Team Uganda Update – Part 1

WOW – where to even begin?!

These past 3 days have been action packed, hence the reason you haven’t heard from me yet. I am going to try to recap everything for you here, although these few words won’t even come close to describing all that we have seen and experienced in this short time.

We arrived really late on Friday night and got settled into our first place and in the bed around 11-12pm. We were up and on the road at 9am and went to the Greenhouse Orphanage. Our team LOVED it there. It was the perfect place to start our time in Uganda because it was so action-packed. Jet lag had NO chance with us that day. : )  We arrived to children singing and welcoming us to their place. They haven’t had visitors in several weeks so they were so excited to see us. Once we were welcomed, we got a tour of the place and learned about the history of Greenhouse. Quite amazing that Kevin, the founder, was actually an orphan himself at an early age and started the orphanage when he was 16 years old. Now he is 24 years old and cares for about 70 children along with his wife and other volunteers. It was evident that those children were loved. They were so joyful and loved spending time with us! We broke up into groups; several of us joined the children and cooked various dishes for lunch and the others set up a volleyball net that we brought as a gift and played outside (along with other sports and arts/crafts). We had an amazing lunch with them and then walked down a dirt road to a nearby community field where we had races and other games. We laughed our heads off as three teams competed in wheelbarrow races, one-leg hops, crab walks and izzy dizzy. : )  However, leaving was a different story. The kids didn’t give us a “typical” orphan departure experience. Instead of closing off toward the end of the day because they knew we were leaving and acting apathetic, they were crying and very sad as we started loading up the bus. It took a while to finally say goodbyes because we didn’t want to leave, but we eventually pulled ourselves away. There wasn’t a single dry eye of those on our team. Super hard experience to go through, so we are trying to figure out how to process that and see what God wants to do in us as a result.

Team Haiti – Finishing Strong

This will be the last update from Team Haiti. We will be heading out in just over 24 hours, so I wanted to update you on the last couple of days in country to tell you about our eventful week.

Since our last email, we have been blessed to experience many good things and have been able to walk alongside so many people in a tangible way to meet needs throughout the city. It has been such a pleasure working with this team. Everyone here has a heart of gold and has been working feverishly to extend God’s grace in its various forms.

We spent two days working with a couple of creches, homes that prepare children for adoption. Our team fell in love with those kiddos. It was all I could do to not let them pack a few in their suitcases to bring them home. : ) The great thing, though, is that both of the homes were very nice and are sending a lot of children to forever homes from their facilities. We got to hear many stories of how they rescued these children from dumpsters, from hospitals where mothers had abandoned them, etc. Such stories of compassion for the least of these, including many of the orphans who are living with physical or mental disabilities!  We have been so encouraged by their stories of faith this week as they have been trusting God for years to help them care for hundreds of orphans along the way. 

The Attack of Disease

Blog post by Lauren P., Team Haiti 2011

 Here in the United States, you can find a health clinic or a hospital on almost every street corner.  If we are sick or ill we make our way to the closest drug store for some over the counter medicine or call the doctor’s office for an appointment.  It is that easy and convenient.  We take ibuprofen and Tylenol for granted.  We don’t know what suffering is.  Unrelenting pain is foreign to us.  Disease frightens us but we place our faith in medical teams and staff.  We are blessed to have this kind of access to care.  We forget about our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering from horrible diseases. 

How Diseases are Affecting Orphaned Children

Blog post by Heidi G., Team Haiti 2011

There are many diseases that take the lives of parents living in poverty around the world. This causes their children to become orphans, and then these same diseases also plague the children. The most common of these are HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and diarrhea-related illnesses.

A Dollar a Day Challenge

Lacey Howe, recent Journey 117 team member, felt challenged to learn what it truly means to live in poverty. Check out this video she made along with friend Amanda Walton to watch their Journey.