Harriet

From Harriet, the beautiful woman who came into the Hope House, hopeless and convinced that God hated her. I am in awe of the work that God has done in these ladies lives! Only He can mend broken hearts!

Tuhaise “Hariet”

How are you:

Thankful for the Lord to keep me and my 3 children well.

How are your children:

They are fine. The boys were in a village school last year
and are struggling to adjust to the city school.  I am
praying that God enables me to put the older son
James (11) to the boarding school because he is so
stubborn. Henry (7) is still struggling, but he is trying so
hard to write. My daughter Maureen (3.5) is very sharp
and doing well. She is starting to try and speak English.

What type of business are you hoping to open when you
graduate from the program:

I want to have a retail shop. I will sell sugar, rice, posho, and other basics so that customers will have to come to my shop every day.

What is something you will never forget that you have learned in the past 2 years?

That I have been loved and been given love.

Is there anything else you want to share?

I thank God for brining me out of where I was and for giving me love. Jesus called people and some refused. Many friends had been asking me to go to church for a long time, but I refused. Now I am so thankful that I have accepted God’s love. I know that it is only God who is sustaining my family and I have faith in Him.

I am thankful for your love and for helping me. I am praying for you.

How can people continue to pray for you?
Please also pray for the father of my children who is very sick. He does not live with us, but I am always praying for him because he is sick. Please also pray for my father because he is an alcoholic. My mother and I are both HIV positive and need prayer.

Also, I want you to help me pray for my neighbors who are not in church. Before I was in church, I had a neighbor who was persistent in asking me to come to church. I go to church now and it is my job to be persistent with my neighbors.

* * * * * * * 

I am so proud of the ladies in the Hope House and rejoice in all that God is doing in their lives. This week (and next) we are teaching them different things they can cook, the way I see it, the more skills that they have, the better. Thus far they have learned pudding, french toast, fried okra, cooked apples, spaghetti, and garlic toast (thanks for your help Lauren!) Next week we are moving on to baking! 
Thank you to everyone has poured into these ladies, for every "drop" you have given into their lives, to the countless people that bought their jewelry, shared a bible study with them, painted their nails or just gave them a hug! It has been a large amount of drops of love and truth and help that have filled them up and that God has used to get them where they are today. Thank you everyone!

Teaching French Toast

Welcome Home!

Mama Joyce praying with the boys before bringing them home

Reagan

Reagan at home!

Solomon

Solomon at home

Blowing out the candles at their party

We gave our wild dog Flint to the boys, Ibra and Reagan loved him!

Damba being baptized

Umaru

Kateregga Vincent

Kateregga Vincent

We brought two more boys into our home a week ago. Two sweet boys named Solomon and Reagan.  Their first night in the home we had a "welcome home" party, complete with riddles and a strawberry cake with bight blue frosting and sprinkles.  

The next Sunday in church  our two new boys Solomon, Reagan, and Damba Paul all went forward to give their hearts and lives to Christ. Afterwards, 6 of our new boys decided to become baptized (most of the older boys were baptized last year).

As people were standing outside waiting for the tub to fill and the baptisms to begin, little Ibra stripped down to nothing but a t-shirt and got in line. We pulled him aside and asked him if he knew what it meant to be baptized, "Oh yes!" he said seriously "I am showing everyone that my sins are washed clean by Christ and that he is my Savior and that I am a Christian!" we gave him a hug, and watched as he ran back to his place.

I am so proud of our boys, I know that as much as we are rejoicing that they are home, angels in heaven are celebrating that they are giving their hearts to Him!

Sometimes things here can be hard and break my heart, but at other times, the joy inside it makes it feel like it is going to burst! 

Another leap of faith

Working with street children is beautiful. It is exciting, and challenging, and just makes your heart want to explode from love.

Today we brought two sweet and precious boys into our home, Briggan and Solomon. They have relatives, but no one that loves them, no one that cares where they are or where they go. Being at "home" was a nightmare for them, they were tied to chairs and trees and beaten mercilessly. They were abandoned by their mothers. In our street programs over the last couple of weeks, both of them would ask me continuously to come home with me, to get off of the street and go back to school. Today, praise be to God, they are going to be able to!

There was a third boy that we had planned on taking home today, but David had felt that he needed to talk to him just one more time before bringing him in into our home today. He asked the boy if he engaged in sex with other boys (not as a victim but if he sought other boys out) and the boy admitted that he did on a regular basis, yesterday in fact. For the safety of the other boys already staying in our home, we did not bring that boy in today. So he went back to the streets where he will continue to seek out other boys.

