How could I just ignore this situation? We are Show Mercy. How could I leave 5 children ages 13, 10, 8, 5 and 3 all by themselves, with no parents, guardians or anyone to take care of them? Who could turn their faces away and pretend that this situation was not occurring. Well, it has been an ongoing situations for over a year. These five kids are brothers and sisters. Their parents just got up and left last June and never returned. Think about how your children would respond in a similar situation. It is almost unimaginable. We didn’t realize that this situation was so bad or we would have steppedd in sooner to help.

We walked through the village and came to their house pictured on the right. It was filthy with one bed for 5 kids. Most people in the US would never think about having a dog house in this condition. It was truly amazing. I sat down in the home with the kids and began to weep. How many more are out there like this. The oldest one used to scavage for food to feed "his family". The 10 year old girl would then prepare whatever he was able to find. As I sat there crying, I made a decision that this is just not ok. They would be moving into Hope Children’s Home! I asked them if they wanted to leave this home and live with the other kids and their faces lit up. They have been praying for assistance and God was going to answer their prayers due to people like you who support the mission and values of Show Mercy International.  

They quickly gathered their few belongings, not including shoes which two of them don’t even own, and began to walk with us back through the village towarda their new home. I am so happy to say that within 10 minutes we had each one of them a sponsor! We also found out today that there are many others who need sponsors that are in even worse situations!! More about that later.  

When we arrived at the home we began to scramble through the left over clothes that the Santiam Christian team had brought with them because of your generosity.We helped the kids remove their torn and ragged clothes and gave them brand new clothes donated by some of you reading this posting. They were so excited. As you can see from the photo on the left, they are so excited and ready to begin a new life full of hope, purpose, destiny and love!

This is why we formed Show Mercy International. We appreciate your support and invite those of you who have not yet gotten involved to join with us to continue to save more and more children. We would find out today that there are many more in similar and sometimes worse cases. I will write more about that later. God bless you for your support.

Mike

Yes, you read that right today in the morning, we set out to spend time with the kids at Hope Children’s Home. We did various projects, dramas and general arts and crafts with the kids and that is when it happened. "Steve" was brought out. Steve is the name given to the wonderful Bose portable sound system that the Santiam Christian team brings with them wherever they go, just in case. Steve was unloaded and we began to organize the kids into 4 long lines. What would happen next would be something I have never seen in Uganda; line dancing.

The kids were taught some moves and we proceeded to dance to "Me and my Gang" by Rascal Flatts among other songs. They picked it up soooo quickly that they were soon experts. The dusty floor in the church began to fill the room with red dust as the danced and kicked and turned! I took some short video of this for you to see, but have not been able to post it yet due to the size. It is amazing! I will try to email it to Scott and Angie from KRKT, Cricket Country and maybe they can post it on their Web site for you to see. It was one of the most fun times we have had at the home.

We then had a large circle formed where others including team members and kids entered to show off their moves. What a blast. James even broke into a break dance which was a huge hit.

We needed a fun time that morning because the afternoon would prove to be much different. I will post more about that shortly.

Mike

We set out on Tuesday morning with the plan of visiting our new 20 acres of land and praying around it. Little did we realize that what we would discover would be much more than we imagined. We surveyed the land for about an hour. As we were beginning to leave we saw a lady sitting on the front porch of a small home in the village. There were a couple of kids running around outside that our team was talking about. We decided to approach the lady and visit with her and ask her if we could pray for her. She told us that her little boy was sick inside. She came out and brought to us a 2 year old boy that had a extremely enlarged head. However, the rest of his body was skin and bones. She began to tell us through a translator that he had problems with his head from the time he was only a few months old. The doctors had looked at him but could find nothing wrong. She told us that his head had swelled so much that it had almost split open in half. We asked if she had a husband and she told us that because her child had medical problems, her husband had left her and the other kids. He wanted nothing to do with a deformed child! As the baby was crying with flies swarming all over him and us we asked if we could pray for him. 

The team began to pray for the baby. Someone held the child in their arms while our hearts began to break for this woman and her condition with her child. Tears welled up in our eyes as we realized the conditions that this woman and her children have been living in. Then, Barbara Hoffman wanted to ask her if she knew Jesus. We did just that and she told us that she was Moslem but that she wanted to give her life to Jesus because she knew that he could heal her baby. We told her about Jesus and his plan for her and her children. She anxiously accepted him into her life right then and there. We were all so moved with compassion that we began taking money out of our pockets to give to her for an offering. I am not sure how much we gave her, but we told her that it was not from us but from the only true God who sent us here just for her that day!

She was amazed at our love and told us that she now knows that Jesus is real because he had sent us to her that day. If that wasn’t enough, she then told us that she had no food or money to buy food for her child. She had placed the 2 year old in the back room of the house and was just waiting for him to die! She had given up on being able to support him but God had other plans!

