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This day started our wonderful and finished amazingly great. Seven boys and I needed to go shopping so we walked to the nearby village (4 miles one way) to purchase tomatoes, onion and baking powder. Tomatoes for spaghetti I have promised to cook tomorrow (Sunday). Quite a nice walk there, all down hill, but the 4 miles back was all uphill. It was easy of the 12 to 14 year old boys, but tough on a old man of 66.
Upon arrival at the market, the kids were treated to a bottle of juice and a piece of candy. Everyone enjoyed their candy treat. We brought back candy for everyone else.
Since power was out we couldn’t bake a cake, so we had some shortbread cookies. Vicky and the girls made cake frosting to put of the cookies. After dinner we celebrated the birthdays.
Abdallah showed good improvement in school this year and worked hard to clime to 22nd in his class. Sadam is academically and artistically well above average. Sadam finished 2nd in his class.
More tomorrow. Please visit our Facebook page (Uganda Home of Hope Foundation.
Upon arrival at the market, the kids were treated to a bottle of juice and a piece of candy. Everyone enjoyed their candy treat. We brought back candy for everyone else.
Since power was out we couldn’t bake a cake, so we had some shortbread cookies. Vicky and the girls made cake frosting to put of the cookies. After dinner we celebrated the birthdays.
Abdallah showed good improvement in school this year and worked hard to clime to 22nd in his class. Sadam is academically and artistically well above average. Sadam finished 2nd in his class.
More tomorrow. Please visit our Facebook page (Uganda Home of Hope Foundation.
Everyone at the Uganda Home of Hope Foundation has been working hard to prepare for the start of school. All of the S-4s leave on Monday, 21/01/2013. The remainder of the children return on Feb. 3rd. As you can imagine, it is very involved and a lot of hard work to prepare 23 children to leave for boarding school. They attend Cityland College (secondary school in the US). They take their personal items like school uniforms, shoes, sports clothes, books, toiletries, school supplies and everything they will need for the first term lasting until the first holiday around Easter. They carry their possessions in metal boxes they call suit cases. These cases will be locked to protect the contents from theft by other kids in the school. Cityland is a nice school with approximately 76 students. Helen, the school administrator has been helpful in our preparation for the children. She has invited Vicky and I to come with the children so that we can see their classrooms, dorms, meet some of the teaching staff and to video and photo whatever we wish. We are looking forward to this visit.
A friend has made a cash donation to UHHF so that I can purchase a camcorder to video the children, their testimonies, this home and their school. Vicky and I will be working with Manna of God, COTHA and UHHF in the fund raising for the support of this foundation and the work they do.
David Marek has ask us to visit churches in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Africa, Austria Australia or wherever we might find potential donors or have contacts. These videos we make will be one of the tools we use in the solicitation of funds.
I have been spending a substantial amount of money on such things as food, sporting goods, furniture, TV, DVD player, movie videos and music videos and CD, board games, building maintenance, clothes for the children and many other things. Most of these expenditures are cash and Ugandans do not know the meaning of receipts. How do I justify these expenses to the IRS if needed?
I’m sure you are aware of the computer training the kids have been undertaking. We have maybe 10 who are old enough and have access to a cell phone (mostly my phone) to set up email and Facebook accounts. We have four computers running from 8:30am to 8:30pm. We shut them down at 8:30 because that is prayer time and worship music at UHHF with bed time at 9:00.
The FB/email students haven’t quite gotten the proper training on proper etiquette for the use of these media tools. If you have friended some of these kids, please help me to teach them what is proper and what is not proper.
We started taking 2 to 4 children into Kampala on shopping trips a couple of times per week. Most have never seen a mall. The best mall in Kampala is Garden City Mall. It is a small facility with about 12 to 15 shops, three restaurants, a supermarket, and a movie theater. Like most facilities in Uganda it is an open air mall. No air conditioning, but nothing is air conditioned in Uganda with the exception of a few high rises.
We treat them to lunch in a decent restaurant (most have never eaten in a restaurant ever in their lives), buy them some sort of gift and try to make them feel special. One boy told our Matron here at UHHF that it was the best day in his life. When Jane, our matron, told us that you can just imagine how we felt. Things we take for granted and are common place in our culture are as foreign to them as their culture is to us. We Americans have such a luxurious life style. We should never forget those who do not have what we accept as normal or common place.
We are a little homesick, but these children are amazing and that lessens our home sickness somewhat. Our only line of communication is by electronic devices over the Internet. Our Internet service is spotty at best. We have a Wi Fi router here in the home and just last week I purchased a data plan for my Samsung smart phone. Even then, the electricity fails daily for sometimes as long as 9 to 10 hours and our router is out of business. Our router crashed last week for 4 days. There was not another router in Uganda. My cell phone has very limited service and rarely works in most places I visit.
All of the third world country issues aside, we are extremely blessed to have this opportunity. I wish everyone could spend three months here with these kids. It is an amazing experience.
Enough of my rambling. Please keep in touch and tell everyone hello from us.
Bob
David Marek has ask us to visit churches in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Africa, Austria Australia or wherever we might find potential donors or have contacts. These videos we make will be one of the tools we use in the solicitation of funds.
I have been spending a substantial amount of money on such things as food, sporting goods, furniture, TV, DVD player, movie videos and music videos and CD, board games, building maintenance, clothes for the children and many other things. Most of these expenditures are cash and Ugandans do not know the meaning of receipts. How do I justify these expenses to the IRS if needed?
I’m sure you are aware of the computer training the kids have been undertaking. We have maybe 10 who are old enough and have access to a cell phone (mostly my phone) to set up email and Facebook accounts. We have four computers running from 8:30am to 8:30pm. We shut them down at 8:30 because that is prayer time and worship music at UHHF with bed time at 9:00.
The FB/email students haven’t quite gotten the proper training on proper etiquette for the use of these media tools. If you have friended some of these kids, please help me to teach them what is proper and what is not proper.
We started taking 2 to 4 children into Kampala on shopping trips a couple of times per week. Most have never seen a mall. The best mall in Kampala is Garden City Mall. It is a small facility with about 12 to 15 shops, three restaurants, a supermarket, and a movie theater. Like most facilities in Uganda it is an open air mall. No air conditioning, but nothing is air conditioned in Uganda with the exception of a few high rises.
We treat them to lunch in a decent restaurant (most have never eaten in a restaurant ever in their lives), buy them some sort of gift and try to make them feel special. One boy told our Matron here at UHHF that it was the best day in his life. When Jane, our matron, told us that you can just imagine how we felt. Things we take for granted and are common place in our culture are as foreign to them as their culture is to us. We Americans have such a luxurious life style. We should never forget those who do not have what we accept as normal or common place.
We are a little homesick, but these children are amazing and that lessens our home sickness somewhat. Our only line of communication is by electronic devices over the Internet. Our Internet service is spotty at best. We have a Wi Fi router here in the home and just last week I purchased a data plan for my Samsung smart phone. Even then, the electricity fails daily for sometimes as long as 9 to 10 hours and our router is out of business. Our router crashed last week for 4 days. There was not another router in Uganda. My cell phone has very limited service and rarely works in most places I visit.
All of the third world country issues aside, we are extremely blessed to have this opportunity. I wish everyone could spend three months here with these kids. It is an amazing experience.
Enough of my rambling. Please keep in touch and tell everyone hello from us.
Bob
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