Kids are back in school

Term 2 of the Ugandan school year started recently.  I suppose I will take this time to explain a bit about the Ugandan school system.  Be sure to take everything I say with a grain of salt cause I am still learning the intricacies of it (Blasted British influences).

They don't have spring mattresses here, instead it is just a big piece of foam

I'm a list guy.  I think because it helps me organize, but also it lets me avoid one of my badest suits...English and grammar.  No transitions needed in a list.  No real sentence structure or punctuation is required.  Gotta love lists.

1.  You are able to start school around age 3 in nursery, but many children don't due to cost and wait till age six and just go straight into Primary 1
2.  There are 3 levels of nursery: baby class, middle class, and top class
3.  You then move onto primary which there are 7 classes.  P1 up to P7
4.  P7 is a very important year cause you take your first permanent record exams and the results determine which secondary school accepts you
5.  These exams are called PLE (primary leaving examination).  This past holiday we for the first time implemented holiday tutoring.  We paid some school teachers to come out to our land and work with the kids that were approaching the important exam years.  It allows them some extra study time and more attention from the teachers due to the reduction in kids present.
6.  Because of their importance many kids in P6 and P7 go to school longer hours and even attend on Saturdays.
7.  Then you go on to secondary.  Secondary is the equivalent of high school
8.  There is technically S1 through S6, but many don't continue on after S4.  From what I have gathered S5 and S6 are preparatory years for University.  So, if you plan to pursue vocational or can't afford University then you often stop after S4
9.  At the end of S4 you take another set of exams that allows you to pick a future track of study.  These exams are called your "O" level exams and basically there are different subject combinations that you can choose to focus on based on your scores which theoretically will prepare you for a University education in that field
10.  High school, secondary, college are all terms that describe these S1-S6 schools.  University is the only term that refers to what we know as college.  Pretty sure that is the Brits again.
11.  There are 3 terms of school, which are all about 3 months long with about 1 month in between each
12.  School year starts at the end of January or the beginning of February and ends beginning of December
13.  Ugandans seem to define real success as finishing through University despite the fact that the majority of work available is vocational.  Also, they seem to believe that boarding school is always better.  Most decent secondary schools are boarding and most families will send their kids to boarding even in primary if they can afford it.  This means that kids as young as 6 are shipped off for 9 months out of the year.  I don't like primary boarding and see it to be nearly the same as orphanages.  I don't want to say luckily, but I am kinda glad most families can't afford to send their kids to primary boarding.  *This is my take on it
14.  If you have read this far into these details I am impressed and want to thank you for your interest in all that I do.  Also, you obviously care about me more than those who skipped over and I therefore think you are much sweeter.  I will add one more fact at the end as to hide this from the lazy readers who don't deserve my gratitude.
15.  School fees and school supplied significantly increase as you continue on in your education.  I making rough guesses here without looking at any of our numbers so these could be off.  Nursery around $25-$50 a term (day school).  Primary $35-80 per term (day school).  Secondary $250-$500 per term (boarding).  University $500-800 per term.

Alright on to the interesting stuff.  There are many things than need to occur to get all 581 of our kids back in school.  First, we have to pay school fees at over 35 schools.  This is becoming easier because we are pushing for the schools to allow us to do bank transfers so we no longer have to run the actual cash to the school.

These are the trunks (or as they are called here suitcases) that the boarding students load all there stuff in and take to school to use as footlockers

Then we have to buy all the supplies.  For the nursery and primary kids it is mostly crayons, notebooks, pencils, pens, and toilet paper.  Yep toilet paper.  Part of the list of supplies required is bringing your own portion of the TP for the school.  Secondary and university kids are much more difficult.  It grows to a much longer list because they are boarding and also need daily living items like; soap, razors, basins, towels, sheets, mattresses, torches (flashlight), brooms, mops etc...

Here is Sam (our bus driver holding the mops), Siraji (a mentor on staff in the tan shirt), and Oliver (head of sponsorship in red) buying several hundred mops and hard bristled brushes in central market.

Our current system operates like this.  Oliver, the mentors and myself go and buy about 4 pickup loads of supplies and bring them to my house.  They are then stored in my living room until the day before the secondary kids go back to school.  We then hire a flatbed truck to come and load all the stuff up to take it to the Amazima land where it will be sorted, bagged, and distributed (side note:  we are hoping to build a bigger storage building at the land to accommodate this as well as some of future farming plans).

