CHILDREN MADE THREE YEARS AT HOH!!!

"Religion that God accepts as pure is to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27

April 1st is the day the children at Kabale House of Hope will never forget! It was on this day when all these children first came to House of Hope. After the news reached them from their hopeless situations, where most of them had no place to call home, no food to eat, no beds or bedding to sleep on and not going to school. They knew God had answered their prayers. They packed their few, old clothes in polythene bags and one by one they entered the gates of Kabale House of Hope. We will never forget the joy on their faces and little John exclaimed, "God has remembered me!"
Last week, as they gave praise reports, they recalled all the good things God has done for them and thanked God and all the friends God has used to be a blessing to them. They don't take it for granted that they now have enough to eat, they have tuition for their schooling and they sleep in good beds with bedding, with support from friends we recently bought for them new mosquito nets.
They now know that God has good plans for their future, they have hope and they are looking forward to what the Lord is making out of them. It is amazing how these children have big dreams and are excited that with God all things are possible.
We are so grateful to all our dear friends and partners that support us to raise these children as into godly leaders.
The children were glad for the visit of Pastor Tracy and Mary Wolfe from Modesto CA over the weekend. Their church sponsors 5 children at House of Hope. Those children were so glad to hear from their sponsors and to write back. Pastor Tracy and Mary's church partners with a school in our city and visits here once every year. We had a good time with them on their visit to House of Hope. They children sang for them and shared with them exciting stories of what the Lord has done with them. Tracy and Mary were surprised to hear how some of the children would run away from school to school for failing to pay school fees, before they came to House of Hope. Some of them changed school five time! God has done great things for these children!
It is amazing how they have grown both spiritually and physically in this short period of time. They have grown bigger and taller.
However as they grow older this came with a challenge of discipling them into godly leaders. And it was so evident that Evas the house mother being single and with little education back ground, she could not cope up with the many challenges to discipline and train these children especially so that i have become so busy and traveling most of them time besides a family and growing ministry to take care of. Plus Evas was over stretched with her family problems and had to be away most of them time to save her late husband's property from relatives mishandling it.
So we prayed about another House mother and at the end of last month, God sent to us a more capable lady, Patience Kaija married to Pastor Nathan Kaija. The two have been ministering in another town, Kisoro but they felt a call to come and serve with us. Patience is a qualified teacher with a Diploma and Pastor Nathan has a Diploma in Business administration. God has used this couple in a short period of time to organize the House, discipline the children and help the children with school work, even little Isaac now is able to speak English.
Evas will be helping with other departments in the church after she has settled with her family challenges. We will miss her at House of Hope.
We need prayers and support, we have two more children that are home less and need our help urgently. Support of $50 each for every month will be enough to meet their tuition and additional needs for them to stay at house of hope.
Easter was glorious for all these children, they had good lunch together and rejoiced together in the Lord.
We appreciate all our partner friends that have made it possible for us to take care of these children. May the Lord bless you.

CHRISTINE GRADUATES

It was a joy to attend Christine's graduation on Friday March,26th. Christine Mahoro is one of the children i take care of, and i was so happy to see her graduate with a certificate in comprehensive Nursing.
Christine's parents failed to raise her tuition after she completed her S.4. I then started to raise her support for her to continue with her education together with several other children. When she completed her S.6, it became too expensive for me to pay for Christine for University education. I advised her to take a technical course and she applied for Nursing education. After a lot of prayers, i shared Christine's story with friends from Texas and God touched their hearts to help her complete her course.
We do appreciate all the dear friends that supported Christine to complete her course in Nursing.
She graduated with several other young people that were attached to our church and it was a great joy to see their dream come true.
The graduation ceremony was very colorful and it was presided over by the State Minister for High education together a number of Principal tutors from various other schools of Nursing.
Christine is already very supportive to our ministry especially to help sick children in our community. she is already using her skills to be a blessing to our church and community. She is also our church administrator.
Christine's dream to help more and more sick people especially children and mothers. We pray that God will provide enough funding to set up a medical clinic in our community as one of the ways to help the poor sick people in our community. Many people in our community are so poor and they cannot afford the medical care that is expensive n our country. As a result many parents and children have died of diseases like Malaria. Many children suffer with untreated wounds, ring worms and eye diseases. Many are infected with intestinal worms. We pray that God will touch hearts for people willing to help us. We welcome people willing to come for medical missions to help the suffering people in our community. We also appreciate donation of medicine or funds as God provides.
God bless you.

