World Mission - Uganda

Uganda
Support of the orphans, students at the Diocesan Training Centre and special projects in Bunyoro-Kitara, our link diocese in Uganda

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Newsletter: 5 January 2009

Lots of Photos!

5 January 2009

Dear friend of Bunyoro-Kitara,

Greetings and New Year's Blessing from all of us here in Hoima and Bunyoro-Kitara Diocese. We all pray that your Christmas and new year season has been as wonderfully blessed and joyful as ours has been.

As you know this is my third Christmas and new year season e-mail for this year. I pray that they have not become tiresome and boring. It is just that so many wonderful things have occurred here in Bunyoro-Kitara since 16 December and I wanted each one of you to be able to see and share with us the Lord's incomprehensible love in action.

I have attached a fairly large number of photos to this e-mail because I am certain that they will be significantly more revealing to you than my words could ever be.

First of all I want to try and describe three wonderful blessings that I have received since the new year began:

The Azur Christian Health Center Maternity Ward

Our new Azur Christian Health Center Maternity Ward delivered its first new child of 2009 into the world very early in the morning on 1 January. The new baby is beautiful and perfectly healthy, she is the fourth child of her mother and she weighed 4.7 pounds. One other note regarding the maternity ward that I think is amazing is the fact that, thanks be to friends in the UK, we are now delivering between 100 and 130 new babies into the world each and every month.

Justine and Mary - two lost sisters found

Last Monday, 29 December, I received a phone call from a woman in Kampala who wanted to come to Hoima to talk with me about the Peragiya Integrated Babies' Home. Over the phone I couldn't tell whether or not the woman was British or a British educated Ugandan, but I told her I would be glad to meet her. We decided that the following Friday morning she would come to Hoima and that I would meet her at the bus park. Over the phone, she sounded like an older woman and I assumed that she wanted to talk about how the babies' home became a reality. The following Friday morning when I met her at the bus park I was surprised to find out that she was a very beautiful young Ugandan woman. I was concerned, because I assumed that she had traveled to Hoima to ask for a job at the babies' home that we could not afford; and as we rode out to Grace House I was trying to think of a kind way of telling her that we could not afford to give her a job. However, when arrived at Grace House and sat down to talk she gave me a wonderful Christmas blessing.

This is her story: Her name is Justine, she is 27 years old and when she was seven years old her mother died and her father abandoned her. By the grace of God she was adopted by a poor, but loving family in Buhimba who raised her as though she was one of their own children. She did fantastically well in the Buhimba primary school and was blessed to receive a scholarship to study in a very good private school in Kampala. In Kampala, because of her excellent school marks, she was blessed to receive a scholarship to travel to the UK to attend a very good private senior secondary school and when she completed her senior secondary education she was blessed to also receive her university education in the UK. She went on to tell me that she had just married a wonderful Ugandan man in Britain and that in mid-February she would travel to Canada to live and work with her new husband. If my story were to end now I believe that it would be an absolutely amazing story; but the story just gets better.

She explained to me that on 23 December she met an old woman in Kampala, who had known her when she was a child. This old woman told her that she had a sister. Prior to this revelation Justine never knew that she had a sister or that this unknown sister now lived deep in the bush outside Nalweyo. On 26 December Justine traveled from Kampala to the Peragiya Integrated Babies' Home to meet her nine-year-old sister for the first time. She cried as told me how overwhelmed, emotional and tearful they both were to have found each other; and, to have found out that they were not alone in the world. Apparently, their father, a drunk, had found another woman who had borne Justine's half-sister, Mary, many years after Justine went to live in Kampala. Mary is a very beautiful young girl who we all love very much and who has performed brilliantly well in boarding school here in Hoima, and for the last two semesters has been ranked first or second in her class of 60 students.

Some of you may recall that, thanks be to the love of friends from my high school graduating class, Mary was one of the first five Peragiya children that we were able to bring to Hoima to attend boarding school. Now thanks to a very good friend in Canada we have been able to bring an additional four of Peregiya's children to Hoima to attend boarding school.

I pray that this story is as special to you as it is to me. Only God, through those who have been touched by our Lord could have ever made this wonder a reality.

