Today was a very sobering day.  The team went out to Hope Children’s Home again.  The children were in their classes this time, so the team prepared for afternoon activities and some went to sit in the classrooms to observe.  Sarah and I went into the class where the 10 year olds were being taught.  The topic was Children’s Rights.  I was touched as I began reading the chalk board.  The teacher was teaching these children their rights as human beings.  Our children were being taught some very important concepts, but when I was almost finished reading the board, I came to the very last two topics that were underlined: Child Abuse and Defilement.  I almost broke down crying as I realized what these children HAVE to be taught.  My daughter Sarah is 10 years old, so when I pictured  her teachers having to tell her the things you can see in the picture to the left, I just couldn’t stomach it.   

As I sat there in shock, I began to look around the class of children.  I realized that some of these children have unfortunately experienced these types of things.  I was thankful that they were now safe because of YOU and your financial help.  I was so thankful that we were able to help them, but then I realized that there are many more that need our help….even some of the girls who were sitting right in front of me.

I sat down with Pastor Prossy who is currently overseeing Hope Children’s Home and asked her to honestly tell me how many of our school children need  to have a safe place to call home.  She said there are many.  I could see the look in her eyes and those eyes said a million things to me.  She has lived in this village her whole life and she knows the terrible things that go on.  I then new that in the next few days we will be taking more of these children into Hope Children’s Home.  I will keep you posted.

The rest of the day was productive.  The team did many different things.  Two of the ladies sat down for 2 1/2 hours and painted almost a 1000 little fingers with nail polish.  The little girls were so thrilled and they looked very smart (their way of saying beautiful).

Another set of ladies worked with the older girls and they sewed up mosquito nets.  Some of the kids were sitting together to read books and others were playing games.  Of course Jerry and his team were finishing up the gutter project.  I was so touched to see all of our team truly reaching out in love, one child at a time.  The kids were soaking up every ounce of it!

Tomorrow we will go to visit The Field of Dreams.  We are planning to go into the village door to door to introduce Show Mercy and prepare to hand out the mosquito nets that you donated towards.  You still have time to buy a net if you were thinking you might.  We will hand them out next week.

Thanks for all of your prayers.  I am excited for the next few days.  We have alot planned.  More tomorrow.

Lori Salley
www.showmercy.org 

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

The Von FamilyWe would like to introduce you to Jerry, Cathi, Jess and Micah. They are from Oregon and they are taking a trip around the world, serving with various mission organizations for a month or so in each location. They are currently in Uganda helping at Hope Children’s Home and will be apart of the Show Mercy team that will arrive later on September 19th. You can read more about this families personal adventures around the world at www.vonrtw.blogspot.com .

September 11, 2007

The day started out with thunder and lighting, followed by a torrential rain storm. I rose to shower, to find out there was no hot water! Later in the morning I also learned our "hot water" is run by solar power… Hmmm… does the water get warm when there is no sun? I don’t think so!

We headed out to the Hope Children’s Home today. When the Land Cruiser finally made the potholed, rain rutted trip, we were greeted by dozens of small children. Each of them grasping for my hand and telling me their name.

The land is lush with vegetation, water was abounding more than usual because of the rains, and the property was a red clay lake. However, this didn’t distract the kids. They wanted to hold hands and play.

I was a little overwhelmed by the attention of so many little ones that I decided to quickly go to work. I surveyed the building, the elevations, the flows, and most of all, took careful inventory of all the eyes watching me.

As I spoke to one of the older boys, he informed me that the well was not operational. So, he and I and a dozen other children dashed to the well. I inspected the problem and determined that it was an easy fix… the only caveat is "we are in Africa", which means a simple 10 minute job will take you all day. One of the missionary boys (Ben) made a phone call to his dad and located tools, but the project will have to wait until Thursday. Then I set out on the task of measuring the home for rain gutters and pipe for a water storage tank. This took a little creativity in a sense, because I had several of the young men and boys congregating around me and the tape measure. They all helped in this "measuring and materials estimating" process! We measured the building, I wrote down the measurements in the dirt with a stick, and I had the boys adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. They were terrific! One young man (Frank) was an ace at mental math, calculating the answer as I was writing it down! And another young man Fahad (pictured on the right), did the measuring and calculations with me, showing a real aptitude for construction. Of course in the middle of all this estimating and measuring, we did have to stop for lunch. We ate a delicious lunch of rice and beans, followed by a cup of hot tea. Then we went back to work. We evaluated the rest of the property for drainage, assessed the possibilities for a water storage tank, located an appropriate place to install a hand-washing station for the latrines, and surveyed an area for a french drain. On Thursday… let the work begin!

