23rd January, 2022

Dear friends,

Greetings. Life has been interesting over the last few days, there have been many blessings and challenges! Dan is enjoying school! The boys are fine. The rainy season has arrived! Our papers for re-registering as an NGO have been submitted.

On Thursday Peace and I took Robert for family tracing to Bududa, Manafwa and Malaba! We were late leaving as Zach our driver got held up first thing in the morning so I drove to George’s Place collected Robert and then we met Zach back at Tank Hill before collecting Peace. We eventually left Kampala at around 10.30am.

‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.’ ‭Numbers 6 v24/26

It’s quite a long drive to Bududa but much quicker than it used to be as there is a new road from Mbale. Robert was born in Kenya and his mother we presume is still there but hasn’t been heard from in the last 10 years. We found where his aunt lives and then she came with us to Manafwa, a beautiful area, to the grandfather’s home. It was all very sad as we did not feel welcome, the ‘Mzee’, (probably years younger than me) now has a new family and is not interested in Robert.

The following day we travelled to Malaba on the Kenyan border. New regulations have been put in place for lorry and tanker drivers going in and out of Uganda who now have to take Covid tests each side of the boarder – this has caused chaos on the roads, where lorries have been stuck for days – Peace, Robert and I walked into the town to find his family members. We located the grandmother who was very excited to see him. She is a devout Roman Catholic and she thanked God that her prayers had been answered for the boy’s safety. She rushed to buy us oranges and bananas to take back to the home. We spent some time talking with her, another daughter and some neighbours before going to find the LC1 to sign our papers. Robert will be returning to her during holiday times from vocational college when he starts in early February on a hairdressing course.

During our trip we met up with Derrick and will be helping his younger half brother with school fees. You might remember that both Derrick’s parents died last year.

Most days I get a call or message from him either saying good morning or goodnight, I think he just needs someone to check in with. We also went to the health clinic and took a large box of ‘fish and chip’ jumpers and knitted blankets – one of the midwives gratefully received these.

Peace has been sent photographs of the distribution of the last box we took but as yet hasn’t forwarded them yet.

As we had been away on my birthday we celebrated Saturday afternoon, after swimming with cake and sodas – the cake had 74 years written on it and around the outside ‘Numbers 6 v 24/26’. All the boys are now very aware of how old I am! John (Musumba) read the blessing to me.

With love and prayers.

Jane