MAKING SOAP FOR ORPHANS

Pictures above: 1. boys from orphanage making second batch of soap; 2. Rita bottling first batch of soap in my kitchen. 3. Peter, Timo, and Rita stirring and testing Ph in first batch; 4. Rita stirring first batch on my veranda.

While we were in Kampala last week, Peter and I drove to Mukono about 45 minutes away to visit with Pastor Godfrey and his wife Anne. Pastor Godfrey is the Mukono Baptist Association Director and we have been visiting with him since January. Anne kindly sold me her recipe for making liquid soap and gave us instructions on where in Kampala to purchase all of the necessary chemicals, dyes, and perfume. Peter and I picked everything up on our way back through Kampala and on Thursday, Rita, a nineteen-year old orphan, and Peter and Timo and I made our first batch. On Friday, Rita and I bottled 65 bottles of soap and 8 orphans came later to make the second batch. We didn't get it bottled yet, but expect to get another 65 from that batch. The children loved the adventure of making the soap and they told me today that they had used it for washing the clothes. It is an all-purpose soap for bathing, washing clothes and dishes and mopping the floor. The older students loved the chemistry of the experiment and testing the Ph with the litmus paper. (that test failed to reach the desired color for either batch, but hopefully that won't cause any major skin irritations!) Who knows, maybe we can start selling it to raise some small amount for the orphanage. Unfortunately, the people here are not accustomed to liquid soap, so we may have a difficult time retraining them!! Making the soap should be more cost-efficient for the many uses at the orphange. We'll see. It was fun and everyone entered in!! And an extra bonus---I was able to recycle some of my saved water bottles. The American in me cannot bear to throw those away to be burned, so hundreds are stacked in the garage of the main house!!

May 16,2009

Pictures: top: George Nelson hearing the Creation book taught by Timo

2nd: Terese's heel

3rd: Dan Douglas washing foot, my friend Salome, and I one Sunday afternoon while Timo was teaching the book

bottom: Dan caring for the foot

On Tuesday, May 12, Peter, Dan Douglas and I took our friend, Terese to the International Hospital in Kampala. This is the best hospital in Kampala and they have a charity ward, Hope Ward, where we will be able to have Terese's foot operated on at a reduced fee. The charity will assume most of the cost, and I agreed to raise the $400.00 which would be our contribution.

We found Terese with this terrbile heel wound in the village of Kigalama where we were teaching in January.It was dirty and oozing; I was shocked to see this, and we tried to doctor her with what small items we had with us that day---an antiseptic wipe, neosporin and bandaids. We started to go each week to wash the foot well and redress and pray for healing. One of IAM's faithful young men, Dan Douglas took a special interest in Terese. His heart's desire is to be doctor one day. He began to go to Kigalama twice a week on his bicycle--one hour each way. He would tenderly wash the foot, apply ointment, redress, and pray. That became his special ministry which he attended faithfully since February.

When my sister was in the hospital at International for five days, I thought about bringing Terese for evaluation. Tuesday we went and the doctor anticipates removing the bad place, which he suspects is melanoma on Thursday of next week. Please pray for healing for Terese.

This will be a serious surgery requiring skin grafts and a 10-day hospital stay. Pray for protection from any infections and for a successful surgery. I think the Lord has used these past months as a special opportunity for us to minister to Terese and her family as we washed her foot and cared for her each week We have come to love Terese, who is about 78 and her husband George Nelson who is 83. God has already been glorified and we continue to thank Him for what He will do through Terese's life and ours because of this situation.

situation.

GARDENS AT ORPHANAGE MAY 14

Pictures of the tomato garden---over 100 plants!!(from my flower garden--IMAGINE!)

January and Babu standing in the garden of beans.  The gardens go from where they are standing and all the way back to the small houses in the back of the picture.  There are more to the right side and all the way back.  Third picture shows some more of the sweet potatoes.

GARDENS AT THE ORPHANAGE

Pictures:  Top, Dan is pulling up my tomatoes; boys are preparing bed for tomatoes at orphanage;January in sweet potato garden; January with maize that is about ready

On Monday, Peter and January and I walked the grounds of the orphanage to see the work in the gardens.  January has worked tirelessly twice a day.  It has been a difficult season because of the lack of rain, but he has planted fields of beans, sweet potatoes, cassava(a root plant they eat many ways), maize, and eggplant.  It is hard to capture in a picture the size of these gardens but I would estimate that we have about 2-3 football fields of gardens.  

I had planted a flower garden at my house a few weeks ago and Dan Douglas had brought in manure to mix in the soil.  Don't ask me how, but I ended up with a garden full of healthy tomato

plants!!  They tell me there were seeds in the manure.  So, we dug them up and planted a large garden of tomato plants at the orphanage on Monday.  Tomatoes will be a real treat because Ugandans season everything with tomatoes.  Of course, that is a luxury the orphans never had.  Hopefully, they will produce, produce, produce!