"I have found hope in the eyes of small children, while wiping away my own tears."

Jerry

September 14, 2007

The children’s home is now a breeding ground for learning! My first adventure was to fix a broken well. Not having much luck with wells in the past…(see the post from our Mozambique trip), I was a little apprehensive to jump into this project. Two of the older boys from the home(and many little ones) came out to assist me in this endeavor. In this process, I would teach and learn as we started in. My first learning was a few Luganda words like, stick, move a little, well, and love. I told the boys to carefully watch and help as we tore apart the well, then put it back together. As in all my days in Africa, the process took longer, and was an exercise in trial and error. But in shortly over an hour, (I thought it would take five minutes! What was I thinking!), we successfully had an operational well, that pumped good fresh water! I deemed both older boys the "keepers of the well", giving them the responsibility to fix and maintain the well for the future.

In the photo, you may say, "Jerry, that is not a well!" I know, Cathi was busy with the children and only clicked a photo of me working with the boys to install a new water storage tank. This will bring much needed water to the laundry area, latrines, and to the kitchen. The boys and 10 shovels successfully dug two hundred feet of trench in just under an hour! I stood dumb-founded at their ability to work! I wish I had a work crew like this at home! We are teaching the boys different construction skills as well as integrating school subjects (i.e. math, science, and health) in the process.

As the projects get accomplished I am reminded of why I am here… I am here to serve, but first and foremost, I am here to love. There are many opportunities here in the children’s home to love.

Remember the children,

Jerry

To find out how you can get involved with Show Mercy International, visit our website at www.showmercy.org or call Mike or Lori Salley at 541-905-0791. You can also read other updates by visiting our website and clicking the "Uganda News and Field Reports" link on the right side of our home page.

 Salsa with soul

By THERESA HOGUE
Corvallis Gazette-Times

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2007
Martha and Robin just returned from Sierra Leonne and opened their first infant baby house.  They are now raising funds to build a baby house and children’s cottages in Uganda.

Robert and Adam are inseparable……Adam is 7 ……and Robert is 13! Robert has only been living at Hope Children’s Home here in Uganda since June of this year. He has four younger siblings that he was taking care of alone in a "house" about the size of a normal bathroom. His parents abandoned them, but occasionally the dad would return and beat Robert for managing to find his younger brothers and sisters’ food so they could keep on living. He has a VERY mature heart and still protects his little brothers and sisters as they all live in Hope Children’s Home. He is wise beyond his years. At first I was worried when he and Adam hung out so much, feeling bad for Robert in a way as he hung out all day with a 7 year old, but as I watched them play the other day I realized I had missed something amazing. Robert was playing, truly playing, probably for the first time in his life, like a little kid, he was making up for lost time. Someone was cooking his rice and beans and taking care of his baby sisters and brothers, he was free to roam in the forest with a big stick and act wild like a mighty hunter and conquer imaginary foes. SO…. he and Adam "hang out". 

There have been so many surprises here in Uganda, I thought that I would take my greatest delight in knowing that the children at Hope were "fed, clothed and schooled", but my greatest joy has been in the "off times", when we stand in the big concrete main room and dance to the worship music and drums together, and the kids have their heads thrown back, eyes closed, in total worship of their Father, or when Robert comes back from playing in the woods with Adam, with a big stick in his hand and an even bigger smile on his face. It makes sense, as a parent our greatest joy is not when our children push back from the dinner table full, but instead when they discover a bit of who they are and why they were created. 

Thanks for being a part of these kids lives, for providing a place for them to rest their hearts, and open up to God and discover His awesome plan for each of them. There are many more Roberts here in Uganda. We see them on the streets every day, and we long to throw some more rice and beans in the pot and buy another bed and mattress to shove into the already full rooms at Hope. We are incredibly excited about the 25 acres of land that is still waiting for a fence, and still waiting for building to start…..we long to begin work on the children’s cottages, to place these kids in smaller "family groups". We can’t wait for the next "Roberts" to come and romp over the land…Join us in bringing them "home"!  

Susan Stubbs

You can send your tax deductible donations to the address below or give online at www.showmercy.org.
Show Mercy International
PO Box 607
Albany, Oregon  97321
www.showmercy.org