April 13, 2013
-
Lydia is 10 = we are old!
As it seems to be the norm lately, we have been ridiculously busy! Work in the village, youth group, and our own family all seem to consume all of the daylight lately. (not meant to be a complaint) It is nice to be busy, because we can enjoy the time of rest that much more!
Its funny, if you asked me if I believed in evolution, I would say yes. If asked I would not refer to Darwin’s theory, rather our own ministry here in Uganda. We came with the intention to work with construction teams and now, somehow, we have a ministry mentoring and discipling village kids! What once was a massive construction project has now turned 95% of its focus on building up the community around it. And the foundation of that building is in the children.
For the past few weeks, we spend everyday thinking about Saturday. Though everyday, children come and are fed a meal. They are met and played with, building relationships. On Saturday, it culminates to an equivalent of a VBS day in the states. From 9 am until 4 pm, we manage a full blown VBS for 50 kids. The plan is to get 100 by the end of summer! Each day, we feed them breakfast, play, study, play more, study, eat lunch, study, play some more, and do crafts. This is more attention than what the kids see in an entire week, let alone one day. Most of these kids, if they attend school, are there all day long, in pretty bad conditions, come home, and if addressed have to work. Otherwise, they are left to run around and do whatever they please. Our aim is to encourage those kids in the Holy Spirit. Right now, they are ALL doing horribly in school. Most of them have one illness or another. They have NO discipline. Our hope and prayer is to change ALL OF THAT!
While that is our main focus, we are still continuing construction…
So far, the school is 4,800 sq ft! We have raised the walls up to 9 feet. We are now waiting on direction from donors on whether to build a second story, or put a roof on it. Either way, this is going to be a massive building!
Our plan is to totally reorganize the program at this campus. What once was a meager feeding program, will now be a full fledged feeding program. We will feed their stomachs and their spirits. Currently, while orchestrating the transition, we are writing the program and hiring the right people to see it done. There is a lot of work to be done. We have to get the right discipleship program, the right teachers, proper cooks, and many other things in place. Though there is quite a bit of travel involved in this, the payout is great. I am praying for total rejuvenation in these kids!
On a separate topic…
Last week, we also had a youth retreat at the sailing club. We had almost 40 kids attend and had 5 adults (if you can consider them adults). We camped for four days and learned how to sail. We had youth led discussions and productive times of self examination. It was really nice! I can honestly say, though, I am not a sailor. I tried and it was awfully embarrassing. At first chance, I was given the rudder and sail control. Even though I had a ‘mermaid’ named Milly knew how to sail, she’d rather have replayed the scene from Titanic over and over again! While she stood on the bow, arms spread open, I was getting punished by the boom (aka metal pole that swings with the wind) repeatedly in the head! Then the more experienced youth thought it would be a good idea to act like pirates and try to capsize each others boats. More fun that involved injury for the inexperienced sailor such as myself! We only nearly sank one boat, which I regretfully was aboard. But that is another story…
Moral of the story, don’t try this at home!
Then we went from camping… to camping. We celebrated Lydia’s 10th birthday camping in Jinja, the official Source of the Nile (regardless of what Top Gear says!). She is the best ten year old daughter one could wish to have! We swam, played, swam, fished, swam, and shopped. Then just today, we took her to get her gift… two baby rabbits. They are thumper and shadow. To me, they are Adam and Eve. Because Lydia has chosen to start a rabbit breeding program for the village of Kayango. She will manage the breeding of her rabbits and give rabbits to the village for their own rabbit project! She is happy to have pets, and more happy to have baby bunny factories! So even Lydia has a ministry here in Uganda!
And if you haven’t heard, we are going to make a trip home this summer. We arrive in Grand Rapids on June 20! We will stay until September 4. We hope to sit down and talk with everyone about what is going on here, encourage them to keep up with what is going on. We are really excited to see our friends and family. Something that is much needed to refuel our tank, so to speak! So in two months, plan on having some really annoying Neeley’s at a home near you!
Chad Neeley
Volunteer Construction Coordinator – WWCS USA/Uganda