We will be visiting her again in the next week to bring her a Lugandan Bible. You could see the joy and amazement on her face as we drove off. She was about to prepare to go and buy food for her starving baby boy.  We watched her pour sips of water that we had given her into his fragile, bony body as we drove away down the bumpy road out of the village. She now had a hope and a future for both her and all three of her children. Old things had passed away and all things had become new.

Mike

I know I keep saying this, but this was another wonderful day with the Santiam Christian School kids in Uganda. Today was designated as a work day where we would do our best to serve the Uganda people as much as possible.

The day started off with some of the girls washing, rinsing and hanging all of the children’s clothes by hand. Doing laundry for a family of 4 can be a tough job with a washer and dryer. Try doing it by hand for with no tools for nearly 60 people every day! Some of the team also made several trips to fetched water for the home. They worked so hard and with such joy. The workers were blessed and impressed at their abilities and their desire to serve the staff at Hope Children’s Home.

While the clothes were being washed others scrubbed the floors of the home with only a rag and a bucket of dirty water. What a challenge. I think all of them, including the ones who washed the clothes will probably be feeling it in the morning.

The boys took a trip into the town to buy lumber to build some shelving for the kitchen. Jeremy waded through a swamp to locate some cement blocks to use in the project. When they returned we found out that they had purchased some very high quality Ugandan wood. It is similar to Mahogany. I can be sure that they now have some of the highest quality, most sturdy shelves in Gganda Village!

Some of us hiked into the village where we came to a plot where we would make bricks. The process involved using hoes and pick axes to move dirt, mix it with water and then step in it to mix it all together! Needless to say, we were all very muddy during this time of service. We would take a large handful of mud and toss it into a mold. You would then slide the mold off of the table and bring it to a place to slide it out of the mold onto the ground. Let’s just say that it is harder than it looks! However, we had a great time! I am also sure that none of us would be able to make a living in this field of work!

Another group of us took to the streets with pick axes, shovels and hoes and a wheel barrow. They walked about a mile to a part of the road that was full of very deep holes. They proceeded to destroy a 7 foot high termite mound and use the mud from that huge mound to wheel barrow into the holes. They filled the larger holes with bricks, covered it with dirt and smoothed out the road. The people in the village were amazed at this act of kindness. This was a very strenuous task, but everyone kept smiles on their faces and positive attitudes throughout the project. They were just glad to serve.

I think a good summary of our work time was expressed by some local people in the village. They told us that they know that we love them because of all of the work that we had done. They told us "we thought all Americans were lazy but we showed them that we were able, willing and interested in working with them to improve their lives." That is a testimony and a day that we will remember for the rest of our lives. 

Sunday was another incredible day in Uganda! If you have not been on a trip with Show Mercy, I highly recommend doing so. Our team of 25 divided up into 6 smaller teams. We then headed out to visit and minister in 6 small village churches. The rain came down so hard on the metal roofs in some of the churches that you couldn’t even hear the person speaking. They had to stop the preaching and go back into worship until the rain subsided. These small, thatch sided churches, were no stop for the driving rain that moved the small congregation to the other side of the church. Wow, you don’t experience that too often in the America church. The different services each lasted over 3 1/2 hours but some of the team testified that it seemed like only a short amount of time. God was good to us all.

One team then went to visit a "hospital" in the town of Lugazi. We had no appointment so I decided to go in the office and ask the hospital administrators if it would be ok for us to go and pray for the patients. Because it was Sunday, nobody was available to ask. I came back to the van to give the disapointing news to Barb, otherwise known as "Mary Jane", a team leader for the Santiam team. She smiled and said, "Well, I guess there is no one around to tell us no then." Hmm, didn’t think about it that way. We entered the hospital and began praying for the children in the pediatric ward. One after another, we prayed and experienced children with burning temperatures due to malaria, turn from hot to cool under our hands! I had seen this before, but was so blown away by God’s goodness and the dramatic changes that we saw instantly. I mean, honestly, they were hot at one moment, and cool at the next!

We continued working out way through the hospital praying for anyone who would let us. At one time, Katie, one of the students, began to sing Amazing Grace over a patient. It was wonderful. A hush fell in the room as everyone became quiet and all eyes were focused on this stranger singing so beautifully.

While we were at the hospital, the other teams traveled to visit and minister in a prison. The students would tell you that this was probably the one thing they were not looking forward to doing. When they arrived on Africa time, two hours late, the prisoners were released to sit on the porch while the team prepared to minister a drama set to music. Some of the men didn’t even own a pair of pants or shirt! You have heard the expression that someone only owned the shirt on there back. Well, some of these men were wrapped in a sheet or towel only while they waited to see what this group of strangers had to offer them. After the drama, someone shared the message of the Gospel and almost every person in the prison gave their lives to Jesus! 

To summarize, God showed up today in so many powerful ways for everyone on the team. Some of the testimonies were that they had never experienced God like they did on this day. Another team member said that she had never experienced God’s heart for the lost like she did at the prison. Everyone had some role to play today and we all realized that we all have something to offer because of Jesus inside of us.  We experienced God’s healing, salvation, love, heart for the poor, and heart for us. I think it would be safe to say that no one will be the same after today!