Saying Goodbye

The 12th January was a sad day as Adrian passed away. Despite some initial fear, he slipped into glory with supernatural peace, knowing where he was headed, and was buried in Uganda, as he had wanted. I’m sorry for not updating on this before now, I haven’t found it particularly easy to talk about.

A couple of weeks ago we had a thanksgiving service at his church in Wales. One of the themes that emerged in the service was that the work he started still continues, despite the fact that he is no longer with us and it is very true. The farm project is still running and people are still benefitting from it. What a legacy!

Having said that, I know he is hugely missed by the team in Uganda and by me personally. As much as it hurts to know I’ll never see him again, I have come to a place of peace and trust in God and look forward to working with the project he left behind (and keeping you all updated!).

Good News and Bad News

A phone call with folk in Uganda is generally a pleasant experience – an opportunity to reconnect with friends I really haven’t seen often enough over the past few years (thanks Covid!) and to dust off my Luganda/Ngakarimojong greetings. However, I’ve had a couple recently that have had a very different tone. Adrian, one of my dear friends, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the oesophagus.

For those of you who don’t know him, Adrian comes from the UK and worked on the same site as I did on my gap year and had moved out there about three months before I did. He was instrumental in helping me settle in for those first few weeks and months which helped coloured the whole year in the positive experience it became. Even after I’d settled in and formed my own relationships, he remained as a father figure and we spent many evenings talking together. I knew my Ugandan accent had become embedded when I couldn’t turn it off to talk to Adrian!

During that year, he came to me with a vision he’d had which eventually led to me being connected with Rainbow and Shalom Reconcilation Ministires in Karamoja, where I shall be moving to next year. He himself became good friends with Rainbow and moved to Karamoja. One of the plans on my agenda for September was to work out how the skills and knowledge the children were learning on their farming days with Adrian, mapped on to the agriculture in the Primary science curriculum.

It feels cruel to have that taken away before it started. It feels cruel that I didn’t get to see Adrian over the summer as he was in the UK while I was in Uganda and vice versa. It feels cruel for it to happen now when I’m 4000 miles away instead of in a few months when I could at least be in the same country. I’ve spent moments wondering all the natural “why” questions, yet I take comfort in the fact that there is a God whose wisdom is far beyond mine. He has ultimate sovereignty and loves me, and Adrian, and is always working for our best. I don’t need to know all the answers because He does and I really can trust Him. I also take comfort in the fact that as Christians, we can be sure that death is not the end – for brothers and sisters in Christ there are no goodbyes, only see you laters.

Intertwined with all of this, I also got the news that the funds for the first part of building the school have been raised! The project has enough to build classrooms for a single-form entry primary building, thanks to a large donation from an American church. Although we plan on adding a second form in time, this was our target to start building. I am overwhelmed by the provision of God and thank you all so much for your generosity in this! It’s so unexpected (to me at least!) to receive such a large amount so quickly!

All in all, it’s been quite an emotional time – it’s hard to know what to think and feel with such desperately sad news and yet such great news too. However, I’m also grateful that it’s driving me further and further into the arms of Jesus and that’s what matters for eternity.

(A little reminder to check out my Prayer Points page and subscribe to that newsletter if you are interested. The points on the page are a summary only, subscribe for the full version!)

Thank yous and Prayer

A huge thank you to everyone who got involved in the meal and the book sorting this week!

I have recently added a prayer points page to my blog (which you can navigate to any time using the menu at the top of the blog page). I have set up a separate email list for anyone who would like to receive these in their inbox whenever I update this. This email list is independent of my existing emails with general updates of what is happening on the ground so whether you sign up or not, you will continue to receive these emails as usual :). To sign up, you can click either of the links below (and if you have any technical difficulties, please let me know!):

Go straight to sign up for prayer

Go check out the shiny new prayer page and find the email subscription from there (the one contained within the post, not the one on the right hand side)

Upcoming Events in Bradford

For those of you who are not aware, I have decided that next year (around Septemberish) I will be moving out to Uganda on a permanent basis! I would like to thank all of you that have walked this journey with me, and supported me along the way. Looking through the list, I’ve been humbled at how many people have signed up to receive my ramblings on work and adventures in the best country in the world. My excitement is beyond words as plans that have been in the making for around 9 years suddenly feel as if they are coming to fruition! The clock is now ticking!

