Nov 9th Update

It’s a very rainy day in Mbale…so rainy I had to wait in the car for 15 minutes before coming into the internet café – the rivers of water running down the street would have come above my ankles! There is no drainage system here for extra water. (On the positive side, though, we will be including in our buildings rain gutters that all run to a large storage tank. During the rainy season, this will cut down on water that must be purchased.)

On Saturday morning, I heard there were 20 children already there for Saturday School 8am (2 hours before we start). I went down at 9:30, and as you can see from the first picture (which has about 1/2 of the kids who were there), there were more than 100 children there at 9:30, ½ hour before we started. We ended up with a little more than 260 kids and 15 adults and teens who helped us. I told the story of David and oliath and memorized 1 John 4:4 – “…greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world.” For a snack this month at Saturday School we had ice cream. (There are no freezers in Budaka, so we paid our regular taxi driver to pick up the ice cream from Mbale and drive it to us.) Our kids from the orphanage heard “ice cream” and started cheering and telling the other children how wonderful and exciting ice cream is. When the kids received their cup, they had 2 reactions: 1) they were scared to hold something SO cold and 2) they wanted to save it and take it home with them so they could share it. It was very hard to convince them to eat
it quickly. In the second picture, you see our Moses with his face covered in the stuff! This is his 4th time to have ice cream, and he really likes it!

The kids are doing well. Their school is almost over for the year – their last day will be December 3rd. We really saw how great they are doing with their English when the World Race team was here. Almost all of the children could communicate with the Americans. The English they speak here is British, so most people have a hard time with us Americans who talk “so fast.” But, our kids understood totally after having communicated with me and with Dina when she was here in March. Only 2 who have medical issues today: Emma (the only thing we know is that he does not have malaria) and Moses (breathing problems again – the TB doctor has not been able to see him the past 2 weeks). Please continue to pray for these 2. Thank you.

Thank you all for your generous gifts to the ministry. Because of your sacrifice, these children are being loved, fed and cared for; several adults in Budaka have jobs; and many are being touched by the love and life of Jesus. We are almost 1 year into this work in Budaka and all of you are very much the reason we are “getting on well,” as they say here. As you know, the ministry will be self-supporting by January of 2012. We receive our first batch of chicks next Tuesday and will be selling eggs within 5-6 months. We also are renting land on which we will grow some of our own food, thus saving money. The land is getting dug up now, then we will plant in January or February. (There are 4 growing seasons here, but we just missed the current one.) We also have a woman going to tailoring school who will use the sewing machine which was bought by Chuck and Anne and either pay rent on the machine or give us a percentage of her work (we haven’t worked on that part with her yet). It’s exciting to be at this point in the ministry – many things are up in the air still, but so many good things are happening and we are seeing God move miraculously in so many ways.
Thank you for your continued monthly support so that we can become self-supporing in just a little over a year! And thanks again to all who gave (and continue to give) towards the land and buildings.
May the Lord continue to bless you as you are blessing us! See at least some of you in a very short time!!

Laurie