Friday, August 14, 2015

Slow Boat to Uganda

This past trip was a very difficult one.  Our plane set off to Dubai but had to return due to technical problems.  Long story short, our delay was 33 hours in Seattle as parts had to be flown in for repair.   The good of it was I met some amazing people and the bad of it was listening to their anger.  In any event, we made it and I was welcomed by Edwin, Dolly and Nadine at Entebbe airport.  The drive to Jinja took 5 hours because of an accident on the highway, but all was made good when I arrived.  Since no one knew I was coming, I laid on the back seat floor as we drove in.  I made it without being seen.  I opened the door and all of a sudden I couldn't get out, as everyone flew down the driveway yelling my name.  I will never forget that scene.  I met 6 new children and fell in love with every one of them instantly.  We are now at 18 children.

The pictures below will give you a good idea of the projects currently being worked on and the love and happiness within our Home of Angels.




It was so good to come back to my second home and see these beautiful faces I missed so much.
The struggle getting here was immediately forgotten.




Meeting the new kids while the others sang a welcome home song.




Eva is 10 years old and was responsible for finding food for her little brother Sam and her older sister that is physically challenged.   All her other family has passed away.  Sam is also living with us but the older sister wanted to live with the local leader in their village.  Eva struggled to be the adult of the family but it was too difficult for her.  We are so happy to have them both at our Home of Angels.




Little Ivan is now living with us.  His mom tried to poison his father and since disappeared.  Edwin found him in a mud house staying by himself and we decided to bring him into a home as there were no other relatives. 




Meet Hadeja, a 6 year old child from a northern village who doesn't speak English or Luganda.  She is adjusting well and learning quickly.  At the time she arrived, her name was Hadeja but she recently informed us that she has now changed to a Christian name....Lovisa.  This was a decision made by herself which is pretty amazing at her young age.




We now have 18 children living at our Home of Angels.  We had a meeting with the kids and the aunties to decide on 2 more children.  It was the consensus that we bring in 2 more little boys between the ages of 6 and 7 years.  We will stop at 20 children until early 2016 and let them all adjust into the family.




Finally....a picture of the 78 goats in Malindi village.  We had not been able to drive to this village as the roads are impassible from the rains.  We hired a man to go on a 3 hour boat trip across Lake Victoria with a camera to take pictures for us, but I can only show you one of many.  The female goats are now starting to produce kids and we expect 100 by January.




"God's Little Angels Ministry" were excited to pass out mosquito nets again.  These nets were donated by Lynda and Marlene in Canada.  We went to a village within our community that was familiar to our children.  Over the years they had watched their friends die of malaria and seen the devastation of bed bugs.  They were so thrilled to be able to help them now.




Thanks to Northview church, Edwin has finally been blessed with an office.  A place where business can be done privately.  This office is within the 2nd children's home that will eventually house 30 kids.




Thanks to a wonderful group of people in Canada for funding our new septic latrine.  The men physically did everything by hand to build this and I realized how easy we have it in our country
with machinery.  They have little equipment but do an excellent job.  This latrine will be named after a gentleman named "John" so we have ordered a marble rock with "John's John" to be placed outside.





The passion fruit are on their second season.  When the rains come again, we will have many to feed the kids.  This time, tomatoes and kale were planted beneath which will help the white blood cells in our HIV/AIDS children.



I have been here for 3 weeks and it feels like 2 days.  The work load is heavy but our staff are all doing extra work to help Edwin.  We have been so blessed by these people...they have been with us for 5 years and never let us down.  They focus on doing only God's work and that is to raise these children to be leaders.  The results are already amazing.

Thank you to all that have been a part of this.  Thank you to the new sponsors and to Global TV for airing our story on the local and national news.  Thank you again also to Save on Foods for helping us with ingredients for the banana bread and to our local bakery for helping me bake.  We cannot find an end to our thanks because it spreads across the world with other countries now participating.  All of you are amazing and all of us here in Uganda are very thankful to you.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2124172/abbotsford-woman-helping-orphans-from-africa-one-loaf-of-bread-at-a-time/