Child Sponsorship Updates

Part of the business-related work covered during the June trip included developing a child sponsorship form to help collect information that would be useful in whole-child care as well as to gain an understanding the family life and needs. Lauren and I met with three of the sponsored children yesterday to collect the information. A few surprises might interest you.

Frank gives his pocket money (given by sponsors for children to have food in addition to the twice-daily maize porridge and beans) to his mother who has been told she has cancer of the blood and whose father died a few years ago.

Yunus is supposed to have his own bed at the boarding school but doesn’t. In no uncertain terms I instructed the Matron to get a mattress for him that day and that I would be checking back in the morning to ensure he had his own bed. The Matron said okay and that she would just move the second boy to another child’s bed. Very loud, very big internal sigh!

Godfrey was sent home from school because his shoes weren’t good enough. He’ll be back tomorrow regardless of whether he has any shoes at all. Would you like to purchase some shoes for him? The ones I just picked up for Frank and Yunus cost about $20 (including the white tax).

Olivia gave me her letter to her sponsor, my friend. Included was this poem. I asked her if the poem was created by her and she said yes but I’m not perfectly confident that she understood me. I can’t find any of the lines of this poem in Google so I’m inclined to think it really is her own creation. Get out your tissues and read the Olivia’s Poem blog post…the life of a child…oh!

Coolest of all, every child professed Jesus as his or her Savior!

Olivia's Story: Update

Before I so hurriedly rushed off to Kenya, I was assigned the task of delivering a procedure letter to the owners of three of the schools where Mercy Uganda has sponsored children. While at the schools, I delivered gift bags sent from the states via Laura for those children sponsored at these schools – Yunus, Frank, Olivia, and Eseza’s twin sisters.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Olivia, the child my friend sponsors, and to deliver her gift box. She seemed to recognize me, but she was no more talkative than during the last visit in June. As is true of so many Ugandan women, Olivia is quiet and reserved. She used no more words than necessary even when I asked open-ended questions.

We talked a little about how she was doing in school and gave her the assignment of getting her last term grades so that when I came back later this month to visit again she could tell me about her progress and I could bring a report back to her sponsor. We also talked a little about what she might need, as I was given some cash to help with these kinds of items. With that list, I’ll do a little shopping in preparation for another longer visit with this beautiful young girl.

I asked all those hard questions again – and will make a routine of doing so – and found that Olivia is healthy and happy. She is now boarding at the school and enjoying being with her friends. I wonder if she knows how important a role her being sponsored played in bringing me to Uganda in the first place.

Olivia's Friends

My friend challenged her daughters to prepare care packages for an orphan to go along with the care package for Olivia. When preparing to give Olivia her package I asked her to choose two friends whom she would like to give a care package to. Nakato and Charmane were the two friends who came quickly to her mind. She eagerly ran to get these girls and we gathered around for gift giving.

Olivia handed each girl a mosquito net along with their gift box. The smiles were wide at having been selected by their friend to receive these gifts. They were very polite and expressed their appreciation a number of times. When done, I gave each of the girls a coloring book and crayons (gifts from another of my friends) and charged the girls to give these gifts to another child…pass it on.

Olivia's Story

I had the honor of visiting Olivia, the child my friend sponsors. Olivia and her sponsor are the inspiration for this mission trip. Olivia is a beautiful 10-year-old girl in P5 or fifth grade. Her mother died and her father left so Olivia had been living with her older sister and her sister’s husband. We learned that Olivia had not been boarding at the school and so began investigating. Olivia would like to board and the school so Lauren and Gabriel will follow up with Olivia’s sister to find out if she had concerns about having Olivia board there. In the mean time, the school is prepared to welcome her to the boarding house.

I delivered a care package to this shy young lady, on behalf of my friend. Gabriel helped translate although I believe Olivia understood most of what we talked about. He explained to Olivia that my friend and I share the same name and that I am delivering this package on her behalf, that I am not her sponsor. She was so pleased to receive a gift and kept trying to hide her bright smile. In addition to this care package, Olivia also received a mosquito net and a Bible. And lest my friend disown me, I left provision for a number of basic needs from the requirements list.

I also asked questions of Olivia such as whether or not she liked the school, whether or not she had friends, if she liked the teachers, if she felt she was learning. Then to the hard questions, was anyone abusing her, touching her improperly, etc. The most difficult situation Olivia could think of was that a girl was mean to her but that girl was no longer at the school. Praise God. I had no reason to suspect any problems in these areas but if you don’t ask…

Eseza's Story

Eseza is a dear five- or six-year old girl whose sponsor is paying for her to attend a local Christian school. When visiting that school today we found that this girl was not attending. Here’s why.

A few short months ago there was a heavy rain causing a rock slide. That rock slide crushed and killed Eseza’s mother. There are three younger children at home – a boy about age three and a set of twins about one and a half years old. You can see Tracy pulling on her ears. All you mom's out there, you know what that means.

Eseza stays home to care for these three younger children…as much as a five-year-old can care for three children. Honestly, I’m not even sure she is aware she had some added responsibility beyond the protection a typical sibling would provide.

The father spends his days working in the quarry and trying to earn other income, relatively unsuccessfully. The family lives in the two room home much like the one described for Amen with no beds, no mosquito nets, and no material “things.”

Eseza’s story is not all that different from so many other family stories in Uganda. The poverty, the malaria, the hunger, the tragedy…it’s all real. We’re not selecting one or two sob stories among a field of green, these stories characterize what seems to be a majority of little lives here in Uganda.