READ FOR LIFE CHRISTMAS PARTY

Our last leaders meeting before I flew out

Well what an amazing 5 months we have had of read for life.

We started with about 35 kids – we now have over  120 – with a waiting list!

We have gone from starting with two volunteers – to now having a team of 5 – all being paid for the days they are on.

Our leaders in their christmas gift - read for life shirts.
From left to right ( Moses, me, Nuruh, Jonah and Juliet) 

We started with one class, moved to two, then three and now have 4 classes.

We now have a confident reader class, an intermediate, a beginners class and a special needs class.

We started with many children who could barely read, and many who struggled to sit and listen and behave, to seeing a great improvement not only in the reading but the behavior of the kids.

Its been such a great year we had to celebrate!

One of the biggest way’s we have motivated the kids over the past few months has been to promise them a Christmas party.

And so that’s what we did.

Some of the precious boys from Home of Joy waiting for party to start - first time they've all been early :) 

My last Saturday at read for life was our Christmas party.

Kids eagerly waiting for 2pm to come around - this was at 1.30pm - by 2.15pm the room was crowded! 

Waiting,.. waiting.... :) 

Lots of preparation went in to making sure it was a day for the kids to remember and for them to feel they’d been rewarded for their hard work.

The majority of our children come from the local slums, so celebrating Christmas would probably only mean going to church, for some they may get to eat meat, but majority of them would never have received a Christmas gift.

We wanted to find a practical way to give them something special.

So we came up with the idea of personalised library bags.

I wanted to use someone local to make them, so one of the fathers of one of our read for life students does simple tailoring and sewing at his business right in the heart of Katanga slums.

I took along a sample of what I wanted and met with him at his shop.

He didn’t feel confident to make what I was asking for, but with some simple guidance he said he’d give it a go – and he did a GREAT Job. I had him make 100 bags – thinking we’d have a lot left over because as of the middle of September  we only had 75 on roll book, within the next month, we had 100 and a week before the party we had 125, so I had to quickly ask him to make more which he did.

He was incredibly grateful for the business but was also so grateful for learning a new skill – you would have thought I’d shown him to make something extravagant, he was so grateful.

The leaders sat down and worked out the children for each of our groups who were always on time, best behaved, most improved, best reader, best listener and most engaged learner, best improved attitude and behaviour etc.

We also went through our library book register and came up with the children who had returned all their books each work in the best condition ( we keep a score of each book to motivate the children to take care of the book they borrow – the book gets a score out of 5 when it is borrowed and then when it is returned )

We also gave group rewards for best attendants and most helpful, best manners etc.

It was hard to choose some of these as we had seen so many children make improvements.

When we arrived to set up for the party many of the children were already there waiting, many of them in their Sunday best clothes. They’d been freshly washed and many girls had their hair done nicely.

They were very excited about today!

We had arranged some cakes, popcorn and soda.

We started off the party with some group singing and dancing before each reading group performed items for their fellow readers.

We had everything from gospel singing to gospel dances, drama’s about underage marriage and games.

It was lots of fun, and the kids did a great job.

The baby group performing their songs 

 

One of the older groups performing a drama
they wrote

Mine & Juliet's group performing their gospel songs 

Then we moved on to handing out the certificates – for me this was one of the highlights – the children’s face just lit up when they heard their names read, all for a piece of paper with their name on it. They were so excited. And so supportive of each other, even if they themselves didn’t get one.

It was beautiful – the children thought that was the extent of the gifts for the day – then we told them that everyone was getting a gift  - their eyes lit up.

We told them that everyone was getting an individual personalised library bag. They also got an exercise book and pen and pencil.

These were for a challenge – over the Christmas break we wanted them to write some stories, and practise their alphabets and draw pictures for the little ones and then return with them in the new year and we will share what we’ve seen.

The children were all very excited to receive their library bags and are excited to be able to use them each week to carry their books home and keep them safe and clean.

After they received their Christmas gift, I did a Christmas message and talked all about the real meaning of Christmas and how loved they are by God.

We then cut the cakes we had and each child received some cake, their own bag of popcorn and small bottle of soda.

This was a crazy time, many worried they’d miss out, so trying to encourage them to wait was difficult but they are learning.

I had many little one’s come up and excitedly ask could they keep the plastic bottle the soda came in J

It was a great party and we had lots of fun.

The children still have another 3 weeks of classes before they have a 3 week holiday, but we did the party early since I flew out the next day.

It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to the kids, I am really missing them, but am so thankful for such a great team who are keeping everything going well.

We look forward to the new year bringing bigger and better things for Read for life.

