Love and Hope

A child never experiencing real love or hope has less chance of succeeding in life, especially in a community like ours.  Most of the time life is only focused on what you will eat that day and hours are spent trying to find your next meal.  Your entire life is looking for food and water and trying to just exist.

Our goal is to find these homeless children, get them off the streets but always with the intention of finding next of kin.  In the meantime we bring them into a warm loving home, feed them, teach them life skills and just love them to death.  To date we have 11 children with only 2 having 90+ grandparents.  In the short time we have been open, the changes are something I personally would never have imagined.  They've learned survival skills from the aunties; learned to grow crops successfully; take care of each other; teach others about God and to believe in themselves.

One year ago, these same children brought home their report cards.  Nothing above a 40% and as low
as 11%.  One year later, they came home with their grades again.  We had a meeting to discuss their results and to our shock.....nothing under 50% with most scores within the 80%-90% range.  Our little Saika who we recently took out of the garbage dumps scored almost everything in the 90's.  That's what happens with God in their lives and having hope and love in this home.

These children have never had a birthday party before.  Edwin and I decided to let them decorate the grass hut, blow up the balloons and decorate two big cakes we made with our new ovens.  Everyone had a small bag of frosting and attempted to make flowers.  The results were amazing and very tasty.
They have now decided to celebrate this special day by having one family birthday party a year.

This was their first cake and they loved every morsel, but the fun was making it themselves.

Our 1000 layers are doing very well with only 5 more weeks before we start to see them laying.  It will be part of the children's chores to collect the eggs but with knowing they will get an egg a day, I'm sure it will be done with a smile.  Thanks to David we have also been blessed to have a market for selling them daily.

Our broiler chicks are growing fast.  We have decided since the there is a high demand for good chickens for Christmas dinner, we are going to sell them where we can get the most profit.  The ones left will be bought by one buyer.

We would like to thank Marlaina once again for her monthly gift of food to Jaaja.  Every Sunday the children help an elderly person but this particular day we found out Jaaja was at his friend's burial.
This is Marian's 98 year old grandpa and we will be making it a priority to go back soon and help him do his chores.

We were very happy to host Dan and Mimi at our Home of Angels.  Dan was a huge inspiration for Edwin, teaching him about the chicken business and offering his help to set up spreadsheets to keep track of our business.  We visited Edwin's father in the village and he showed us the land he is letting us use for raising the 200 goats that were donated by Thomas.  What a blessing

Meet Emily who came to visit us from Word of Life in Entebbe.  Emily resides in my hometown and is currently helping teach at Word of Life.  We were so happy to have her here for a few days to help both the children and myself.  Thank you Emily for helping the kids get their shoes for Bible camp.  We love you.

We were also happy to have Miranda come for a visit.  We only had one full day with her but we packed a lot of activities in to give her the feel of our Home of Angels and our community.  By the way, we now have 2 Aunties with the same dress and they are loving being twins here.  

Thanks Mir for all the gifts you bought from your church with you....we are finding the best homes for them all. 

Alan has a new suit for church.  I have to tell you....it's amazing here.  Our kids all go to Sunday school with many other children.  We have street children that come in dirty clothes, we have children from the richer part of town or just the orphans like our kids.  No matter who, clothes are not the issue here.  Clothes are never an issue.  Everyone helps each other and everyone learns about Jesus.  And yes, I certainly do have a sewing project on my hands here.

Our gardens are thriving.  We have everything from green peppers, cucumbers, maize, kale, spinach and so much more.  We have all the passion fruit in now and even a guava and jackfruit tree.

Our little Joseph is the head gardner.  He seems to be able to produce anything but his biggest thrill was to plant the cucumbers.  Every time they get big enough, he brings one to each brother and sister.  Two years ago we almost lost this little one twice in one week.  Today he is healthy and happy.  I again attribute this to "love" and "hope".

Miranda bought gifts from the Sunday school at the Baptist Church in Princeton B.C.  The children had made paper bag hats for our kids with their names on them. What a nice gesture from these children as it meant so much to our kids that others around the world cared   enough to do that.

Happy faces

We have so many happy events happening at the moment in our Home of Angels.  We know that God is with us in a big way as all our dreams are starting to come true.  Yes, we still have a long way to go but we know in our hearts, it will happen.  One day we will have our second home built, 30+ more children off the streets and our sustainability programs in full operation.  The biggest success are these children who we can see are starting to grow into leaders at this young age.

Thanks everyone for sharing this dream to help the helpless.