A Miraculous Bundle of Joy

The Baby Unit has been through a tough period recently, with a higher number of babies than normal not surviving. So when another mum wanted to be discharged early (which we have to allow here) with a very sick baby, the Baby Unit team very reluctantly agreed. The mother signed a "against medical advice" form and promise to come back in a couple of days...

Dr Sarah takes up the story:

When she returned, we were all alarmed to see that the baby looked really quite ill.

Over the next day, the baby continued to deteriorate. She needed to be assisted to breathe for up to 10 minutes at a time, had jaundice, extremely high blood sugars, and profuse diarrhoea. Now that we’ve been in Uganda a while, I know what that usually means. The game is up.

But there were people already praying for this little one, and Sarah also prayed that God would do something, because she was certain that the baby wouldn’t survive without a miracle. We all know that God doesn’t heal every time, and sometimes it’s mystifying why one person is healed, and another is not. But this little baby did indeed survive and is continuing to heal – she’s even breastfeeding well these days. Woo hoooo!

It's an awesome story of the impact the Baby Unit is having here. But it also poses a tough question. What about the next time a mother wants to take her baby home too early? It’s nearly always about lacking money, or lacking someone to look after your other kids at home. Whatever the reason, it’s rarely that the mother simply doesn’t care.

Dr Sarah has an answer for the problem:

From now, we’re planning to be stubborn when mothers try to take babies home who are likely to do badly. No, we’ll not handcuff them to the Unit... although, actually, that’s not a terrible idea! But we’ll insist that they stay, and offer to talk to the social worker of the hospital to see if any assistance can be arranged. Not always an easy task when the hospital is really strapped for cash, but we have to try.

Please pray for the Baby Unit team, doing a tough job in difficult circumstances, and thank God for this latest, miraculous little bundle of joy.

Update on Prayer Mountain

The battle for Prayer Mountain continues, two years to the day that we secured the funds to purchase the majority of the land. You may remember that we are in dispute with some encroachers. There are many twists in the tale, but the latest is that we have now registered criminal trespass cases with the courts.

Unfortunately the courts are overwhelmed because Masaka does not have a Judge. The threat of legal action seems to be working though. The encroachers appear to be striking a more conciliatory tone, and we're hopefully that this long, and painful saga may be over soon.

There is some excellent news too - we’ve recently been bowled over by an awesome donation that will help us secure the next 2 acres and begin to renovate the exisiting huts and commence 24/7 prayer!

Rekindling the fires of revival on Prayer Mountain

They say that ambition is the path to success, and perseverence the vehicle you arrive in... Well, that is certainly the Prayer Mountain story over the last 12 months! Here’s a quick reminder of the vision: we’re going to build a Prayer Centre on a hill outside Masaka, with an International School, Church and Medical facilities. We had wrongly assumed that raising the necessary funds would be the hardest part..!

Having secured funds for the land in July 2011, the paperwork was drawn up by September, and the transaction completed by March 2012. That’s pretty good for something that big in a place this disorganised! But that's when the fun really started. Two individuals contested our right to the land. We were prepared to negotiate and compensate for any legitimate claim, but it soon became apparent that these guys were far from legit! After months of negotiations descended into one particularly fierce altercation involving death-threats and machetes, we turned to the Police.

Slowly but surely, and with a lot of prayer, the truth has prevailed and the police have helped turn the screw to the extent that the two land-grabbers have all of a sudden changed their tune and have, in the last month, become all sweetness and light. It's looking promising that we can get started on the building plans very soon!

Girl Power!

Holding her A-Level pass slip in her hands, Veronica (rt.) could hardly believe it... It was better than she'd hoped, far better. Better than her mocks, better than anything she had managed before. Veronica isn't someone who you'd say "oh, she's just naturally intelligent" about - she has worked her socks off, steadily improving her grades each year. She's a White Eagle graduate, resettled with her family back in 2010. Her story is one of poverty and challenge - she was even a “Missing Person” for a few years before coming to us.

But today she's looking at an A-Level Pass Slip that confirms she's one of the top performing girls in all of Masaka, getting A, B, B, C in four A-levels! And what’s more is in with a chance of a Government Scholarship for uni! Isn't that awesome?! Meanwhile Persist (left) is our highest achieving O Level candidate, missing out on a First Grade by just one mark!