May 9, Workday at Orphanage

Work Day---Pictures. 

1. planting grass and burning rubbish
2. slashing grass at compound
3. Mark cleaning a boy's toilet
4. a cleaned toilet

We had a full day of work at the orphanage.  The entire compound was first cleaned of the trash. Afterwards, the older boys slashed the grass, hoed the weeds, and burned the rubbish. We transplanted some grass in large areas of dirt.  Hopefully, it will live until we get rain.

The younger boys, girls and I SPOTLESSLY cleaned the toilets( pit latrines)  and the bath rooms.  Cisterns are empty, so they had to haul water.

Bath rooms are simply a small concrete space with walls and a drain, no roof.  Children bathe out of their basins. Twigs and leaves can block up the drain causing the water to pack up and smell if it stands too long.  The bathroom floors were scrubbed cleaned with a cleaner like Comet.  The children were so proud of their work and they received an abundance of  hugs and lots of praise.  We even hung a solid deodorizer in each  of the four toilets.  I AM provided all of the hoes, slashers, brushes and all cleaning supplies.  Older boys pitched in well with the more difficult work. 

 January, who is in charge of all the gardens  told me tonight that I was a good worker.  He said, "You work like an African man." Maybe they don't see many Americans cleaning their pit latrines!  I must confess I used my Playtex yellow rubber gloves.  I had gone in to tackle it on my own ( I won't describe what a messy job this can be)but immediately several of the kids came to see what I was doing and quickly took over.  Must have been the gloves---they all wore them at one time or another during the cleaning.  I left there at 5:45 and we were all proud of the accomplishments of the day.

 

These children have been living unsupervised since I arrived in January, but a matron has been hired and is supposed to start on Monday.  Please pray that she will be caring and compassionate, but also a watchful disciplinarian and teacher.  These children can learn to be responsible with guidance, teaching, supervision, and LOVE!

END OF SESSION IN BWERA

Pictures above show part of the group in the church in Bwera.  Second is the end of session picture with Henry and then one with Robin and me. 

Pictures from Bwera Teaching

Teaching Ethics in Accounting

Robin teaching accounting and fiduciary trust to Akimu, Peter and Henry.  They will not forget the wisdom of this teaching and experience.

Pictures from Robin's Visit

R




The first day of arrival, Robin was able to use "volunteer missionary nursing skills" which translates to "clean, apply neosporin and a band-aid" on January, the main guard at the compound. He had been run off the road by a car while riding his bicycle.  He was not hurt, but did have some minor abrasions. We doctored him and prayed for him.

Robin had two sessions of teaching The Temple Bible study: one for girls and one for boys on consecutive Sunday evenings.

Robin Cook Visits Uganda

On April 17, my Baton Rouge friend and next door neighbor, Robin Cook, arrived in Entebbe Uganda.  After spending the night there we traveled to Kampala to take care of IAM work and then proceeded to Mityana.  Robin went right to work as she taught and led a women's Bible study two days after arriving. She taught a session taken from Laurie Cole's study of The Temple--glorifying God in our everyday life. Although this is an in-depth 11 week study, Robin was able to give the women some valuable highlights and teachings on the Tabernacle.  We had 10 women who stayed about 2 1/2 hours Sunday afternoon.  On Monday, Peter, one of the young men with IAM, wanted to know if she could teach the study to the boys, also.  So the following Sunday, Robin taught 21 men in my home the Bible study written for women! We had great discussion, sharing, and teaching under Robin's leadership, and we hope to continue working with the materials Robin left for us.

With Robin's professional training and education as a CPA, she spent much time working with Henry, Peter, and Akimu on accounting and record keeping as they are all involved with administrating various activities for IAM.  One of the most valuable lessons she taught the young men was on fiduciary trust---the definition, importance and practical application of it.  Needless to say,this was not a term they were familiar with ,and Robin soon learned that unfortunately many in Africa are not practicing fiduciary trust and responsibility. It is very important to all of us at IAM that money donated to the ministry be handled with utmost honesty and integrity. I was grateful for Robin's instruction and I believe the knowledge that the young men now have will be handled wisely!

Because of Akimu's extensive record-keeping with the administration of funds for the expenses of the chicken project, Robin spent several hours with him transferring all of his records onto professional accounting paper. He caught on quickly and is now using the new method of recording.

Robin used her skills as a problem solver to help me in many areas.  We walked over the orphanage grounds and hostels more than once discussing ways to continue to improve the conditions of the orphanage and the responsibilities of the orphans.  We met with Peter, Henry, and Ruth one afternoon for several hours  to discuss new ways to handle certain situations there.  Robin had the opportunity to attend several meetings with me with both students and adults in attempts to solve various problems, some involving other charities at work here in Mityana. 