My living room leading up to 1st term

My living room leading up to 2nd term

Loading the big truck at my house to take the supplies out to the Amazima land for distribution

Oliver hard at work.  I love this woman and would be lost without her.

Once supplies are distributed then I thank the Lord for the opportunity that Amazima supporters are giving these kids and pass out from exhaustion.  Again, thank you all for taking interest in how God is working all the way on the other side of the world.   Most of all thank you for your prayers. 

I love my parents!

My parents came to visit a bit back and it was really nice to show them what life is like for me over here.  They came for about 10 days and we stayed busy the whole time.  I wasn't able to take off the whole time they were here, but they were more than willing to accompany me while I did my work and were so patient.

It was a whirlwind of a tour.  It was my goal to show them as much of Uganda and my life/work here as possible.  We were also able to go on Safari the last couple days of their time here which was a first for us all.

Here is a list of some of the things I was able to show them
-Masese Women's Group
-Masese Co. Primary lunch program
-Jinja Central Market
-Sponsorship Saturday Program
-Lumber yards, welder's shop, craft shops, and posho mills
-My house
-Amazima Office
-Several of my favorite places to eat (including Ethiopian in Kampala)
-Katie's house and family
-My church
-Amazima Playground and Farming project
-Rhino Sanctuary
-Murchison National Park

They brought me tons of goodies as well.  You know your parents love ya when they come with 4 suitcases of stuff for you and pack all their clothes in their carry-on bags.  They brought tons of food as well as some random things like guard dog warning signs and animal ear tags.

God blessed me with incredible parents and I am so thankful for how supportive they have been, not only with my move to Africa, but in everything I have done.  I love you mom and dad and thank you for helping shape me into who I am today  It was their faith and love for our Savior that stirred my heart in the same direction.  I can't be more grateful! 

 I didn't get many pictures of the random day to day stuff that we did, but here are a few of our trip up to Murchison.

 Can't wait for them to come again (my parents not the hippos)

Can ya dig it? (amazingly dorky title, but couldn't resist)

I have a bunch to tell ya'll about what has been going on this side and it will take many posts to make up for lost time, but I suppose the only way to get it done is one step at a time.

Dry season is at an end and we are ready for the daily rains that the coming season promises. Amazima is taking its first steps in a farming project. During dry season we held a seminar to teach locals a different farming technique. We partnered with an organization called Farming God's Way. They teach a no till farming technique that has proven to drastically increase yields.


We invited 10 local farmers to join us and learn the methods. The seminar combines farming lessons and evangelism. They incorporate lots of Bible. We also start a demo farm to demonstrate the techniques as well as show them the potential in these techniques.


Last week we were able to get a larger plot of our land planted with the new methods. My friend Chris Kramlich (a friend from ND who is here in Uganda for the year http://www.working-love.blogspot.com/) helped oversee much of this project and worked with several of Amazima's full time staff to get everything going.


I am excited to see how God will use this new side of Amazima to spread the Glory of his name. Also, I personally just dig farming so it is fun and interesting for me in general (pun intended).

The Ugandan school year makes sense. Just another aspect of American society that we buck the natural and obvious way of doing things. School in Uganda goes from the end of January till the end of November. This means that we are between years currently which in turn means that we are at the time we can add kids to the program.

Absolute chaos ensues. For the past few weeks we have had extra busy days at the Saturday program due to Christmas Gift Baskets and the Christmas Program. We have also been getting tons of people coming wanting to sign up for our sponsorship program. Just to make it through the day I have been telling them that they should come back on the first Saturday of the new year to apply to be in the program.

Yikes, did I not expect the outcome. I guess telling them this and giving them a few weeks for the word to spread everyone in all of Africa heard the news and came on the first Saturday of the new year.



I put together this nice application form to be filled out by each of the families applying for sponsorship just to have it turn into scrap paper. All our Ugandan staff was like "Um No! As soon as they fill out a form they will assume they are registered and they will send their kids every week assuming they are now part of the sponsorship program."



Well, I guess scratch that. I showed up on the 7th to a sea of people. There had to have been 700 people above and beyond the 500 kids already registered for our program. I gave notebooks and pens to anybody over the age of 16 to start taking down names so we could clear everyone out and sort through the possible additions.

Most of the people that came on the 7th were not in the category of people who we would accept into the program, but with other connections and a little research we were able to find around 160 new kids that did qualify for our program.



Everyone in Uganda wants their kids sponsored. Not every Ugandan NEEDS their kid sponsored. Here is an example of a family that fits the need we are looking for.

