We recently sent out a newsletter with thoughts shared by one of our summer mission volunteers. We want to add to that some information about all that has been going on in Uganda…and it is a lot! So take a seat and read a while!!
Last year in 2018 Donna felt led to pray the following prayer:
Father, orchestrate every detail in our work in Kabale. Work out Your eternal agenda. Move and use every evil person and every evil inclination in men’s hearts, stirring them in a direction that will move events toward Your objective. Direct every detail. Set the stage for the display of Your power. Provide the platform that You want. Control every evil thing. Use everything for good. Engineer everything, Lord, in this work. Help us to live by faith and not by sight. Let all of Your plans come to fruition. Help us to be obedient. Direct the thoughts and intentions of unbelievers. Put all the pieces in place that will accomplish Your will. Amen.
That’s kind of an unusual prayer! If you have followed the events that began unfolding in January you know how God has been moving and answering this prayer!! We separated from the man (Junior) we had partnered with (for the last 4 years) in January this year. In March Junior was arrested and charged with 13 counts related to the sexual abuse of girls. Two different times Junior has applied for bail and both times his bail was denied! Many times Junior has tried through his associates to bribe the Judge and the district attorney and the girls who made statements. Each time they have turned down the bribe money! In August just before we left Kabale, Junior’s main associate was arrested on fraud charges related to his safari business!! In all of this the girls who made statements against Junior have been harassed and pressured, but all of them with only one exception have remained firm and not backed down from their statements. Amos and Greg have received death threats, but God has provided His angels to protect them!! We had the opportunity this summer to minister to these girls in Jesus’ name, to start steps toward healing. Several of these girls are in college now and we are supporting them in their studies. But what has been amazing is how God has reassured us of His sovereign control of all things in this situation. We truly believe that God has always had His eye on these girls and He brought us to Kable for such a time as this! We have been awed by our amazing God!
Around the end of June we received our official registration status as an NGO (Non-governmental organization) in Uganda. It is similar to the 501c3 status we have in the U.S. It gives us (Two Roads Foundation) recognition as a non-profit, allows us to operate in Uganda without being taxed, and it allows us to work toward our goal of reaching children, healing families and making disciples for Christ.
The teams that came over this summer did an amazing job! Our first team was just 3 of us – but we combined with our Ugandan team to be 7 members strong! Sarina Brothers who has been with us the last two summers came to stay the whole summer and she did a fantastic job! As the next two teams came we had music, drama, sports camps, visits to homes, we even took our teams “on the road” and went to a large field after school to meet the kids and provide an after school program. All of this is impossible to describe, you just have to experience it! I will add a couple of pictures of the two bigger teams below. Due to the generosity of some churches across southwestern Oklahoma we had the joy of providing special shoes that grow (expanding 5 sizes) , to about 200 children and counting.
We have begun a new outreach to the Batwa people. They are a very poor, marginalized people who used to live in the forests but have been forcefully evicted by the government. Our first inroad to them was to take shoes to one village. We left shoes that will be taken by Two Roads staff and some of our children to a second village. We will be adding a page to our website so you can donate directly to this project. We want to provide basic needs such as blankets, cooking pots, and clothes but also supply things that will be sustainable like sheep and maybe even seed for food crops. See more to come in the future.
We currently have around 120 sponsored children in our program. There are many more that we have connected with who are in great need of help. We just picked up a new girl in August who is the only surviving child of her mother who has had 10 children! We hope you will help us spread the word about the needs of families and children in Kabale. We are in the process of providing the staff so we can grow to minister to these needs on a daily basis.
In August we hired a new staff member Tyra. Tyra is completing her degree in Social Work. She will officially graduate in December this year, but she will begin in Kabale sometime in mid to late September. She was a summer intern for us and she did a great job. Oh, and she just happens to be engaged to our Director Amos!
We are in the process of hiring another social worker, Derick, who will be our Program’s Director. He currently is a family mentor at Amazima school in Jinja, Uganda. We are excited to see him come. He is also an answer to prayer! He will start Jan 1, 2020. He will bring our permanent staff in Uganda to 4 persons with another part time staffer making 5
We are planning to start a Two Roads Primary school. We have not yet set a starting date, but we will be working toward a date around 2022. Derick’s wife Ruth is helping Amazima start a primary school and will be working for them in 2020. Pray that she will be able to join Two Roads in January of 2021 to help us work toward beginning our primary school. Our goal is to be the best primary in Western Uganda.
We have moved to a new Junction! After separating from Educate a Child in January, we moved to a new place in March. In May the landlord asked us to move. We moved to our new leased facilities the first of June and signed a 3 year lease. We plan for this to be our home base for the next three years as we develop the land we purchased in 2016 and possibly look for additional land to grow the school on.
We are making plans to shift from a individual sponsorship program to a scholarship program. In the scholarship program people will give as they do now, but all the funds will be combined to provide school scholarships to as many students as possible. This is all part of our larger goal to come alongside the families of these children and not replace them. We will be sharing more about this program as we implement it.
We will be developing a new life skills program in the second quarter of 2020 seeking to improve on the past program and reach and train more of our children’s moms and dads.
Prayers Needs:
- New Employees; Tyra’s transition to happen soon; Derick Kato’s transition from Jinja to Kabale in January 2020; Ruth Kato joining our staff in 2021.
- Batwa; how to help them to help themselves, salvation/discipleship, meeting basic needs
- Land for additional needs/resolution of current land legal issues
- School Resources; building, teachers/administrators, materials
- For God to supply salaries for our new staff
- Protection and healing for the girls who have been abused
- Parents to buy into their responsibility to be parents/ our equipping them to be parents
- Continued favor with the courts and a speedy resolution of the charges
- Growth and development of the new church being established
- Formation of upcoming teams
- Continued spiritual awakening; disciples made; an open door for the gospel
- New Sponsors/finances
- God’s will to be done and His Name to be glorified!!
Team 2
Team 3