Showing Off their bags 

Listening to one of the children thanking us and praying. 

                                         The best attendants cutting cake 

Christmas cakes 

KATANGA SLUMS

I had the best privilege the other day ( along with Ziah and Rob) to visit some of the homes and families of some of the children we are working with from the slums.

Our Read for Life Program has around 80 children now registered. Approximately 50 of them come from the slums with the remainder from the home for children's with disabilities where we are currently holding the program which sits just on the edge of Katanga slums.
We are growing quickly - and will seriously need to find a bigger place before too long.

The most amazing thing happened recently.
I was sitting looking at photos from my very first trip to Uganda 8 years ago.
Long before Rob and I got together.

When I came the first time I spent the majority of my time at Home of Joy ( the home for children with disabilities - where we now hold read for life) and also a very large part of my time in Katanga slums .... having no idea then though that 8 years later we'd be running a ministry for these people.
Even though I knew Africa would be my home one day.

Well as I was flipping through photos of the first trip..... an amazing thing happened... as I was looking at photos of children and babies I cuddled in Katanga 8 years ago.... I started to see faces I knew now... children who are now in our READ FOR LIFE program!
I hadn't realised because they were babies or toddlers or under 7ish... but straight away as I looked at the photos I could see kids I was now teaching...
Tracy who is now a teenager... and her baby sister who is now 6 and in my class... multiple other babies who have very distinct faces who I could see are some of the kids I am working with now.

This blew me away - what a circle!
Obviously the children didn't remember although one said she remembered a white girl coming and playing with them and being with them but she hadn't connected i was the same person.

As I walked around the slums only the other day - I was so blessed to meet again many of their mothers - and many of them remembered me and were so amazed and even more humbled that the mzungu who was teaching their children - was the one who had said she'd come back.... and that I actually did!
One mother said to me.... " you came back, you said you would.... but most never do".
Brings me to tears even now as I write this.

It broke my heart that nothing has changed for these families, their circumstances are still the same... just more children and more mouths for the mothers to feed.
We have to change this place!

Katanga slums is in the heart of the city - it is situated in the valley between the countries largest government hospital and the largest university in Uganda.
It was a place Robert often would walk when he walked between his university and to do his rounds at the hospital - also not knowing one day we would be ministering there.

Katanga is home to more than 20,000 people! In make shift homes and shacks.
The majority of the people come from the villages up country - looking for work or a better future, but with so few jobs and no money they make shift homes in the slums.
Katanga is a breeding ground for human trafficking, street children, HIV and prostitution is one of the most common forms of employment. Many of the families who beg on the street who we want to help came from Katanga or similar slums.

There are only 5 public toilet blocks in the whole place for over 20,000 people! And you have to PAY for these toilets.... so you can imagine that open sewage runs in many places throughout the slums.
The smell is something you need to experience.

There are children everywhere and you can imagine the dangers facing children in a place like this.

2009 - The little baby in the background is one of my girls in my class now a 7 year old. 

2009 -  The baby with no shirt on looking down is Nabira - now an 8 year old living with her older sisters

 ( mum has passed away now)

See below for what she looks like now 2016

2016 - This brother and sister Maggie and Richard are the two little ones in the photo below at the front on the left - both looking to the left. 

2009

2009 - Two of the children in this photo are in our current classes

TODAY

Walking in to Katanga with Ziah and a group of kids

Surrounded by kids from katanga including some of our read for life kids as I met one families grandmother . 

How our heart aches

These are few very blurry photos off our phone ( my camera has died ) which we took recently of some of the women and children who beg on the street here. 

These are some of the women and children we are helping and working towards doing more for. 

The Majority of these families are from an area north in Uganda known as Karamoja... they are people who still live the most traditionally. They are a proud people with a strong, beautiful culture. 

They are often prey to human traffickers in their communities and villages. Promises of better lives and an education for their child ( or themselves...) but often leads to them being forced to beg on the street or many other horrible things, in the city. 

Many others have come to the city after complications from pregnancy have meant their husbands have rejected them... they come to the city hoping to find a way of supporting themselves and their children but end up on the street begging. 

The majority of them live in make shift shacks in a well known slum area. 

We have many dreams and ideas of how to help them and have been meeting with the local government of recent sharing some of our ideas. And hearing their frustrations with certain NGO's who think they are helping but are actually adding to the problem. 

This was most beneficial to us and allowed us to have God reaffirm where we were heading. 

Many NGO's come in quickly and just take kids off the street and either house them and they lose contact with their family or automatically return them to families... who may have sold them to traffickers in the first place... 

