We made it to Uganda safe and sound.  Our team of 17 spent the day out at Hope Children’s Home.  The children were so excited to see us!  They all ran out to our van to greet us and immediately they started to sing a song.  I was overwhelmed by the number of children.  There must be close to 200 kids.  They were all wearing their school uniforms! (the ones you bought a couple of months ago)

I enjoyed meeting all of the newest children that were brought into the home back in June.  Some of the kids touched my heart by telling me their stories of what life was like before they began staying at Hope.  In the next few days I will be posting a video of Betty sharing her story. Betty came to live at Hope in June with her other 4 siblings.  They were abandoned and fending for themselves, until our team visited them.  You will hear Betty share the account of Mike and the team inviting them to Hope (literally extending HOPE!).  I was amazed at her ability to speak English.  I asked her where she had been educated and she said, "right here in this school".  That made me feel good.

Later Betty and Hakim (another one of our children at Hope) took turns reading each page of the story, Jonah and the Whale.  You could see how excited they were as I was listening to the story and commending them on their reading skills.  Their eyes lit up! 

My daughter Sarah is here in Uganda for the first time.  She has been such a natural and so excited to be in Africa!  Right when we arrived at Hope, she made instant friends.  She spent alot of the day holding babies.  When she wasn’t doing that, she was coloring with her new friends.  She loves Uganda and most of all the children!!!

We are planning to go back to the home tomorrow and help in the school.  The team will be helping the teachers in the classrooms and then we will divide the kids up into groups to do different projects – like sewing buttons on shirts and mending mosquito nets together, painting fingernails, playing soccer, etc.   Jerry is still working on the gutter project, so I am sure he will be working with some of the older boys too.

Before I go, I want to also tell you that we have more kids that need sponsors.  Today Pastor Prossy brought two young girls to me that were just abandoned and dropped off at our home yesterday.  The girls are 5 and 2.  Patricia, the five year old, told us that her father put her and her sister on a boda boda (moped taxi) and told the driver to take the kids to Show Mercy and drop them off.  We are going to try and find Patricia and Lynette’s father, but apparently it is far away and the little girl isn’t sure she knows how to find it. There is more to this story than I can tell here.  Pastor Prossy told me that Show Mercy is known all around and that she believes many more children will be coming to us, because they too are orphaned and abandoned.  

We are all tired after our day out at Hope, but I am excited for the days ahead.  Please keep praying for us!

Lori

www.showmercy.org