There are so many boys that I have fallen in love with over the years, boys that for some reason have just grabbed my heart and never let go. The roughest, the toughest, the most angry and addicted boys on the streets. The boys that are known in Kampala as fighters. Boys that have never had a safe home or family, and boys that no matter how many chances they get, are unable to stay in a children's home, even ours. These kids are so smart and sensitive, that the injustice of their situation just enrages them, they are princes of a King, they are precious, yet they are treated like garbage. These kids if not helped are going to be dangerous men. However if they are... they are going to be the future leaders of Uganda. They are amazing!!!

 There are also a lot of boys that we are working with that are sexual predators. That through a long list of reasons begin sexually abusing other boys on a regular basis and harden their hearts against stopping. There are no homes for these boys in Uganda. There is no place for them to go where they can get the intensive counseling, structure, and help that they need while at the same time not victimizing the other children.

I feel as if God is bringing me back to the cliff, having me look down and whispering to me to jump.

To leap off of the cliff in faith.

David and I feel on our hearts that God is asking us to open a home for these boys.

To open a home for boys that are so unattached, strung out, angry, or sexually abusive that they cannot stay anywhere else. I am aware that a children's home for former street children is not exactly normal, but for us it is. I don't like, I love our forever homes, I praise God everyday for His hand in creating them and bringing the caregivers and children that He has.

But this home will have to be different, very different. I don't even know how exactly, I mean we have a lot of ideas. But David and I are so ridiculous undeserving and unfit to do this its unreal. God is going to need to give us grace, a whole lot of grace, and a lot of wisdom and direction on what to do.

Going back through my livejournal I saw so many of the boys I would love to take: Sharrif, Joseph, Andrew, Sabote, and Yahaya. I have always felt in my heart that God specifically wanted Yahaya in our home, but I just didnt see how it was possible, because the longest he has been able to stay in it before running away was 24 hours. But maybe this home he could...

I just wanted to share with you all, to please pray with us, to please stand behind us. If you have any thoughts, wisdom, encouragement or advice to share, please do.

Thank you so much to every single one of you who stands with us through prayer, love, encouragement, or financial support on the streets of Kampala to fight the injustice of that our beautiful children go through.

I am sorry that I haven't posted anything in a long time, so much is going on and so much is changing...

Life in Uganda is sometimes overhelming, a little while back I kept feeling so exhausted and thinking about how sometimes I would like to just live a "normal" life. Go back to the states and work at Starbucks or the zoo or a pet shop (to anyone that doesn't know, I love animals). Then one day I sat down and thought about it. What it would be like if I actually didnt live in Uganda, if I didnt work with street kids and have 22 amazing kids of my own, and it just broke my heart. I couldn't imagine it. I told God I was sorry for letting my moments of tiredness make me not appreciate the incredible jewels that God has entrusted me with. I wouldn't trade my life for anything, ever. I don't deserve it, but God has given me the grace to do what I do.

God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good. I will write more again soon.

<3

This morning David had to leave our house at 3:45 am to go take someone to the airport. David and I live in a Ugandan neighborhood and it is not safe at all to walk around between 10 pm - 6 am. I was so worried that I had nightmares the entire night about losing him, in my dream I was sobbing uncontrollably when I woke up hearing him come back home.   Relief flooded through me as soon as I heard him.

All I could think of was... what would I ever do without David in my life?

I have been asked if cross-cultural marriage is hard. To be honest, living in a culture not your own can be hard. Living in a place where you are completely ignorant of almost all of the customs, language, ways to do things, etc- is extremely hard, especially with my shy personality. But being married to a man from that country, the country that you live in that is not your own, it is not hard at all- it is beautiful.

I now have a man that protects me, who knows the culture and the customs and leads me into them. He is someone who understands street children better than I ever will, who understands communication in Uganda and how to deal with authorities, conflict, etc- He is a man who is brave, kind and protective. He always tells me, "I want to do all of the work for you, I want to take care of you so that you don't have to work so hard" and he does. He has made ministry so much easier and more effective, he has flooded into every single area of my life and enhanced it. I am amazed at how God knew we needed each other and how he would put us together.

None of the boys in our home have any script at all for what it is like to have parents that love each other, to know what a good marriage looks like. PDA is not common in Uganda, but I don't care. My motto is, if we are married and in love, I want our kids to see it! I want them to have something to look forward to, to know that waiting until marriage reaps a mountain of happiness and love! The kids, especially the street children, giggle when David comes and gives me a hug and kiss but at the same time they watch every single move that he makes and soak everything he does in.

