Join the 2010 Sponsorship Challenge!

Could you, or someone who know, provide sponsorship for one of the White Eagles?

This Christmas and New Year has marked the 10th Anniversary of the White Eagle Project, and what a ten years it has been! From the original 21 boys that we took off the street on Boxing Day 1999, we have grown to be helping 50 orphans and vulnerable children in Masaka, through our boys home, our girls home and where possible in their families. From 2010 to 2015, we want to significantly boost the number of children that we're helping.

Our vision at the White Eagle Project is to love and empower our children to excel in all areas of life so that they can grown up to be responsible and productive members of Uganda - which means we focus on quality education and quality mentoring, so that the White Eagles may become tomorrow's nation-changers - like Fred, Charles and even little Mercy!


Could you, or someone you know, help us help more children?

There are an estimated 2.3 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Uganda - we estimate 2,000 of them are on our doorstep in Nyendo. We know we can really help give these children a hope for the future - could you help it happen for Jonah, Mukisa, or Shadia?


If you would like to find out more about our Sponsorship Program, please send us an email by clicking here

River of Life's 2010 Holiday Club - Building the Body of Christ!

On Jan 2nd, the fabulous team from St Bertelines in Runcorn touched down in Uganda. For the next 8 days they were to get stuck into all things River of Life, and in particular run a Holiday Club for the children of Nyendo. We were expecting maybe 50 children, but no-one quite knew what would happen come Monday morning... !

With Big Charles and Gerald managing registrations, we waited for the children to arrive... First there were 10, then 20, 25, 30... at this point I was thinking we should have got the word out a bit better! Then there was 50, 60, 70. Soon the Church was filled with over 90 'children' aged from 3 to 23 = plus the 10-strong team of staff and volunteers looking slightly alarmed.

But we rocked (if I may say so myself), and really set the scene for 2010 - River of Life is a church that exists for the community, for mission and to see peoples lives transformed. Themed 'The Body of Christ' we taught from Corinthians 12 about how everyone has a part to play in God's Plan, and everyone's part is important. With a drama skit designed and performed by the White Eagles, games, parachutes, balloons and teaching sessions, the holiday club was something that most of the children there would never have experienced before.

You can check out pictures of the week on our Flickr gallery. A special thank you to the team from St Berts!

A little piece of Runcorn comes to River of Life...

We were immensely blessed in the first week of January to welcome a team from St Bertelines Church and Primary School in Norton, near Runcorn (which is near Liverpool). Musumba John, the vicar, Julie, the headteacher, Nicki, Rob, Josh and Sarah Beaney were the A-Team, and their passion and commitment was wonderful to see! They had spent the autumn term fundraising for the White Eagles with their very own 'St Bert's Build a Bog' campaign, and were able to see/smell for themselves the pit latrines that the new washrooms will replace. They also brought with them a fine collection of football shirts (a lot of Liverpool shirts - so there'll no doubt be a few more fans singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' in the coming years), games, toys, and clothes to bless the children with.

But perhaps their single biggest contribution was themselves. They threw themselves into serving the children of Nyendo and Masaka with such energy. They ran a holiday club for about 90 children all week - children from Nazareth Children's Home, River of Life Sunday School including the White Eagles and a lot of local children. With art, crafts, games, parachutes, balls, balloons and all the rest they absolutely thrilled the children. Mzee Rob's 'Mary Poppins' bag deserves a special mention - but I'll leave the rest to put in this story...

Credit where credit's due - I'll give the last word to some of the staff who were so blessed to work with the team:
"They were generous givers to everyone - even if they were tired, they still gave of themselves fully and had the joy of the Lord all the time... they showed a lot of love to everyone - we can learn from this and ask God to give us more of His love!"

We hope very much that this will be the start of something very exciting as we build a link with St Bertelines!

Lake Nabugabo Baptisms!

With 161 people crammed into the back of a lorry, van and 4x4, we started 2010 the best way possible - by baptising 40+ people at Lake Nabugabo. Generously funded by the St Berts Team, for the first time in YEARS we were able to offer the WHOLE church a celebration and party at Lake Nabugabo (normally we take just the White Eagles). And man, what a celebration it was! A feast like you'd never seen before, baptisms like you'd never seen before, games, fun, and for us Bazungu (white-people) sunburn - I was going to say like you'd never seen before but if you know me, you know how burnt I can get... Check out all the pictures from this very very special day on our Flickr Gallery - click here.

The Girls get a new Aunty!

On a snowy, cold and slightly nerve-wracking morning just after Christmas, the wonderful Sarah put the final things into her suitcases, not quite believing that everything she was going to use for the next 12 months (at least) was tightly packed into the two bags in front of her.

Sarah was about to start a journey she'd started planning only a few months earlier - prompted by prayer, prophesy and a deep conviction of God's call on her life, she'd given up her job as a Physio, said her goodbyes to her family and friends, packed up her flat, undergone cross-cultural mission training, had many planning sessions with us, and booked her flights - she was ready to become the Girls Home Aunty.

Touching down in Uganda in time for a New Years Eve she never experienced before (all night prayer meeting anyone?!) Sarah has flung herself/been flung headlong into serving the poor of Nyendo. She's our Girls Home Aunty, responsible for the White Eagle Girls, our deputy-Manager, responsible with Emily and Julius for the smooth running of the project and is involved in our Hospital Ministry and Youth Club. She got a pretty enthusiastic welcome from the staff and White Eagles too!

You'll be hearing plenty more about Sarah on this blog...! For now, we wish her all the best and we're so excited about what God is going to do in her life, and in others' lives through her. Amiina!

Buy a gift with a difference this Christmas...

Back by popular demand, we have updated our Alternative Gift List... this year, it's all about boosting the bog fund! As you know fundraising has been continuing apace all year to keep on building the boys home. In January, we opened the new sitting room, dining room, kitchen and store. And now it's time to build the washrooms and toilets! Our estimate for this section of the boys home is about £15,000. With all the fundraising that's been going on we're hoping to have raised about £13,000 - can you help us push it up to the target?!

Our vision in the White Eagle Project is for a qood quality home in the middle of Nyendo. Somewhere that some of Uganda's most destitute and vulnerable can call home, somewhere that can help us give a standard of care which will release the White Eagles to fly high!

So, please do download the all new Alternative Gift List here , go straight to our online donation page here and be inspired to buy someone a washbasin, a toilet or even part of a cesspit!

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.