Time for a little swim...

The 'Try'Athlon Team have finally finished their challenge! 12 River of Life supporters met up at the Manchester Aquatics Centre to see how far they could swim, most having not managed more than 20 lengths since before time began... Collectively they managed 13 miles, with 8 year-old Eva the star of the show, putting in a very handy 50 lengths at about twice the speed of everyone else. Others who couldn't make the Manchester swim did it where they are, with a particularly impressive 150 lengths from Kath Room the following morning, and the extraordinary exploits of Brenda Davies, who is training to swim 300 lengths - just shy of 5 miles - next week!

Most excitingly, the White Eagles themselves joined in! Emily, our Director, writes: Thirteen children and two staff were able to swim last Saturday and the rest of us were just giving them morale support - I didn't know we could actually have world champions in the White Eagle children! Eight children - Mujuzi, Nicholas, Ssemakula, Tony, James, Ernest, and Nakawuki - and Julius were able to swim lengths and five children - Judith, Daniel, Namatovu, Kisakye and Kevin - and Rhonnah swum widths. The 1st group swum a total number of 129 lengths and Ivan was the best and swum 30. The 2nd group that swum across did 20 widths. We were all shocked at Ivan's speed!

Who'd have thought it, the White Eagles swimming well over 2 miles between them! You can sponsor their heroic efforts by donating online here.

A week in the life of the White Eagle Project

Julius, our new deputy Manager and boys mentor, has been with River of Life for as long as i can remember - his Mum Betty is an Elder and leads the Hospital Ministry and other Community Outreach initiatives. Here are some extracts from his first weekly report - it gives you a flavour of what life as a White Eagle is like!

This week 7 of our boys and 1 girl did their Primary Leaving Examination (P.L.E). On Tuesday evening we went to the school to pick them up. On their arrival, they looked exited and free as if they were out of Jail ha, ha! Every one was happy for them and they commented on how they believe they are to pass with 1st grades. The next day we surprised them with a welcome back home party. Charles arranged music for the evening and the food was delicious. In the afternoon we took them to the pool to have fun and also see who can join in the swim on the 21st of November.

Three of our kids attended a worship gathering at Masaka Pentecostal Church; the boys and girls gave testimonies this week on how the Lord has blessed them to be part of this project - they were really touching; we had a sports evening; we continued the staff training on physical Intervention and different ways to help and support each other as colleagues in front of the children; Kelvin started crawling; In Youth Group we talked about The Power of the Tongue and over 18 youth came to the meeting, we got 4 that came for the 1st time.

This week I visited Hope and Good Foundation Schools to see how the children are doing. The headmistress thanked us in general for supporting the school. She continued to appreciate the way all the kids have behaved.