A different partnership; a true partnership
Every Challenge = Opportunity = Transformation: Lessons From Uganda
“Transforming lives through orphan care.”
That’s the heart of our ministry. It’s plastered on our website. We talk about it all the time.
The Lord transforms the lives of children. He transforms so many of our lives. All through orphan care.
But what about entire communities where the children live? What does that transformation look like? Here’s a great example.
We have a children’s village in Kabale, Uganda. A local church with Church of Uganda operates the village. This year, the local church welcomed 100 orphans – mostly children orphaned by AIDS and all children without any available adult care - into the Father’s House. (That’s what the local church calls the village – a family home of the church, not an “orphanage.”) Great!
But that created a new challenge…
The 100 orphans go to school at the local school nearby. That school was already run down and overcrowded. The local church outreach to orphans brought 100 new students, as none of the orphaned children were able to go to school before. Expanding the school became necessary, and would be a blessing to the 100 and the entire community. But expansion seemed impossible; unthinkable.
Here is the co-operative that the local church arranged because of this “problem”:
- GO Project would send $15,000 as partial payment for school expansion (to cover the floor and walls of more classrooms);
-  Members of the local church and parents of children in school would dig the foundation and collectively pitch in to pay for and install the roof;
- With more classrooms, the government would fund and provide additional teachers, if the local church and community would build additional classrooms.
ALL AGREED! Through orphan care and the local church, hundreds of community members and the government have come together to expand and improve education to all children in the school.
The work is under way. Here are some pics we just received of local church members and local parents going to town on the project, as the kids look on in wonder.
I can’t tell you how important this is. This is what “local church based orphan care” looks like. The local church leads change with action in love, partners with the community to own the change, and work their fannies off for the Lord to make it happen. This transcends exciting in Kabale. It’s revolutionary, because it is a different kind of partnership; a true partnership where the Body of Christ works together to care for His kids!
Joe