13th June, 2021

Dear friends,

Greetings from a very warm Winchester. It’s my eldest son’s 50th birthday this weekend and I am here enjoying time with him and Rebecca.

There is now a partial lockdown in Uganda, the schools, colleges and churches have closed and there is limited travel allowed. Some of our older boys, Dennis, Asaph, Griffin and Shaffick travelled to their villages by bus earlier in the week but they had to wait at least three hours as the bus park was packed with people trying to get out of Kampala.

‘Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.’ Romans 12 v12

Young Brian has gone to stay with his mother – he hasn’t had very much contact with her since he has been in our care but when Peace telephoned her, she asked if he could go to stay with her. It looks as though her circumstances might have changed and that she is now settled, an answer to prayer.

I spoke to Shadrach and some of the boys on Saturday morning. There are 15 boys in the home at present, which is a concern as they are not allowing any of them to go out of the compound. Shadrach is always wearing a mask when speaking with them as he is able to travel within the district for shopping and work but is concerned about the pandemic. They are charging 200,000UGX (about £40) for each diagnostic test for COVID19 at the local clinic!

The boys are all fine and quite excitable – chasing each other around, I did get a chance to speak to a number of them. It was so good to see Omoding smiling and happy, although I did mention that since his return I have only seen photographs of him wearing the same shirt and wondered if he hadn’t been given any new ones from our store! Haruna has returned from Connect Africa and seems to have really grown up, he still doesn’t say very much (whilst he was on the streets he had stopped speaking altogether) but he smiled and told me he was fine. Charles also returned from a trial period at Connect Africa and seems to have enjoyed the building course. Joshua informed me that Victor was annoying him but that is quite normal. Joshua although the youngest (not the smallest) is always very good, never in any trouble, always cleaning and washing up dishes but unfortunately gets picked on. Oh, to be there to sort things out!

Augustin had called into George’s Place, so I had a chat with him, he was concerned that he hadn’t been able to find any work for the last couple of weeks. (He’s the builder) I will talk with the staff next week as I feel some of the older boys in independent living, might be going to need some extra financial help if there is no work available because of the lockdown.

Your prayers please for the people of Uganda, especially the poor in Kampala and other large towns across the country. It will be difficult to ascertain statistics on how the virus is spreading and there is limited vaccine available. It is also impossible for people to isolate in the slum areas – toilet blocks are shared and water stand pumps are used by everyone. Hand washing and sanitising will be challenging. Please do lift the people in prayer daily.

With love

Jane