We can’t say how grateful we are to have been able to team work with so many of you across the world. Whether your contribution was in prayer, in sending donated items or sending donations, large or small, we couldn’t do without you! We pray the Lord blesses you for your giving. These children’s lives will never be the same!
It’s exciting working together with the orphans to improve their school! They just finished end of year exams, so now we were free to paint all the black boards.
Anisa & Sean teaching with a gorgeous new blackboard in the background.
It’s so nice for the kids to hear Character Building stories after their hard work during the exams last week. Here Sean & Deedz take time with each one, helping them understand these beautiful stories.
The last week of the term we used for improvements. Here the children are sanding their desks so they look nice & fresh when they come back to school.
The end of term allows some opportunity to relax and enjoy things together. Here Sean is playing drums with the boys, between practice for the girls’ dances.
Michael and Robin counseling about the next step for our P7 students
Teacher Mary with some of the P3 class– so happy to have moved into their airy, bright, spacious classrooms, even though they’re not yet painted.
One of our orphans in P3 (Primary third grade) so happy with how much she’s learning.
Teacher Jennifer our Science & Maths specialist.
It’s amazing how smoothly things are falling into place with the school refurbishing. Almost all the cementing & plastering is done, both inside & out for both buildings, and the roof on the second building has began. The kids are so excited about this new, fresh place to study! Thank you so much to each of you who has contributed to help this dream become a reality!
We’re seeing real progress as the cabbages continue to grow! Having harvested 2 batches, the next are on their way.
Rajan here inspecting the latest batch, and below, teaching the workers how to use the grasscutter. Elephant grass is a real challenge, but is also tremendous for mulch.
The next batch, ready to be transplanted in a couple days:
We have a team working daily to get the building ready for the orphans to move in on Monday.
As soon as we signed the official documents giving us the school to use for the orphans, we put a large team on cementing. It was in a state of major disrepair and is going to take a lot of real miracles to get it up to snuff. (see ‘before’ photos below).
Time to roll up our sleeves & get scrubbing, cementing and painting!! Yay! During the time we’re seeking donor funding to build the brand new classrooms, houses for the orphans and staff on our land in Gulu, and establishing the farm to support it all, we had been asked to take on considerably more needy children, above the initial 160 orphans we had taken on to care for. The catch was, the premises we were temporarily schooling them in was beginning to become inadequate.
Well, God is always in control, and this last week, we were just GIVEN this school below to use until our buildings are ready for the orphans to shift to.
It has 6 large classrooms, office and teachers’ facilities, is airy & spacious & just needs a mighty scrub, cementing and painting. It’s a win-win situation for us all. We are so excited to get going and if anyone could chip in with something towards the plastering and paint, we’d be most grateful, and it’ll be a long-term help to the disadvantaged children and orphans in the area for years to come.
Our first job this weekend is to repair the cemented floors, touch up the walls prior to painting and to paint the blackboards.
The beautiful, fresh, clean play ground for the children! And a clear picture, with one of the buildings in the background, how we need to really have our sleeves rolled up over the next couple months! Thanks so much for your prayers for our efforts & if you could help in any way towards a few cement bags or 20lt jerry cans of paint, we’d be so very grateful!
We are excited as the cabbages have been really making progress. Our first experience growing different seeds has been teaching us a lot. The well-touted hybrid seeds tended to not be as hardy as the regular non F1 types, so we will for the next acres, concentrate on them. Now the challenge in developing our income-generational plan for the orphan care, is in researching and then establishing a steady marketing method. It’s thrilling having things fall into place and seeing doors open up before us.
We have now taken on more teachers, who are better trained, thus needing higher wages, (given our extremely high 18% inflation rate!) so the effectiveness of our farm is going to be a key. We appreciate any & all advice from those of you who have experience in these fields.
The 20 acres we found has now been bought, and the farm is progressing steadily to help support the whole project for the orphans & community, once it’s built.
Anisa signing the Bill of Sale for our land with our lawyer and local officials.
While the cabbages are progressing steadily, we have been very excited about a number of generous donations from friends. With these, many children have received new uniforms this month, teachers received books, the children got to drink milk which is quite rare, and we bought books, shoes and stationery–in addition to lots of beautiful new clothes–all of which was very needed. Thank you so much!
Anisa’s friend in Brazil saw some children without proper balls, so we bought several for the school & a few for our local neighbours beside our land. Below see little Saa-aa so happy with a REAL ball!
Since the main means of supporting our project is going to be a farm, we have been in learning mode and last week 2 more of us attended a Farming God’s Way seminar on zero tillage, which is a very effective means of farming and while preserving the eco-stability of the land, also brings far greater yields for the crops.
Now with the land paid for, and the surveyors almost finished, the next challenge is building the initial classrooms. We have done a lot of counseling with the Ministry of Education, and with the Office of the Prime Minister since the building will be done with the eco-friendly and economical Hydroform bricks. Now all the costings and plans are finished and ready in place for donor funding to begin construction.
