Thank you all for your prayers during my travels. All of my flights went well and only one of them had bad turbulence. For those of you who don’t know, I really do not like to fly very much. I think some of my most concentrated and panicked prayers happen while I fly…. Ha Ha Ha!
I had called my mom from the London airport in a panic… through all of my travel plans, I had forgotten to print out a bank statement to show at Uganda Customs to prove that I had money to cover my length of stay in Uganda. I was so mad at myself that I had forgotten this detail!!!! Ugh! My mom and sister emailed me the information, which was amazing that they could do that for me… but unfortunately my flight had to leave before I was able to find a spot that had wifi long enough to get the email. So my mom, sisters and I were all praying and praying so hard that I would be allowed through customs without the bank statement… And God is so awesome, because when I went through the customs line, I was one of the last people to go through, and the guy was in a hurry to finish the line, so he only asked me 2 questions. Who I was staying with and for how long. Didn’t ask for the bank details, for my return ticket or my immunization chart….. I was so relieved!!!!!
Ronnie picked me up from the airport and we drove back to his house to see his wife and kids. It was so nice to see his wife Ritah and meet his 3 kids! Slowly over the last couple days I have gotten to see a lot of friends and catch up with how they are doing. It’s so good to be back. It has been very hot… even to the point where everyone here is noticing the heat!
Plans for the school have changed a little since I arrived. I will be working at the school 5 days a week to start off… later we might go back to the plan of 3 days at school and 2 days at office, but for now I will be there Monday – Friday. There are 4 of us teachers for 3 groups of kids. I have “Top Class” (6-7 year olds) but it is a small class of about 10-15 kids. The “Middle Class” (5 year olds) has 19-25 kids and “Baby Class” (3-4 years old) has about 40+ kids. The baby class has 2 teachers since there are so many kids.
So, I will be the teacher for the oldest class. Teaching in all subjects, not just English. It will be a time of adjusting since I’ve never taught all the subjects before, but I know that God will show me what to do. I’m very excited. I start work on Monday, but we visited the village on Wednesday this week so I could meet the teachers and the kids and see where I will be staying.
The village of Bukeka is about 1 ½ hours from Kampala. There are lots of little towns along the way and the scenery is so beautiful and green! I will be staying at a guest house/motel for a couple months until the teacher cottage can get the roof finished on it. The town I am staying in is 5 kilometers away from the road leading up to the village. From that road, it is about 2 km through main part of the village to the school. As you go further into the village and head to the outskirts of it, it looks more and more like a village setting. Some small concrete houses, then houses made of brick and mud, and some huts with straw roofing . There is an average of 5 kids per household. I had been told the statistic of the number of kids, but seeing it for yourself is different. There are kids everywhere! In that Village community, there was a poll taken to see how many kids were there…..They only counted the kids in the poorest families… the result was 982 kids under the age of 5….That wasn’t even ALL the kids, that was only the amount of kids in the POOREST families! Out of those 982 kids, our school can only take 80-90 kids because of teachers and resources.
The kids were very shy when we arrived at the school, but I think they will warm up quickly. Some of them recited the ABCs and they all sang a song. They are adorable and when you see them all together, you see a room full of Potential and God’s Love! I’m so excited to get to know them!
There are so many needs at the school, but they are doing what they can with what they have available. They now have wooden benches so the kids no longer have to sit on the concrete floor. We just purchased Chalkboards and poster size paper to make charts for the kids to have on the wall. At the moment there are 2 small charts in each room and they have pieces of cardboard cut into squares with drawings on them strung up on strings like flash cards.
Please pray that God will show me how best to teach these kids in a way they can understand, learn and grow. Also pray for the teachers and the kids that have been there to adjust to having 2 new teachers (Myself and another teacher from Kampala). Please pray for continued health as I adjust to a new country and for safe travels back and forth from the Village and Kampala. Above all, please pray that through all the activities, changes, developments, and friendships, that it will all be for God’s Glory. Yes, we are giving them a chance to go to school, get an education, and help them see a brighter future…But at the end of the day, we are ministering to these children to show them the Love of Christ in a world that has only shown them hardships.
Thank You so much for your prayers! I pray that you all have a wonderful day! God Bless!!
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