Parenting by Numbers!

We can share the gospel through different means, but it’s really important to foster good relationships between us (the Church) and the community around us.  We are, after all, called to be salt and light to the World, but no-one wants salt scattered in their eyes uninvited, so friendships are important! 

Elder Betty was recently talking to us about her community work, and said: “Whenever I go for community visits, I find non-believing parents treating their children in a way that doesn’t honour God: beating them, throwing horrible words at them….  Sincerely, this breaks my heart.  Well, I was thinking about it later on, and thought how great it could be to have a meeting with them at church, so that we could talk about the proper ways of treating kids, since they are gifts from God.

Some of the splendid gifts having a good dance with Elder Emily!

So we did it!  We talked to these parents about how important their children are, and also let them know that whatever they impart to their children’s lives, will be the very things that they will pass on to the neighbours, and to their own families in the future.

We also shared the word of God during these discussions, and four of the 24 parents that attended decided to give their lives to Christ, as did twenty six of the 49 children that had their own little class at the same time!”

Just some of the smiling faces we got to spend time with :) 

After the meeting we shared the little we had with the children and as you can see, they were very happy with their books, pens and pencils.

River of Life serving Living Water!

Oh for those innocent days, when we had no high-tech machines… our worship and praise sessions were only accompanied by the (sometimes!) melodious beat of the drum!
 

Some people even find it hard to connect with God without things being polished and “just so”. But out in the village of Mweruka, about 50 kilometers from Masaka town, it’s a different story…

We’d gone as an evangelism team, and were able to share God's word – nearly 30 came to faith during that time. The local church members were strengthened by the visit, and the Pastors expressed gratitude.
 

The aim was to serve Living Water Church, and serve them we did! We had a lot of fun, and got stuck into every activity on offer, be it sweeping, cooking, collecting water, or many others.

A couple of thanks. Firstly to our fantabulous team who went with open hearts and open arms. And then, to those of you that support our ministry. None of this work would have been possible without you!

Dental Delight in Nyendo!

All were welcome when a fantastic team of dentists from Dentaid came to serve the members of the River of Life family and community, as well as many others besides!
 

In Uganda, it’s really costly to have your teeth filled or removed, and because of that many people end up simply enduring the pain. It’s a wonder that Ugandans are so smiley and friendly – I definitely wouldn’t be if I had a constant toothache! Well, as you can imagine, our community was certainly excited to hear the good news that Dentaid were coming back to visit!

They started early and worked hard, treating nearly 400 street children, school children, orphans, widows and other members of our community over the course of their two-day visit. Even our own worship leader Julius got some assistance.
 

And it wasn’t just the blood-thirsty tooth yanking… they also ran oral hygiene sessions at two of our neighbouring schools (Good Foundation School and Hope School), as well as running a session for social workers/healthcare workers around Nyendo.

So on behalf of our community and some neighbouring communities, we would like to say a MASSIVE thanks to Dentaid for all you’ve done to help us keep our pearly whites ... er... pearly white!

I was sick and in prison – and you busted me outta there!

Ok we may be paraphrasing Jesus just a wee bit … but still, that’s what we’ve been doing!

Elder Betty heads up our community ministry; a way of reaching out to the individuals and families that are suffering in our community. Some of these individuals include isolated elderly, vulnerable young children, parents that struggle to provide for their children, sick members of the church and many others. Meet Jacent from Mabeera, who at 37 years, has 6 children.
 

Hers is a tragic story, fleeing her first marriage after discovering a plan to involve her children in witchcraft, only to have her subsequent happiness marred by an economically crippling fire, followed by the sad and sudden loss of her second husband to illness. Now with 6 young children, little income, and overwhelming debt, she was really feeling the pressure. Finally, one debt collector had had enough, and reported her to the police. Lickety split, she was locked up with many other women whose only crime is losing control of a desperate financial situation.

Jail breaks aren’t usually our speciality, but in this case, on hearing that Jacent was sick and imprisoned, leaving her 6 children without their mum, River of Life felt the need to intervene. Helping her out of this bind is one thing (and an important thing), but we don’t want Jacent to end up back in a hole again.

