction. They are also terribly crooked and expect monetary bribes in order to prevent them taking your license and making a hard time for you. So, last week on a money exchange run, I made an illegal u-turn (mind you there was no sign and the intersection was completely open) and had 3 of those dudes running after me with their whistles blarring… scared the living daylights out of me at first. Anyhoo – the meanest looking one got in the car with me and started telling me, in a fairly direct and loud tone, that I should know better and shouldn’t be on the street and I’ve broken the law and all about how horrible I am…. Well, he was working on a bribe because he would never get his pen and pad out to write me a ticket. I just sat there saying “Mercy, ssabo (sir, in Luganda), mercy…I saw no sign and I would never want to disobey your law, please give me mercy, ssabo!” He then began to harass me that anyone I knew in Uganda should be with me because I shouldn’t drive without knowing the road, so I had to start in on the story of how they’d told me all about the roads and I was just the one making the mistake – pleading for more mercy and trying my best to work up some tears. Finally they seemed to figure out that I was a not going to offer to bribe them (I’m sure they just thought I was an idiot “muzungu”) and one of the officers outside the car called the other gentlemen out and said they would grant me mercy – but just for today! Phew!!
The streets in the city “proper” are bad, but the streets outside of town center are HORRIBLE!! Potholes everywhere and sides of the streets just chunking off because they only pave a few inches over top of a red dirt road – so it certainly is not able to stay together. It’s like driving in a mind field. You certainly have to know where you are before you’d even consider taking a sip of anything to drink….it’s enough to jostle your brain out. There are also people all over and these huge trenches on either side (that can’t even contain much of the flash floods that rampage during a hard rain carrying red water everywhere along with so much trash it makes you want to cry or be ill…reminds me of the litter commercial from my childhood with the Native American guy with a tear running down his cheek) – trenches that would certainly cause an axle to snap in half if you drove off into it! And of course these trenches on both sides leave little room for navigating around the people and bodas without running the on-coming traffic off into the one on their side…. It’s like an advertisement for a “Driving Extreme” training camp. At night loud music is booming through most of the streets and the place stays alive all night. And one other note on driving during a hard rain… many of the streets do suffer flood-like conditions so the UN trucks (shiny white and new – don’t even get me started) and their closed-engine, above cab air intake are not such a bad thing. Driving through it is horrible because you just don’t know what you’re driving over or what pothole you’re about to get lost in!
The road up through the bush to the house is a teeth-loosening road to say the least. Just when you get a good feel for the right ruts and the least jarring spots to transition, a good rain will come and just change the map! Ruts that were once good are suddenly rock filled, bone rattling traps…and once gentle humps now have mini-Grand Canyons carved out either side that make them strut/shock killers to be sure. But the always present African red dirt on these roads is still a beauty to me.
>> Food
Food in Kampala is great… awesome Indian food (lots of folks of Indian nationality – mostly business owners and many are VERY wealthy), tasty local fare (personal favorite – goat or pork muchomo), EXCELLENT avocados, great fruit and even some really good thin crust pizza.
I plan to do a separate “food blog update” so stay tuned.
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Hope this update has been one that you enjoyed.
Love and miss family, friends and many of the conveniences of living in the US, but my heart is at such peace here and I am happier than I can share in the written word. It’s a more than a full time gig here but there is also such fun and great people with whom I get the privilege of engaging.
Looking forward to sharing more information soon on school sponsorship opportunities (for something like $25 a month) for children in the slums who can’t afford a desperately needed education – a personal project here that I’m beginning to work on. I can’t even begin to describe the need accurately, but I will do my best! Their Term 1 for the next academic year begins in late January and I’m hoping to have sponsors lined up for as many children as possible for the next school year – be on the look out for more to come on that!
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