It's for people like Veronica and Persist, and others who work just as hard (even if they don't achieve quite as highly academically!) that we've established the River of Life Leadership Academy. To help a generation of leaders EXPLODE out of Masaka to take on the challenges not just of Uganda but of the world!

Saving Babies Lives at the New Baby Unit

It wasn't the best start in life. In fact, "life" and "start" probably shouldn't be used to describe it, as the little (barely over a kilo) lifeless baby turned steadily greyer as her helpless mum looked on. The simple truth is that this is Uganda and she was well on her way to becoming one of the 39,000 babies that will die this year before they reach 28 days old.

Well that might have been the story if this was 2012. Or even a week ago. But for this little 'un, "life" itself was about to explode onto the scene with a bang! Seeing the life leaking out of her, the attendant nurse rushed to the newly opened Baby Unit, just down the corridor. After greeting everyone meticulously, as we do here, she very politely wondered whether any of the present doctors and nurses being expertly trained by our very own Dr Sarah in resuscitation would mind coming down the hall to check on the very small baby of our story. Cue a rapid exit of the "Baby Rescue Team"!

However, it wasn't looking good. Dr Sarah recalls: "Honestly, we felt like it was getting futile, but with all our new nurses observing, it seemed a good thing to continue until we had emphasised all the important parts of baby resuscitation." Suddenly, things changed: "However, Praise God (x100!), after removing all the milk from her stomach, she suddenly decided to start breathing again! What a blessing that we had all been there training! A serious case of God’s good timing!"

Dr Sarah, along with others at Kitovu Hospital including Nurse Brigitte, have moved heaven and earth to get this baby unit up and running, managing all the challenges of setting up a new programme in a busy, under-resourced, over-stretched hospital. You too can be part of it - we're looking for regular gifts that can help pay the running costs. And our Miracle Baby, as we call her? She's still doing fine :)

Riot Police and Tear Gas? It must be the Synergy Cup!

January saw the climax of the Synergy Cup - our Community Tournament that we've run every year under various guises since 2004. There was a bit of trouble with fans and managers not accepting referees decisions - they make Sir Alex Ferguson look positively mild mannered - but we only had to rush a tear-gas and shot-gun toting anti-riot police squad to the pitch the once!

Synergy is a light of integrity and discipline in the otherwise murky amoral world of Masaka Football. We showcase local talent, we show how footballing can be done and we preach that Jesus can transform lives! Thankfully our Synergy teams dispatched the worst behaved opposition and our two senior teams and one of our junior teams reached their respective finals. The Juniors lost 2-1, but we saw our reserve team beat the first team on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Three days later we managed to win another tournament! It means that as we commemorate Synergy's first official birthday, we have 3 trophies acquired in the last 2 months to crown our celebrations!

Premature Baby Unit Opens at Kitovu Hospital

Dr Sarah has some INCREDIBLY exciting news to share...

It’s been a loooooooong time coming, but we are finally ready to open our Baby Unit! We want to care for sick and premature babies, at Kitovu Hospital, simply because too many die, and it's heart-breaking.

The room, and some really quite high-tech equipment (mainly donated by some folks in Ireland), has been there for a long time, but the barrier was a lack of nurses to staff the Unit. River of Life has teamed up with Kitovu to resolve this, recruiting donors to finance the salaries of the nurses that are so desperately needed.

I cannot tell you how grateful we all are, both to the individual sponsors helping us to fund this, and to God for getting all the strings pulled together at the right time.... not to mention for teaching us patience (oh, it’s a learning curve!!) as progress can be incredibly slow.

Opening of this Baby Unit will really impact on newborn death rates, not to mention improving general health of babies, at Kitovu Hospital. Our nurses have been brilliant during the training and will be involved in resuscitating sick newborns, caring for them, educating mothers, identifying sick babies, and also picking up on problems in new babies that might otherwise be missed (as they will be doing “baby checks” on each newborn).

We’ll keep you posted on progress - it’s a busy but joyful time right now! Please do pray for further funding, though. We have enough for now, but we are only about half way towards recruiting the necessary number of regular donors to ensure the Unit can continue. If anyone has a real heart for sick or tiny babies, then please do get in touch, download a sponsor form here, or head straight over to our donation page (MyDonate by BT).

Farming's the future!

It's been a productive season on the River of Life Farm...

