A Busy Spring

February came and went very quickly and March is already in full swing!  Rainy season has returned, which helps keep the dust down and fills up our water tanks which we are thankful for.  This is also the time where people plant their crops so we pray for frequent and regular rain so that they can have a good harvest with enough food to feed their families.

February also brought the first team of the year and it started off big!  Between the visiting team and those of us living here, there were 40 of us in Kibaale.  It was a big group, including 21 kids, so things always felt a bit crazy but it was also a lot of fun.  There were a ton of home visits, crafts and devotions in the classroom, a sports day with the nursery and kindergarten students and a big goat giveaway!  I also had the opportunity to go along with a family who purchased 20 bags of maize flour and we delivered them to 10 needy families in the community.  It was awesome to be part of that experience and to see the joy on people’s faces as we delivered enough food to help feed their family for up to a month!

Shortly after the large team left, we had a family visit from the US who brought a ton of crafts to do with our primary students.  They managed to do a craft with each grade, as well as some activities and devotions in the classrooms!  Our students love to do crafts, especially when they can use them to decorate their classroom or bring them home to put up.  I also got to do a number of home visits with them, which I always love to do!  Our visitors are always so generous and bring gifts and purchase items for their sponsor kids that they are really in need of.  Being part of delivering them is an incredible experience, as I get to see firsthand how a mattress or a bag of flour can make such a difference in someone’s life.

Next up we have a team of students from Pacific Academy arriving tomorrow!  Each team brings a different dynamic and a unique set of skills, so we are excited to have these students come and get involved with our students and the community.  Later this week another family will be joining us as well, and it doesn’t stop there!  April brings two more teams and a team of nursing students will join us for the month of May.  Though it’s a very busy time when teams visit, it’s such a great way for them to fully understand the full scope of Kibaale Community Center and gives them great firsthand experience of the impact the sponsorship program has on students, their families and the entire community!

My parents will also be coming out in May, which I’m really looking forward to!  We will travel to Cape Town together for a holiday, and then they will return to Uganda with me to visit Kibaale.  I know a lot of people in Kibaale are looking forward to seeing them and my parents will be surprised to see all the changes that have happened at the Center!  It’s going to be a busy few months!

A New Year!

I’ve been back in Uganda for a couple weeks now and am getting back into the swing of things!  It was so great to be home for Christmas and to catch up with family and friends.  I enjoyed the cold winter weather, Christmas festivities and the comforts only home can bring.  Since it was summer break here, I didn’t miss too much, as the students and staff have been off for December and January.

A few things looked a bit different when I got back to Kibaale – one being that the new guesthouses are almost complete and they look great!  They will be completely finished by the time the first team arrives in the middle of February.  Outside is the covered dining and lounge areas, as well as an area with a fire pit for some late night bonfires!  We are set to have teams coming and going all the way until June!  It’s always great having teams here, as there’s so much happening, lots of people to meet, and every day looks different.  It also means lots of home visits and taking people to meet the children they sponsor, which is one of my favourite things to do.

January is normally one of the hotter months here in Uganda, with the start of dry season.  However, most of January has surprised us with abnormally cool weather and continued rain!  I was surprised to pull out a sweater or hoodie almost every day since I’ve been back, as I was expecting it to be very warm.  We are thankful for the extended rain though, as this past rainy season hasn’t been great and many people’s crops have not done so well.  It also helps fill up our water tanks to provide for the many teams that will be coming.  Dry season has finally arrived though at the end of January, and with it, extremely hot weather!  No more hoodies for this girl.

School begins February 4^th and we are excited to have the students back, as well as welcome the new Nursery students to school!  It’s always so quiet here over term breaks, so we welcome the noise of soccer and netball games, Monday morning assemblies and kids playing at recess and lunch.  It also means everything gets busier, as you never know what might come up that needs to get done!

Heading home for Christmas!

It’s hard to believe November has come and gone!  Although, we’ve had some cooler, rainy days which made it feel a bit like fall (as much as it can in Uganda!).  I’m heading home to Canada in a few days, but thought I would do one more blog post before I go.

November is exam month in Uganda, so our Senior 4 and Primary 7 students both had long days of government exams from the end of October to the first couple weeks of November.  These are very stressful exams for our students, as they are quite difficult and have a big impact on each student’s future.  P7 exams determine if a student will be able to move on to secondary school, and the S4 exams determine whether students will be able to go on to advanced level secondary and then university, or if they will need to find a vocational or certificate course to take.  Our teachers do a great job of prepping the students, but they are often here from very early in the morning until late at night studying hard.  We pray that they will be successful and will be able to move on to the courses they desire!

The past month has also been full of home visits!  We had 58 potential nursery student homes to visit, and some of those visits took us far down footpaths through matooke plantations and down “roads” that seemed almost impassable!  I only got the truck stuck once!  But these visits helped us determine the most vulnerable children in our surrounding communities that would benefit most from attending school here.  These children will be available for sponsorship on the Kuwasha website (www.kuwasha.net) soon.  Sponsorship is such a great opportunity to invest in one of these young lives to give them hope and a bright future!

