Archive for August, 2007
Today is not my “blogging day”….but here I am, blogging. Wanted to share some stories of the day that are weighing pretty heavily on my heart. Working in Mafubira, heartbreaking stories become all too common as I spend much of the day reading, laughing, playing, and singing with children of which most have experienced unfathomable losses of parents, siblings, and friends. Today I was reminded that there is so much here that can never be planned for or expected. Though, it is these raw, heart-wrenching, unexpected situations that perhaps need the most prayer.
Two young boys came to live at STAO last week because they had been identified as a child-headed household (kids who live on their own when the parents or other family die and there is no one to care for them). Today, we found out that the boys had been hiding serious parasite infections in their feet and legs, not wanting to be teased by the other STAO kids. Medically, it’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen firsthand. Thousands of small parasitic worms embedded in their toes, feet, legs, and even arms. I won’t go into too much detail about how they are removed, but it is truly horrible and unimaginably painful. Being that I am not good with anything medical, I am extremely grateful for our healthcare team that is spending another long day at the clinic with the boys. Please pray for them, as well as the boys, as they are currently still at the clinic dealing with the removal of the parasites.
Later in the day, young woman walked onto the STAO property with a young baby on her back. Hearing her story, we learned that she is 22 years old, with 3 children—ages 5, 3, and 1. Her husband died of AIDS only 3 weeks ago, and she has now been left to care for her 3 children as well as find work to support their family. She could not afford the 8,000ush (about 5$ US) monthly rent, and today was forced out of their home by the owner. Having nowhere to go, she came to STAO. After talking and praying with her, the team chose to support her for a couple months until she can start earning income. Hopefully, with STAO planning to put in a small community center in the new building with sewing machines to be shared by widows in the village, she will be able to learn sewing skills and make an income.
Please pray for the boys, the young woman, and the team as we are pretty tired after a long, busy week. We will rest tomorrow, as we take Saturdays off—and then get geared up for another vibrant Sunday at church and dive into another whirlwind week of work.
with peace,
kate
PS–For parents: we have a team cell phone—though it’s much cheaper to have us call you than the other way around….some of the team will probably call home this weekend, if you need to call us, the best time is between 7-11pm our time (10 hours ahead of Seattle).
The number: 0256-773-422-614.
Hello all! This is Rachel. I think we’re starting to get used to life here in Uganda (sidenote-typing, at least on this computer, is a slow process because certain keys don’t type what they’re marked as…y and z are switched, comma=shift+bracket, quotations=shift+2. It’s like a treasure hunt =) another sidenote-I’m sitting in the internet cafe listening to “All Things Are Possible”)
Anzwaz, ahem…anyway, all three of our teams are settling into their routine. The Healthcare team decided to revamp the survey they’re using to assess the needs of the surrounding communities. They’re also continuing to take kids to the hospital and health clinic. Some of the kids they took on the first day are doing a lot better. Yesterday, Sandra, who is often bedridden, was actually jumping rope! And the little girl with the tear duct problem is looking a lot better as well.
The Income Generation team is still hard at work on the pigery, it should get finished today. This morning, the Education team taught small groups of young kids some phonics and read them some books.We also taught 10-11 yr olds some prepositions and verb conjugations. It looks like the education team will be teaching English lessons to both younger and older kids everyday from now on. The kids are eager to learn and pay attention better than most kids in the states.
I think we’re all falling in love with the people here, especially the kids. They are so so beautiful. Pray for these kids. Pray that God will guard their health, bless their studies, provide money for food and secondary school, give them jobs in the future, and draw them ever closer to Him. I wish you could see these kids worship at church. It makes me cry. (sidenote—i basically spend my days singing and clapping and dancing to song after song with the kids. They love “Deep, deep, whoa deep down down.”) God has blessed these kids with amazing joy and resilience and with wonderful, caring people here at STAO. Pray for the STAO staff as well. They are doing life-changing work.
Thank you all! It is such a blessing to know that we have a team of incredible people back home supporting us.