Under the management of Uncle Kayima, the team have helped to reduce the food costs for the White Eagle project by supplying good amounts of beans and matooke. Our cash crops are also doing well - a new sugar-cane plantation is looking good, and the Plantain and Coffee we planted in February 2012 is developing well.

Our new piglets are all healthy, and Farmer Kay is adding to our stock by buying in some young pigs of some different (more valuable!) breeds. Our cow is due to give birth next February, so we will then be able to add milk to the White Eagle diet.

For 2013, Farmer Kayima is REALLY keen to establish a small chicken project. Well, 600 chickens to be exact, because, as he explains Chickens are great - they offer eggs AND meat. Tasty. He also wants to build a store so that we can get good prices for our produce, and consolidate the other areas or planting. The Farm is not self-sufficient just-yet, but it will be once all the development is done, as well as offering food security and reducing our costs at River of Life Church

Thank you to everyone who has "given the gift that can't stop giving" and helped develop the farm. If you would like to help, get in touch! £500 is enough to establish an acre, contribute to 20% of the start-up costs for the chickens or 10% of the store. You could do a sponsored event, or split the cost on a monthly basis - click here to download a sponsor form, or head straight over to our donation page (MyDonate by BT).

Au revoir White Eagles!

On 8th December we held a moving Graduation Ceremony and said “Au revoir!” to 10 of our White Eagles. They are now all over the age of 18, so it was time for them to move on from the White Eagles' Home.

They’ve all moved out to live either with relatives, or to rent rooms independently in Masaka. The White Eagle team have spent the last few years working hard to reunite and reconcile these young men with their families, and the Ceremony was testimony to the value and success of that work, as all of them had relatives there to support them.

It’s certainly a lot quieter around the project now these young men have moved on, although the remaining children are trying their hardest to make up for it!

But although they have graduated from the White Eagle Project, they certainly haven't left the River of Life nest quite yet. We've established a new programme to continue supporting them. Seven will be supported in their final year of school (Senior 4), two are in the penultimate year (Senior 3) and one, our very own Mr Tony who has been with us since the beginning, has just completed his O Levels, and will join our Leadership Academy.

So we will continue to support, mentor and work with them to continue to help them to Fly High!

If you would like to support the work of the White Eagles, or the Leadership Academy, please get in touch, download a sponsorship form here, or head straight over to our donation page (MyDonate by BT).

We're 'Singing in the Rain' - Davies Dispatch Feb 2012

February has flown by, with plenty of work and play to keep us busy. Rob and the office team successfully prepared the accounts for the auditor to examine, we've had some good times with Mary (one of the founders of River of Life, who was back here for 5 weeks), we've said goodbye to Geoff who had been working with us for 4 months, and Elena has started potty training!

January was very hot and dry, and everything was getting browner and browner - with the dust and the heat. And then suddenly it was rainy season, and everything is green again! Here are some highlights from Masaka...

If you'd like to see more of what we get up to, check out our photo-map!

Rain = avocados. Lots of them

This month the rains have started (a few weeks early), which means it's time to start planting out the garden. Henry, our gardener, has been making fantastic progress planting out sweet potatoes - his digging really does put our attempts at our allotment in England to shame. We're also hoping to grow carrots, onions, green peppers and a few "English" plants like courgettes and lettuce. The rains have brought with them a surplus of huge and delicious avocados - Elena is well into guacamole.. no cutlery required!

We got out rainwater tank washed out - it was disgustingly dirty - and in the process discovered a leak in the mains supply. Mr Fred our plumber quickly fixed that, and now the pressure is much better. So now our rainwater tank is starting to fill up again which is great - next time the mains water stops flowing for a few days, we won't be totally without!

The downside of the rains is that our house floods when the wind blows in a certain direction - we've set Maintenance Man Mayiga the task of trying to seal up any cracks!

Moving on and Flying High

The major event for this month was the graduation of 4 of our White Eagle lads from the Project. They are now living independently - here’s Brian showing off his new pad - and working to support themselves. We had a party to celebrate their achievements since joining the Project and to set them on their way on the next step of their journey. The Project will continue to support them, through education, training, employment, mentoring, support - whatever is needed to help them fly high!