I thank God so much

*disclaimer, contains some graphic content*

There is a boy in our programs who is very special to me. He has big, sad, heavy eyes and has been on the street a long time. He is frail and small and eleven years old. Once, a few years ago, he had asked to be resettled home with his parents. When we got there they began yelling at him, telling him he was a burden, and bad, and it was better he just returned to the streets. He turned away from his family, tears silently streaming down his cheeks and whispered to me to take him back to the streets. We rode back to the slums with that child. He was quite as a mouse that day, ignoring the other boys when they asked him why he was back on the streets when he had gone home.

He does a lot of drugs. A lot. If we ever find him outside of the street children programs he is always as high as a kite. Eyes red, responses delayed- he is very honest when he is high. Honest with a simmering anger against all of the injustice in his small world bubbling under almost everything he says.

Last night he was violently raped by an older street boy. He had been high, and came to his sense with the boy attacking him. It was close to where we have our programs and although it was night a group of other street kids found the boy in the act, pulled him off, and began beating the big boy (the perpetrator) mercilessly. He was able to escape before the police could come and no one has seen or heard of him since.

In our programs yesterday that boy was sadder than usual and even less responsive. We made sure to counsel him as best as we could. Talking to him about how it is not his fault, that God hurts when he hurts, that he is still good, and as many other truths as we could think of that we knew he needed to hear. He was freer by the end, but still somber, still hurting, still sad.

There are so many boys in our programs that plead with me to take them into our home, to take them off of the streets. On Monday, a very sweet boy stayed at the gate to the church in Kivulu slum when I was leaving and just stared at me sadly. A tear dripped down his scarred cheek and onto the grimy, black ground. I stopped and asked him why he was crying. "I wish you could take me with you" was his reply. It broke my heart.

I always tell the  boys to pray to God to get off of the street. That our God is a powerful God that can do anything. Can you please pray this prayer with me? For our children living on the streets. Please. They don't deserve it. As  many children as God has allowed me to help, I can't help them all, I can't put them all into a home or into school, only God can do that. He is the only one that ever could.

Sometimes you just have to brag a little...

Peter going to church
 

Peter carrying water




When we had first opened the home we filled it with younger boys between 8-13 years old. As most people know, it was a complete surprise, we had thought it was simply going to be a place for street children to sleep at night and through a crazy series of events, God turned it into a home. It was scary and exciting and such a joy to bring young children that I loved home, albeit pretty scary to become the mother and guardian of so many precious lives.

There were a few older boys that were regulars in our programs at the time however that although they were not in our home we still loved a lot. The slums are very dangerous at night to sleep in and so we allowed a few of these older boys to sleep in the compound of our home so that they would have a safe place to sleep. They were cold so we gave them blankets. The next night, it was kind of rainy so we let them sleep in the living room. We couldn't help ourselves and a  few days later they were sleeping in the beds and had officially been welcomed into the home.

 I had been nervous about bringing in older boys, feeling that it would be hard to manage them. However, God knew back then that we needed older boys in our home to level out the younger children and to help be good role models.  Who would have ever guessed that the tiniest boys in our home would be the biggest troublemakers! I don't know what we ever would have done without the steadiness of the older boys and their positive influence on the younger boys in our home. Peter, Sadic, Bashir, and William are some of the oldest kids in our home (they are between 16-18 years old) and the boys that have been the easiest!

Peter is the oldest boy in our home. He constantly has a deer in the headlights look. He is gentle and never, ever fights with the younger boys or bullies them around. He brings his bible to all the devotions at night and church on Sunday and loves hanging out with his friends. Peter wants to be a doctor and he studies, VERY hard in school. This last term Peter was at a new school and ranked FIRST out of his class of 75 students, =-) he has been extremely mature and we are just so proud of him. In the past Peter helped us translate for a dental team that came and to help with anything that needed, he also helped come to some of our street programs to do medical. He is now on his holiday from school and as a reward for doing so well lately we asked him if he would like to come to all of our street programs to do medical for the kids and help out with anything that we need. He has been coming to all of the street programs and has been so hard working and grown up. He comes in black slacks, a white button down shirt and tie. He looks and acts so professional,  many of the kids call him doctor.

I am so proud of Peter. I think back to when I knew him on the street and look at the young man that he is today. God is taking this kids so far.

1 Corinthians 1: 26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

Our kids are just amazing and I cannot wait to see the men that God continues to raise them up into!