Kironde Jovan

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting Kironde Jovan, the child that my parents sponsor through Compassion International. We always knew that he was from Uganda, but we found out while I was home at Christmas that he actually lived in the Kampala area. So we set up a time with Compassion so that I could meet him and his family. It was an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to meet him and see how my parents support really helps him and his family.

[Side note: The ki- in southern Uganda is actually pronounced with a ch- sound so his first name is pronounced chee-rone-day. He goes by his second name, Jovan, though.]

He is the third born child in his family. He has two older brothers Kenneth and Charles. Jovan was born in 2001 and just turned ten earlier this year. His father died in 2003 so it is now just his mother and two brothers in the family. Jovan says he doesn't remember anything of his father; he was too young when he died. Jovan is now in primary 5 (5th grade), and I got to see all of his report cards over the years. I even got to see all of his doctors notes and all of the drafts of the letters he has written to my parents over the years. He is a very smart and healthy boy. His favorite subjects in school are English and science. He was to be a pilot when he grows up. He was a very quiet boy. I am sure he was rather intimated having me there but he didn't have much to say and spoke very quietly.

His mother grows and roasts maize for a living. Unfortunately, she is just coming away from a dry season that was very tough on the family. Additionally, with oil prices going up, the prices of everything seem to be skyrocketing. As a result, they have had very little food lately. One of the gifts I brought for the family was several kilos of rice, beans, flour, and sugar. They were very grateful for the gifts. It was one of those things that really makes you put things in perspective about whats really important in life. I also gave Jovan a soccer ball and cross necklace that my parents sent over with me, both of which he was very excited about.

Here are a few photos from the day:

Meeting Jovan for the first time outside his Compassion project.

Getting to see all his papers and report cards.

Giving him his soccer ball and necklace. He didn't say much, but you could tell he was really excited.

Meeting the whole family and giving them some food.

Even though they didn't have much, they still gave me a soda and bogoyas (sweet bananas). It is common in the culture to serve a meal to any guests that you have.

A picture of the whole family. Their house had two small rooms. We are in the sitting room. In the photo, you can see about half of the room. Then they had one bedroom, approximately the same size as the sitting room. I could basically see all of their possessions as soon as I walked in.

Standing outside with the family, getting a full shot of the house.

Child Soldier No More

"We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God."

-Romans 6:9-10

Happy Easter everyone! It is an encouraging thought to know that Jesus lives! I am so happy to know that God, in his infinite mercy, made a way for us to be reconciled back to him. This weekend has been an awesome reminder of the grace and forgiveness we have in Jesus.

Speaking of forgiveness, a few weeks ago I had the privilege of seeing Watoto's Restore Tour here in Kampala. They have been touring all over the world raising awareness of the war that has ravaged northern Uganda over the past several decades. One of the more moving points of the program was near the end as several children and teenagers got up to talk about the forgiveness and healing they have experienced since the end of the war. After all the terrible things that have happened to these people, it is amazing that they are able to forgive they way they have. I audio recorded it and uploaded it for you to listen.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you."

-1 Peter 1:3-4

Sipi Falls

Two weekends ago all the interns took a break and took a quick trip to Sipi Falls. After a five hour ride squished into a 16 passenger taxi that is about the size of a conversion van, we arrived at what I can only describe as a little slice of heaven. Sipi Falls is a series of three waterfalls at the base in of Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda. Mount Elgon is a dormant volcano straddling the border of Uganda and Kenya. The three falls range in heights from 30 meters to 100 meters.

We stayed at a wonderfully relaxing resort that was at about 1800 meters of elevation so it was remarkably cool. It was a nice break from the (relative) heat of Kampala. We felt really spoiled to have stayed at such a nice place. We thought it was funny that we were getting giddy over luxuries as simple as no mosquito nets (it was too cold at night for mosquitoes), temperature control on our showers (in my apartment, the options are freezing cold or scalding hot), and chocolate cake for (Ugandans aren't too big on sweets).

Here are some photos of the highlights.

On the first day, we found this tree root hanging near the base of the falls closest to our camp that we used as a swing.

This was our little hut tucked away in some trees. It sat next to a small stream that came from the fall just a few dozen meters away.

The second day we went on a hike to the lower falls in the morning and the upper falls in the afternoon. This is what we saw at the start of out hike. It would only get better from here.

We came around the corner and could start to see the falls. It was still a long way to the bottom.

This is one of the rickety wooden ladders we had to climb down in order to reach the base of the falls.

Almost there...

We made it to the base of the falls. Here is a group shot with our guide, Jasper.

A shot looking up to the top.

On our way back, we found a neat place to go for a swim. Tim and Kevin are jumping in with a slew of locals gathered to watch.

Stopping for a break looking out over the horizon before heading back home.


That night after dinner, we found this really cool place to watch the sun set over central Uganda. These last few are from our photo shoot.

Prayer Requests

I have not been doing so well at keeping you updated with my prayer requests. Anyway, here are the latest.

