BLOG NO 13 - 29TH JANUARY 2015

'I am envious of people who have not yet been to Africa – they have so much to look forward to'

Hi everyone

The three of us have arrived safely!  Yes, three. As we arrived back so did a new baby – at The Rock.

We called in to say hello to the nurses and missed the birth by five minutes – a healthy 4kg baby girl – as yet unnamed. Mum allowed us to take a photo whilst she bathed and dressed ready to walk home!

Whilst the school is very quiet without students, for The Bridge and The Rock it is still business as usual. The Bridge are running a holiday club and The Rock are treating members of the community and delivering lots more babies. There were five births when we were back in England and there are many more 'pending'. The Rock is proving very popular for childbirth in particular as the community are spreading the word that it is clean and affordable and the staff are properly trained – sadly not the case in many 'health centres'.

Since we have been back it's been all about preparation. There is lots of maintenance work going on – painting, cleaning and (Stan's particular favourite), latrine emptying! We are already planning Activate and English lessons and a teacher training day. Charles is currently in the north, signing up pupils for the new Senior 1 intake this year. This is somewhat difficult in that students are unable to attend secondary school until they can show they have passed the primary school exams, and those results are not yet out, although they will be 'quite soon' (no actual date though!). Same applies for the O Level results – they 'may possibly' be released next week, so again, until they are known, those students wanting to attend 6^th form cannot attend. Consequently the start of term – officially Monday - is often a long drawn out affair and we may not have a full school for a few weeks.

The quote above was used by a young English man we met this week – he said he read it somewhere, we can't find out where it came from but understand it completely. Once Africa is in your heart a little bit of you stays behind when you leave. Of course we miss home, family and friends (although not the weather!), but we are happy to be back to catch up with people we (and they we hope) consider friends. Indeed there have been many 'Aiee's' of excitement as we have been greeted!

Please pray for the students returning to school on Monday (and on every day for the next few weeks!) - always a difficult time – finding school fees, getting away from the house and field work. We particularly pray that the girls have managed to avoid being married off for a bride price by an unscrupulous relative.

We have been clicking the camera this week to show you that life and work goes on here even when the school is closed - children at The Bridge, our 'to do' list!, Lilian the midwife with the new arrival, preparing 'dodo' from our garden (turned it into an African/Italian fusion with pasta, and our favourite biscuit name!

Love and blessings

Sue and Stan

BLOG NO 12 - 20TH JANUARY 2015

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing

1 Thessalonians 5:11

We are so grateful to our amazing friends and church family for their incredible support in providing support, both financial and in prayer, to enable us to go back to Uganda and continue the work on behalf of ServeDirect for another 12 months.

As some of you know, we agreed to return knowing that financially we could only provide half of the means, as we felt without any doubt that God still had work for us to do there. However we were also in no doubt that if He wanted us there he would provide – and He did, through all of you.

Be assured that whatever we do over the next 12 months you are truly a part of. We may be the people on the ground, but we are ALL doing His work and being His hands together.

Whist we were away last year and since we have been back in the UK you have encouraged us and built us up – bless you.

We fly on Thursday morning, so keep up the prayers please!

With our love and thanks

Sue and Stan

BLOG NO 11 - 2ND DECEMBER 2014

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn – shout for joy before the Lord, the King.

Psalm 98 : 4-6

Ok, so there was no harp, trumpets or ram's horn, but there were guitars and African drums

, and New Life church Romsey certainly helped Wobulenzi Town Academy to burst into jubilant song and shout for joy before the Lord!

What an amazing time it has been, not only with worship and testimonies but with such varied items as mask making, bracelets, computer lessons, health talks, fun science such as water rockets and solar powered cars, English, sewing lessons (the machine remains for ongoing use), films, a multitude of sports and of course Wobulenzi's Got Talent!

The subject of the 'Ignite!' talks was Bible superheroes, introduced by two well known comic book superheroes (aka Amanda and Phil). Through the week the talks covered Joseph, Gideon, David and Esther and finally, the ultimate superhero, Jesus.

