Blessings, Boys, and Baptisms!

Well, it is just before 8 am Tuesday morning and no one is up and moving here at the VH (Volunteer House). Nakato and Kamala are both still sleeping soundly, and I'm not quite ready to be out and about, so I figured this would be a great time for me to open the curtains and write an update. Imagine me in my room, under the misquito net, sitting on my bed with horrible hair and a slight sunburn. : / But also add to that the wonderful noises of crazy birds coming through the windows. Birds that even sound like monkeys sometimes, no joke! The cars have yet to start honking and it is quite peaceful... Haha... Life is good. And today will be good.

Today is David and Abby's day off.... I hope all of you know who I am speaking of when I say "David and Abby". If not, here is a link to their blog. They are the founders of A Perfect Injustice and are incredible! I have absolutely adored both of them. David is such a caring soul. He loves music and joking around. He gets along great with the boys and is an incredible leader to everyone. Oh, and he grew up here in Uganda. His precious wife, Abby, is who came from Phoenix when she was 19 and was convinced the Lord wanted her to live here. She is a strong, confident woman who accomplishes so much for the Kingdom each day. The Lord places incredible dreams on her heart, she commits to being a woman of prayer, and then she does everything in her power to fulfill them for the sake of the women and young boys she is serving. They are an INCREDIBLE couple that I love to work with. Here is the link to the organization's blog.

I don't have too many events and things to update you on, so I am going to give you a rundown of what's been going on and then give you my list of things that are blessings here in Uganda and things that are surely blessings in disguise. :)

So, last weekend got off to a rough start. Saturday morning we found out that the storage unit for our Street Boys Program was broken into. I asked uncle Lawrence (he does all of the cooking for us and has such an incredible servants heart!) and he said it was some older boys from the streets that probably did it. For those of you that are wondering, YES, it had a large padlock and is always locked when our uncles aren't around. But if they desire it strongly enough, the older boys are able to get in. They stole all of the food that we use to serve our boys (a generous serving of rice, beans, and fruit for about 30 boys), they stole all of the clothes that the team last week bought (we give to new boys who desperately need them, or boys that are about to be resettled with their family so they can look nice). However, they did not take our medical supplies or crafts items. The food and clothing was most valuable and that is what was taken. I had been praying about helping to replenish the supply of food. Uncle Lawrence seemed so disheartened yesterday at the program. He gave me the traditional Ugandan response of "I'm fine" when I asked how he was, but I just sensed that his heart was saddened. I asked him how much the food was worth, thinking maybe I could help out, and he said that the supply he had bought that morning to restock was about 300,000 shillings. This is about $120. WELL, I called my mom yesterday evening and she said someone from church designated some offering to my trip. The amount more than covers restocking some food!!!!! The Lord answered my prayers! I'm going sometime today to the ATM and will withdraw the money and give it to David & Abby or Uncle Lawrence. I'd love to give it to Uncle Lawrence myself and share with him the story of the Lord's faithfulness in the timing of the offering, but we will see.

Okay, next thing to share! One of the main goals of our Street Programme with the boys in the slum is to resettle them with their parents. We try so hard to get them to go home. There are many reasons why they run away or end up on the streets: want a life of "freedom", are told it will be better in Kampala where they can get a job, their parents beat them, their parents kick them out, etc. and some simply get lost while in town and cannot reconnect with their parents (this surprised me the most) Well, our thoughts here at API are that the children need to be off their streets where they are beaten and abused, and they need to be back home with their parents. So we try to resettle. However, some boys are rejected when we take them home. Their parents will scream and yell and tell us to take them away. There is nobody at home that loves them. This was the case for 2 of our boys in the program, Reagen and Solomon. Well PRAISE THE LORD!!! We were able to take these boys out to our Forever Home in Bombo last weekend! David & Abby had been praying about it and felt the Lord's peace. So last week we took them with us out to the village and they are now living in a home with an Uncle who loves and cares for them and Momma Joyce (David's mother) who loves and cares for them. They will have clean clothes, food, medical treatment, and schooling! They will also be taught self-discipline, respect, responsibility, and be given counseling when needed. I am absolutely thrilled! Here is a picture of Solomon just minutes after being at his new home!