PASTORS RECEIVE BIBLES

A few weeks ago, our Pastors had a story to tell when they reached back home, after 5 days of the Leaders' conference in Kabale.
The conference code named "The Pastors' friend conference", was organized by Pastors Tom and Sandy McElfresh from Virginia. They recently incorporated this ministry as The Pastors' Friend International, with a main goal to equip the Pastors and leaders in developing countries. They will be holding Leaders' conferences in Kabale every March.
Around 500 Pastors and leaders attended this year's conference. Most Pastors in Africa have not had formal training, therefore such conferences help to train the Pastors and leaders for the work of the ministry.
This conference started on Monday and ended on Friday. It was unique in a way that Pastors' Friend international donated Bibles to the Pastors and Leaders. Bibles are very expensive to the Pastors who come from villages, especially Rukiga Bibles which cost around $9 each. Most of these Pastors earn less than a dollar per day, and therefore it is so hard to save for a Bible. One Pastor told us later on that;they had only one Bible in a church of about 50 people and it could be shared among the Leaders.
Thank God for the friends who were touched and donated these Bibles. You would have seen the joy and the smiling faces of the Pastors as they went wielding their new Bibles, thanking God for his goodness and provisions. They went determined that they are going to use those Bibles to preach the gospel of the kingdom even to the last person in their villages.
Thank you friends that supported this conference and especially those who donated Bibles.
May God bless you.

OUR KIDS GO BACK TO SCHOOL

This week has been a very busy, as our children were going back to school. The school term opened on Monday and children were excited to go back to school. Our children are grateful for the opportunity given to them to go to school and so they always look forward to the time to go back to school. Thank all, dear sponsors for putting joy on the faces of these children!
I was moved to see the joy and excitement of the children who had dropped out of school and some who were going to school for their first time! Some children got sponsors during my trip last year. Children who don't go to school feel so bad, they feel that they are less privileged. One mother came to our office and told us that one day her child asked her why he was not going to school like other children. "why don't i put on uniform like other children?" asked the 8 year old boy, "why do i stay home when the children of our neighbors go to school?". Many of such children wonder whether they will ever go to school.
Education means much to these children and to us. To these children, this is pretty much the only way they will be able to sustain themselves. In our country, it is so hard to get a job if you have not gone to school.
And to us as the church, education is the way to train and equip good leaders with a Christian background.
Most of our children are now able to speak and communicate in English. There is a big difference now in our community as we send more and more children to school.
Thank you friends for making a difference in our community, one child at a time.
However, we need more labourers to join us for this cause. Hundreds of children still need help to be able to go to school. Many children are still homeless or live with poor grandmother and are without food for days. Many need clothing and medical care. We feel bad that children here still die of Malaria for lack of mosquito nets. We need more prayers and support.
Please pray about supporting a child or send a gift of any amount to help these children in need. You can mail your tax deductible gift to our partner church in California at:
NEW LIFE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
20394 SAN MIGUEL AVENUE
CASTRO VALLEY, CA 94546
They will send us your support with in days. New Life Christian church volunteered to help us until we have registered our ministry in the USA.
Your prayers are also very important to us. We will send you information on how to pray for us or support a child, on request.
Blessings.

Hundreds give their lives to Jesus on a Crusade!

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news!" Isaiah 52:7

Yesterday, we returned with joy from one of the villages where we had been for the last four day preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Kakooma, one of the villages in Kabale, Uganda has a long history of drunkardness and alcoholism. Men spend their fortunes in bars from morning to evening. Women and children are not spared either. You would sense a stronghold of alcoholism as soon as you enter this village. After every one house is a bar with men sitting in circles taking the local brewed beer.
With this kind of life, many families were left in utter poverty and the children suffer most as they are denied their rights to go to school, have food, put on good clothes and have medical care.
At the start of this year, we felt the Lord leading us to preach the love of Christ to this village. When we came in on Thursday, we did not know what to expect, because sometimes the drunk people become hostile to preachers. But after much prayer, we felt the Lord was giving us a go ahead. We hired a public address system, hired a truck and went to this village that is almost 50km from town.
To our surprise, the crusade ground was filled with hundreds of people with in minutes. You could sense desperation on their faces, they needed a savior, they needed a deliverer! Thank God for the power of the word of God and the shed blood of Jesus that cleanses from all our sins. When we invited people to commit their lives to Jesus, hundreds of people came forward!
Within three days around 800 people had come to Christ, repented all their sins and decided to forsake evil ways like drinking alcohol, witchcraft and other evil practices.
After the crusade, we were faced with a challenge of disciple the new converts, since there was no church nearby. We therefore decided to plant a church for these people in this community. However, we will need to get them a place of worship and we pray that God will provide funds to buy a piece of land for these people and build for them a house of worship. Land here costs around $3000 and it will cost us about $7000 to build a simple church building.
We ask all our friends, to pray for us for God's provision and to pray for the people who got saved that they will stand strong in the Lord and grow in his grace.