There have also been some big changes at Playgroup. Several of our "regular" kids started school at the beginning of February, so numbers at playgroup dropped. We've been telling mums at church about the playgroup, and are beginning to see some new kids, but it's been a slow transition. Elena misses her old friends, and every morning asks if we're going to see them, but she seems ok once we get the puzzles out! She's getting quite good at a little alphabet puzzle where you have to match the letter to a picture, though she made us laugh yesterday by declaring that the letter j is for "marmite"! Well they both go on toast...

“Something-Danish-Fest”
We've been trying to find time this month to prioritise getting to know other "bazungu" (expats) who are living and working in Masaka. Many of them are involved in similar projects to River of Life, so there's a wealth of experience out there for everyone to learn from. Rob’s been meeting with some of the Directors - it’s been great to get to know them, and their work.

We went to the international Church one Sunday and met several Canadian, American and Danish families. We were invited to join the birthday party of one of the little Danish girls who was turning 3 - her birthday coincided with some Danish festival which involved all the children hitting a big wooden barrel full of sweets with a very large stick for a very long time until it smashed apart. Apparently in the old days, I mean the really old days, the barrel would have a cat in it, and it was something to do with beating the devil. Elena did her bit, going up with the stick, which was about as big as her, and tapping the barrel.

Anyway, it was also an opportunity to dress up - Elena loved pretending to be her little spotty woof woof!

Food glorious food!
February has been a good month for eating! Gerald was introduced to Pancake Day traditions, and managed some decent flips! Elena wasn't as interested in the pancakes as she was in the sugar bowl we foolishly left near her...

We went to the fantastic Cafe Frikadellen barbecue with Beth and Sarah - never have you seen so much meat in one place... it's awesome! Cafe Frikadellen is run by one of the Danish families here, and Rob likes to personally thank them for setting up the establishment every time we go there - he can't quite believe he can get such a good burger (not to mention the lasagne...) here in Masaka.

Rob and I also managed to get a rare night out on our own for Valentine's Day - we went to another restaurant in town, which has a new rooftop terrace - it was very romantic under the stars, even if the advertised smooth jazz was actually the best of the Backstreet Boys! Gerald and Beth were Elena's babysitting team, and Gerald was very proud of himself as he managed to settle Elena back to sleep after she woke up for a drink. He's offered to babysit again anytime :-)

Down on the Farm... there’s a brand new cow

With a massive thank you to all who made this possible, the White Eagles can now look forward to milk, yoghurt and maybe even some cheese courtesy of our new cow!

About a year ago Uncle Kayima, our Farm Manager, planted some elephant grass declaring “you never know, maybe one day we’ll have a cow”.
Then, about 6 months ago, he started making noises about needing a cow-shed. Acting oblivious when it was pointed out that we don’t have a cow to put in it, the logic he preferred was that we had a tonne of elephant grass to get rid of, and the best thing for that job was a cow. Which needed a shed.

And because God is good, and you guys are generous, we were able to squeeze our budgets and Kayima got his shed. And a mighty fine one it is too. Of course, it seemed ridiculous to have a shed, a load of feed and no cow, and so, again through your generosity, on Feb 8th we became the proud owners of a Hybrid Friesan, which, all things being equal, should give us a couple of gallons of milk every day!

Now all we need to do is choose a name... any ideas?

Daisy? Doris? Frank? You decide!

Geoff in Uganda - Silky Synergy Football (most of the time!)

Geoff's been key in River of Life's Annual Community Football Tournament, this year re-launched as the Synergy Cup...

For a big part of January I've been involved with the football tournament ran by Synergy Sports, which is the sports ministry of the River of Life. This involved 12 teams from across Masaka and Nyendo, mainly made up of 14-18 year olds. There were 19 matches in all with group stages, quarters, semis and the eventual final. There was some really good football played (not all the time but often) and each team brought something different to the tournament. It was put on to be something positive for youngsters to do during the holidays, to promote the fact that Synergy Sports Strategy has been established, and to be another way in which the River of Life could reach out and be part of the community. It managed to do all of these things, and in many ways was a great success so we are thankful for that.

There was one very interesting point in the semi final though when a goal was disallowed for offside in extra time a fan walked on to the pitch to remonstrate with the referee, which then opened the flood gates for the most of the other fans to enter the pitch and try and have their stay. The crowd became unmanageable, and although thankfully there was no violence, we had to end the match prematurely. I’m not sure how the locals took to a Muzungu standing in front of the referees to protect them but thankfully all were ok and the tournament carried on!