Please pray for:

-Africa. Much of the continent continues to be in turmoil. While many of the conflicts from earlier in the year seem to have died down, there are still many going strong. Please pray for continued peace in Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Libya, and the Ivory Coast. All of these countries are going through power transitions. Egypt and Tunisia forcefully overthrew the government. Sudan's transition is a result of a vote. The Ivory Coast recently had an election in which the incumbent lost but refused to concede and much conflict ensued. Fortunately, that conflict seems to have died down. The conflict in Libya, however, is still going strong. Gadhafi has been at war with his own people for quite some time now. After decades in power, Libyans are calling for change, but change is not coming easy. While all of these countries are in different stages of conflict, please pray for peace in these difficult times.

-peaceful protests in Uganda. With gas prices raising, people are getting upset and wanting to do something about it. Many have started peaceful protests in Kampala, Jinja, as well as some other places. Some high ranking people have been involved in the protests including two of the presidential candidates that lost earlier in February. Even though the protests have been peaceful, the authorities have been quick to deploy tear gas, shoot rubber bullets, and arrest many in an attempt to break up the protests. Please pray for peace protests that do not escalate.

-support raising. Even though my time in Uganda is drawing to a close, I am still having to go through the support raising process. I had originally raised my support before leaving in August, but by staying an extra four months, I have incurred additional costs with additional visas, rent and food costs. Please pray that the additional funds necessary to stay would come in before leaving in June.

-ministries that eMi partners with. I recently updated all of the project information on the Project Info page. Please check it out and pray for these ministries that the gospel of Jesus would be effectively spread through them.

Eagle's Wings Children's Village

Since coming back from the Watoto project trip a few weeks ago I have actually been working on a different project. I am doing the structural design for an orphanage in Masaka, Uganda which is southwest Uganda. I wasn't with the team from the US that went to visit the site but I have been involved in the design process after the team has gotten back. My responsibilities include shear wall design for lateral resistance (wind and earthquakes), roof truss design, and concrete beam, column, and footing design. I have had a lot of fun because I haven't got to do much structural design since coming to Uganda, but now I am having to use a lot of what I learned in university to do the work.

The children's village currently houses around 300 children. With our design, they are planning to expand so that they can house more staff and improve their schools. Their site is 72 acres so they need a well thought out plan before moving forward.

Their mission statement is to bring Jesus Christ, care, love, protection and the provision of basic necessities to the lone, orphaned child.

For more information check out these links:

-Eagle's Wings website
-eMi Project Profile

One of the volunteers was a videographer and made this wonderful video while he was there. Check it out!


Eagle's Wings- Masaka, Uganda from Halle Project on Vimeo.

Project Trip: Murchison Falls (Take Two)

At the end of the trip, we stopped off for one night to stay at Murchison Falls National Park. I am privileged because I got to go here back in September after my first project trip. Here are the photos from the first time we went. This time, unfortunately, we didn't have time to hike up the falls.

These are the photos from this time around. [I didn't take a lot of them. I am thankful that there were a lot of fancy cameras taking really good pictures that we all shared afterward.]

Enjoy!

A pretty neat looking tree.

More trees and landscape.

This was the type of dirt road that we were driving on throughout the afternoon.

Antelope looking thing #1.

Giraffe!

Antelope looking thing #2.

We encountered this heard of like twenty elephants. We followed them around for a while. It was amazing!

We found two lions sleeping lazily in the grass. We got really close (see next picture), but they didn't seem to concerned with us.

A picture of our van from the other van. We were probably only 15 feet from the lions with nothing between us...and yes, some of us were sitting up on the roof.

A shot of our safari van from the other.

This was my seat for the trip. We had a pretty good time back there.

A couple of Ugandan fishermen catching fish with nets on Lake Albert. The mountains in the distance are actually in the DR Congo. The little black things in the foreground are hippos.

These hippos woke us up at night while they were grazing next to our cabins. The guys next door to us woke up and snapped some photos of my cabin. My bed is up against that window of the cabin in the shot.

And then we had a couple of "Pumbas" join us as we ate breakfast the next morning. It was a pretty cool experience.

Project Trip: Playing with the Kids

On Sunday, we took the day off from all our work and got to experience more of Gulu and Watoto. In the morning, we went to church at Watoto. Like most African churches, it was very lively. [I tried to upload a video of one of the songs but it wouldn't work.... Sorry.]

After church and lunch at a local restaurant, the group took a trip to Watoto’s children’s village and baby’s rescue home to play with some of the kids. When we got to the village, we were welcomed by so many of the house mothers and dozens and dozens of children. It didn’t take long for someone to pull out a soccer ball and kids to be running all over the place.

Soccer was fun for a while, but it was so hot and dry, the game didn’t last long. The children were most fascinated by all of the digital cameras. They loved having their photo taken and then laughing at it after looking at it on the screen. As a result, I had a very long photo shoot with some of the children.

This boy loved it when I picked him up and threw him in the air. His English wasn't that great so he just kept coming up to me and saying "1,2,3, Jump" as that's what I would say before I picked him up.

Making faces...

More faces...

All serious faces here.

I finally got them to back up so I could get a group photo.

After all this, we went to the baby’s home and got to play with some of the really little ones.

Tummy time!

These guys greeted us as we came in.

Kevin helping out with feeding. He got food all over his pants.

Dinner time!

This little guy wandered away. I think he was trying to escape.