OUR KIDS PASS EXAMS WITH GOOD GRADES!!

"The fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom," Proverbs 9:10


Praise God our kids passed the Primary leaving examinations with good grades! We had 4 children in the Sponsorship program who sat examinations for Primary seven, which is the last grade before students go to High school.
When the results were released recently, we were all wondering how our children could have performed. Knowing that they all come from a very poor back ground and all missed school at the early stages because of lack of school fees, we had little hope that any of the four would pass with good grades. To our surprise, last week when we received the results, all of them had performed very well. There was a lot of excitement in our church and the entire community because of the good performance of our children.
When these children; Elijah Mugarura, Miria Niwamanya, Peace Turinawe and Fischer Ainebyoona, registered for our children sponsorship program, many thought they were wasting their time, basically because of their poor background but more so because of their age. In most cases, children of their age give up on education and resort to live a life of begging and stealing. Some end up being street children. We thank God that these children persisted, and with a lot of prayer and trusting God through his word, they made it to Primary seven and thank God they are now promoted to High school. The promises of God are true; as these boys and girls continued to grow in the fear of the Lord, God gave them wisdom to study their books and pass with good grades!
Our dream is to give such poor children education so that they are able to become godly leaders in our community. In our country a child cannot get a job without education. Educating children is best way to prepare a child for self sustainability.
Thank you all our partners for supporting us to take our children to school. We appreciate every gift and support given to educate children in our community. You have made a tremendous difference in our community, one child at a time!
Keep us in your prayers, hundreds of children remain without help to go to school. There are so many orphans in our village who lost their parents to AIDS and various other diseases. And other children come from very poor families that cannot afford to pay school fees. Many children are homeless and some go without food for days. We feel God has called us to minister to these hurting children.
We need the prayers and support of God's kind hearted people. Any gift can make an impact in the life of a child in need.
If you feel, you want to be part of what God is doing in our village, please write to us at:jbakashaba@gmail.com and we will give you all the information you need to help.
May God bless you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Happy New Year friends!
What a joy to have yet another opportunity this year to serve God's purposes!
I am sorry, i got very busy and i could not continue my trip story and adventures last year, but hopefully, i will continue my trip story later on.
I learnt a lot and met many new people and made lots of friends. And one of the miracles that the Lord performed for me was that i was able to raise support for most of the children staying in our orphanage. It is so important to us to see these children go to school and become godly leaders in future in our community and country. It is our joy to see these children grow up to become what God created them to be.
I appreciate all of you dear friends that support our children. Your gifts of love have made a tremendous difference in the lives of these children and in our community.
I came back well. This was my first time to travel that long, my family and church was missing me so much and i was missing them too. It was a joy for me to come back to Uganda and join my family and church.
We had a wonderful Christmas and a good end of the year 2009 and a wonderful start of 2010. With support from some friends, we were able to feed 100 children with a few widows from our community for lunch on Christmas day. Many families are so poor and cannot afford a good meal. We feel God has placed it upon our hearts to feed the poor children with a good Christmas lunch. Many young people were looking forward to this. Some children met me, on my arrival and said, "We thought you were not going to be with us for Christmas and we were wondering what we would do on Christmas day". When i asked them what they meant, they told me that they were already looking forward to take a soda (coke) and eat Beef and rice on Christmas day. To many children this is the only time in the year when they take a soda and eat beef and rice.
We had a good time. After lunch the children enjoyed fun sharing stories about the birth of Jesus plus singing special songs. It rained heavily on Christmas day but thank God we had rented tents so we were not bothered so much by rain.
We have had a good start of 2010 and we believe the Lord is going to lead us all the way to achieve great things for the his name's sake.
I am so grateful to all of you, dear friends that support us and our ministry to be able to do God's will. Thank you all of you that support our children. May God bless you.
Have a blessed year, 2010!!