rothwellsmission: March 2014

“He has shown you , O man, what is good. And what does The Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6 : 8

Hello everyone

Thank you for your prayers and messages. It is such a comfort knowing we are in your thoughts and in your prayers.

From our last prayer requests we are seeing the results. The students are still coming, even those who had been awaiting results, and the school is almost full. After sending the last blog, when the mood here was very heavy, a few of us did a prayer walk around the perimeter and prayed for protection on the school and everyone in it. The following day the mood had lifted and we thank The Lord for that immediate answer to prayer.

It has been a while since the last blog, but we've now got to grips with the variable and very slow internet signal – we are doing this in the school library (up the hill and thus a better signal) instead of in the guest house (down the hill)! And it reminds us how blessed Wobulenzi Town Academy is to have a library, so few schools in the area do.

Jerry did a great talk at the recent Parent's Day (see below) explaining the role of ServeDirect here, using a bag of tools, and it was a perfect illustration. ServeDirect supply the tools, such as the library building and the books, but it is up to the workers, the teachers and the pupils, to use them.

To us it ably demonstrates why the partnership between ServeDirect and Wobulenzi Town Academy (and The Rock and The Bridge) works. If ServeDirect walked away tomorrow all three of the projects could continue, and that is the joy of the relationship.

Will now try and do a brief-ish update of the last almost three weeks and add some photos.

A team of young people from Wototo church in Kampala have been out a few times to speak at church on Sunday, run some small group discussion with the very active school CU and do some training in sport – netball, basketball and football.

New birthing bed for The Rock arrived, Stan, Jerry and Phil erected it - eventually – and Stan even tried it out. Lots of giggles from the medical team! (The photo seems to have mysteriously disappeared - will keep searching).

Helen and Steve Richardson arrived. What a joy to have them here, felt like a little bit of home had arrived (and it had,in the shape of chocolate!). And bless them for bringing champagne all the way from England to toast the house!

Dentaid team arrived – Team of UK and Ugandan dentists who set up surgery in The Rock and started work within the hour. They examined and treated the whole school, the teachers and 73 members of the community. Stan was very brave (being scared of dentists) and went into the surgery to take pictures and generally comfort some scared students while Sue helped as dental assistant – holding hands and washing some bloody instruments. We provided lunch for the team of 13 at the guest house – our first official visitors.

Parents Day – lasted most of Sunday 2^nd. Was due to start at 10am, Africa time, so got under way at around 12. The students put on some incredible entertainment – the choir performed and then there were traditional dances from all four corners of Uganda including the circumcision dance which according to Stan was “very interesting”! The WTA cook, Maria, catered for 800 (guests, parents and students) with a meat and rice meal in a delicious sauce. It was humbling to see the students fetching bowls of water for the parents to wash themselves before eating – some of them had travelled hours to get here. It was great to see exhibitions of art in the Art Room and experiments taking place in the laboratories – both recent additions to the school.

We are at last having some Senior 5 students arriving – the 'O'Level results had been delayed and they are unable to start school until they are published. The results for WTA had again improved, which is a credit to Charles and his teaching staff. Some of the students have done so well they have been offered free bursaries at other schools, and that is a compliment to the standards here, that WTA have given these students such a good grounding.

We were able to listen to Will on Forge Radio last week, the Tom and Will show every Monday at 4pm (for us, pm) on www.forgetoday.com. As the signal is so variable it faded in and out but we were able to hear Will give us a name check which was such a treat – again another link with home – so good to hear his voice.

On Saturday Elspeth and Sue celebrated Womens Day (very big here – a public holiday) by showing a girly film and having a discussion group for the girls (plus an awful lot of boys who wanted to see the film).

Our Activate sessions have been a delight – so far the subjects have chosen themselves following things said by the students or concerns that have arisen. In the last two weeks we have covered 'water' (from the bore hole and the spiritual kind) and the 'End of Days/being ready'. This week there are mid-term exams, so no lessons, but Stan has cricket tonight and Sue has tennis tomorrow – the sport never stops!

We experienced our first matatu ride from Kampala to Wobulenzi this week. We likened it to a Famous Five adventure – we had to change vehicle (or as we called it, sardine can) three times, walk through two deep ditches (fortunately no water in them), cross two three-lane fast roads and had two near-misses. All part of the fun of living here!

After two false starts Stan was able to open up a guest house bank account at Wobulenzi bank. And then he spent four hours there trying to draw out some money. However, so that he didn't waste any more time he was encouraged by the staff to join the 'fast' queue – the sign said 'For the Elderly'!

We have had some other successes this week - Said the soda man now knows Stan by name and has a supply of ginger beer ready for him when he calls, and Dhama in the water shop had the large 20 litre bottle of water we had ordered from him three weeks ago (which he said would be there on Tuesday). Even better news – he had ordered 50 of the bottles from his supplier – his shop was full of them. Fortunately he didn't want us to take them all at once! And the 'smiley pineapple lady' now gives us the 'locals' price and not the 'mzungu' one.

We walked through the school early this week and were amazed again at how early they are at work - prep and then getting water, washing and clearing up. And the sunrise was spectacular.

PRAYER REQUESTS

For the Senior 5's arriving half way through the term – pray that they will settle in and feel at home very quickly.

For malaria nets – they are prepared and ready the challenge is getting them on the beds.

For the student diagnosed with Hepatitis B and another with TB – they have returned to their villages until they are better – please pray for healing.

For wisdom for Charles as he deals with theft of items from the school. We pray that justice and mercy will prevail in this situation. The quote from Micah is the school motto and it has been quoted many times during our time here, and is a good reminder of what He asks us to do.