There is a family of 6 children all under the age of 16 that stay with their Jaja (grandmother). We do an initial interview and 2 home visits by our social workers to research the need. The first time they come to our program one of the boys in the family shows up with a swollen cheek. I honestly probably wouldn't have noticed, but Katie did. She asked him to open his mouth. You could see the pain in his eyes as he did so. She saw that he had a tooth that was abscessed almost bursting through his cheek. We immediately took him to the dentist. It boggles my mind how some of these kids continue on day to day. He musta only been 10.



After our research we discover that the only source of income their family had was their Jaja's job of "throwing rocks at other rocks." Basically she made aggregate for the use in concrete. She worked all day throwing stones at each other to break them down into small enough pieces to be sold as gravel. Unfortunately she had recently lost her job because a stone bounced back and hit her in the face and she had lost most of her vision.

If makes me think of the elderly in the United States. I would never say they have the best life ever, but in comparison... This old broken woman... I can't even put into words my thoughts about her situation. God bless her heart.



Praise Jesus He put us here to ease the struggle. They are now in our program along with the other 150 or so.

It is your prayers and support that open these doors for us to show God's love. Thank you so much for making what we do possible.



The photos in this post are a random sampling of some of the angels in our program not specifically anybody I talked about.

More Family

Alright so it has been some time, but I am now ready to give you a bit more info on some of the people I work with. The reason for the delay is the holidays here are kinda nuts. Not only do we have all the normal holiday busyness, but also in Uganda it is the end of the school year and the time to add more kids to our sponsorship program. We are currently working on getting around 100 new kids added.


Anyway, here is Laura. Laura was originally hired as an accountant for us, but she has become so much more. She now holds the title of Administrative Assistant as well which basically can be translated as "the one who explains how Uganda works to me." She assists me in all sorts of stuff, but one of the most obvious ways is explaining how government stuff works here. She is able to help with work visas, NGO renewal, taxation regulations, and the list goes on.

I have grown so fond of her. We have a fun working relationship that is kinda like a brother sister thing. We give each other a hard time and joke around and it makes the business side of Amazima much more fun. She is super smart and very professional which is good cause I often lack in the professional area. To often I find myself conducting business meetings in clothes covered in dirt and sweat stains. So it is nice have Laura in the office looking nice and professional.


Raoul is our youth director. I know you all are looking at his picture wondering why he looks so Congolese. The answer is simple, he is from the Congo. I honestly don't know the whole back story on how he ended up in Jinja, but he has been with Amazima since the very start.

He is great with the kids and leads all our worship and Bible studies. A couple of hours ago we just finished up our holiday program for all the sponsored kids guardians. Wow was it good. He organized dancing and singing performances that blew me away. We got some talented kids and he did a great job showing them off. It was hard to keep the tears back as I saw these Jajas (grandmothers) dancing in the audience and knowing the joy they are feeling about their kids and the opportunities that are provided by those who support Amazima. Well anyway, Raoul is awesome at what he does and we are lucky to have him.

Elijah is a new hire for us and he oversees the feeding program at Masese Co. Primary school. He is a man after God. He is very active in many community development projects in the slum community of Masese where he lives and can be found sharing his faith where ever he goes. He is honest as can be and exhibits so many fruits of the Spirit.

Because he lives and works in Masese we have found that he is ideal for this position. It is nice that he grew up in Karamoja and can connect and speak to many of the kids that attend school at Masese Co. or just come to get a plate at lunch time. He also is always thinking about ways to improve what we do. Thankful for him.


Andrew spends his days working on our land in Buziika. He is a big Ugandan which is rare, but for what he does pretty handy. Most Saturdays it is he and I that heave the 300-400 lb pots of food out of the stoves and carry them out to be served. Ok so I guess his size and stregth are nice, but I should tell how great he is outside of his physical prowess.

He is a worker. I love this him about him cause he is like me and I get him. I can count on him to get things done and not a day goes by that he doesn't sweat and get filthy for the Lord. He splits unbelievable amounts of firewood, helps with our farming, and oversees all things related to land maintenance. Can't imagine not having him around.


Regina is also a new hire. She makes me happy. I don't know what it is about being around her, but I am always smiling and filled with joy. She doesn't speak any English, but it never stops her from greeting and giving me an earful of Lugandan that I don't understand. Love it!

Originally we met her because she used to walk Katie's road with bundles of scavenged firewood to sell. Katie got to know her and realized she wasn't making ends meet and she was failing to provide for her 4 kids. She ended up staying at Katie's while her baby was nursed back to health. We were able to find her a small house out near our land and now she cooks food for our workers throughout the week. I can't imagine anybody who spent any amount of time with her not falling in love.