Synergy had 3 teams entered into the tournament, the Sonics, Saints, and Sabres, and all did well and learnt a lot in the process. The Sonics reached the final which was a great occasion with a big crowd there to enjoy. Unfortunately they couldn’t quite manage the win losing out on penalties, however many positives were taken and it was a chance for the whole of Synergy Sports to grow as a group. Some of the Synergy lads have started coming to Youth Group and Church, which is just great as they want to be part of the River of Life community and learn and grow in Jesus, which is why we have a sports ministry.

Geoff is volunteering with River of Life for 4 months - to read all his blog posts, just click here

Introducing Synergy Sports Strategy - changing gear for a new year!

Synergy Sports Strategy is our new Community Sports Initiative. It’s all about enabling young people to reach their God-given potential, in sport and in life, through training, life skills coaching and Christian teaching and mentoring. Sounds good eh?

Over the years we’ve been involved in various Sports Initiatives, believing with Mr Nelson Mandela that “Sport has the power to change the world!”. Most recently we were working with a local Football Academy, Ball Line, but when that relationship came to an end last year, we decided to change gear and ramp things up a bit! It’s been an exciting few months, with a tournament (which the Synergy senior team lost in the finals on penalties - agony!) new training and discipleship programmes for over 60 boys and building relationships with schools. We’re also very proud to be able to say that 21 of the lads have won education bursaries on the strength of their sporting ability! We need funds to keep up the work - can you help? Get in touch by email!

To read all the latest stories on Synergy Sports Strategy, just click here

The New Girls Home! A sneak preview...

There are over 1,748 orphaned girls, just in our part of Masaka (according to the latest figures available, which, from 2002, are pretty out of date). For 5 years we've been able to give a small number a home, but at the end of September the girls had to move out of the house we were renting.

Over the last few months we've been building a new Girls apartment, to give short-term accommodation whilst we work on resettling them with their families. The aim, of course, was to finish just before the rent ran out, but we missed the deadline by a week or so!

Anyway, it's very nearly complete, and we thought you might like to see some sneak preview pictures before the official opening...

Fanning the Flames of Revival!

For over 22 years, Duncan has held faithfully to a vision of a Prayer Mountain that will rekindle the flames of the East African revival. 22 years is a long time to wait for a vision to see fruit. It seemed like it would never happen...

Duncan writes: “In 1989, while still in London, I believe the Lord showed me a vision of Misaali Hill, on the outskirts of Masaka Municipality, Uganda.

In the vision I saw small tongues of fire covering a small part of the hill. Then I saw those tongues spreading all over the hill, and from the middle some tongues of fire started rising. When they reached the clouds, they started breaking off like shooting stars. These tongues of fire then fell to the ground - on Masaka Town itself, the wider Masaka District, the Ssese Islands, Kampala, Uganda, East Africa, and the rest of the world.


Suddenly the Holy Spirit whispered to me “Duncan, go back to Masaka and join with others and re-kindle the fire of East African revival which was quenched through fear and religion in my church.”


I believed the strategy for the vision was to build a Prayer Hut for every nation, and to build facilities that will ensure the spiritual and material development of Masaka and Uganda. So half of the site was to be a Prayer Centre, and the other half given over to developing sports fields, an International School, and a church.”

So, the vision was awesome! But there were many that doubted - if we’re honest there were times when most of us doubted! For over 20 years the land remained available, despite it being one of the prime development sites of Masaka. But by 2010 the owners of the land were getting very old and frail. It was a complicated story - they were the trustees of the estate, and if anything happened to either of them, it was likely that the land would be parceled up and inherited by about 70 different people, making it impossible to purchase. We spent 2010 praying, surveying the site and negotiating a payment plan - completely in faith, as we didn’t have anything like enough money. Amazingly, we managed to secure a generous payment plan, at a great price...

So, by February this year the Board were presented with the choice. Either we agreed to go for it, or we could probably say goodbye to the vision. We looked at the bank account - there was no help there. But we knew we had to be faithful, and if this was of God, HE would provide.

The first massive boost to our faith was when the money for the deposit came in by the deadline - end of April. We could hardly believe it! But by the end of June, the size of the challenge was beginning to daunt us. We have many other ministries that need funding, as you know, and some of us were beginning to think, “what have we done?!”

