Appoyo Achua mebe (good morning) from Uganda virtual team and followers!! I apologize for the delay in posting! We have very long tiring yet joyful days, once we move north from our successful pilot and larger infrastructure projects that have been implemented for years on the Family Empowerment - Canaan farm. Please permit me to explain a little of how this experience goes as we head to Northern Uganda and work our way through numerous villages and towns staying 2 nights or so each place with a home base in a hotel. The services and quality of the accommodations get worse the farther north we go. The team is out all day for 12 or more hours to usually 2 villages or projects. Bugs and geckos inhabit our rooms an even mosquito nets. Red dirt is imbedded in all of our skin which is now ravaged and cracked. Travel is remote and along dusty bumpy small paths of dirt roads. There is typically no internet or service in these areas. The router works in some areas and the hotel lobby may have wifi but we are often too tired to do much more than write or call home to our families that we are okay. We eat in the villages sometimes which consists of posha beans goat chicken rice cabbage and malawuan (g nut sauce if lucky). This time due to the drought and impending famine we feed whole villages. Also, It is hot hot hot here! The age of the team is above 50 to 69 years. And they are troopers and amazing...flexibility, letting some of the tension fly right off your back and not taking things too personal is key! We are family! We survive each other in communal living and bumping shoulder to shoulder leaning on each other travel thru lots of laughter and silly sarcasm at times. Each person adds a special uniqueness and gifts of service to the poverty stricken people and villages...hearts of love. We don't always know how we are going to organize the outreaches and training until we get there, even with the best itinerary and schedule and groups that I may place in writing or planning ahead of time. Always, we feel it out have a general plan with some materials and projects ideas with us, was to speak to the Ugandan project leader on the ground if a project is stalled or over budget for some reason, pray to God for guidance, lots of guidance and wisdom! We ask the village elders and leaders of the water boards, community farming groups, village health workers and women's groups, deaf school, elderly rest home, farms we have trained, fund in income generating projects, water and farming such as drip irrigation projects, educational or health care training/support what they think will help them best. And then we wing it...letting the angels carry us along, hopefully giving hope and light in all we do. Yes, I make it up as we go which often involves changes in prior plans or adding a "site visit" or assessment that may be out of our way, extending the day. This requires incredible openness, willingness and patience since it extends the day...perseverance and faith...forward ho with a smile!! Almost always...Lo and behold the outcome, by the grace of God, is better and more fruitful than anything we could have ever imagined! New ideas develop and renewed excitement and energy! As you may recall from my solo trip in Sept...there was a restructuring and re organization of all of our projects under the local CBO/NGO Community Foundation for Development (CFD). This team is visiting the dream of Hope 2 One Life ...post war recovery empowerment and sustainability models to multiple villages and areas in northern Uganda, the prior killing fields of the LRA war. What an honor and a privilege it is to have this veteran team with me giving feedback and advice - sharing talents I couldn't even dream of!! Tom Osborne, Hope 2 One Life board member, hydrologist "water specialist" and wife Angie, a nurse and lover of children; Brenda Gilmore nurse practitioner, VHT program starter and trainer, paper bead craft and tailoring projects starter and trainer for many years!! Carol Stanley, nurse and our "Ja Ja" ...visionary of the Emmanuel clinic and dreamer, believer we can and should help make lives better no matter who how or what. Just do it!" They are all massive prayer warriors! This team and service, selflessness ...Humbles me immensely and I am forever grateful for their service, sacrifice and love love love!! There are so so many friends who spend tireless energy at home volunteering and living from afar - H20 board members and project designers, financial accounters, planners, advisors - Ranae Parker, Steph Bond, Leigh Taggart, Bill Hart, Dulcy Niemella, assistant Diane Hart. Many volunteers, supporters and donors - event coordinators and committee members for our annual fundraisers - Spaghetti Dinner and Auction and World Water Day - Walk for Water. Thank you all! Each and every one of you has made a big difference! Our gratitude runs deeply and will never be forgotten. Keep also in mind none of this could be accomplished without our trusted and loyal ugandan partners and friends on the ground! CFD founder and Ugandan director, Terence Acaye; Denis Odong, graduate from Makere University in Development studies; Bosco Tolit graduate from Mbarara University in Development studies and Mariel Rieland, our good friend, developer of the current VHT Manuel and trainer who now works with women's training and projects at the Akola Project in Jinja. This allows our work to continue throughout the year - we are forever grateful!! Bosco and Denis have trained with Tom and all of our teams on water projects, bio sand water filters, drip irrigation, farming, crafts, and have been our team escorts Year after year, since 2007. Tom, Angie, Leigh and Matt sponsored Denis thru his university studies. Our friends, The Jacques, also sponsored Bosco. As relayed by Tom Osborne, ". I'd like to introduce followers of our Uganda mission trip to these two remarkable young men, O'dong Denis and Bosco Tolit. Both are recent graduates of Makerere University and now work for Ugandan NGOs we support (Incl our partner org CFD). They are among the first of their families and clans to attend and graduate with college degrees. They chose to return to their homeland of northern Uganda and apply their new skills and energies to improving the lives of people still struggling to recover from the infamous LRA war. They are implementing a wide array of projects including safe drinking water, women's micro businesses, rural health outreach, crafts, tailoring and more. With them on the ground progress is now being made year-round. We salute them and we love them."
Terence was the founder of the Kitgum infant orphan care center, our partner and friend since we met in 2006. Mariel interned with me and Hope 2 One Life while at SPU, we have travelled many times together in uganda. She volunteers her time in between her work with akola project to train VHT's. this also keeps things moving between our trips! So grateful! Her parents are also special friends and supporters of Hope 2 One Life. Through all of this and years of faith, not really knowing how it will all work or turn out - following God's call and will, with great humility I pray - years of perseverance by all, a foundation of trust and loyalty has been formed through the love of God, while sharing the love. Music to my soul as unity abounds. Glory be to God! May this set the stage for the posts to come...which we feel is a major breakthrough in the potential for this post war recovery community development. This is also accomplished with a very small working budget of approx $50,000 or less in donations, fundraising and grants and an all volunteer organization. Just think what we could do with even more...oh to find a large grant would be fabulous, God willing ...community development is not easy, takes a long time and hardly ever funded (which is likely why most NGOs don't do it). Still I believe it is the only way out of the extreme poverty we have encountered. Even with this veteran team...they were brought to tears by witnessing the extremes of poverty in villages we visited...(which to me and the ugandans who visit often are so much better than prior visits!). I believe...so we will carry on...come along my friends as we share this journey of faith and love....and Hope 2 One Life...that ripples to many many more....
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