As I mentioned in another post, Shalom has a school that is operating, however, they lack a proper building to teach in. On Sunday 23rd October, I shall be starting off fundraising for this with a lunch! For a donation to the cause, jacket potatoes with a variety of fillings will be served at Church on the Way (158 Bradford Road, BD10 8SA). You are more than welcome either to join us for the service at 10:30am and stay for lunch or to just come for around 1pm for the food! I would love to take this opportunity to catch up with as many of you as possible, too! I have attached a flyer below with the details.

If you intend to come, it would be helpful if you could sign up here, so that we can get an idea of numbers: https://forms.gle/QKWq3Y2kPCeDitgo9

uganda-fundraising-lunch-Download

The following day, Monday 24th October, I’m also looking for as many people as possible to come and volunteer to sort out some children’s books. You may remember that while I was at university and while the schools were closed during Covid, I worked in a second-hand book warehouse. Stephen, my former boss, has very kindly donated boxes of children’s books that are very difficult to get hold of in Uganda. However, sorting them all out is a bit of a mammoth job and I’d love to have as much help as possible! I’ve also attached a flyer for this.

If you are available, the ideal would be to meet at Church on the Way for 9am and we will travel down to Stephen’s warehouse together as it can be quite tricky to find. However, if you can’t make it for that time but would still like to join us, please do sign up and we will meet you at the gate when you arrive. Whatever time you can make it, if you intend to come, it would be super helpful if you could fill in the following form: https://forms.gle/yEivVxrL8ztgg8nW8

Please do be aware that the warehouse is not heated (although tea can be served aplenty!) so make sure you wrap up warm enough!

volunteer-booksDownload

Thank you again for all your support and I hope to see you soon!

I’m being dragged off to the UK again!

My eyes have cast themselves upon the stunning beauty of the Ugandan countryside, my arms embraced friends living on this African continent, and my nose itched from dust one last time (at least for now). I’m now waiting in the airport for the first leg of four to get back to Southampton. I’m sorry I haven’t updated before now – I haven’t found the sweet spot of having something to update on, having the time to write and also having charge on my phone until now.

During my time in Kotido, I was mainly working through the requirements for registering a school, deciding what can easily be put in place now and what can wait until I have moved to Uganda permanently. Some of these make sense and are perfectly reasonable. Others feel less so. Why should the government decide how long our school assemblies are?! How does flying the national flag affect the quality of the children’s education?! Is it really that essential to specifically give a trophy to the most disciplined class? Can’t we decide how we want the reward children’s good behaviour. I’m still trying to figure out what some of them actually mean: “Quest emergency response information” anyone? And does “Peer to peer support mechanism (reporting and monitoring)” mean for the pupils or the staff? Despite my objections, I have really enjoyed getting my teeth into it and doing something very practical and tangible for the school. It’s also been a joy to reconnect with old friends, deepening existing relationships and start getting to know some of the new staff.

On Thursday, I left Kotido to spend a couple of days visiting friends. The bus reached Kampala a few hours later than I anticipated which potentially meant I was going to have to walk around the capital city around 9pm I don’t feel overly safe walking around Kampala at the best of times and after 9pm is definitely not the best of times. By the grace of God, someone meet me from the bus selling bus tickets to Masaka, where I wanted to go, when he discovered he had did me a ticket for a bus that has just left, he was very determined to find me an alternative way of getting there, which meant at least walking with someone else, and someone who knew here they were going. Reaching Masaka at around 1am, I realised the bus had not quite dropped me off in the right place; my phone had powered off, despite my best efforts to preserve its charge; and I wasn’t sure which direction to walk in. Again, by the grace of God, cue a boda boda (motorbike taxi) to appear who knew exactly where I was going. Boda bodas rarely work at night so to get one straight away from the bus is nothing short of a miracle (albeit a fairly mundane one!). The joy of seeing friends there made the whole thing worth it though! The following day was filled with charter and catching up! Yesterday I travelled again to Mubende, a part of the west of Uganda I haven’t explored before (to my memory at least). Joshua was one of the people I taught with in Wakiso on my gap year and I used to see Patience, how wife, at lot at church and we have remained good friends since. Work has shifted them westwards, temporarily at least, and I couldn’t come to Uganda without paying them a visit! They now have three giggly girls, the youngest I was finally able to meet for the first time. After only a few short hours it was time to dinner to the airport – all to soon so many levels! Until next time, farewell Uganda, the Pearl of Africa