 That’s why we hope to help her, and others like her, with our Family Empowerment Fund, which aims to equip families to provide for themselves, though microfinance combined with education and mentoring. Want to get involved? Get in touch!

Marching against domestic violence with Mifumi!

Right, left, right, left! Here are the White Eagle team marching through Nyendo with Mifumi (a Uganda-based human rights NGO) to celebrate 16 days of activism against domestic violence. This is particularly pertinent for the White Eagles, since many of them initially came to us fleeing violence in their home environment.

According to the coordinator of Mifumi: “Nyendo is one of the places where we know that the rights of children and women – and even men – are being violated daily. Parents complain about their children’s disobedient behaviour, without recognising that they have contributed to this, by exposing them to constant fights and quarrels.

Similarly, some parents think that, because they suffered as children, their children must also suffer in life in order to achieve something – but this is a totally wrong perception. A child CANNOT be expected to study well in class if he or she doesn’t have peace at home. Don’t expect to have a better Uganda tomorrow, if we don’t create violence-free homes for our children today.”

It was an honour to be part of this event and we thank Mifumi for what they are doing to reduce domestic violence in our communities.

Witchcraft wisdom!

Whatever you think about Harry Potter, witchcraft is no laughing matter here in Uganda! Pastor Nick is now safely back home in the UK, but before he left, he got a chance to visit some members of our church in their houses, as part of Betty’s community outreach.

The first person that we visited was Florence (seen in a photo below, on the left) who was happy to see us. She served us tea so Nick got a taste of our local Ugandan tealeaves. She then told us a story of how she got saved...

“My name is Florence, I have spent nineteen years in salvation and this is how I joined the journey…. I was married to my lovely and hardworking husband, who bought us a piece of land where we built our simple residence. After some years, he passed away, leaving me with three children. After his death, his family members wanted to take my house, and started doing all kinds of witchcraft. I discussed this with some friends, and they directed me to a witch doctor in a certain village. I set off right away, and as I reached this village, I found a lady by the roadside digging. I asked her whether she knew where this witchdoctor lived. She called me close to her, and warned me that all this woman would do would be to take my money. She explained that only Jesus could help with all the problems that I was facing.

I took her words to heart, and on my way back home, I found a group of Christians doing outreach. I stood and watched. I was convinced that Jesus wanted ME. I moved to the front and accepted Jesus as my Lord. After that I faced a number of oppositions from friends, but in the end I found a church to fellowship with. After some time, I got re-married to a man from River of Life, and that’s how I joined this church. I would like to thank the elders for being so loving and caring, and thank you again for sending my daughter, Veronica, to school.”

It was a narrow escape for Florence, as witchcraft is rife here in Uganda, and leads many people down a dangerous path. We’re really glad to have her with us at River of Life!

 

No-one likes an angry woman!

We recently held a teaching session about anger at River of Life Church, inviting women from the local area to join us. We heard about ways to control our anger, how to understand our children better, and the importance of having a healthy relationship with our children. 

We’re really chuffed about this day, because several of our White Eagle staff had just been on a training course called Counselling Skills for Youth Workers – they were brimming with enthusiasm to share the material that has been so practically useful in our Children’s Home.

Leading the session was Auntie Sarah, who used a variety of art and craft activities to teach parents ways of dealing with anger in their children. This involved equipping parents to communicate better with their children, emphasising the need to help their children to express their feelings in a healthy way, and exploring ways of counselling them.

Many of these parents had never had the opportunity to do these kinds of activities in their own childhood, and they were absolutely delighted to learn new strategies. There was a lot of laughter and cheering – anyone listening might well have suspected that the parents were just having a load of fun, rather than discussing a serious issue!

We learnt that behind anger, there may be shame, sadness, anxiety, hurt, jealousness, embarrassment and many other things. An angry child isn’t simply “stubborn” but is often desperate for help. As Sarah said: “Creating a beautiful and healthy relationship with your children is an excellent investment, because you will never know when your child is upset if you aren’t on good terms. Do encourage them to talk about the way they feel – and find time to listen, so you can find out what is happening with your children.”