Love,
Rachel
PS. In case you’re wondering, after over a week in close quarters, all eleven of us still like one another. We’re having a great time studying the book of Luke in the morning and jamming on guitar and djembe at night. We’re also getting good at doing laundry by hand, sifting rocks out of rice, and sleeping through5am mooing, bleating, and cockle doodle doos =)
Before I came to Uganda, many asked me “What will you be doing there?” Each time I struggled to come up with a succinct answer… instead I would rattle off details about the teams we’re split into, the way in which Tusubira was formed, or my own personal reasons or goals.
After today, I think the right answer was “building.” We’ve done a lot of it since we arrived. We’ve built relationships with orphans, widows, the STAO staff, and their partners. We’ve built friendships, trust, and understanding within the team itself. We’ve also built insect traps, security mechanisms made of coat hangars, and a collection of embarassing dance videos. Today we built in a more traditional sense: We built a pig sty.
A sty? But why?!?
To house STAO’s new pigs of course. You see, my team here is focused on sustainable income projects for STAO. One such project is a “pigery” - which was proposed / endorsed by Pastor David. David recently joined the STAO board of directors, although his main occupation is running a different organization called Father’s Divine Love Ministries. They have two orphanages and work in a very similar way to STAO, but they are larger and more established. FDLM has a pigery as one of their main sources of income, and so STAO is going to try and emulate their success. The pigs themselves are being donated by the STAO-Norway team (a group from Norway that functions similarly to Tusubira). They are buying them from FDLM, and giving them to STAO. However, before they can do that, they need a place to put them, and STAO-Norway didn’t want to donate the resources or labor to build a sty. So that’s where we came in.
Yesterday Sam, Jamie, and I headed into Jinja with Pastor Nelson and purchased all the supplies we would need. We would have started the work, but it began to rain and we barely got the cement inside one of the neighboring widow’s mud hut before it started coming down. It was also already around 4pm, as we spent most of the day haggling, buying, retrieving funds from the bank, arranging delivery, and loading/unloading supplies.
This morning, after a breakfast of fried Casava (much like large french fries) and Chipote (a fried bread tortilla sort of thing) with peanut butter which Shawna and I retrieved while the others got ready for the day, we headed to STAO to begin work. I’m really amazed at how the sty came together. When we arrived, the STAO volunteers and one professional builder had already laid poles in the ground with cement, and started hammering the wooden planks that would make up the walls in place. Very quickly we had most of the walls attached, and began tackling the poles that will support the roof. At one point we ran out of wood, so Sam and I headed into town to get more. But Jamie (the muzungu construction machine) and the others kept working and got some of the cement flooring done. It’s really impressive progress, and though we had to break from both exhaustion and the coming rain, we are confident it will be completed tomorrow in time for the Norway team to buy the pigs when they come back from their safari on Saturday.
Even so, I think we won’t stop building. The healthcare team is building relationships with villagers in Mafubira and two other villages. They’re also building a catalog of data about them, which Dale is using to plot various correlations and statistics using his wizardy (and nifty software program). The education team is building on the childrens’ existing English expertise, and helping out headmaster Festo. Meanwhile we’re all building experiences, images, and memories that will stay with us through the rest of our lives.
Hey Friends and Family,
Our teams are now beginning our individual work! Yesterdays briefing with Pastor David was amazing! Learning about the culture, and how to go about our projects! Today, I and the rest of the healthcare team brought 4 children to the clinic. 1 girl having AIDS, and the other 3 having different infections. Watching and going through this process with the children was wonderful! The office was nice and prompt with the care.
It is heartbreaking to think about testing the kids we’re working with and finding out some have HIV. We are preparing our hearts and focusing on God’s purpose for us here! The stories and faith of the children and adults here is astonshing and captivates your spirit and makes you want to draw nearer to God and fall in love with Him so much more!
As far as the other teams go Sustainable income team is working on the pig stye and building that! We’re hoping to have that finished in the next few days. Also, the building we’re working on we are hoping to have finished by the time we leave! This will hold an additional 60 children. So this is a huge focus and chunk of our budget. Please keep this in your prayers as we progress in this project! We really need guidance on where to spend our projects and where to put our focus!
The education team is still planning and deciding what to do exactly! We super excited about what this team is going to do. They’re hoping to do a workshop to help children with their English. This will help equip these kids for their future careers.
We all miss you very much, but, we are having a blast here and falling in love with the community of people here! The culture here is so much less self-serving. They are all about visiting and serving one another. the church here is so recklessly diving into Jesus and serving Him with all they have.