We had a team arrive the last week of November, and they have been doing work projects around the campus.  It’s great to see them work alongside our Ugandan workers and get some much needed tasks completed!  The Jeremy James guesthouse is now complete, with a large kitchen, eating area and living room and it looks fantastic!  The new guesthouse block is getting closer to being finished and will be ready to host teams in the new year.  We are also getting ready to welcome a new family, the LaFleurs, to Kibaale and are doing some repairs and finishes to their house so it will be ready for them when they arrive in January!  We are so excited to have them join us here and know that they will be a great addition to the team.

I’m excited to head home for Christmas and catch up with some very missed family and friends!  While I’m home I will also be doing some work at the Kuwasha office in Surrey.  It will be good to see how things work on the Canadian side of things!  I will be heading back to Uganda mid-January and will start blogging again once I return.

Thanks so much for your support and prayers!  Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

October has flown by!

October has come and gone very quickly!  It’s been a busy and good month here in Uganda. 

September ended with me attending 12 budget meetings – one with each major department at the center.  Though not exactly thrilling, it was a good way for me to get to know each department, what they do, and who is part of each.  It also gives the employees an opportunity to be heard by the administration, so we get a better idea of what is working well for them and what can be improved.  We have such a great group of staff here who are so committed to serving the kids and families of the surrounding communities.

I had the opportunity to do a very interesting home visit at the beginning of October.  We drove quite a ways past Kibaale town, and then got out of the car and hiked through banana plantations and then up a hill to visit this family.  A single mother with eight children living in the home, this woman owned no land and had no permanent home.  Someone in the village allowed her to build a temporary shelter on the side of the hill; the shelter was definitely not big enough for nine people and it did not shelter them properly from wind and rain.  Thankfully, with some generous donations, we are able to buy her a piece of land close to town and build her a mud home on it.  This is a huge relief to this mom who is trying so hard to support her family and give them a safe and permanent home to live in!

The last two weeks of October we had a team visit from Village Church in Surrey.  The first half of the month involved doing quite a bit of prep for them, such as shopping for groceries for meals, planning out an itinerary, and planning for home visits and other activities.  It’s always a lot of fun to have teams visit, as there’s always a lot going on.  It was my first experience helping to host a team, and it was a great experience!  I had the opportunity to join them on a variety of activities and introduce them to their sponsored children and families out in the community.   We also built a mud hut for the single mother mentioned above, which was my first time participating in a mud hut construction.  It was definitely a dirty and tiring job, but everyone working together and building this new home for a very deserving family was well worth it!

It's just over 5 weeks until I head back home for Christmas.  I'm really looking forward to seeing family and friends, and doing some fun Christmas activities!  I'm also excited about cold weather, and wearing jeans and hoodies - winter is my favourite season, so I'm definitely missing that here!  December and January are summer break here, so the students and most of the staff are gone for most of that time, which makes it a perfect opportunity to head home for a bit.  When I return, it will be a busy time of welcoming a new Canadian family to Kibaale, preparing for the new school year, and prepping for the many teams that will be coming starting in February.

A Busy Start to Term 3!

I have been in Uganda for almost two months now!  In some ways it seems like much longer than that, and in other ways, it feels like I just got here!  That also means that I will be heading home for Christmas in just over two months, which I’m sure will go by very quickly, as there’s lots happening here in the next couple of months.

At the end of term break, I was able to attend the Awana training with local Compassion Uganda churches.  It’s really great that I still have ties to Awana here in Uganda!  In Kibaale, the school runs Awana 5 days a week, each day for a different grade.  The kids and staff absolutely love it.  Ellen, who is in charge of the Awana program here at KCC, has been instrumental in organizing training for these Compassion churches, as she has arranged the dates, accommodation, food, etc.  I went along to observe, as well as take some pictures and get some stories for Awana Canada to share with all the kids and churches that donated towards funding this training.

At the sponsorship office, we have already started the intake process of the new nursery students for the new school year in February.  It’s quite a long process, as it starts with the sponsorship office staff gathering recommendations from local leaders, pastors, etc. about which families are most in need of the sponsorship program at KCC.  Once that list has been compiled, the families are asked to come to the office where an application is filled out.  Then, a number of staff conduct a home visit, to verify the information on the application and get a better understanding of their home life.  I'm excited to be able to go on some of these visits, as it's a great opportunity to learn the process and get to know the families in our community better.  It then takes a group of staff and leadership to go through the list of applicants to decide which will be accepted for the new school year.  It is not an easy process, as there are so many in need of help with their children’s education and support for their family.  Once a final class list has been produced, we work on getting these kids ready for sponsorship!  They receive their school uniform, their picture is taken and their information is added to the website.  The family is also briefed on the resources available to them, such as free medical care at the clinic, food assistance when needed, etc.  In February, we welcome them to the Nursery class, where these kids are so excited to be attending school for the first time!