A message like this is so pertinent to many of the families in our community in Masaka. Many children report leaving their homes to the Streets, due to the lack of understanding between them and their parents. In encouraging strong relationships between parents and children in our surrounding communities, we at River of Life Church hope to see unity within families. And it doesn’t matter where you live or who your children are – we can all learn something from this session. Good work, Auntie Sarah!

Hope and Perseverance in the Community

Elder Betty leads our Community visits. Our current volunteer, Katie, accompanied her last week - this is her story.

Off the main streets of Nyendo are lots of homes, each home holds a family, and each family has its own story. These are the people of Nyendo that a passer-by might miss, unless he chooses to venture out onto the bumpy tracks.

This week I had the opportunity to join Elder Betty on Community Outreach. She led me through the back allies, past children playing and chickens roaming. We came to a home, where the mother welcomed us with such joy. She told me that she had four children, three in school and one about to begin. She loves them deeply, and spends her time doing all she can to provide for them. She said she is happy, because the Lord is looking after her, and through the church she is being helped to meet her needs. Her face was full of hope, a genuine hope, and a genuine trust in God.

But she admitted her struggles, that it is hard to find enough food, hard to give her children all that she longs to. She wants to share a meal with them of the tasty nutritious food she sees other people eating. When she is not caring for the children she patiently weaves colourful floor mats. She sells them to try and support herself. I asked her how long it takes to make one, and she laughed, and said one month. Oh, how I long to have patience like this! I was blown away.

I felt Jesus in this woman’s home; in her persevering love and sacrifice for her children, in her joyful thanksgiving, and in her determination and resilience. We have so much to learn! From the faithfulness of Elder Betty to pursue the passion God had placed on her heart to the way that when we come together as a church we are able to bless people abundantly more than if we try to work on our own.

Our Community work is supported by the ‘Gideons’ - our new regular prayer and giving programme. If you would like to find out more, please contact us.

Never say never...

Nampijja was a healthy 21 year old girl when she was involved in a serious road traffic accident, 2 years ago. So serious were her injuries that she was told she would never walk again – the doctors didn’t even feel it was worth trying to align the large bone in her thigh which had broken in two from the impact.

Living rurally in Uganda, there is no such thing as “disability living allowance” or “care packages” and Nampijja was left alone for most of the day, every day, in a small room her dad rented for her, with a visitor just once a day to help her wash.

She was not able to move around at all, so was limited to lying on her bed under a sheet, unable even to sit up, staring at the unfinished brick walls, or listening to her radio when she had batteries - which was not often.

Nampijja did not come from a Christian background, but a local pastor went to talk to her early in 2012, inspiring hope in her that she would be healed. However, with so many obstacles facing her, hope soon faded, and she became very depressed.

We came across Nampijja in May, through the medical outreach work of our very own Dr Sarah Crow, who was helping at a clinic in the village where Nampijja lives. On her return from the clinic, Dr Sarah was sharing Nampijja's story with Aunty Sarah - our girls' home "aunty". Sarah just so happens to be a qualified physiotherapist, with 7 years experience in neurological physio - exactly what Nampijja needed.

Sarah's heart was moved to help Nampijja, and she started visiting the village weekly to offer physiotherapy, and to pray with Nampijja. 6 months on, and Nampijja's recovery is nothing short of miraculous! She’s now able to walk with no walking aid or support, and has learnt to sew on a foot-pedal operated sewing machine.

Sarah says "I can’t believe it! I would not have thought that it was possible for her to even stand when I first saw her, let alone take some steps, but through everyone’s prayers, God is doing the impossible!”

Operation ARK hits the streets once more!

May saw Operation ARK reach its fifth anniversary, as Tim and Gerald ran around like headless chickens organising over 100 youth from local churches, hitting the streets of Nyendo and Masaka...

Ready for action!