The government loved our ideas but urged us to do things properly and not try and work outside the law. 

There are days i get so INCREDIBLY frustrated that things aren't moving faster in our ministry... that we don't have more finances... that we still wait for approval for certain things... but I am reminded that we want to be an NGO that lasts... and makes REAL changes.... and that means doing things well in the start. 

Our dream we shared with the government of our plans to help these children and women is the follow ( in short detail ) 

IMMEDIATE GOAL ( when finances allow) 

- to start a feeding & medical program held in their slums every week ( to start with once a week... more when finances allow ) as apart of this will be a registration project - no one including the government has any idea how many are begging on the streets or why... we want to register them and as apart of this work out how we can help them best. 

- To start our READ FOR LIFE program in their slum to give the children a reason not to be on the street

- To begin a free GOOD QUALITY school in their slums. 

LONG TERM GOAL 

- Our MBUYU VILLAGE - a large property where we will take those children who are orphans or can not return home & give them a safe and loving environment to grow and learn AWAY from the city and streets. 

- On this same property we which to establish small plots with small individual houses, these will be given to women and their children who are from the slums who we identify as motivated to change their families future. 

They will be able to live in the accommodation for 2-3 years ( still deciding on timeline) .... they will be given basics to help set them up ( seeds, furniture etc) and an area to learn how to grow own food. 

Their children will receive a free education to start with at our school on same property.

 During the day the women will learn skills training ( sewing, agriculture, jewelry making, business, etc ) and how to always at least be able to feed their family through growing their own produce. 

We will ask for them to work for a few hours each day in our community farms ( the produce will be used to feed the orphans in children home and be sold to support the programs), this will in turn give them a small wage and we will help them by keeping some of that wage and putting it into savings for them for the time they live with us. 

Over time they will have the opportunity to gain small loans or purchase at reduced prices things like chickens... goats.. cows .. materials... beads etc  to allow them to come up with ways of supporting their family. 

They will learn about handling money and good business. As they develop their businesses and are able to earn an income, according to each individual family they will then pay a very small rent fee which will build according to their income. 

After the 2-3 years we would then help them with money they've been saving and we have put away to help them purchase their own small piece of land off our area and help them to see their business succeed. If they choose to remain in same area, their children will be welcomed to continue their schooling with us, but then the family will contribute towards school fees, according to what they are able. 

Allowing this to be a cycle and helping them to help themselves, will allow us then to be able to then in turn take new women and families in and have the cycle continue. 

This idea has been met with much approval so we continue to believe for GREAT miracles to happen to allow us to build our MBUYU village. 

This is just a very brief view of our ideas. 

PRAYER NEEDED for our country

We need you to pray for our beautiful country at the moment. 

We are suppose to currently be in the middle of the wet season. 

It use to be that you could distinguish the seasons ( wet and dry ) because it was so obvious from one day to the next. 

This is no longer the case and causing many issues. 

This is so far an incredibly dry wet season. 

Farmers and families live here season to season. They generally do not store up for a rainy day - they never needed too. 

So due to this - famine is a result of one bad dry season. 

Especially in the villages and certain parts of the country. 

If we don't get some serious, decent rain soon ..... famine is sure to follow. 

Which means prices of everything - especially the staple items go up - so unless you have the money you will really suffer. 

This is incredibly personal for us - 

*one the majority of rob's family are in the village and grow their own food. 

*secondly - many of the families we work with in the slums will dramatically suffer with the price of food increasing - this will often mean school fees won't be paid so they can eat - ending in children not attending school. 

*thirdly - we are farming..... we have been farming tomatoes, cabbages and hot pepper ( like chilli) ... we have done this to try and help us to be able to pay our own rent... feed ourselves... pay the many school fees for rob's siblings and the upkeep of family members he supports. We also were believing for a great harvest and for the extra for us to put in to the ministry. 

Our crops are doing ok..... but because everyone's have riped quickly due to sun... the market is flooded... so can mean alot less for what you have. 

We also have some seedlings waiting to go into the ground but needing it to rain. 

We ask you to join with us and pray for RAIN RAIN RAIN for our beautiful country ... 

A few photos below of where our tomatoes and cabbages are growing. 

Ziah loves when he gets to go to farm

Discussing the progess of tomatoes and cabbages 

One of the cabbages

READ FOR LIFE

Our first week went awesome we had around 45 kids with many more wanting to come but its exam week so many stayed to study. 

We had lots of fun in our groups learning and reading together. 

The kids really loved the opportunity to just relax and have free time to look at books and then borrow something to take home. 

The kids loved the opportunity to sit with a leader and read together .