There is lots of construction going on at the centre, which is exciting as well as noisy and dirty!  Right behind my house they have built an outdoor eating area, which should hopefully be ready by the time the next team comes in mid-October.  They have also broken ground on the new set of guesthouses.  These guesthouses will be able to house 6 guests each and will replace the current bedrooms in the Jeremy James guesthouse.  Once this is built, the Jeremy James guesthouse (basically the main guesthouse) will be converted as more of a common area with a large kitchen, indoor eating area and large living room.   It will be great to have a place for everyone to congregate, eat together and talk about the day's adventures!  Hopefully all of this construction will be completed by February 2019, as that is when teams start arriving and come in a steady stream until June!

A few prayer requests:

- I have been feeling a little off as far as my health goes lately, so please pray that things will return to normal and I will go back to feeling healthy and energetic!  

- Sleep is also an issue for me here, as there are a lot of noises at all hours of the night; Ugandans seem to be used to this as I often ask what the commotion was during the night and nobody else heard it!  I’m praying over time I will be able to sleep through these things as well!  

- I’m almost fully funded, but am still in need of some financial partners to bring me to 100% funded; would you prayerfully consider partnering with me to support my work here in Uganda? (https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/34626)

One Month!

I have almost reached the one month mark of being in Uganda!  There have definitely been ups and downs, and I have found being alone most of the time to be my biggest struggle.  But there have been some great experiences as well!

One highlight from the past couple of weeks, was visiting my sponsor child’s home, which is in Kibaale town.  It’s the first time I’ve been able to go there, and the first time I’ve met his mother and his family.  There are 10 children in the family, being raised by a single mother.  While the situation is not ideal, they are doing okay and are not in a dire situation right now.  They live in a mud home which is in decent condition (though not large enough!) and have several fruit trees on their property as well as a plot of land for gardening where they have just planted maize.  They get their drinking water from a nearby borehole and get the rest of their water from the river at the edge of town.  Dickson is the oldest and has become the new “man of the family” since his father left a couple of years ago.  I know the family will greatly miss him while he is away at school, but with a good education, he will be able to better assist his family in the future.  My dream is to give this family a brick home on their property, but that will have to be at some point in the future, as it costs $5000 for this.  I will need to work on raising some funds for it!

I have started working with the team in the sponsorship office; we are working on digitizing the student files and streamlining processes in order to make their jobs a bit easier!  I’m definitely learning from them, as they have so much knowledge on the students and their families and how to best serve the community.  It’s been great to go on some home visits and get to know some of the families, what their needs are, and how Kuwasha is able to help them. 

I’ve also started driving here!  It’s been a bit of a learning curve, with driving on the other side of the road, and shifting with my left hand but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it!  My first time driving took me to a student’s home about 20 minutes away to get some pictures and updates, which meant driving down a narrow footpath and getting a bit stuck!  But I managed to work my way out and I think overall it was a success!  I often don’t even make it out of second gear, as the roads here are filled with huge potholes and ruts.  But give me a few weeks and I’m sure I’ll be speeding along like everyone else here, once I know the route better.

I'm thankful that I have been able to visit many student's homes - it's one of my favourite things to do.  I'm still struggling with finding my place and knowing my role, which always takes a bit of time, especially in a foreign country!  Please pray that I would continue to adapt and learn how I best fit in with the team in Kibaale.  Also pray that I would not feel so lonely - that I would get to know people and would learn to enjoy the quiet times and moments of solitude.

First Update in Uganda

It’s been 11 days since my tearful farewell at the airport, and 10 days now that I’ve been in Uganda.  In some ways it feels like just yesterday I was in Vancouver, and in other ways it feels like ages ago!  I am slowly settling into life here in Kibaale, and even though this is not my first time here, there is still some culture shock and lifestyle changes to work through!

I arrived at a very busy time here, with four visiting families – at one point there was a total of 27 Canadians here!  It’s been great having a lot of people to socialize with and it’s given me the opportunity to tag along on some of their experiences.  I was able to go on a home visit with one family to see their sponsor child and her family, help do crafts in some of the primary classes, and have had dinner with them each night.  They also hosted sports day for the nursery students, who had a great time playing games and ended with a giant dance party.

One highlight for me this week was meeting up with the boy I sponsor, Dickson.  I have sponsored him since he was in grade 2, and now he’s heading off to his second year of university!  It’s so exciting to see him grow up and pursue a bachelor’s degree in Economics!  He told me how excited he is that he is able to attend university and how his degree will allow him many different opportunities in life.  I know that he will go on to be very successful!  Next week I will be going to visit his home in Kibaale, just before he leaves for school.  I have never been to his home and have not met his family, so I’m excited to do so.  Dickson has 9 siblings, and his mom is raising them alone after her husband abandoned the family a couple of years ago.  Life is not easy for this family, so I hope to find out what practical ways I can help them moving forward.

Term break starts on August 20, and all of the visitors will have gone home by then, so at that point I will have a bit more time to figure out what my role here will be.  I’ve been working a bit with the sponsorship office and have connected with a few others here so far.  It always takes some time to get established and get comfortable in a new situation, so I’m trying to be patient and ease into things as they come.

Please pray for continued health for me…especially as I count the endless mosquito bites on me, that I won’t get malaria!  Also, that I would continue to settle in and get comfortable living and working in a completely different environment.

Next update to come when I have decent internet!