The point? To clean the filth, spruce up people’s houses and shops with a lick of paint, and give out boxes of food to some of the neediest families. Once again we were very well received, although having arranged with the Masaka town clerk to clean the centre of town on one afternoon, we discovered he had become worried about the possibility of publicity about “local volunteers doing what paid street cleaners should be doing”, and in a fervour of activity organised his staff to sweep, scrub and polish as if the Queen was about to visit, on the very morning before we arrived!

We have since decided that any time we feel the town is looking a bit shabby, we will simply tell the town clerk we want to come the next day with our army of youth to clean, safe in the knowledge that in a fit of panic he will then quickly mobilise his street cleaners to do it instead!

The Lane's Log Final Farewell - Webale Uganda!

We are now into our final days in Uganda and so this will be our last blog during our time here in Africa. The last week has been gave us the chance to reflect on what has been an amazing three months and to start to say some goodbyes. Leaving Uganda is going to be far more difficult than we had ever thought and it is still hard to believe that we are actually leaving. We feel very much at home, despite it feeling like we arrived just a short time ago.

The fantastic Lutaaya Family

We have made some really good friends and had so many valuable experiences. Although we have found a number of things difficult along the way, we just cannot believe what a wonderful place Uganda is to live and work and are just blown away by everyone's love and generosity. The memories will live with us for a long long time and we hope we have made some friends for life.

It has also been a real privilege to have been part of the River of Life. They have made us feel so welcome and we have been made to feel part of their family, which has been really special. The work they are doing and their vision for the future is inspiring and already benefits countless people. We would really like to continue to support and assist everything they are doing in the future where possible. So be warned we may keep going on about it for a long time when we get back to the UK!

If anyone would like to know more about the River of Life or has felt that they would like to help, please take a minute to have a look on their website (http://www.riveroflifeuganda.org/). There are many ways people can help but an area of particular need at present is trying to get further sponsorship, so that they can support further children and keep them off the streets (http://www.riveroflifeuganda.org/sponsor-a-child.aspx).

News on Joseph is that his wife had returned back to their village and given birth to a baby girl. Joseph has been collected by his brothers and has been taken back to his village. His other leg hasn't been amputated and he continues to put on weight.

We have been making the most of our last week here with plenty of treats. It was a “special” Birthday for Kat, so we celebrated with a big Birthday cake, ginger biscuits, scones and jam, pancakes and a special pick nick. Given we only had about 3 hours of power we managed to time all the baking in a borrowed electric oven perfectly. The boys, Gerald and Julius, have also treated us all with a pork BBQ which was tough but great tasting!

Working hard

There has been some hard work done too! We both have worked on the land. Offering a hand to Gerald (who is employed to work on the land) by digging, planting maze and harvesting the crops we have grown on the land. We have also been set some last minute documents/reports to write up so we must get to do that soon!

In true Ugandan style we have been without power for the past 3 days so using this precious time to utilise the power to have warm showers and charge up everything we own for the next part of our adventure!

We have loved living with Kat and Rob and have valued them welcoming us into their house and family. We are certainly going to miss our mate Elena, who is now 16 months and learning new things everyday! We are desperately trying to encourage her to say Andy and Hannah. So far it's a debate whether it's Hannah or banana!

Thank you for all of those who gave money to help us to come out! We have valued your support hugely! Its difficult to say too much more as nothing we write will really sum up our thoughts and feelings. So we will end by just saying...

...Thank-You Uganda!

Andy and Hannah are with River of Life for the next 3 months. They are Physiotherapists from Newcastle, UK and are helping River of Life develop our links with the local hospitals and ROLC's Hospital Ministy. If you would like to support their work with River of Life, head over to their Justgiving page

The Lane's Log Episode 8 - Meeting our sponsored Child

Due to power and internet problems this is being sent out a little later than we would like. Apologies!

We have had another busy two weeks here in Masaka, working in both hospitals and attending several Ball Line Academy games and training sessions. As we write this blog we amazingly other have just over one and a half weeks left! And although we have done and experienced so much, we already feel sad to think we will be soon leaving.

