I had the opportunity recently to travel to Uganda. If you know me, you know I try to go once or twice a year to work directly with our staff and administrators at our school. I love traveling with missions teams over to Uganda, but find I am more productive when I just go by myself.
When I arrived, I was able to spend a few days with my good friend Emmy as we traveled around the Kampala and Entebbe area running errands and going to appointments. This was a great opportunity for us, because we rarely get much time together while I’m in Uganda. Normally he’s working in the city and I’m busy out in the villages at our school. We have been friends for almost 8 years and have never had a chance to get so much time together.
One of our stops was to visit Asifiwe Child Care Ministries. They are a great home caring for students of all different backgrounds. It was great to make a connection with Julianne and Danica and hear about their calling to this region.
I’m still learning the seasons in Uganda and didn’t anticipate how hot and dry it would be for early February. Right as I was preparing to leave the rainy season was just beginning.
On the plus side, I was able to go out multiple nights to do some night photography. In the midst of a busy trip, it’s very peaceful to be out for several hours enjoying the night sky.
For as many years as I’ve been coming to Uganda, we have been riding around in this old truck. We’ve been all over the country and had quite a few experiences with this machine. One day before we set out I felt the urge to capture a pic of this workhorse machine. It continues to serve us well, despite that it needs to go back to the repair shop almost every week.
We met with our high school student council. They are really our future leaders, taking the initiatives on many areas of leadership at our high school. We wanted to make them feel official in their position so brought them name tags and new Yaaka t-shirts. They really loved them.
We visited another nearby Christian school and made a good connection with Pastor Samuel who runs the school.
We were able to shoot a short video about a “Day in the Life” of a family of sponsored students. We are planning to share the video with students and families here in the USA.
We were able to purchase mosquito nets for our students thanks to a generous donation from Kidsway at Bridgeway Christian Church. We were able to pass out 200 mosquito nets to our students!
I was able to visit our friends at Wonder Afrika, in the village of Kikyusa. They have recently finished construction a new elementary school on their property. It’s so exciting to see all the progress they are making as they begin to care for the surrounding community.
We also visited our school out in Gomba, and got to see the new construction that is happening on their campus. The kids and the teachers are very excited for the hope of new development happening.
My good friend Paul is trying to raise money to purchase land to build a house in our community. It has been a real struggle but he has taken the initiative in trying to grow his own garden to make a profit he can put towards the cost of his land. It’s been an incredible amount of work, but it’s starting to show positive results.