Visitor Season Is Here!

With the new school year beginning in February comes a constant stream of visitors, volunteers, and groups in Kibaale, and we love it! 

We started the year with Gabriella returning, this is her third year with us which means that she jumps right in and is a huge help with our sponsorship office and hosting. As well she has become like part of our family over these past few years, so we're very excited to have her with us until the summer. 

A family friend from home Jayden arrived next, she will be with us for 2 months and has been great to have here! She is a very talented artist so aside from helping out with the students in Kibaale she is doing a few murals and paintings in different classrooms and at the clinic. 

Joel's best friend from home, Malachi is also here for a couple months! He has been a great help with setting up for groups and just helping out our family as well jumping in with all the activities going on. These two boys have lived a part more than together over the past 10 years but have kept a great friendship, this is a pretty amazing experience to share together! 

Gabriella's mom Sylvia Shury, her friend Linda Peters, and Erin Clark from Village Church with her 3 girls who are 6, 8, and 10 years old were just here for the past 2 weeks! Our kids love visitors, but when kids come they are thrilled, and these girls were especially fun to have around; they did amazing with all the travel, jumped into any activity we had planned for them, and played great with all the students in Kibaale!

One of the highlights for us is going with our visitors to meet their sponsor child, whether the students are super outgoing, or really shy, it's so fun to watch! 

 Not only did everyone in this group sponsor more children themselves while here, 25 of our nursery students got sponsored through their posts on Instagram and Facebook, that is huge!! There are only SEVEN Nursery students still needing sponsors, click here to start sponsoring one of them today! 

Linda and Pauline

Sylvia with Stecia

Erin, Sienna, Hayden, and Bella with Shanitah

Building a mud hut is also a favourite activity with groups, in 10 years this is the first time where it was pouring rain all morning, we delayed as long as possible but finally realized we were going to be mudding this house in the rain! It was very wet, very cold, but so much fun, everyone worked really hard and we were able to get everything done in the day.

This beautiful Mama was so excited to be getting a new house and was also out with us in the pouring rain all morning, she even tried to help out a bit, with a baby on her back! 

Over the past 2 weeks all of the visitors were also hanging out with the students, helping with the Awana program, and going on lots of home visits to give out gift baskets, goats, and new shoes!  

In Kibaale we are still feeling the effects of the awful drought, thanks to donations from so many of you we were able to give away much needed maize flour to over 500 families in our community! 

 Thank you so much to all of our visitors these past 2 months for choosing to serve in Kibaale, we have loved having each one of you!! 

Famine Relief

Giving Tuesday is today and we know there are so many opportunities to give but we'd love to share with you about the drought and famine our community in Kibaale has been facing. We are trying to raise at least $20,000 before Christmas to give over 700 families food during this difficult time.

It's been really hard to see the need, in an already needy area! Our staff say this is the worst drought in 25 years, people come daily to line up at our gate asking for help. There was no rain between May and October resulting in the loss of almost all crops. We have had staff members fainting from hunger, multiple people attempting to commit suicide because they are so overwhelmed, and there have even been a number of deaths in our community. 

THANKS to your generous donations so far we have been able to give out maize flour to every student in our school and hundreds of families in our community. There are still so many people in Kibaale though that have not received food, and we would like to make sure that especially as Christmas is coming, we've been able to feed the neediest families in our community.

Please consider a donation today to Famine Relief every $30 donation buys a family a bag of maize flour that can feed them for 1 month! 100% of your donation goes directly to buying maize flour and is given out right away!

We are so appreciative of our staff in Kibaale, they have advocated for the families in our school and our community, working over time to not only buy the most maize flour we can with our budget but help with organizing the give away days. 

Our kids have been a huge help to us as well these past few weeks, with weighing and packing the maize flour as well giving it away. 

Thank you for considering making a huge difference to one of the many needy families in Kibaale!!