Since our last blog, the football season has got fully under way, with Ball Line having a great start, picking up 13 points from a possible 15 points. The Ball Line guys are a great bunch of lads and a pleasure to work and be around. Walu and his team certainly deserve all of their success to date and we hope it continues for a long time. In their last game, a well deserved 3-1 win, they managed to keep their discipline in very difficult circumstances. Towards the end of the game, their opponents became more and more aggressive to both Ball Line and in particular the referee. It came to a head at the end of the game, with their opponents team, squad and support invading the pitch and assaulting the referee. Everyone from Ball Line kept their heads and reacted very quickly to defend the referee and their team mates, trying to quickly defuse the situation.

The Masaka Physio Team

We have also been gradually running our programme and other commitments down, including our work at both Masaka and Kitovu Hopsitals. The work has been full of challenges and a number of difficult moments along the way for both of us, but it is something that we have ultimately enjoyed. We have certainly learnt a lot and equally hope that we have contributed to both respective services during our time working there. We now have really good relationships with many staff at both sites and wish them all the very best in the future.

Donating Medical supplies

Thanks to our time in Gulu and the generosity of E3 partners, we have also been able to give Kitovu Hospital a gift of four suitcases of medical supplies this week. To say it was appreciated is a huge understatement and it was a privilege to give the donation along with the River of Life.

The school holidays have now arrived here in Uganda and it is proving to be a very exciting time for the White Eagle Project. This morning three White Eagles left Masaka to start University on Monday, with two more are soon to join them. That takes the total number of White Eagles studying at University up to an amazing ten people!

Building work starts!

This week has also seen the start of the next building phase of the White Eagle project. The build aims to be completed in two months and will be a self contained flat, complete with living room and balcony. Several of the older White Eagles have been given the opportunity to learn a trade in their Summer break and have been working hard alongside the other workmen. It is a shame the build will be finished around a month after we leave but we look forward to seeing photos of the final build. It is going to be very impressive and make a huge difference to the project.

Margaret's family

A huge highlight of the last few weeks has been meeting Margaret, one of the White Eagles. For the last few years we have sponsored her, but since our arrival in Uganda she has been working hard at boarding school. The holidays have gave us the chance to meet her on a few occasions, including getting to drive her home to a local village. Margaret and her family are fantastic and we have been so happy to meet them in person! She is (and has) an amazing testimony of the power of prayer and how the project has helped her develop into a lovely young lady. If anyone reading this would like to know more about sponsoring a child, the White Eagle Project have a long list of people they would love to support and send to school! Just visit the website here

In our day off last week we drove to Lake Mburo National Park and did our very own Safari. It was a really unique experience and it was great to get so close to so many animals. Okay, we may have got a little lost and a little concerned when we lost the track a few times, but still had a great time. We also got to see another of the 'big five', zebras, who are stunningly beautiful. Their stripes just look like they have been painted on!

Sugarcane at Bujja Farm

In the last few days we have been given the chance to visit two farms, The White Eagle Farm (Bujja Farm) and MMF. It was great to see how lots of the food we eat at the project is sourced and were really impressed with the White Eagle vision for the development of Bujja farm. They hope to raise enough money to develop the land and significantly reduce their rather large food budget for the project. MMF is a new private farm, started up as an income generating project by Rob and Katherine, alongside a good friend, John. We loved getting shown around and seeing how excited they are about the future!

Finally we have been upset to read and hear from friends and family about the problems back in London and across the country. We hope everyone is well and we continue to think and pray for home.

Lots of love and God bless,

Andy and Hannah

Andy and Hannah are with River of Life for the next 3 months. They are Physiotherapists from Newcastle, UK and are helping River of Life develop our links with the local hospitals and ROLC's Hospital Ministy. If you would like to support their work with River of Life, head over to their Justgiving page

The Lane's Log Episode 7 - Community Physio and New Kits for Ball Line

Sorry it's been such a long time since we last wrote a blog, we have been busy with our programme, and had many visitors since the last blog.

We currently have 6 extra bodies in our house (a total of 13 people). It's lovely having visitors and we're really enjoying getting to know more and more people. Especially when the power is out we have enjoyed many interesting conversations sat up at the dinner table. Four of our party are children, all under the age of 5.... we have been wondering why we are so tired lately?!

