It’s hard to believe that our team has only three days left here in
Uganda! What have I seen? What have I experienced physically, emotionally, and spiritually? I wouldn’t be doing justice to search for a few words in my limited vocabulary to wrap it all up in a few generalized sentences to describe this trip for myself and others. So, it’s my turn to blog, but I don’t really know where to even begin.

Well, with that said, I’ll attempt to describe one of the things that occupied majority of my time here in
Uganda, which has been trying to finish the STAO building.

Pastor Nelson often says, “In U.S. you use dollars, here in
Uganda, we use shillings, but in heaven, we’ll use faith”. Although it seems to my Western mind, inconceivably impractical, somewhat unwise, and ridiculously mind boggling, the STAO building construction began with that phrase in mind – simply by faith only.

Without any resources, a budget, nor a construction background, pastor Nelson and pastor Ivan started to construct a building solely with faith in God that He’ll provide. The building construction has taken around almost two years now, sometimes with stalling gaps of upto few months along the way.

Although Tusubira had made attempts to support the building construction this past year, without a designated supervisor or a consistent budget along with limited resources, it was very unproductive and an inefficient effort.

Therefore the task of building completion has been dropped on my plate while I was here as I had some background in construction management and I truly had a passion for this building and STAO staff’s vision for the building.

It has been very difficult and challenging dealing with technical problems with our bank atm, inconsistent budget, underestimated time schedule, workers who continually demand abnormally higher wages from me just because I’m a mzungu, material shop owners trying to charge me more, the language barriers (or some people pretending to not understand English even when they did), noone else with managerial skills or construction knowledge on site, some workers showing to work drunk, realizing that these workers who’ve been demanding money on a daily basis with an excuse to feed their family has been spending their daily wage on alcohol, substandard craftsmanship, very loose sense of productivity, and often times stealing of materials on site. (sorry, my rant stops here).

It was very discouraging and honestly seemed unattainable to complete the building.

As end of the trip drew near, my frustration and disappointment level only grew higher. However, after much prayer from the team, pastor nelson and pastor ivan, I realized that a lot of those frustrations and my will to finish the building sprouted from my own pride and insensitive and ignorant approach to their culture and the way they work. Moreover, it was eye opening and tremendously humbling to realize it has been absolutely a divine appointment from God to provide our team with abundance so that we may assist in finishing the building. He has been really showing us that He’ll provide when it is needed as long as we remain faithful and trusting of His power. We were able to withdraw just enough money day by day to pay off materials and laborers and the building is now around 90% complete. Truly all things are possible by God. We won’t complete the building by this Sunday, but the remaining final touches will be done within a few weeks after we leave. Praise God that He truly works things out for us.

For those wondering what this building is for, the building construction originally began to bring more children to STAO. However, we realized that STAO does not have enough resources to barely take care of current children. Thus the building will be used for sustainable income generating projects for them. We’ve just purchased sewing machines today for the widows and we’ll also be buying computers to start a vocational computer skills training program for the locals. God truly has best plans for us and the children and staff at STAO. It is incredibly exciting to see God moving.

Prayer request is for continued protection of children at STAO who are left so vulnerable especially since Mafubira is one of the most dangerous areas around Jinja. With all that’s been happening at STAO, we’ve been drawing much attention to the place and especially with increased robbery in the area, the children are left extra vulnerable.

Thank you so much everyone for your continued prayers for us and the children here. I hope I can rely on faith more often when I return to the states, as “in heaven, we’ll all be using faith”.

Sam

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