18th June 2018

Dear friends,

Greetings from a warm, sunny Kampala. There has been great excitement this week as Bob and I went on Tuesday to buy a table tennis table. The waiting and negotiations took ages in this small shop, in the centre of the city, where only a few items were kept in the roof space and larger items in a store – who knows how far away! We then had to hire a pickup truck to get it back to George’s Place. It’s been well used already and some of the boys, especially young Yusuf who is really good at badminton, seem to have a natural ability for the game. Many thanks to Wendy and Paul for their generosity. We also purchased another basketball ring and have had the two of them mounted on posts so that the boys can be playing this as well.

It was Eid al-Fitr on Friday so the schools were closed and everywhere there were Muslims celebrating – Shaffick asked if he could kill a couple of our chickens for a celebration meal so they all had a good time and watched the Russia and Saudi Arabia football match. Bob and I went with Nora our lawyer that day to look at land her mother would have been willing to rent us for growing vegetables – we collected Anton on the way, who finishes his farming course later this month. Anton said the land wasn’t suitable, he really has learnt such a lot on his course with Agromax. We then visited someone else Nora knew who had land for rent, which would be ideal but we need to think and pray seriously about this and to consider if it’s the right way forward. Your prayers please.

‘But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.’ Matthew 13:23

I spent Monday morning at Kisenyi hospital with one of the boys collecting his ARV’s.

It always upsets me seeing so many young people, children and babies all HIV positive obviously infected from birth. The hospital gives counselling and advice but everyday (Monday to Thursday) there are 100s of patients just in this particular hospital waiting to see doctors, counsellors, have blood tests and collect medication, the staff are committed and do amazing work cheerfully and kindly.

We are all very busy at the moment in preparation for our next Management meeting on the 26th, making sure we have all the paperwork in place – there is so much work needed on care plans for each of the boys, also every time I think we have all the policies we need I’m informed we need yet another!

Saturday afternoon we had a great time at KK Beach, which was very busy, probably because it’s been a holiday weekend. The boys enjoyed their football, badminton, bouncy castle, trampolining, climbing frames, borrowing skates and of course dancing to the ‘loud’ music. It was a really hot day and some of them were in trouble when we first arrived at George’s Place because they had been messing about with water – I don’t think many of us would think it was that wrong but wasting water here where so many children and people have to carry water for long distances for washing, cooking, cleaning –is totally unacceptable. I still have so much to learn!

With love and prayers

Jane