Thanks for all your prayers! We love you! Danielle Ritchey
I can’t even begin to fathom sheer number of kids we’ve met since we’ve been here. For me personally, it is actually very daunting and draining at times. At some moments, their joy, energy and vibrancy almost makes me forget that they’re orphans. It is incredibly moving to see what a spiritually healthy environment that these kids have been provided by pastor Nelson and pastor Ivan. In mist of the overwhelming madness of kids swarming us and pulling us in every direction possible, each of us are finding our selves slowly being drawn to certain kids at STAO.
I’ve been finding myself really drawn to a kid named Kitimbo. We first met during service on Sunday. This is rather embarrassing to post, but I was bawling during the service, especially when all the kids were singing on top of their lungs, “Touch my body, touch my soul, touch my spirit, and make me whole”. Kitimbo pulled my hand down and wiped my tears off my face and gave me a smile that I simply cannot describe with words. I pray that God will show me how to love him as it seems like he won’t be letting go of my hand anytime soon. 
When we arrived at STAO this morning, pastor Ivan introduced us to a girl named Sandra. We noticed a tumor on side of her head, and also realized that she wasn’t like the other kids that’s been swarming us. Sandra is 7 years old. She has full blown AIDS. However, she just contracted TB (tuberculosis) and is not sure if her body can even handle ARV(AntiRetroViral)s. What was really heart breaking on top of that was she is actually not an orphan. She has a father, but apparently he does not care about her and completely neglects her. The team was able to pray for her, and the healthcare team will be taking her to the clinic to look at treatment options tomorrow.
It is very difficult for me to articulate the thoughts and emotions I’ve been trying to process. However we have hope because our God loves us and the children here beyond our comprehension and His heart truly breaks for the children here. We pray that He’ll continue to reveal himself more and more to our team as we try to process everything we’ve been experiencing.
Pictures:
Sam and Kitimbo at the STAO church
Melissa with Sandra
Here are some pictures that Jamie took today while we were at STAO handing out the clothes you donated to the orphans. Click for larger versions.
Danielle w/ STAO kids
Dale w/ more kids
Kids lined up to pick out donated clothes
Pastor Nelson (founder of STAO)
And here’s one from yesterday of me with Shemelia, who has been cooking us wonderful dinners, at Itanda Falls.
Our second full day spent at STAO today. Coming in to meet Sandra (see Sam’s post), and then diving into sorting out the dozen boxes of donated clothes and books we brought with us proved interesting….eventually, the team emerged from underneath a mountain of clothing intact and we were able to give new outfits to around 25 kids. Their huge smiles were definitely worth the chaos of clothes sorting.
Our afternoon was spent in an orientation meeting with Pastors Nelson, Ivan and David. It was great to hear some of the plans for the rest of our time here. The rest of this week will be spent taking a few sick kids (including Sandra) into Jinja for treatment, visiting homes throughout Mafubira conducting needs assessments of families and child-headed households, and working on building a pigsty (no joke) so that STAO can start a sustainable income generation project of raising pigs. Jamie, Sam, and Brandon will be hard at work on that the next couple days–please pray for strength for them!
We’re so grateful for the prayers and support. We are learning and wrestling, culture shock is intense, but know that we are encouraged that so many are alongside us, half a world away.
with peace,
kate
Today we were suprised after getting ready to go that we would not be visiting STAO as we had originally thought. Instead, we visited a village where STAO supports a secondary school and where many widows and orphans live. We later learned that they had been expecting our visit for months, and so they had an amazing program worked our for our arrival. We got there and all the widows were cheering and wanted to meet us. We then watched some amazing native dances performed by both the girls at the school and by the widows. It was beautiful because they are all so full of life and joy when they dance, and the dancing itself is unbelivable; no one should be able to move like that. After the perfomances they showed us the school and sugar cane fields and then took us to meet the widows. The widows all know how to weave and paint, and had so many beautiful mats that they sell for income. Many of us bought mats. The hardest part was that the widows would give us fruit as a present and want our phone numbers in return, which we were told not to give for obvious reasons. But they were all so friendly and welcoming that we felt loved regardless. Then we went to visit bujagali Itanda falls and eat with the headmistress. The falls were more beautiful than anything I could have imagined. They are enormous and terrifying and stunning all at once. God is inexplicable in his craftmanship. We finished the day by visiting the kids at STAO just to say hi. Good day! we love you all and we miss you! thanks for posting and keeping us in your prayers!
