Last week was my first complete week and it was a busy one. We traveled to two villages to organize groups for teaching Imagine Acts Ministry book series. We go to the villages, meet with one or two people we have worked with in the past and have them “mobilize” the other villagers to meet with us on the next visit. We will return next Wed. to the village of Gema and then on Sunday to a village near Nama. Last Sat. and again today, four of us went to the village of Kiraku, where one of the youngest disciples of I AM has had an on-going Bible study.
The group has not stayed together well and we are trying to revive it. We did have a couple more today and 6 children. We had a good study on the first five verses of Ps. 103 and used the book on Creation to supplement and discuss. We had previously taught the book to the JaJa, the grandmother , when I was here in Sept.
We began planning our first tasks we will begin at the orphanage. We had a plumber go out and give an estimate on repairing the water cisterns. We had hoped to have the money to repair at least the one for the hostel(dorm) for the children. We have enough to repair all of the three cisterns at the orphanage and the work will begin next Wed. We should be “catching” water when the rainy season starts in March. Second task is to make new gardens and improve and work existing gardens. We have engaged one of our church members, a Congolese man who is a great gardener to instruct the children, plan the gardens and the planting, and supervise the work. The ground is very hard from neglect and it has been suggested that we hire 10 prisoners to work three days breaking up the ground. We will have to purchase the hoes and the machetes and pay about $55.00 for the three days of work. Planting will begin in mid Feb. in anticipation of March rains. We will be growing potatoes, eggplants, beans, a root plant they eat here and maybe some other vegetables. We will begin work on the old chicken coop which is on the premises. One of our IAM workers will be the supervisor and trainer of that project. Although he is only 20, he is experienced in raising chicks and is a faithful worker. He will have two or three of the orphans to help him. Meanwhile, I will arrange with Tonny, one of I AM workers, to get a work crew together to do general clean up of all the trash on the grounds. It is pretty bad.
Some of the children from the orphanage have gone to relatives homes during the holiday and school break, so there are only a few remaining; however, some university students who are home from school reside there during holiday. School will begin on first or second of Feb.
I am satisfied that we are off to a good start. We will be providing income for at least three and stimulating the Ugandan economy!Thanks to everyone who donated to these causes.
Monday, I leave to travel to Kampala, the capitol to meet with the artist for the books and the printer. We will then travel north to Mukono where we will meet with the Associational Director of the Baptist churches of Mukono to plan for training, teaching, and distribution of the books. We leave Mukono in the afternoon and head to Jinja where we will drop Henry Lutwama off for his three week session at the Ugandan Baptist Seminary and I will spend the night with the Academic Dean of the UBS and his wife. Tuesday morning, Henry and I will have the opportunity to teach a class of the incoming pastors on our book series, our teaching methods, and training. We will distribute books for the pastors to take back to their churches and villages all over Ugandan and 5 other countries bordering Uganda. We are very excited about this opportunity and hope to return for each rotating class of pastors during the next three months.
I welcome your comments and suggestions. Thanks for your interest in the work of Imagine Acts Ministry in Uganda.