Friday, September 11, 2015

The Hope Within

For the few years that I've been a Christian, my life has been a roller coaster.  Someone recently said to me "Stop looking outside of yourself for the strength to carry on and start looking to Jesus...He will carry you through" and that is exactly what has happened.  He has carried me through.  He lives in me and without Him, I could never make this all work from my side of the world.  Edwin feels the same way and relies solely on His strength too.  Just wanted to share that.

Lets go to Uganda.  The amazing things that are happening in our Home of Angels are more than words can express.  We have 7 new little ones since January and one more to come before 2016.  The latest being a 2 year old little girl named Stella.  It works perfectly.  Because we have developed a home and a family, the older kids take it upon themselves to help the little ones which allows the aunties to do their duties also.  They all work as a team and from what I saw this past month, it is an amazing home full of love.  I can't wait to go back in December and really excited that we may have the opportunity of hosting a team from my church for a few days while I am there.

In the meantime we have lots of work to do.  Between working on a website and speaking everywhere from schools to shopping centres, like is busy.  The 700 Club in the United States showed our story when I was in Uganda (link below) which brought many of our US friends into our journey.

Can you imagine being almost 70 years old and having all this to look forward too?  Exciting......




"John's John" is almost finished.  All we need is a paint job and the marble plaque installed to thank the Ames Family Foundation for their donation to build it.




Meet our new kids Lovisa, Eva, Sam, Maureen, Ivan, Bridget and Yasin.  The only one missing is our newest child, Stella.  I promised them to thank you Northview for the Bibles you gave them, so a big "Thanks" from Uganda.




This is our newest little one....Stella.  She is 2 years old and has no other relatives other than a 75 year old very sick grandma.  They both have been homeless and Stella needs to have a home where she is cared for and not on the streets.  Grandma was so grateful she would have a home now as she can't physically look after her anymore.




Aunty Joy receiving the kid's milk for the day.




Lunch time.....Mariam is handing out hard boiled eggs to the little ones with aunty Joy serving the
lunch at the same time.





This trip to Uganda was short but very "fruitful".  I met a man on the plane from Vancouver that lives also in Kampala and owns Amfri Organic Farms, the biggest organic farms in Uganda.  He visited us with his team and later took Edwin and I to see one of his operations outside Kampala.  It was absolutely amazing to see over 1000 acres full of every fruit and spice available for the markets around the world.  The car was filled with fruits for the kids when Edwin arrived home and the children were so grateful.  Thank you Nazim.




Every morning there are chores to do.  Maureen, Bridget and Lovisa are now best friends and do it together always laughing and singing.




It's hard to believe that these two beauties were just recently little girls struggling to smile.
They may be the oldest but without them, I can't imagine. They teach the new little ones how
to work and assist the aunties whenever they are needed.




This is Doctor John Paul, a specialist in malnutrition.  We have been blessed to know him as he
has helped Edwin so many times with our own children needing medical treatment.  Our little Ivan with Kwashiorkor has suffered so much in his little life.  Doctor John Paul comes to our Home of Angels to help him and finds us Plumpy Nut to feed him for his strength.  We are so blessed to have people in our lives that we have both in Canada and in Uganda and will never take it for granted.




The staff, guards and children came together the other night to prepare a big dinner with the Jesus video to be shown after.  Over 100 adults came which was out of the normal.  Usually many children would arrive but not this time.  Food was served, a prayer was said by a guest to say thanks and also for the opportunity to see a real Jesus video in their language.  Three hours later, everyone went home happy.  For those who wanted Bibles, we were able to give them one thanks to a wonderful donor in Canada.


The following is the link to the 700 Club.  This video was made by my church when we were in the early stages of building.

http://700clubinteractive.cbn.com/piece-banana-bread-changing-lives-uganda


Thank you once again for all your donations, prayers and encouragement.





1 comment:

  1. I always read your updates Barb, you are doing amazing work. I think of you often & hope you & Edwin are well. Simone X

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