Pray for the sick with the Hospital Ministry

Every Monday, Betty and Jjaja Sarah visit Mulago Hospital in Masaka Town. For those of you who have visited and had a chance to join the team, you'll agree that Ugandan hospitals are something else, especially if a road traffic accident comes in while you're there - certainly helps you appreciate the NHS. There are few medicines, and few doctors. You can wait days to be seen. Day to day care is not done by nurses but by a relative or friend - but of course many have no one to look after them.

Betty and Jjaja (Grandma) Sarah faithfully visit those who have no one, praying for them, preaching, cutting their hair, giving a small amount of money, or fruit juice or soap or washing their clothes. In the holidays, the White Eagle Children often join the team to help out - and of course any one staying with us gets involved too!

Love the neglected with the Prison Ministry

River of Life Church has been working with other churches in Masaka to help and care for those in prisons - often the most scorned and neglected people in our community. Earlier this year, we felt called to put a fresh emphasis on this work, so now every month a team, led by Kayima, visits Masaka's notorious Prison. Conditions are appalling - mass overcrowding, people can wait years just to get to court, and they have to rely on relatives to bring basic things needed to live. Kayima says:

"So far we're going on well, we've found favour with God and the prison officers and the prisoners. The prisoners always appreciate the things we take to them, and we've seen 80 prisoners accept Jesus as their personal Saviour! Our prayer is to get a little more funding to provide for those that are in need like the new born babies and their mothers".

Big Charles goes to YWAM Uganda!

Big Charles is one of our first - he was the ring leader of the gang when the boys were still on the street. In February he was the first to pass his A Levels, and in March he joined the Disciple Training School at Youth With A Mission (YWAM).

He's had some tough times, but he writes: "God can pick you up from anywhere... He is able to do wonderful things to those who depend on Him!" Although it was hard at YWAM at first, he didn't want to leave by the end - "When I reached the school I asked myself when the six months were going to end because I was missing home a lot. But to my surprise when the time came, I never wanted to go home..."

The first half of the course was devoted to studying, and then he was let loose on the people of East Africa. He'd never left Uganda before, but he says "God started changing me... and he also used me to change other people. I went to Tanzania and I managed to preach to different churches and the last church I went to had 700 people!"

Charles has returned to us grown in wisdom and stature! He's extremely useful to have around, and has now started his Certificate in Business Administration.

Join in with the 10/10 Hike!

On October 10th across the UK and Uganda we're organising sponsored hikes to commemorate 10 years of the White Eagle Project! The White Eagles and all the staff themselves will be walking 16 miles from the church to Lake Nabugabo and back, and we're hoping that there will be a number of hikes organised by different people across the UK too!

So, if you would like to organise your very own sponsored walk, please let me know. We can give you all the advice and materials you might need, and you can get your friends and family to join in the fun!

To whet your appetite and encourage you to organise something if you can, the guys at LUXSON who do our website and have helped River of Life in so many ways have decided to organise a hike for the 10th October, but also a bike ride and a swim as well - the The Great North Bike Hike 'n Pike Try-athlon! It'll be spread over 3 months to maximise the number of people who can be involved (and give us a chance to recover). They've set up their page on JustGiving - check it out here. The events will all be in the North Wales / Manchester area on the 5th September, 10th October and 7th November, so if you want to join in the madness, drop me an email.

Do you know someone who can sponsor Shafic?

We need a sponsor for one of our new lads called Shafic - or Nicholas as he's just changed his name!

Shafic's a wonderfully friendly chap who has proved to be really helpful and willing to get stuck in. Sadly he suffers with a mental health condition. Mental illness is rife in Uganda - you see it everywhere. The tragedy is that so many children and adults out in rural areas suffer such neglect and abuse because mental illness is so poorly understood.

We've been looking after Shafic for nearly a year now, monitoring his progress and making sure we can give him the level of care he needs, and the good news is that with the right medication and support Shafic can lead a perfectly normal life. It's definitely the time to see if we can get sponsorship to get him back into schooling or training, and give him the chance to fly high as a White Eagle!

If you can help or know know of anyone who might be able to help please get in touch.

The return of Timothy R Crow

Tim has retuned to the UK! The guys in Uganda are going to miss him hugely. Tim has been our youth worker for three years, and what a three years it's been. From being the 'daddy' to the boys through to running community-wide football tournaments and social action projects, Tim has worked his socks off for River of Life, and we all want to say we MASSIVELY appreciate it! Tim's returned to the UK to get married to Sarah, and all things being equal, they'll be returning to Uganda at some point in the future...

Tim's last experience of Uganda was to have perhaps the worst bout of Malaria he's had since being out there, but despite being given the wrong medication numerous times, he finally got the right drugs and was just about well enough in time to fly last friday. I think he's been camping out at The School of Tropical Medicine since then...

Fundraising Update...

We have a big challenge facing us to raise all the money we need to keep the marvelous ministries of River of Life going, and to increase our impact with the poor and marginalised of Uganda. But we're rising to it! I told you last time about Mark, who's run across the Gobi desert in China. He came in a very respectable 90th - you can see his official finish position here. There's pictures on that site too - it looked like the most incredibly hard endurance race! Mark's well on his way to raising his target of £2,500 - if you haven't sponsored him yet and want to, go to his Justgiving page.

And we've also had our Charity Quiz night on Friday 19th June, which went swimmingly well, and once all the money is in we are expecting to have raised £2,000, which is brilliant. The art work done by some of the older boys proved a big hit - you can still support this event by helping Ivan with some bricks by donating here

Coming up we have a Summer concert of Classical music and Jazz on the 7th July, and there are rumours flying around that some crazy folk are going to be attempting what they're calling a 'Try-Athlon' - Bike, Hike and Swim...

And don't forget the 10/10 walk - put 10th October in your diary - for the biggest sponsored walk we've ever done. We'd love as many people as possible to be involved - there'll be more details nearer the time.