Fancy a non-coffee? A new fundraising idea...!

Just had to quickly write and talk about a new fundraising idea from Barabara, one of our Trustees. She's set up a JustGiving page for a TrickleFund - the idea being that everyday we can save a little bit of money to help Uganda's kids through River of Life... She writes:

"Everyday there's money you don't spend .....Walked instead of taking the bus? NOT bought that chocolate cake? Put the money in the Uganda Trickle Fund instead! Better for you and for Uganda's children!

And then there's washing machine money, sofa money, forgotten in pockets money, found on the floor money - especially in SOME people's bedrooms who shall be nameless - come on guys, donate your forgotten money - you can't have needed it!

Don't forget that if you pay tax Gift Aid makes your donation worth 28% more -at no cost to you!"

So if you've just found a couple of 20p pieces down the back of the sofa, or even an old fiver in the back pocket of a pair of jeans, why not donate it to River of Life, and help provide for some of Uganda's most vulnerable kids by donating to the TrickleFund!

Introducing the White Eagle Family Project!

We have some very exciting news to share - this month we have launched a whole new scholarship program supporting 18 vulnerable and needy kids within their families! That brings the number of kids we are helping directly through our sponsorship program to 52, which is a huge milestone for River of Life and alongside the hundreds of kids that we're getting alongside through our youth work and sports ministry, the people we're visiting and assisting through the Mercy Missions, the work we're doing with agricultural development and the links we're building with Northern Uganda, it feels like we've definitely moved up a gear in the first half of 2008. Hallelujah!

Anyway, back to our new White Eagle Families. We've recognised for a long time the need to support families as much as possible - afterall the absolutely best place for children is within a loving family. The strains and stresses of Ugandan life - poverty, sickness, hardship - often stretches the social safety net of the family to breaking point, and children can fall through the gap and end up working on the streets, or in the markets, earning a few shillings a day to supplement the family income. That's the best case scenario - what also happens is that 'unwanted' children - perhaps from a previous marriage, or from a sister who has died - fall to the bottom of the pecking order and are neglected and considered a burden on the rest of the family: often resulting in them running away.

So what better thing to do than to complement our 'reactive' White Eagle work that saves kids from the street, with 'proactive' work that supports parents straining with looking after large families, including nephews, nieces, half brothers and step-sisters by providing scholarships? Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, that's exactly what we've been able to do! The kids are enjoying going to better schools whilst growing up in a loving family environment - fabulous.

Of course there are many more potential 'White Eagle Families' that need our help who we are unable to support (yet!) so if this exciting new venture has tickled your fancy and you'd like to find out more or become a supporter, drop us an email

14 guests to stay!

Our 3 bed bungalow has been host to 14 of the White Eagle Boys recently! With the rest of us here, we've had over 20 people round the dinner table... I'll start from the beginning. I've been back in Uganda 2 weeks now, after our emergency visit to the UK to see Duncan's mum. The night before I was due to fly back another emergency meant I took off to Leeds, instead of Entebbe, to spend the best part of a month with family - Duncan had to return to Uganda on his own and attend to the funeral arrangements for Jjaja Rose. I have to be honest, it's been a really really tough time recently, it feels like we've been through the mill.

But, on the first Sunday I was back, Church was lovely, it was so good to be there. Duncan and I had had a short break in Kampala, and we'd decided this school holiday to spend a lot of time with the kids. So from Wednesday to Saturday morning, 14 of the older boys came to stay with us in our home! Each day 2 stayed and work in Bwala our home and 12 went to work on Kibaya Farm. We have cooked lots of food as they have worked really hard - Tim went with them and took photos which you can see. Also he took some good video footage to make a promotional DVD for this summer - do pray for him in this as it's a lot of work!

Then in the evenings we had a topic, teaching and discussions. The first night was 'integrity' - it was great. The second was 'sex and single life' - I put it together and opened the session but then left it to the men to talk men to men! Then the third night they all went to John's home to watch some football match, so they didn’t go to bed till about 1am - but they were up again at 6:30am. The last night's topic was 'money - good or bad' and finishing with watching the Passion of Christ. And on Saturday morning we had a time of sharing what they got out of the sessions as well as looking at employment and work. They all really worked hard, we are so enjoying this holiday time with them!

You can see how hard the boys work. Here's what it looked like before:



And here it is after! All ready for planting crops and delicious food:



You can read Tim's take on the events on his blog

Thank you to all our supporters, and God bless
Mary

The Reverend Ragtoe & DJ Duncan

Check out Tim's latest video - a tribute to the White Eagle's spectacular performance in this year's football tournament. As an added treat, he's somehow managed to get Pastor Duncan bustin' out some beats in a rasta-wig, whilst he raps "get ready for the skill of the white eagle, the kings of football, their skills are regal".

He's a special one.

Go to the River of Life YouTube Channel, sit back, and, laugh or cry, you'll love it!

Remember that newest member of the Church?

When we first started this blog we wrote about little Mercy, so-called by one of our elders because of the Mercy God had shown on her life. We found abandoned in a saucepan by the side of the road - she was so thin and scrawny and obviously undernourished back then, it was terrible - we have a photo of her but it's too distressing to post it here. Anyway, she joined the big White Eagle family here and she is getting on so well, we just had to write about her. She has everyone wrapped around her little finger, chatters away in English and Luganda and is a really bright little spark.

A total transformation compared to how she was when she came to us, praise God! Here she is with Tim, after a chapatti making session...

Fundraising for River of Life's easy!

Did you know that you can set up a fundraising sponsorship page at the click of a button? Just head over to Justgiving and follow the instructions to set-up a fundraising page, and make sure you link it to "River of Life Uganda". Your friends and family then donate through your webpage... and if you're thinking "I can't do a sponsored event - doesn't that mean running a marathon? or doing a skydive? or sitting in a bath of baked beans for 24 hrs? I'm not doing any of those!" help is at hand! Because a casual browse of the Justgiving "Inspiration for Fundraisers" blog entries shows just how creative you can be in designing a 'sponsored' event. Of course here's your Lands End to John o'Groats bike rides and London Maranathon runners, but there are also men who shave off their beards, a team called the 'Urban Ironing Collective' who will do your ironing for a £15 donation, pancake races, and much more besides. A lot of people are setting up 'In memorium' pages for when a loved one dies, or forsaking birthday gifts and asking people to donate to charity instead. We'll be encouraging everyone to do something later in the year when we hold the first ever International River of Life Gift Day Bonanza - here's hoping for loads of wacky fundraising ideas!

As well as using Justgiving, River of Life is set up with MyCharityPage, another online fundraising page, and our building appeal is listed on theBigGive
webpage - search for projects in Uganda, Eastern Africa under £25,0000. Check us out...

I'll be writing much more about fundraising ideas in the near future, so watch this space if you want to get involved...

In memorium Jjaja Rose

It is with great sadness that we write of the death of Duncan's mother, known to many as Jjaja or Maama Rose (depending on how old you were). Any of you who have visited Duncan & Mary will no doubt have either met her, visited her or eaten great piles of matooke and chicken at her house on the outskirts of Kampala. We have all been knocked sideways by her death, which was a few weeks ago now, on March 8th.

However, we were so overjoyed that Duncan and Mary were able to get back to the UK a few days before and have a great time with her before she died. Thank you all so much for all your prayers, and thank you to those who made this unplanned visit possible.

Having had some time to recover, we'll be much better at updating this blog thing. Honest :)