The water situation is a little better. We have had a few hot showers and yesterday we had a huge down pour of rain so our grass is looking greener and our rain water tank is full! With 13 people using it I am sure it will go quickly but in the mean time we can enjoy showering! However it's always quick as you're not sure when the power will cut out or when the tank is going to dry out, but were a little more presentable to the public anyhow! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Masaka Hospital Gym

For the past couple of weeks we have been mostly following our programme. We are seeing more and more patients and learning more and more about different conditions. The majority of our referrals being children and some adults we have seen patients with a variety of conditions such as TB meningitis, Tetanus and severe burns.

One of Andy's outpatients is a 64 year old lady who fell, fractured her hip (intracapsular neck of femur) and because she couldn't afford surgery is now 4 months down the line with a hip that has healed, but she will always be limited to what she can do.
A lot of treatment unfortunately depends on money and therefore you see patients discharging themselves without efficient assessments or treatments. We have both found seeing and treating these patients quite distressing, however have learnt a lot through it.

Having never really thought about it before it makes you realise how important it is that we are so well looked after in the UK with our vaccines as children. In Uganda the majority of people are vaccinated against all the conditions that we are in the UK, however some do not get them due to money or the area they live in.

We continue to work at both hospital sites, with one extra morning at Kitovu Hospital. Andy has done some in-service training about lower back pain and Hannah is teaching Andy more about paediatric assessment. We have also had some interesting discussions about different treatments and learning to use translators patiently and gracefully.

Thanks to the E3 Ugandan Team, we have also been able to give out a wheelchair that was left over from our medical mission to Gulu. It was a unique experience to visit the lady's home, initially to meet and assess her. As we have found in many cases, we were warmly welcomed, with a family member bring us a soda each from the local shop! It was fantastic to give the wheelchair to a family that will benefit so much from it and will it will certainly offer the opportunity for the lady to get out of the house more.

Our programme has been made a little easier as we have been able to drive the Land Cruiser. We still enjoy walking, but it is more convenient that we have some transport on some days. We are realising just how quickly our time is flying whilst we are here and aware that to complete all that we want we need to fill our day with as much as possible!

Saying this we still make the most of our days off! Last week we went to the lake Nabugabo,
where we had local fish and chips and a stoney (ginger beer). We enjoyed having a swim in the lake and prior to jumping in were reassured that this lake doesn't have crocodiles! Apparently they have all been shot!

Most weekends we are involved in Ball line. Either training or watching. Andy and Simon (one of our visitors) also played in a friendly against a local team. We have enjoyed getting to know the boys and becoming part of the team. Simon kindly bought some kit for them from the UK which was greatly received. We have had a number of disappointments where competitive teams have not turned up, which means they have won the game but through default. However when playing against their local rival cub they gained one point with a 1-1 draw.

We have also found another toon army fan - The local kebab man was spotted by Andy. Unfortunately he could only speak French or Lugandan, so the conversation was limited despite Andy's best efforts!

News from the garden is that we have harvested two pineapples this week. Sure they are a little small, but edible and juicy none the less.

We are both well in ourselves, although over the past two weeks Andy has been suffering with his stomach and his finger continues to take him back and forth to the doctor. Hannah has had a cold (... in Africa). But thankfully we have plenty of medical supplies to keep us going!

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement! We would love to hear from you if you have time and keep in contact with what is happening back home.

Lots of love!
Hannah and Andy x x

Andy and Hannah are with River of Life for the next 3 months. They are Physiotherapists from Newcastle, UK and are helping River of Life develop our links with the local hospitals and ROLC's Hospital Ministy. If you would like to support their work with River of Life, head over to their Justgiving page

The Lane's Log Episode 6 - Hospitals, Football and the Day of The African Child

We are now two weeks into our full programme with River of Life, Masaka. Our programmes consists of a mix of activities between working as a physio and assisting with some of the River of Life ministries. We have now successfully started work at both Masaka General Hospital and Kitovu Hospital and are getting to know the staff and our roles. At Masaka we work with a friendly team of 2-3 Physios based in their own small outpatient department. Here we have already started to treating a wide variety of conditions, with Hannah volunteering to see the paediatrics. Although we are gradually learning a little more Lugandan (How are you?, I am fine, just here sir, thank you, well done) we still require a lot of help from our colleagues to translate!

