Week Two 26 May – 1 June

This week started home visits….we have over 300 home visits to complete. It’s a lot of work but it is something that we feel is important. It’s so important to be able to tell each of our sponsors that we have visited the homes, we have sat with their families and we know their circumstances. We see some good homes with parents who truly care about their kids and want what is best for them. We also see some bad homes where there is abuse, alcoholism, and desertion. We see strong mothers that are working hard to provide for their families and to make up for the missing father. We see extreme poverty, sickness, and more. But the two most important things we see is perseverance and hope.

We see change in the families who have been in our program for some time. One of the questions we ask during home visits is “What challenges are you facing?” We have asked this question for years, and this year, so many of the families told us they did not have any challenges anymore. One father told us, “because of the support you have given me, now I can provide for my family.” Those are the moments that keep us going.

Other home visits level us. One family we visited reminded us of the need in the community we serve, but also reminded us of the amazing selflessness and generosity they have. Their circumstances were dire and they needed help as a family, but that didn’t stop them from taking what little they did have and sharing it with us. I have said it before and I will continue to say it, I have learned more from this community than they have learned from me.

Often we get asked if we work with orphanages or if the children we serve are adoptable. Our focus and our goal for Project Yesu is keeping families together, providing support, empowering the community and giving them hope for a future. The families we serve are amazing people, most are hard working and want to be able to provide for their families, they just need a way forward to do so.

We spent time with the ladies in our tailoring program and, let me tell you, they are rocking it. It amazes me to watch them make beautiful dresses and shirts without a pattern and sometimes without any measurements but yet, they come out perfectly and fit great. Just more proof that the people of Uganda are amazingly talented. Back in November we invited our friend Evelyn, who runs a ministry in Kampala that trains and employs widows and single mothers, to come train our ladies in tailoring. She worked with them for about a week and, by the end of their training, these ladies were pros. Thanks to our generous sponsors, each of the 302 children in our sponsorship program will be getting a new dress or outfit handmade by these amazing ladies when they come home for break in August. I can’t wait to see them wearing their new clothes!

A lesson we learned a few years into working here is to take time off to refresh our minds and bodies, and also to spend time with our friend and family here. So we loaded up the van and headed to Prayer Mountain outside of Jinja with our 2 amazing social workers and their families. The views were breathtaking and the company was even better. We had a great day walking the grounds, talking and spending time together. Sunday it was off to church where we got to catch up with some friends, hear a great message and fill our souls. Now we are recharged and ready for another week!