The programme culminated with a prayer walk around the site and the community and a celebration lunch doubling up as a Christmas celebration as most of the students would be leaving the day after the team, apart from a handful still taking their A Level exams.

Flexibility was the key to the success of the programme, the 'base' for all the talks and worship was changed at the last minute to the library as UNEB would not allow use of the hall, explaining that it was the only location approved for the A Levels, even though only a handful of students were affected. This will change for next year as Charles has decided to register every classroom in the place!

However, the change of location proved to be a great success so we thank God for sowing that seed.

Other changes to the programme also had to be made but New Life rose to the challenge, and the students (and I think the team) all agreed that it had been an exciting, interesting and thought-provoking time.

On only their first day here a problem with a birth at The Rock prompted us all to remain outside to pray for the young girl (only 14) in difficulty, and Michele and Amanda were on hand to support our midwife Lilian and accompany mum and baby to hospital, Jerry's car being the ambulance. On the journey the baby had to be resuscitated but thanks to prompt action mum and baby are recovering and have now left hospital. Please do keep them in your prayers.

The team left on Wednesday afternoon for some well-deserved R & R at the Ziwa rhino sanctuary and then Murchison Falls game reserve for a safari, and returned to Entebbe on Saturday for the night flight back to the UK.

We wish them well and we know from what many of them have said that they have gained as much from our students as they have given. Elspeth quoted this proverb which fits perfectly with what the team have just seen and done, and hopefully will be an encouragement to anyone thinking of 'going and doing', both here and elsewhere, whether in Africa or in their own villages and towns.

'I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand'.

Sadly Stan had to leave suddenly last week as his mum had been taken into hospital and the decision was made that he should return to the UK. She is still in hospital and is very poorly, please keep her and Stan in your prayers.

The students have now all returned home, please pray for their safety, and Jerry, Elspeth and I are now trying to complete a long 'to do' list. More difficult for them as many items on their list involve driving backwards and forwards to Kampala, at least all of mine concern things here!

Jerry has managed to change my flight so that I can travel back to the UK on Saturday on the same flight as them, so will see many of you sooner than you thought!

And finally please pray for the three of us and Charles as we discuss arrangements at the school, The Bridge and The Rock for next year, budgets and plans in general, for the teachers as arrangements are made for renewals of contracts and replacement of staff, for Deborah , Brenda, Stella and Linus at The Bridge as they plan for the holiday club and for Efrance, Lilian and Annet at The Rock as they look after the community patients and in particular the ever growing group of expectant mums ready to give birth at The Rock.

Blessings for a peaceful Christmas.

Sue xx

New Life church Romsey - welcome message

auditions for Wobulenzi's Got Talent

fun science - building solar powered cars

Chris and his horse!

Daisy and her sewing machine - showing the students how to make flip flops out of old jeans

Day 1 - briefing by Stan

Charles explains the history of WTA, the link with ServeDirect and New Life church

Andrew's first taste of posho and beans

Alan gets to know the students

church leader Sim talking about superheroes of the Bible

solar powered cars - the race!

Senior 1 show off their Soul Survivor style wristbands

Sue's challenge for the team - Wobulenzi market with a shopping list!

waiting for the water rocket launch....

still at the market......

enjoying one of the talks

whole school gather for the rocket launch

pumping the rocket - and it did fly - but no photo :( 

worship group practice - with help from Juno

tour of site on Day 1

Ignite! talks on superheroes - launched by....superheroes!

health talk on hand-washing - showing the germs left after hand-washing with an infra red light

mum and baby recovering - thanks to our medical team

Efrance and Amanda talk to a member of the community who was the first ever visitor to The Rock when it opened

nurse Lilian with her son Brighton

visitor to our garden - a brown house snake 

BLOG NO 10 - 7TH NOVEMBER 2014

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

Brief blog as we have a large team of 14 arriving next week, so will be little spare time!