Praying at the site at the end of June, Sarah, a visitor, shared Ezekiel 36 with us, in particular verse 36:
Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.

“I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it”. Fantastic, but how and when? Some of the ROL Elders have been prayer-walking around the site since 1994. Is 2011 going to be the year ROL buys the site?

The answer is yes, because 48 hours later, on 1st July this year, the Lord provided all the finances needed to buy the land. We. are. gobsmacked. Praise the Lord!

For more information, download the Prayer Mountain Vision Leaflet here

Medical Mission to Gulu, N. Uganda

5 days, 6 church plants, 5,471 Gospel presentations, 2044 professions of faith, and over 1,000 patients treated - welcome to an E3 Partners Mission!

Team ROL head off to Gulu -
Julius, Hannah, Christina, Andy, John

In June, we partnered with E3 Partners, an American Missions Organisation, to reach out to northern Ugandans, who are still recovering after 25 years of conflict came to an end a few years ago. We have been supporting a Pastor in Gulu for many many years, and so when the opportunity came to head north as part of a bigger team, we jumped at the chance!

John, one of our Elders, and Julius, our White Eagle Project Manager joined our visitors - Andy, Hannah and Christina - on the most amazing trip. John was part of the team that went and evangelised in Jospeh Kony’s (the notorious leader of one of the worst rebel groups in Africa) village, and as well as leading his Uncle to Jesus, helped 401 others make decisions to follow Him!

Hannah treating an elderly patient

Meanwhile, Andy and Hannah, as physiotherapists, were literally helping the lame walk/wheel again, with walking aids and wheelchairs, whilst Christina and Julius, as part of other Village Teams, were spreading the gospel of Jesus and teaching people that there is HOPE! The team returned home inspired and bouncing with ideas of how to marry practical medical support with church-planting and evangelism We’re really looking forward to partnering more with E3 in the future.

We were also really fortunate to benefit from a big donation of medical supplies, which Hannah and Andy diligently catalogued. We were then able to hand these on to the Medical Superintendent and her staff at Kitovu Mission Hospital in Masaka - they were overwhelmed by some of the items in the suitcases, as they were about to run out of them!

Handing over 4 suitcases of medical supplies at Kitovu

The latest news from Sarah @ the Girl's Home

Helloooooo everyone!!!! I hope that you are all well!!!! I'm sorry that I haven't written a newsletter for AGES!!! I've been quite busy! Anyway, here's my news.....

I've had a really great couple of months! It started with going on safari 2 months ago with Anna and Liz (the 2 gap year girls who've been living at the girls' home), which was soooooooooooooooo much fun!!!! We rode on top of the Project van as we drove around the safari park, and then had a boat trip on the lake, and I got completely over-excited at seeing monkeys, baboons, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, etc. close up!!! We had SUCH a fun day!!!!!!!

Shortly after that, Anna left us (sob!), to go and prepare for starting university.

I had my week's holiday during the first week in August, and I spent it in Entebbe and Kampala with a group of Christian and Messianic Jewish dancers who I used to dance with in England. They were ministering at a church in Kampala, and asked me to join them, which I was very happy to do. I had a FAB week - we really saw God move during the sessions we did at the church, through the teaching, dancing, praying, etc., and I felt completely spoiled the whole week - we were staying in a lovely house on the edge of Lake Victoria (it was really beautiful!), we had amazing food (we even got taken out for a Chinese one day - my favourite!), we got to visit the source of the Nile (which was beautiful), we got treated by everyone we met, we had the privilege of visiting and meeting some amazing places and people, and I had a brilliant and very inspiring time just hanging out with everyone - it was just generally fab!!! (I'm running out of words to describe how amazing it was!)

The kids broke up for their school holidays as soon as I got back, so I was then busy running the holiday programme with them for a couple of weeks, which I reeeeally enjoyed, as we had a lot of fun and the kids were very enthusiastic (although, as usual, it was tiring!)!!!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, 9 people from my church in Flixton came to visit Masaka (Yeahhhhh!!!!!!!) - 5 of my really good friends, and 4 of the girls from the teenagers group I used to help with. I almost burst with excitement seeing them all, and I had the most brilliant week with them!!! I just loved spending time with them, laughing, joking, talking, praying, etc, and it was great for them to all come to the church, the White Eagles Project, and some of the other ministries, and get involved with all the stuff that I'm involved with! And they came equipped with chocolate and cheese!!!! (Yeahhhhh!!!!) It was really wonderful (- having them here, that is, not just the chocolate and cheese, although that was really wonderful too!)!!!