I know that I have not covered even close to all the people I work with and love, but I am thinking I need to get a few posts up about what specifically we have been up to recently so that will be next on my agenda.

Appologies

Alright so I'm a liar. I didn't get another post up before returning home and still have yet to get one up after getting back. I do have an excuse for the latter. Since arriving back last Wednesday night I think power has been out every night except for one. Yuck. Anyway, I do plan on continuing to introduce more of my Ugandan family, but I guess you will have to exercise some patience.

Friends? Nah family! -Part I

So I wanted to share with you all of bit about the people who I spend each and everyday with. It is this group that encourages and supports me. These are the ones that get to enjoy my great jokes, admire my rugged handsomeness, and all in all be blessed by my incredible personality. Just kidding, I've learned so much from this group. It amazes me how close you become with those you work and I am so lucky to have brothers and sisters in Christ by my side. I pray that I can be a blessing to them.


First up is Katie. Katie is the founder of Amazima and the mother to 13 great girls. She is the executive director so she does a bunch of administrative stuff, but all her passion is for the people of Uganda, so relationships with the people we serve always take priority. She spends big portions of her days homeschooling her girls, but she also, leads the women's beading circle and oversees all of our medical programs. She also works closely with Christine and her work in Masese (a very impoverished community that we work in). Those are the major things that take up her time, but she has her hand in all that goes on.

She amazes me daily and I am so thankful for who she is and how she hungers to obey God in everything. One of her most admirable traits is her willingness to share all that is her with anyone in need. She will welcome the downcast and rejected to her dinner table. She will kiss and love on the dirty hungry children that God so dearly cherishes. She will give of herself and her family in ways I have never seen before. She is the type of person that makes you want to be a better you.


Next is Patrick. Patrick has kind of become my right hand man. He is a very talented and resourceful man. He lives and works at the land that Amazima owns. He oversees the upkeep of the chapel, the farm, and the playground. He used to be a farmer and a carpenter...kindred spirit. He has become a pastor and has a small church in the village that he leads. We use him in such a wide range of ways that it is hard to explain. He knows tons of people and really knows how to get stuff done. I can feel confident that he will figure just about anything out. I just tell him what I want or what our goal is and he gets it done.

He also is a father to many. Not only does he take care of his own children, but he also has taken in several of his brother's after he passed and just recently he adopted a little boy named Noah who's mother was our friend and died from Aids. So thankful for the example he is to the kids and the blessing he is to Amazima, not to mention me!


Oliver is in charge of our sponsorship program. She is such a smart woman. We have over 400 kids in our sponsorship and currently they attend over 30 schools. She doesn't have advanced computer programs to track all this yet she has kept it orderly and organized which boggles my mind. She knows every child in our program, their siblings, where they live, and so much more. She does home visits with all of the kids and follows up on their performance at school.

We are currently trying to find ways to take the load off of her. We are getting big enough that it isn't reasonable to ask her to take all this on alone. Right now we are trying to pick her brain and get that expansive amount of info into a computer so all us dummies can have access to it without having to bother her constantly. Also, we are looking into breaking the kids into smaller groups and having some sort of mentor program. Thanks goodness we have Oliver though.


Christine is our social worker that works mostly in Masese. I don't directly oversee her so I can't say I know all that she does. What I do know is that she spends tons of time at clinics. Masese is ravaged by poverty, alcoholism, AIDs, and illness. Currently we are working to find ways to provide health care to those who can't afford it and education to those who need it (both of which are expansive). Christine is the face of Amazima to this community and shows them a love that is so rare...unconditional. She holds their hand as they wait for their HIV test results, she brings them a hot meal while they lay alone in the hospital, and she builds real and meaningful relationships with each and everyone she meets.

I am such a fan of Christine. I wish our work overlapped more cause she has such a joyful spirit and a smile that can light up a room. We have become good friends non-the-less. She is only 21 years old, but she is so mature, responsible, and wise. Currently she goes to school at night as well. She is working towards her masters in social work. I wish I wasn't so terrible with words cause I don't feel like I have adequately described how great she is. Oh well, just know she rocks!

Well this is getting pretty long so I will save the others I had in mind till next time. After starting this I realized I could have easily done a long blog about each. I will blog again this month before I come home. Oh yeah, I'm coming home for a visit! So excited to see everyone. Thanks again for caring enough about me to pray for me and follow what I'm doing.