We visited Gema where the small Baptist church has been recently planted.  We did door to door visitation and attended the Wed. Bible study led by Henry.

On Friday, April 24 we drove to Fort Portal in western Uganda, a three hour drive where we spent the night and did some sightseeing.  On Sat. morning we traveled two more hours to Bwera, a city 10 miles from the border of the Congo.  There we had a well-organized meeting with 75 Baptist pastors, church leaders, deacons, youth leaders, and Sunday school teachers deep in a village at a small Baptist church.  We presented the books, taught and trained, and answered questions.  We left there at 2:30 pm and made the five hour trip back to Mityana.

Before heading to the airport on Wed., we stopped in Kampala,where we loaded up the 1500 new copies of Book Two, The Disobedience, so Robin can testify that we have them in hand.

Robin's trip and contributions were such a blessing to me, the guys, the people of Uganda, and IAM.  When I returned home last night, the house was very quiet.  I think I have had the last of the visitors for a while.  Anyone interested in coming???

Thanks, Robin for all you did.  I will be posting pictures from the trip.

Book Distribution Trip

On March 25, Diane, Henry and Henry Lutaya and I traveled to Masaka District in southern Uganda to meet with pastors and church leaders.  We had a very successful time teaching there where we had a group of both Baptist pastors and Pentecostal pastors.  Our coordinator for that district was a seminary pastor at Uganda Baptist Seminary.  Nine different churches were represented by approximately 35 people.

On our way to Masaka we were on the equator!!

New Uniforms for Orphan Students

Girls, after receiving their new uniforms. Ruth on the left, Becky on the right

Boys, after receiving their new uniforms.  Henry on left, Peter on right

Diane's last day, when all the children lined up to show her and us how great they looked!

New Uniforms

One of IAM's projects for which we received your donations was to see each child at the orphanage school, approximately 225, receive a new uniform.  Many children's uniforms were in poor condition and many others did not have a uniform at all.  We are still working on a few that did not fit or were not accounted for, but overall we were pleased with the efforts.  

Diane made the effort her last day before leaving Mityana to go to the orphanage to see the children.

In the pictures above, the first two were taken on the day we actually distributed and tried on the uniforms.  The last picture shows the assembling of the children in the new uniforms.  It was a great day!  Thanks for helping through your donations!

Diane Goes to Work!

Diane came with three loaded suitcases full of blessings for the orphans of Mityana Orphanage.

Through donations of others, primarily her own triplet grandchildren, Megan, Brett, and Ellen, she had enough clothes to outfit almost each orphan with one new play outfit. Thanks, Megan, Brett, and Ellen! We went to a used clothes market here in town where we were able to buy used clothes for the older children for about 30 dollars.

None of the children had their personal basin for bathing.  Now they do!  We purchased through donations to IAM, a basin for each child, and Diane sat one night and personalized 65 writing the children's names on each basin!!

We had purchased in Kampala and Mityana new towels, new sponges(washing cloths), a  bar of soap, and pajamas, and flip-flop sandals for each child.  None owned a pair of pj's and slept either in clothes or naked.

It was better than Christmas for these children who never receive this many personal gifts and "new" items!  Although it was a day of hard work distributing, labeling, and trying on, it was a great day of blessing for both receivers and givers! 

 Thanks to all of you who contribute to IAM's work in improving the living conditions of the children and the orphanage in Mityana!

Pictures below show children in new clothes, new pajamas, new sandals and personalized basins!

Orphans Receive Abundant Blessings

May 1, 2009

Greetings from Uganda,

I realize it has been 48 days since my last update, and so much has taken place during that time; however, I do apologize to those of you who were faithfully following, and I hope that you will once again check in on this blog. 

On March 15, my sister Diane from Baton Rouge arrived for a two week stay.  We accomplished so much while she was here and she was able to participate in the many activities and programs of IAM. Unfortunately, two days before her departure date of March 29, she got seriously ill with pneumonia and ended up in a hospital in Kampala for five days.  Once back home at my house, she still had a recovery period of about 5 days as we attempted to get her well enough to fly home. 

My sister Sally met her in Amsterdam to accompany her to the US.  Diane was very very sick, but we were blessed that there was a retired  lung specialist from Manchester, England, who was doing TB research in our hosptial and he was able to care for Diane and advise us.  Diane has been under the care of lung specialist in the US and is now, for the first time since being ill, beginning to feel stronger and resume her activities. 

But while she was here, prior to becoming sick, she was strong, active, and such a blessing to me and the Ugandans.  The pictures above tell some of the story of her trip and all that we did!