We also took the kids to Lake Nabugabu, (- funded by some people from my old dance school, who had raised a whole load of money so we could treat the kids to a day out -- THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!), where we spent the day swimming, eating, chilling, playing, chatting, etc. with the kids. In short, it was an amazing week!!!

Then, Liz (the other gap year student who'd been staying in the girls' home) and Kate (a girl who came here for just a month) left (sob!), as did most of the Flixton crew.... But 2 of my really good friends, Sarah and Anna, stayed on for another week, and we had a great week doing some stuff with the kids and staff, going out for meals, etc. It was reeeeeeeeally wonderful to spend quality time with them!!!!

Now they've all left, but we have 3 American visitors who are here for a week! Phew!

- So, life has been busy, but lots and lots of fun, with lots of visitors who have been a HUGE blessing to me, and also to the White Eagles kids and staff!!!!

Life should settle down a bit now, as we don't have any more visitors planned, and the kids are all back at school this week, so we'll all get back into our term-time routines!

On the new River of Life Farm

Today we visited our brand new farm! We have been wanting to start developing our own farm for a LONG time. Recently we acquired a fantastic site, just 2 miles from Nyendo, and although we haven't managed to pay the fantastically discounted £6,000 for the approximately 7 acres, the owners have allowed us to start developing it.

As we're feeding upwards of 40 people a day, and food prices are going through the roof (up 14% last year in Masaka, according to the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics, and up 57% in the last 4 years) Uncle Kayima has made it his personal ambition to develop the 7 acre site into the most productive area of land in Uganda, if not the world (!)

And what a huge amount of work has been done! Already about 2 acres have been dug, and sweet potatoes, sugar cane and yams planted - a small section was left for the FFC Missions trip to plant on their visit, and even though it was early and the sun wasn't at full strength, we got an idea of just how hard the guys must have been working.

It's now urgent that we get the Matoke (our staple diet of green bananas) in before the next rains, due any day now, so that they can get well established before the dry seasons. If we don't get it in now, we'll have to wait another 12 months, which we REALLY don;t want to do. But we need approximately £3,000 (10 million Ugandan Shillings) to plant it all out... Kayima and the Team are going to continue preparing the land, and as they dig, pray for provision!

If you are able to support River of Life's Food Security Project by investing in the farm, please either donate here, or get in touch with Rob by email

You can see a photo album of our visit to the farm on flick here

Who do you call for a blocked open-sewer?

Operation ARK! Operation ARK (Acts of Random Kindness) has been a great success this year. For four days from the 2nd - 6th May 2010, scores of young people from the local churches in Nyendo took to the streets and defying the expectations of the locals, undertook a massive clear-up operation... I'll let Julius, Operation ARK Coordinator, make his report:

The theme for Operation ARK was “Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead!” (James 2:17). 13 churches from Masaka were represented, which was really a privilege to have them join us bless the community. 80- 100 youth turned up everyday during that week to bless the community and impact it with the love of God.

This year we were privileged to be joined by people from England’ France, and Holland. We divided into 3 groups, one was to paint, the other to clean and the third group preached and prayed for the people in the areas that we worked every day. We had different pastors from different churches teaching on different topics in line with the theme, and then we moved out painting homes, clearing rubbish off streets, and giving out 50 'Boxes of Blessings' to people - food and other basic necessities - this was amazing to see them happy and exited. Amazingly, 19 people gave their lives to Jesus within those 4 days of Operation A.R.K.

The most exiting thing in that week for me was this blocked open-sewer that we found in Kitaka Zone Nyendo. Before Operation A.R.K had come in to help, people couldn’t do anything about it; it was blocked up to the level of 6 feet deep. All the men around made all these funny comments on how we were going to fail and not make it because it was so deep and stinking a lot. But thank God that we were able to join our efforts together and managed to unblock it and all the people were astonished and surprised on how we managed to unblock it at last. News started spreading out in the area on how the Christians managed to unblocked the filthy trench!

We can’t wait to see what 2011 holds for Operation A.R.K.
Thank you! Julius

There'll be plenty of pictures and video clips making their way onto this site over the next few weeks so you can see for yourself what Operation ARK has achieved!

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.