Here is a summary of what the Lord has done through the month of April taken from Amos’s monthly update!
- Legal Issues. We praise God for what He is doing in these cases!
- Criminal Matter: The court assessors/Jury found Junior guilty of all the criminal charges of rape, sexual harassment and trafficking. The court will deliver a formal judgement on June 2nd.
- Civil Matter: This month court sat and there is a new judge who seems more interested in getting the case done. Junior was not in court and had no representation. The court has written to the prison service in Kampala to produce Junior in court. He gave him one more chance. Court has not yet determined the next date for the hearing.
(We praise God for this new Judge who has spent time in the US ) g.s.
- Sunday fellowship: We implemented a strategy on how we can effectively teach the little kids who come to Sunday school the word of God and cultivate their relationship with God. We teach through visual pictures, skits, outdoors in the environment especially most recently when we were talking about God’s creation and the fall of man. These were taught in a series form and we have realized tremendous success in lesson understanding, scripture memorization and general participation of the little ones.
(We take seriously the responsibility God has given us to nurture all of these children.) g.s.
- High Risk/need kids Strategy: As our sponsorship numbers have grown (160+) it has become more difficult for our staff to mentor every child as we would like. This has led us to develop a way to identify and focus attention on kids with higher risk/need. We identify these kids according to general behavioral changes, physical appearance (for example showing up dirty to the junction more often than usual), drastic, unhealthy loss of weight, and constantly missing our programs.
This month, we identified 5 children we are giving special focus to. We have already identified their needs and possible solutions to their challenges. We have assigned tasks and a follow up plan to help these wonderful children.
- Parents meetings: We had both the marrieds and single’s meeting.
- Marrieds: We reviewed previous series on Mental health awareness, how to overcome stress, depression and trauma. This being not commonly appreciated and widely discussed issue in Africa generally, our parents were amazed at how much they have been dealing with stress and depression. They realized this because the signs and symptoms had been demystified. They were not only taught signs and symptoms but also how to prevent it, how to treat and how not to pass it on the next generation. Among the practical ways to prevent and treat it were as follows; a) practice selfcare as one of the ways to overcome stress and depression, b) join fellowships, Bible study groups for social support and most importantly read the scriptures for guidance and encouragement.
They were also advised to seek medical and psychosocial support, but also educated them on where to seek these services for free.
- Singles: Amos shared with our single mothers on how to raise solid grounded men. He started by encouraging them that no matter the circumstances of how they ended up as mothers, God has a plan for them and their children. God knew their children before they were conceived in their wombs. He shared the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21 that how regardless of how Ishamel was conceived, God still cared for Hagar and her new born son.
Then we talked about striking the balance between nurturing and providing as the bedrock of parenting, that as single mothers sometimes balancing this is really hard! We tend to focus on one thing leaving out the other of which it does not meet fully the needs of the child. We talked about things like emotional support, caring about the interests of our kids, finding time to spend with them thereby knowing them better! We agreed that if we only focused on provision, we would end up having provided for people who will never reflect our hopes and dreams for them.
(You can imagine trying to negotiate parenting in a culture where they received no guidance and they haven’t had role models to follow) g.s.
- Marrieds: We reviewed previous series on Mental health awareness, how to overcome stress, depression and trauma. This being not commonly appreciated and widely discussed issue in Africa generally, our parents were amazed at how much they have been dealing with stress and depression. They realized this because the signs and symptoms had been demystified. They were not only taught signs and symptoms but also how to prevent it, how to treat and how not to pass it on the next generation. Among the practical ways to prevent and treat it were as follows; a) practice selfcare as one of the ways to overcome stress and depression, b) join fellowships, Bible study groups for social support and most importantly read the scriptures for guidance and encouragement.
MAY
- The kids start their first break of the year this week (May 2). We are excited to have them back to the Junction during the school break. This is the most exciting time of our work as we get to pour into them. We will be sharing specific Bible lessons with each group who come. gs
Prayer:
- Pray for a new court date and continued favor we have seen from the new judge.
- Pray for the high-risk children & the staff’s intervention with them; Judah, Jonah, Moses, Christine and Alex
- Pray for our families as they seek to chart a new direction in their families with God’s help.
Thank you for your continued support and prayers,
Amos, Greg & Donna
On behalf of all the staff