Welcome Home!

     Hi there! My name is Meaghan Ranz, and I am so blessed to be a part of the Family and Human Services part of our team. I have been overwhelmed by how close our team has become these past few weeks! This week we were working in an orphanage called Welcome Home. There are about 65 beautiful children from birth-6 who live there. They are loved and cared for by amazing staff who are dedicated to serving through hard work. 

     I personally loved spending time with a few children in particular. There is a little boy who has severe medical needs that affect his brain which prevents verbal communication, and he is in a full leg cast. I spent a lot of time sitting with him and exchanging songs, noises, and kisses on the cheek. There was also a boy who was brought into the orphanage on our last day. He had cuts all over his ears and face. All I could do was hold him tightly, pray fervently that he would know that he is loved by me, and most importantly, by Jesus Christ. 

     The Lord is good to bring us encouragement, joy and laughter in the best and worst days alike. He is faithful and is teaching us more and more as time goes on! Thank you for your prayer and support. We are so blessed to be a part of the Lord's work here in Uganda, particularly within the orphanages that we work in.

Week Two Education Team!!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to begin by saying thank you to all of you that have supported us and have been faithfully praying for us! I would ask you to continue to do so as our team enters the last full week of our time here in Uganda. My name is Rachel Williams, and I will be giving you an update on the education team. This past week, the education team worked at Masese Co Primary School which is located on a hill in Jinja, Uganda that overlooks the city and Lake Victoria. The location was beautiful. Each JBU student teacher was assigned a Ugandan teacher and class for the week. The transition to this school was more difficult than we expected. The welcome we received was less enthusiastic than the welcome we received at Bolawoli Primary School; however, we eventually made good connections with our teachers. At the end of the week, we even received African names (mine is Muwanika in case you were wondering). The facilities at this school were pretty decent although many of the students came from an extremely poor area located at the bottom of the hill. An outside organization fed the students from the school and the children from the community at breakfast and lunch time everyday. It was a blessing for these students to be able to have two guaranteed meals every school day!

 We thoroughly enjoyed our interactions with the students and staff throughout the week. Thankfully, both our team and the Ugandans were able to understand accents more clearly due to the school being located in the city. Something that many members of our education have been dealing with is the lasting impact of our time here in the schools. The students here learn predominantly through direct instruction and through the repetition of facts given to them. Little critical or higher level thinking has taken place in the classrooms in which we have been placed. Our team has struggled with how to help this situation since the Ugandan educators would need to make adjustments in their educational practices for lasting changes to occur.

We have truly enjoyed spending time with the students and teachers! We have had the opportunity to teach the students, get to know them, and partake in fun activities such as singing and playing games with them. The school even created a program filled with singing and dancing to present to us on the day of our departure from the school. Just simply seeing the smile on a child's face that we are interacting with can make our whole day! I would ask that you would pray for us to have strength as we begin teaching at a new school this week. Please pray that we would be the hands and feet of Christ to all that we come in contact with.

Blessings,
Rachel Williams

Education Team Update!

First off, I would like to say it has been such a blessing to be a part of this amazing team here in Uganda and working alongside some wonderful individuals. We are incredibly thankful for the prayers and support we have been receiving from family and friends! If you haven’t recently checked our updates, we have arrived in Jinja and have officially started our work here. For the past ten days, we lived in Kamuli and our teams worked in the community.

My name is KaLee Holloway and I am one of seven individuals who are a part of the education team here in Uganda. It has been such a joy to be in the schools so far, learning from both the teachers and the students. Our team didn’t really know what to expect our first week in the schools, but we were very excited to jump in and start working alongside the teachers.

            We had the pleasure of attending Balawoli Primary School in Kamuli our first week in Uganda. The staff, teachers, and students were extremely welcoming and accepted us with open arms. Our team absolutely fell in love with the kids we were able to interact with. Each of us got paired with a teacher based on our area of interest or emphasis. Throughout the week, we taught lessons in the classrooms, played games with the kids, and participated in a multitude of songs and dances.

            At first, it was difficult in the classrooms because of the language barrier. It can be discouraging at times when attempting to teach a lesson and our accent prohibits us from connecting with the students. However, the more we engaged with the students, the easier it became, and we were able to build relationships!

