Serving at The Gem Fundation

For the past 28 days I've been serving here at The Gem Foundation. 

The Gem Foundation was founded by Emma (read the amazing story here of how it all began), and exists to take in children with special needs that other orphanages do not have the resources to take care of. Emma's has a huge heart for these children and it's awesome to see! Macey, who like Emma, has moved here indefinitely from America, to work for The Gem Foundation. Currently there are no children in the home, yet, but it could be any day now. They are just waiting on their final approval from the government. The Ugandan staff members are hired, the home is ready, and they even have some children in mind to transfer here as soon as possible.

So as you can imagine we've been doing a lot of praying, waiting, getting last minute things together, and attending meetings. But we didn't forget to have fun!

Staff lunch/birthday party for one of the staff children. 

The sweet birthday boy!

This past week we trained the staff in Early Childhood Development, Nutrition, First Aid, and Special Needs. I put together a training manual for these topics and we taught from it. It was so much fun training the staff and hearing all that they learned. I know these ladies will be such great nannies for the children who come into this home! 

Emma sharing her vision for The Gem Foundation

Me teaching on Early Childhood Education

It's been an incredible journey to serve here and be a part of the beginnings of The Gem Foundation! I can't wait to visit again soon and meet all the precious "gems" that will call this place home! 

Tomorrow morning I travel to the other side of Kampala to serve at the Kirabo Seeds Children's Home. I am very excited for this new adventure, but I will never forget the amazing people here at The Gem Foundation!

The staff members and their families!

Life In Kampala

I've been in the capital city of Kampala for 24 days now. Kampala has a population of about 1.209 million people. It's the largest city in Uganda. Many people come to the city to work during the week and go back to their village on the weekends. So as you can imagine it's a very busy place and there is rarely a quite moment. At every hour of the day and night there seems to be something going on. From all night prayer meetings/worship services to weddings that last for several days to the sound of constant traffic. No matter where you go you will probably be stuck in a traffic jam for some period of time, so if you need to be somewhere at a curtain time leave early. Although, everything runs on African time anyway, so more than likely you'll still be early. Kampala is an exciting place and there is a lot of variety when it comes to stores and restaurants, which is great when you are spending a lot of time here. Here are some pictures from around Kampala: 

An average small grocery store. 

The Local Market. You will find several local woman selling the 

produce they have grown themselves. It's such a colorful place!  

Taking a walk to the local market.

This is a chapati stand.

 Chapati is an African flatbread that tastes quite delicious!

You can find children anywhere! 

I love finding children playing admits 

the busyness of the city.

Driving through the city can be quite entertaining! 

This guy is carrying hundreds of plastic bottles 

to recycle them for only a few shillings each.

This is the view from a larger market called Tusky's. 

It has 3 floors and could be compared to Wal-Mart 

(Ugandan style).

Our security guards work long hours to make sure we are safe. 

They even carry a poison tip arrow, just in case.

James 1:27 In Action

On Monday we went to an orphanage far out in the bush (the country). This orphanage was started by Pastor John. It's not just an orphanage though, the model he makes is an orphanage attached to a church. This model is exactly how it's supposed to be according to James 1:27. The church would be the people in the village and they would support the orphans in the home and the caregivers for the children would be the widows in the church. Pastor John has built many models like this in so many villages around the Kampala area. I was so impressed with this model. I have not seen many like this before! I am sure God will bless them abundantly because of the way they are doing it.

We came today to set up the bedrooms in the home, so they could take in children in 2 weeks. International Voice of the Orphan supplied 11 bunk beds, bedding, nets, supplies for the kitchen, and chairs for the church. It was such an honor to help set everything up, carry in the beds, make them and pray over the children and staff that will be living here.

There was a small village school right beside the church/orphanage and the children were curious about what we were doing. So we took a break and went over to greet them. The children have not seen many white people so they were really excited. They loved getting their picture taken with us and seeing it on our camera screens. They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

There were a few children who didn't have the money to go to school and had no food for lunch who came up to us while we were eating lunch. We gave them our leftover sandwiches, and they loved them! They may have been a little confused as to what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was, but they ate them anyway. Who knows when they had eaten last. The big smiles on their faces showed their thankfulness.

A Village Church

We began our first Sunday in Uganda visiting a church in a village about an hour outside of Kampala called "Christ Restoration Church". Going to a church in the village is always an awesome experience! So much different than any church in America.

If you look closely you can see a butterfly flying by at just the right moment!

Our pre-welcome. Soon after we were surrounded.

I am with a team of 8 (from the US and The Netherlands). Our team leaders Dwight and Emma Saunders started International Voice of the Orphan and The Gem Foundation. Dwight preached an amazing message today for the church and we also did a prayer time afterwords. You could really tell the congregation were getting a lot out of the message and were so hungry for God. We had them come up for prayer at the end if they had any requests. We had so many come up to us and ask for prayer for things like provision for jobs and land, wisdom in school, a way to support their families and for sicknesses. We gladly prayed for each of their needs and asked God to bless them in mighty ways. It's so eye opening to realize how hard their lives must be as we heard some of their stories. They were very encouraged by our prayers and thanked us many times. We heard later that one man actually received Christ during the prayer time! We were all encouraged by that and decided that made the day! It wasn't us that made the impact on them, it was God working through us that changed this man's life forever! All glory goes to Him! We are so thankful to have been a part of that!

Dancing, of course, and a lot of it!

And I want to thank all my supporters as well. If you hadn't have prayed for me or donated to make this trip possible this may not have happened! Because of you there will be at least one more in Heaven! How amazing is that?

Since this congregation had been so generous to our team leader Emma in the past (giving her highly praised gifts, such as a pig) and had welcomed us all so well we wanted to give back to them. So we brought gifts for the pastor and his wife and gifts for all the children. We handed out toothbrushes and lollipops to all the kids at the end. It's the simplest things that they are so thankful for! Their faces were beaming!

What an amazing day in Uganda!