Solomon!

Later that evening we had a big party at the younger boys' home, where they will be staying, and it was a blast! Abby brought one of her famous multi-colored cakes. I have now seen I believe 4 of these in the last week. Bright pink cake with bright blue frosting! Haha.. and sodas all around! It was a blast. PLEASE PRAY for these boys... many times they may get upset about chores and responsibilities, or simply not be able to handle being in the home for one reason or another and they choose to run away. Please pray that the boys fall in love with their new family and settle well. I am excited to go back and see how they are doing at the end of this week!

We had a party celebrating the new boys at our home! We celebrated with cake and sodas!

At church Sunday morning several of our boys were baptized! It was incredible! Here are some pictures and a video of one of the women so you can get a feel for it!...If you want to see more pictures of things.. here is a link to my facebook photo album...The two pastors you see baptizing the children are from Texas. They come visit this village church often and bring teams. Their team actually built this baptistry that we are using here!

Ibra getting ready to go in!

Wonderful Paul accepted Christ this day and then was baptized!

After being baptized, they stand over in an area praying and giving praise. There are three of our boys..

A view from the side...

Two of our boys waiting to be baptized!

Umar feeling so happy to be baptized!

Our new Reagen after coming out of the water!

 

So... then we went home, ate, played LOTS of futbol of course, and then it was time to head back to the city. The next day (yesterday) we continue with our women in the Ladies program, which I can now travel to by myself! and a good time with our boys at the street program.

I was given the opportunity to go with Uncle Abdul (Abby, we call him) to take 5 boys to the slum's health clinic. These five boys showed up in our program after being missing for a while. You won't believe what I am about to tell you! They were at a place, pardon me for not remembering the name, that is referred to as a "rehabilitation center" for youths. However, I came to find out it is more like a prison for the youth. If boys are found on the streets by the police, they can often be rounded up, arrested, and taken to this horrible place. They are beaten, abused, and often locked up. As punishment they have to bury people that have died or been killed by the police force...and sometimes, they people aren't even completely dead, they are still barely alive! But the boys have to dig these massive graves where they find previously buried bodies to bury the new bodies on top of. Is this not insane? And then they have rotting flesh under their fingernails, blood and who knows what else all over their hands, and are forced to eat (never given silverware here) without washing. And one last thing, can you believe that there are some parents that CHOOSE to send their kids there as "rehabilitation" aka punishment, if they misbehave at home? It is just insane. Anywway, we had five boys escape from that horrid place and show up back at our street programs yesterday. We took them to the clinic to receive a medical checkup and they each left with first aid care and some medicine. I pray that they find food to take that medicine with and decently clean water. 

OKAY, so that is an update of things that have been going on. I was going to post some Blessings and Blessings in Disguise, but I think I will wait until another time. Maybe tomorrow or the day after. It will give me time to think of some more. I will begin recording them down and remembering them!

Since today is the day off for David and Abby, I am going to be relaxing at home, but also doing some of the administrative work Abby gave me. I have taped hundreds of receipts into some books, scanned all 96 pages into the computer, and now I am working through each individual receipt and recording the date, business, purpose, and amount of each purchase. This must be done and sent to a bookkeeper in the states so we can get more funding! Abby HATES this kind of work so it is a huge blessing to her that I enjoy doing it!

Love to you all. Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers and encouragement on facebook. I have really felt the Lord's peace while I am here. I have only had one night of a homesickness (when I was out in the village for the first time and unfamiliar with everything), but the Lord has blessed with an incredible team of like-minded and same-aged friends to work with! They are all great!

off to work! LOVE.