Praise the Lord! What joy and smiles we have experienced! When we arrived, children flocked around the van, and I found myself looking down in two big eyes that had a pair of arms wrapped around my leg! Who would embrace so easily? They are fearless lovers - these kids who have no mother or father. Even muscles Sam had kids hanging off his arms
Church is held in a brick, open-air structure with a rumpled aluminum roof. There are tiny pin prick holes in the ceiling, with small streams of sun making stars on the ground. The kids are in the front rows so they can see, with muzungus (they call our team “muzungus”, which means foreigner) specked on the benches, each bouncing a small child on their lap. We are smile magnets. Irene, a dynamic and shining Sunday school teacher, called up the children and they sing “Move, move, move and claim the land!”. Kids from two to twelve years old do the “Calypso” strut across the stage, back and forth, with a seemingly innate rhythmic ability that even rivals my skillz.
John Mark and Nicolaus played “Children of Africa, we were not born to suffa”, and invited Rachel and Danielle to the stage to sing! They did a great job, even when the song switched to singing in Lusoga! They team was also invited to the stage, and we introduced ourselves to the 100 or so congregates. Pastor Nelson wanted us to sing something, so we sang “You are Good” with Dale and Danielle as leads, and Rachel on the keys. We were better than Hillsong, fa sho. Glory to God!
Pastor Nelson preached from Revelations, declaring that Jesus - who has perfect authority and perfect wisdom to break the perfect seal on the scroll - this Jesus has come to set us free from our sins. With zeal he preached the good news, and with equal enthusiasm Pastor Ivan simultaneously translated to Lusoga or English. I could feel the Holy Spirit moving and the people responding. At the end of service, the music busted out, and we all know that I got some moves! Sam got some kids to clap a sweet beat, one girl taught Shawna how to shake it, Danielle - well… she tried, and I showed the kids how to embarass oneself by booty-shaking. I learned it from my mom. It was great! STAO sure knows how to make church fun
Something I’ve been really proud of the team for is that no one complains. We have no furniture and our floors are so hard, our skin is constantly sticky and oily, the goats bleet bloody murder at 6am, and the kids swarm around us like the ants around our now spoiled loaf of bread in the cupboard. But praise the Lord - we know He has called us here, and we are privileged to be in His will.
All is well, and we are getting along great. We have the confidence that the Lord wants us to be here. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your prayers!
– Jamie
We are officially getting settled into our house located by Jinja, Uganda. Eleven college-age students sharing 3 rooms and 1 bathroom - probably a thoroughly exhausted recipe for a reality show, but with our mix of people I’m really feeling excited about this trip. After crossing the Nile River this morning, we ventured over to the STAO (Save the Aids Orphans) orphanage in Mafubira today, immediately being surrounded by screaming kids. Even with 11 of us, our plates were full of playing small games, singing songs, giving hugs, and taking pictures (taking pictures is easy; displaying the results to dozens of onlookers is the tough part).
Albeit with obvious contextual differences, this reminds me much of the AHOPE orphanage I volunteered at in Ethiopia. The kids are around the same ages, oozing with energy and fascinated by our foreigner status. One of the kids goes by the alias, “George W. Bush” – and another prefers a more patriotic title, “President Museveni.” As I learn about the current needs and projects of STAO, I am encouraged that there is push toward self-sustainability. Pastor Nelson voiced his distaste at having to send letters asking for money, though the stakes are high – so many parent-less kids (some of whom are infected with HIV) are benefiting from his work.
The team is now pretty exhausted and covered in Uganda’s characteristic red dirt. And it’s only been one full day! Prayer would definitely be appreciated to sustain our physical strength (we can’t even move around sometimes without the added weight of two or three kids) and good spirits. Having been in Africa for over two months now, I personally find myself with a unique attitude – I am constantly amazed at the manifestations of God’s work and human compassion, yet I wrestle with feeling numb to the problems myself, and feeling hopeless to change lives in the long run. I am no George W. Bush or President Museveni…