Sharon

Many of you will recall the story of Sharon, a tiny young girl who I first met in Hoima Hospital in September 2006. Very early one morning lay-reader Karen, who works with us in the computer school hospital ministry, came to me in tears to tell me about a tragic little three-year-old girl who had just been admitted into the Hoima Regional Referral Hospital. Sharon had nearly been beaten to death by her own stepmother, who after a three week delay, had finally brought Sharon to the hospital with two broken legs, two broken arms, three broken ribs, two burst ear drums and a seriously fractured skull. I have never seen a more tragically broken and helpless child. When we talked with the Hoima surgeons they told us that Sharon was beyond help and that they would just try to keep her medicated until she died. Needless to say we were outraged that no help was to be given to this tiny girl. We enlisted the help of Bishop Nathan and we decided to send Sharon to Kampala for treatment over the strong objections of the local medical authorities.

Because of the month long delay in Sharon's treatment there was very little that the Kampala surgeons could do; however, they were able keep Sharon alive; and to relieve her of much of her pain. Eventually, we were able to bring Sharon back to Hoima and with the help of Bishop Nathan we found a wonderful woman who gladly took on the responsibility of raising a severely handicapped child.

I had not seen Sharon for about ten months, but last Monday when I was out looking at land with Simon Muhinda we decided to stop by and say hello to Sharon and her new mother, Veronica. When we came up we found Veronica sitting in the shade of a tree talking to two other women. After we said our hellos Veronica sent a little boy to get Sharon. The next thing I knew there was a beautiful little girl awkwardly running up to me to jump up into my arms to give me a big hug. I can't tell you how wonderful that hug was, but I knew that I was truly blessed.

I know that sometimes most of us become so discouraged and distressed at all of the problems, pain and suffering that we see going on all around us that our eyes become blinded to the abundant love of God that is also clearly visible all around us. Then God gives us something as wonderful as a Sharon to remind that he is always there and that he loves us in spite of our blindness.

Sharon is truly a living miracle and testament to the love and power and majesty of our Lord.

Bishop Nathan's Third Annual Children's Day Celebration

On Saturday 3 January, at about 9.00 am, Bunyoro-Kitara Diocese held Bishop Nathan's third annual children's day celebration. Hundreds and hundreds of children from all over the diocese began the day with prayers, praise and joyful noises in a full to overflowing St Peter's Cathedral. Actually the day began much earlier for the children who were all eager for the huge celebration to begin. By 6.15 am many of our St Peter's Cathedral sunday school children had begun to arrive at Grace House and by 7.00 am over two hundred children were all over the compound playing and changing into their children's choir uniforms.

As soon as the prayers, thanksgiving and opening services had concluded at St Peter's Cathedral all of the children formed up into a quarter mile long parade of children to march down to Bishop Nathan's home for the festivities.

Without a doubt, this year's celebration was, by far, the best we have ever had. The bishop's team did an outstanding job of planning and organizing the day; and the execution of the plan was nearly flawless. I was very proud of all of those who worked with the bishop to make this wonderful day a reality for our children. One other enormous blessing that played a huge role in making this day such an astounding success was a fantastic gift of financial support that one of our churches in the US gave to our children. This wonderful gift made it possible for the church to be able to provide all of the children with a huge feast and with the gift of a personal toy for each and everyone of the hundreds of children who were in attendance.

I have decided that rather than my attempt to describe the festivities it would be best for me to try and tell the story in pictures.

the first new mother and child born in our AZUR Clinic in 2009

sisters Justine and Mary

photos (September 2006 and December 2008) of Sharon

one of the children's singing groups at St Peter's Cathedral

children filling St Peter's Cathedral during the opening prayer and praise

beginning of the children's march to the bishop's home from St Peter's

the opening ceremony at the bishop's home

a poorly joined composite photo of the bishop's front yard

one of our children's singing groups singing for the crowd

The festivities included a local contemporary praise and worship singing team - in this photo the whole crowd, including Bishop Nathan, eagerly scrambled out of their seats to dance together in praise of the Lord.

All of children from the Parishes attending the celebration had an opportunity to perform for the huge crowd, and they were all fantastic! However, in my opinion this little girl named Fiona was the absolute star performer. She was really fantastic!!

The Thanksgiving Feast for the Hoima Regional Referral Hospital Staff

Our final event of this year's Christmas/new-year season will occur this Wednesday, 7 January, at the Hoima Regional Referral Hospital. For the first time our hospital ministry is going to come together with senior representatives of Bunyoro-Kitara Diocese to thank each member of the hospital staff for what they are doing to care for and heal the sick and injured and disabled here in Bunyoro-Kitara.

Yours in Jesus
Thad

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