Uganda part 2 - Compassion

Last year we had a presentation at our church from Compassion International. Karen and I decided that we would sponsor a child together and looked for one from Uganda. We picked out a little boy named Julius and have been supporting him for almost a year now. When we were planning this year's trip to Uganda, we decided to see if we could hook up to meet him. As it turned out, Julius lives in Jinja, right where we were staying! There was a lot of red tape involved in scheduling our visit, and it took weeks to get it approved - good thing we started early.

On the first Saturday of our trip, we got a ride out to the local Compassion headdquarters located in Jinja. We met with the administrator and found out what the program was all about. Basically, the money we send covers Julius's school fees, uniform, medical care, and each Saturday at the Compassion site. There they receive breakfast and lunch, health screenings, and classes in spiritual growth, hygiene, physical fitness, trade skills, additional academics, and some kind of emotional support. What I found most encouraging was the fact that the director (Patrick) was a Compassion child himself, and that's how he survived.

We met our boy Julius and were given an introduction to the assembly of students that morning.



















After that, we got to go out to visit Julius's home.













This was the best part of the trip. Even though his home was a hovel from the outside, and the walls were made of cardboard on the inside, his mother had it neat and clean, and decorated nicely. The home was very dark inside because there are no windows. It only looks bright because of the flash.









She had prepared food for us, which I'm sure cost her dearly. She had Coke (something given for very special guests), biscuits (cookies), bananas, and hard boiled eggs.
















Last year Karen and I sent a little extra money on Julius's birthday, and with part of that money, they bought a chicken. The mother told us that these eggs were from the chicken that we had helped to provide!











The mother was very gracious and hospitable and we also got to meet the brothers and sisters. I think the father was working that day as he was a boda boda driver (motorcycle taxi).





















Our little boy Julius is very industrious it seems. Here is a little car that he made out of an oil can. Of course, little brother had to put his toy car in the picture too!























After our visit, Julius drove with us back to the hotel and visited for a little longer, and then he went back to the compassion center for the rest of the day. We were very blessed by our visit.

Uganda part 1- Jinja

We headed off for Uganda expecting the unexpected, but we didn't expect the unexpected to show up before we got there! We had a number of flight delays, changes, and cancellations, and at one point wondered if we would have to cancel the trip! We did finally make it, but we ended up at the Entebbe airport in the middle of the night when no one was expecting us, so we were fortunate to be able to get ahold of our hosts and get a ride to Kampala. Betty and Moses Odongo are a pastor and wife in Kampala and they were our host for the first couple of days. Of course, we missed the first 24 hours with all of our delays, but we did get to spend a day with Betty. That afternoon we headed off to Jinja where we would be part of a pastor's conference on purity and we worked with the pastors' wives. We knew that domestic abuse was widespread in Uganda, but we did not realize how far it went. Also, it is not illegal in Uganda to have more than one wife, so many men do. Believe me, the wives are not happy about this either.

The first few days in Jinja we stayed at a nice little guest house called "Cool Breeze" and we were actually surprised this trip to have some cool breezes in the mornings. June is definitely a better time to visit than March or April. This was a nice guest house for Uganda, but in the first room we had, the toilet didn't work and the room smelled. None of the windows would close all the way (mosquitos) but they did have wide mesh screens. We asked for another room the next day and they gave us a downstairs room. This room had a window that looked directly onto a mens urinal for "public" restroom use. Great. We also had no light in the bathroom, but I guess that didn't matter since we only had power for 2-3 hours each evening when they turned on the generator. Our room was also near the front porch, so it was noisy when people were talking outside, and the bed was a board with a foam pad on it. I was usually so tired at the end of the day that I didn't have any trouble falling asleep though.
During the day we attended and helped facilitate the Purity conference for the women and got to know some of these pastors' wives. There were also other women there from the different churches and it was nice to get to meet them. Most of these women were from cities although a few were from the villages. Many of the women spoke English, as it is the official language of the country. Most of the women from the villages did not speak English and spoke Lugandan instead. We had one woman who translated for us and it was great to watch her. She was very good.

On Sunday afternoon we worked with these ladies teaching them embroidery. They were very excited to learn it and many said they could and would use this skill to make items to sell to provide income for their families. It was such a blessing to be with these women.