Teaching is hands down one of the greatest joys and it has been our pleasure to teach here in Uganda. We have started teaching in Jinja and we are excited to continue to share our journey with you! 

We have had many adventures so far and we can't wait to see what else God has in store for us during our time here.

Blessings,

KaLee Holloway 

Orphanage team update

Hello family and friends!

This is the Family and Human Services group reporting live from Jinja, Uganda! We have missed you all, and are so excited to update you <3 We are pumped to report that we are back in civilization where wifi, hot showers, and toilets are accessible J However, we are by no means complaining; the simple ways of life forced our group to bond and created hilarious moments that you will soon here about. We also loved staying on Momma Bishop’s compound! She is so incredibly sweet, and her staff spoiled us beyond belief.

We loved our time in Kamuli! We worked at a school called Maria’s Care, which hosts 360 students. The school boards around 150 of the students who are orphans. They also have a deaf unit, which has 50 students currently enrolled. We worked Monday through Friday, around seven hours a day!

When we toured the campus, we noticed that the boys in particular were living in terrible conditions. The walls in their room were extremely dirty, and the drywall was flaking off the wall. We also discovered termites, broken windows, and a horrible stench.  These things broke all of our hearts, so we decided to give back by cleaning and repainting the walls! The project was much bigger than we originally scoped it out to be, but was so much fun! We managed to finish on the last day, just in time. We played with the kids while they were on breaks in between classes and worked on our painting project while the kids were in class. The kids were all so sweet and we thoroughly enjoyed loving on them throughout the week. Our energy was completely drained by the end of the week, but our hearts were filled with so much joy.

We are so thankful that God chose us as an outlet for his work. Thank you to all who supported us and who are still supporting us as we carry out our mission in Africa.

                                                                                                -Taryn and Becca

Welcome to JINJA!

As I am sure you all know, WE’VE MADE IT TO JINJA!!!  We were absolutely and completely blessed to be able to stay at Momma Bishop’s this last week.  Her and her staff served us beyond what we deserved.  The food was incredible, the fruit was so, SO tasty, and we all now know how to hunt for mangos thanks to our bus driver Raj. J

            My name is Meghan Scholtens and I am one of the seven a part of the medical team.  For this past week we have been working in the Kamuli District Hospital in Kamuli.  While we were there we met many fantastic medical staff.  Many of them were nursing and medical students that were our age so it was really interesting to be able to talk to them about their schooling.  We will eventually have more training and schooling than them, but for now they know much more about treatment and physical medicine than we do.  We were also introduced to many of the head nurses of the different wards at the hospital.  We became especially close to two nurses in the maternity ward named Anita and Mary because we enjoyed spending time there . . . I think I can say for us all this was our favorite ward. J 

            We all witnessed at least one live birth and 2 of us witnessed a C-section.  It was amazing to be able to see these things because none of us had ever witnessed a birth before.  And I can also say that African women are beasts!  I don’t think they feel pain.  They are just amazing people!

            But along with this beauty came a lot of hurt.  Just from sharing with each other what we saw each day, I can tell you we all walked away from that hospital with a heavy heart.  We saw a part of the worst side of humanity and we’ll never forget that, but I believe we all have a new appreciation for modern medicine.

            If you want to know more about specific things we’ve seen and experiences we’ve had any of us are willing to talk about it, but I definitely can’t cover everything here.  J

            Thank you all for the prayers and support you are all sending us.  We definitely appreciate it and can’t wait to share more with you.  God bless!    

-Meghan :)

Roadtrip

Hello everyone!

We are currently eating at a restaurant in Jinja that has WIFI, so we're taking this opportunity to say that we are doing well :)

We left the inn around 10am and have been traveling through the bustling streets on our way from Entebbe to Kamuli.

God bless!

- the Uganda team

Hello, Uganda!

After hours of traveling, we have officially arrived in Uganda! We are staying at a hotel in Entebbe and will leave for Kamuli tomorrow morning. 

After tonight, we will not have access to internet for 10 days. We will update as soon as possible!

-Uganda Team