It has been great having Will here, he has been brilliant teaching Biology, the students have loved his interactive style – and the sweets with a dent in to illustrate the shape of red blood cells! They also had a great time learning how to take and record pulse rate – before and after exercise – lots of jumping around! And yes – both taken from the Uganda Biology curriculum text book – but maybe illustrated in a slightly different style!

Why are we so surprised when our children turn out to be great people - kind, caring, understanding – could it be anything to do with the parents?!

We so enjoyed taking him to Murchison Falls and Jinja – the source of the Nile. And although we saw enormous herds of elephant and giraffe (hundreds), and rhino at Ziwa a few yards away from where they (Stan and Will that is, I was in the car!), which was really impressive, we still haven't seen any big cats at Murchison. However, as Will pointed out, he went to the Serengeti when he was in Tanzania so he wasn't at all disappointed!

It's been great to spend time together at work and at play and the students have really loved having Will here. He has spent a lot of time just chatting, playing football and cricket, as well as teaching, and they and he have enjoyed the time together. He has also done some teaching – and a lot of playing – at The Bridge. He has loved working with the young ones as well and they have clearly loved him as you can see from the photos. He has been so impressed with the work they are doing there with the young children to improve their Maths and English – and now to give them the added skill of computer knowledge.

On Wednesday – the 12^th – Will goes to Entebbe for his night flight home. It's difficult to believe a month has passed. The good news is we will be back in the UK ourselves in a month.

Jerry and Elspeth arrive over the weekend ahead of the team from New Life church in Romsey who arrive on Sunday. It will be great that Will is able to meet them before he leaves, he has heard us talk about them so often so it will be good for him to see them face to face.

We will be spending some time with them and Charles before the end of term to talk about 2015 budgets and a maintenance programme for the holidays, so time now to be serious and knuckle down to some proper work!

O Levels are finished and Senior 4 have left. A bit sad as some of them will not come back. Many have now finished what schooling they will receive, our S5 and S6 classes are much smaller. However a number have said they will return so we do hope so, many of them are real characters and get under your skin and into your heart even though you try hard not to let them!

The rest of the school now have school exams for 2 weeks and S6 have A Levels. At the end of the two weeks there is a week when there is no teaching as the teachers are marking...and marking... and marking, whilst the students wait for results and reports. With classes of 120 you can guess this takes some time.

This is an ideal time for a team to be here and New Life has a wonderful programme arranged from early morning to late evening – worship, teaching (on a theme of Bible superheroes), seminars, sports, film night – and Wobulenzi's Got Talent! There will also be a sports finals day and big meal together before they leave. The students are so excited about it – as are we!

Also a challenge for us as the first big team we have hosted at the volunteers guest house – 14 people for 10 nights. Stan and Will have already been into Kampala for some of the items we can't get locally, and Eva and I are getting geared up for making lots of cake, bread and large meals! Stan and Will have bought a couple of crates of Nile Special just in case they are needed and Eva and I will be doing boda boda runs for pineapples, bananas and avocados every couple of days.

So please pray that we can satisfy the hunger of this wonderful team who have put in so much work to arrange all of this for our students. No doubt many photos in the December blog!

And finally – please pray for the health of our students.

One has had to leave as he contracted Hepatitis B from a member of his family and sadly the risk to the other students has to be considered as they live in such close proximity – and sharing cups and toothbrushes is not uncommon.

We wish we could vaccinate them all, as very few are, but financially it is just not possible, even if they agreed (great fear of needles).

One of the things we take for granted in the UK is vaccination for all – not the case here. There are many deaf children locally as a result of contracting measles, for example.

Please also pray for the students as they travel back to their villages, but before that we pray they will gain so much from the end of term programme the team have for them.

Photos - in no particular order - The Bridge - children, computer lessons, phonics teaching, the quiz, story time.

The school - biology lessons - and a nice message on the board!

Rhino trekking, elephant in the Nile - and a two-headed giraffe!

And... the school is now on Goggle maps - our house at the top of the picture!

With love

Sue and Stan