Kitovu is a little different as they don't currently provide a physiotherapy service. So for the next two months we hope to help out in the best way we can. Kitovu has a large variety of wards including trauma, surgery, paediatrics, general medicine, malnutrition and gynaecology. We have been setting up a referral system to allow us to find those most in need.

Hannah taking on the u-14s

Physiotherapy is also continuing away from the hospitals with increasing involvement with Ball Line Football Acadamy (training and matches) and adhoc physio clinics. We have since both had the chance to train with the boys.  In the mid day heat, no shade, and having not done much exercise for a while Hannah felt ill after the two hour training! (she would also like to highlight that the altitude is also very high!)

Day of the African Child

The rest of our time here is getting to know the white eagle boys and girls. Last week we were a part of the celebration for the African Child day.Despite a few concerns that the focus may have been lost slightly through the adults being entertained and not the children and running 3 hours behind schedule, we had two hours where they put on some African beats and we all got our groove on!
African dancing involves a lot of bottom wiggling!

Dancing at the Day of the African Child

Within our timetable we will also be serving some of the Church ministries. We are leading some of the white eagle evening sessions. Focussing on life skills and fellowship, along with having lots of fun! All of the girls and boys are a delight to be around and we are really enjoying getting to know them and the staff. We also visit Masaka General Hospital as part for the hospital ministry team where we give out food and pray with patients who request it. This week we gave out some of the mango's that are growing within the compound we live in.

Mangoes!

It has been great to get our programme up and running. We have quickly realised that since arriving that although three months felt like a long time whilst we planned, in reality it is going to be no where near long enough!

We are keeping fit by walking to work and this has been going really well, even if Andy does get a little grumpy in the heat! The rest of the time we get 'public', a local taxi (5 seater car) which follows a set route. So far our record is fitting up to 9 fully grown adults in it (two in the passenger's seat, five in the back seat, and two in the drivers seat).

We have struggled to communicate back home in the last two weeks, thanks to ever increasing powercuts. It is now rare that we have electricity for any real length of time. This is apparently reportedly thanks to the government being in huge debt to the electricity companies. As we are living on the top of a hill, this also has had a knock on effect to our water supply, as they don't have enough power to pump it up to us. With our back up supply of rain water very close to empty we are looking forward to trips to the local well with jerry cans and bucket baths for the foreseeable future. There is a general panic for water as all the wells are becoming dry, although this is is nothing like the situations in some of Uganda's neighbouring countries. It also gave us the unpleasant experience of working in the hospitals with no water to wash our hands. Never thought I would say this but prayers for rain would be gratefully received!

Andy was excited to find his first fellow Newcastle fan on Sunday, whilst watching a local football game. And this week, was asked by a physio colleague if he had heard of Alan Shearer. Happy days!
Hannah has been enjoying the garden, regularly picking avacardos and mangos. She is making the most of mango season, making mango juice as well as borrowing a neighbours electric oven to bake a lemon drizzle cake with the some of her birthday presents. Thank you for all the birthday well wishes and thoughts as they really do make a big difference to us!

Elena reading FourFourTwo to Andy

We have also had some excitement within the house. Elena is now walking!! We like to think it's due to our physiotherapy involvement, but really its possible that she has been watching some of the other walking children at the play group which Katherine has recently set up.

We will update you soon on how Joseph is getting on!

Lots of love! Please keep your emails coming! We love hearing from you and power dependent we will reply as soon as possible!

Andy and Hannah are with River of Life for the next 3 months. They are Physiotherapists from Newcastle, UK and are helping River of Life develop our links with the local hospitals and ROLC's Hospital Ministy. If you would like to support their work with River of Life, head over to their Justgiving page