Being back on Ugandan soil is always a feeling of anticipation, but I’m always surprised by life here. I’ve been back for about a month and it’s already been a challenging start. Most of you know that I’ve been waiting for over a year now to purchase a car here, as it was extremely hard getting around on a motorbike or the local bus. The car prices here in Uganda are three times of those in America, but God was so gracious with me. After searching and looking at cars for hours for two days, in the hot scorching sun (which I love and am not complaining about, lol), I was able to finally find a suitable car! I don’t know how others do it, but I felt such a heavy burden with this decision because it was hard earned money that was donated to buy it, and I wanted it to be the car God wanted. Talk about prayer and discernment! It wasn’t until the second day that I finally felt peace about one of the cars. It’s a 2004 Mitsushibi Pajero, that fits 7 people (for when we gotta get out to those long-distance villages), its 4-wheel drive so that we can make it up the mountains here, and it’s my favorite color (talk about even the tiny details God gets involved in). It has thus far been such a blessing!!
Bugira Village
Bugira is the village we are constructing in right now. It will be the base camp for us to live at while continuing our ministries here in Uganda. While I was in the states, my nonprofit manager here in Uganda was able to mobilize and have National Water pulled up to our land. It was an exciting thing to see and know, that one of the two most important sources to life, was now available to us and to all those neighboring our land. Hundreds of families will eventually be able to pipe water to their homes, and that is a priceless blessing.
We were able to fence up half of the land and continue leveling the lower part of the land as well. Due to such rough roads and steep inclines, we weren't able to get a bulldozer to level the land, so I had to get manual labor to do it. I have never seen such strength as I have in the local workers here in this village. The resilience of those that are known as local farm hands, is truly incredible and a blessing when you have meters up meters of steep land to level.
I’m excited that though we have quite a-ways to go to raising all the funds necessary to build our missionary home and workshop for women, people have been so giving. If you want to get involved by either financially giving or coming out here to volunteer your time, please let me know. In the next three weeks we’re hoping to finish leveling the land, so that we can put a fence around the entire camp, for safety and protection. We’re also hoping to build a small structure made of just wood and tarp, that’ll be able to house the volunteers coming to build. It’ll be temporary and will provide adequate shelter without a doubt. I’ve actually stayed in ones similar when we would go out to do Medical Camps in the Batwa villages.
The women from the Women’s Project were all able to have a vacation and tend to their homes while I was gone. They were happy that even though they weren’t required to come to work, they were still being paid something little each week. Now that I’m back, I’m excited to share with them the feedback from our 2017 Collection, the sales and bless them for all their hard work. Hopefully through this process I can teach them a bit more on Financial budgeting as well. We’ll be expanding and adding more women, allowing each of them to bring a friend or family member, and they themselves will have to train. It’s so beautiful to instill empowerment in a woman and watch her pass it forward.
Our Feeding Program for children, along with weekly medical care and education will also resume in the next weeks. So, if you’re finding yourself with a desire to serve, or are looking to give back, make it a priority and come out here 😊.
More to come soon!
xoxo!! Lily