.Zoe.

This past weekend I had the privilege of visiting New Hope, a home for fatherless and motherless children in Kasana. I left Friday afternoon with a UCU student named Medie (Medie is from Kasana and attended primary and secondary school at New Hope). After sitting in a few different crowded and sweaty taxis, wandering through the crowded streets of Kampala, and getting pulled over by the police, we arrived in Kasana five hours later (about 2-3 hours longer than it would take if we had our own private hire). I was so glad to have had Medie with me, both for company and direction.
Medie’s father, a devout Muslim, has worked for New Hope for many years. Although it is a Christian organization, he enrolled Medie in their primary school, where Medie chose to give his life to Christ. Because of this, his family became very upset and stopped financially supporting him. Medie has maintained his faith and enrolled at UCU, where he has had to work extremely hard to pay his way through- he barely gets by (this is frustrating because he has some well-off relatives who could help him out, but refuse to because he has turned his back against Islam).
Medie and I got to New Hope late Friday night and I met up with a wonderful woman name Nancy, who has worked at New Hope for fourteen years. Nancy generously housed me and fed me during the weekend. Nancy lives on one of New Hope’s sites, which consists about 200 acres of land…. So her house is pretty much in the middle of a huge gorgeous field. It was so refreshing to be away from campus, on my own, and out in the country for a couple of days!
Saturday morning, Nancy and I got up early (after eating a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip oatmeal and an entire press of coffee!!!!!!!) and went to clean one of the classrooms. I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of the staff on sight as well as get an extensive tour of New Hope; I was beyond impressed.
New Hope is the home to around 140 orphans, 120 staff, and it serves a total of about 500 children in the community. It runs a primary school, secondary school, clinic, farm, an institute (for staff and people going into ministry), church, a baby house, offices, and seven family units. Each family unit consists of around 15-20 orphans and their adopted parents. All of the orphans are extremely well supported—they each have counselors, staff assigned to them as mentors, and opportunities to go to school, do vocational training, and start their own businesses (one night we bought hamburgers and chips..also known as fries… from one of the older girls). It was so encouraging to see an organization that is run entirely for the children… everyone on staff is so genuine and passionate about serving the fatherless in Uganda. They are all working hard to make New Hope self-sustaining, eventually they plan to have no foreigners on staff.
Along with hearing many moving stories about the children and staff, one of the most transforming moments of the weekend was on Saturday night when the children held their monthly worship service. For weeks now, many of the kids have been learning to play guitar, so about 5 guitarists, their teacher, and countless vocalists led worship. Not only was it amazing to worship with Ugandans, but also halfway through the service the power went out. This is nothing new for Africa, but considering we were out in the middle of nowhere, it was PITCH BLACK. Yet we continued to sing and worship for another 30 minutes, and as we were doing so, a huge rainstorm came! Worshipping the same God with 100s of orphaned children amidst pouring rain. I couldn’t have asked for a better Saturday night.
Another highlight of the weekend was having the opportunity to play with the orphaned babies at the baby house. This weekend there were only four babies there, but apparently they have had up to 12. Nancy and I took a beautiful baby girl, Zoe, with us to church on Sunday and I got to hold her for over two hours because she fell asleep on my lap. It was literally painful to leave her after church. Zoe is one of the most calm and joyous babies I have ever met; yet the circumstances she comes from are anything but happy. Zoe was born about a year ago in a pit latrine. Her mother was only 17 when she had her and claims that she did not know she was going to give birth, hence the reason Zoe fell into the latrine. During the beginning of her life, Zoe did not have the will to eat or sleep. It was as if she did not have the will to live. But after living at the baby house for 6 or so months (during which time she contracted a horrible case of malaria), Zoe began to thrive. While holding Zoe, I could not help but to think of all of the millions of orphans in Uganda, particularly all of those that are abandoned in pit latrines. I am so glad that there are wonderful places such as New Hope to love and care for kids such as Zoe.
This Friday we all leave for Soroti for ten days for our rural home stays! I’m not totally sure what to expect yet, and how living with a family there will compare to living with a family in Mukono, but I will let you know as soon as I return!!!
Love and miss you all like crazy! And sorry if I haven’t gotten your letters or packages yet, they can take up to two months to get here…. TIA (this is Africa)!!!!!!!!!!!!!... also, if you happen to send me a package, it will get here muchhh faster in a padded envelope, rather than a box.
Alive in His grace, Kelly
P.s. I joined the Buganda tribal dance group last week!!! Except I looked NOTHING like the Ugandan girls who were doing it….hopefully I can bust a few moves when I get back. :-D