The kids love that they get a banana when they come on time.

We are trying to teach time management which is a new concept for many people here :) 

THE FIRST WEEK

Trying to make letter A with their bodies. 

Our second and third week we have had over 50 kids and more helpers coming on board. 

We are now in to school holidays for the next 3 weeks so are now running the program 3 days a week.

This is a big undertaking for our volunteers and myself but we know the children are loving it and benefiting. 

We hope to be able to have enough support to be able to start to pay our social workers a wage by October. 

We are in need of more books so please be praying about this for us. 

We already have lots of parents asking will be running classes for adults from the slums too - this is something we hope to do when funds allow. 

We are also looking in to the cost of moving in to the actual slums so we can make the most impact! 

Exciting days. 

We will post more photos in the coming weeks of our precious kids learning. 

Being Honest

I had an incredibly interesting conversation with someone recently.
And it got me thinking.

It started all because they asked me the question - what is the biggest challenge you face living here Uganda - on a personal level?

I didn't have to think too long cause the answer for me was a simple one - one I thought a friend would actually know.... I said, " its the same as my greatest challenge in Australia, my heath. It just is extra challenging here because of our lifestyle I think".

Now this person that has known me for some time responded with, "your health"?
What about your health?

I actually thought they were joking..... and I said, " you know just the daily challenges my condition brings. "
Again they gave me a bit of a blank stare.

And then they said, " actually no I don't really know, cause you don't talk about it. I was vaguely aware that you have challenges with your health, but you've never told me about it, you never talk about it..... so how could I know? "

I proceeded to explain why I don't talk about my health challenges that much.
Explaining that after a lifetime of talking about it, it gets tiring, and honestly most of my friends would hate it if i did actually talk about how much pain I'm in etc all the time.
Because what can they say in response.
And for me, if i talk about it all the time it feels like I'm dwelling on it.

And then if I'm honest, there is the voice of a long ago friend who actually said to me, ( while I was in plaster and on crutches after another major surgery) .... that they thought I didn't really have any "condition"...... when I said, "well how do I get the doctors to operate and remove growths from my body?" ...... Her response..... "well maybe you don't make it up, but I think you exaggerate it.... because I don't understand it."

I remember at the time being hurt, just so hurt, by a friend who I thought the sun shone out of, and even then, I very rarely talked or complained about my health struggles, but with her I'd felt I could be honest..... and now her reaction broke my heart.....

Because she didn't understand it..... I must be exaggerating it?? I could not fathom that statement.... since I didn't understand it.... my doctors don't understand it?
My condition was a random mutation of cells in the womb...... it can affect people in totally different ways.... some have big challenges... some have it and never have any problems.... it only occurs in around 5 million births...
Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I'm sure that person didn't mean for their words to sink so deep within my heart that I would still hear them today.....
That even today I struggle to tell my darling husband the truth of how much pain I'm in, or how my body is really feeling, for fear that he will think I'm using it as an excuse or exaggerating it... ( which I know is ridiculous)

Words have power - don't they....

But this very wise friend then reminded me, that its ok to show our weaknesses sometimes.... and she also reminded me , that by still allowing those words spoken so long ago to affect me today, is allowing that person's negativity to continue to affect me.
And its "stolen from you the ability to be able to be REAL with those closest to you"

Those words hit me deep, stolen from me the ability to be REAL with those closest to me. . . I had never thought that by keeping my health challenges always to myself, I was actually not living my truth, and not being an honest friend.

Not that I need to go and share it with every person, but God tells us that we are to share and bear each others burdens.... I know I get frustrated when my friends don't share their struggles.... because I WANT TO BE THERE for them.... I had never put that in reverse though.

I had never thought that when I am real with my friends or those closest to me.... I give them permission to be real with me.

My friend then asked me to share all about my health with her, which I proceeded to do, when done she said, " thats an incredible testimony of trusting in God, and the joy of the Lord being your strength, but you know I would never have known what an incredible journey you have been on and your reliance and trust on God, if you hadn't shared with me your journey".

What a challenge.... if we don't share with others our burdens and challenges, how then can they fully understand how God gets us through......

So I am determined to be more real, so that others can feel they can be real with me.... Realizing that when we are real, or when people are real with us, we are better able to pray for people.
And to be reminded that words have power.... think before we speak....
And no longer will I allow those words spoken, to stop me from being honest with those I love.


P.S I'm sure some people will read this and wonder what my personal health challenges are, or how they affect my day to day life... especially here.... so if you don't know but would like to, especially so you know how to pray for us then email me and I'll share with you.