Shalom Developments

As I alluded to earlier, Shalom has had some significant investment over the past few years and it has been great to see how their provision and facilities have improved.

One of the recent projects, which I think encapsulates the heart of Shalom so well, is the new Youth Resource Centre (YRC). There are a number of teenagers and young adults here who have never been to school and find themselves unemployable and without a skill to offer to start a business. The YRC offers training in tailoring, bead making and computers. This aims to empower the next generation to choose a more productive way of life and have something to sell and make money from, even for those whom spending many years at school with children much younger than them seems pretty unattractive. I love the fact that it is seeing a need and responding to it, working for the long-term good and making a very tangible difference in people’s lives.

On the subject of youth, another addition is the “transition home” this provides temporary accommodation (6months – 2 years approx.) for people accessing the YRC but also have nowhere to live while doing so. The idea is that they will stay there just long enough to gain the skills needed to stand on their own two feet and start a business to provide for themselves. Rainbow describes it as “creating their own jobs.”

There have also been developments to the facilities for the children living at Shalom Home. These include a new toilet block, a new set of washrooms for bathing in and a a new kitchen, all of which were much needed especially as they now have an additional 20 children (approx) in the home.

One of the biggest changes in the provision at Shalom Home is that the children are now schooled onsite with the teachers employed directly by the ministry. This was initially made necessary because of the lockdowns when schools also closed here as parents were told to homeschool for two years! Rainbow and the team then realised how much more they can pour into the children if they are educated here and so they have decided to continue. Various rooms being repurposed as classrooms, such as the building below which used to be short term accommodation for visitors! I’m a bit miffed that I arrived just as the children were breaking up for the holidays but I’ve had an opportunity to meet the school staff and I’m hoping to have further talks with the acting head. Rainbow has made it very clear that all teachers’ contracts are temporary so that I can make staffing changes as needed and we have both talked about the need for flexibility – which I have discovered seems to be essential in most schools. One of the main things I’ve been working on is getting my head around and starting to implement the requirements for getting the school officially registered. Some of them are quite reasonable, some of them seem ridiculously controlling (like we must have a trophy to award to the best behaved class and if you have a daily assembly it must not exceed 15mins) and others I’m not quite sure what they mean, despite my pretty good grasp of the quirks of the Ugandan dialect. I still can’t get over that top of the list is to have a national flag on a pole, which I’m due to pick up this afternoon.

Educational provision at Shalom has also expanded beyond formal classroom schooling. My friend Adrian who is from the UK but I met on my gap year in Wakiso, has moved up here along with his project to help improve farming practice. He has adjusted how this is implemented somewhat – his focus on Wakiso was pig farming but at the moment keeping pigs here is asking for them to be stolen. The weather here is also much drier which makes growing crops more challenging. Adrian is actually away in the UK now but i was very encouraged by my tour with one of his workers who had clearly taken on board the various changes in practice, such as using raised beds and mulching to help with water retention for arable crops, growing a variety of cash crops instead of just staple foods for personal subsistence and how to make bee-keeping a profitable and safe business. (I was slightly baffled to discover the traditional way to harvest honey here is to wear nothing and just grit your teeth and bear the stings!) It was encouraging because changing mindsets and practices is often difficult here, even if the traditional way of doing things is clearly not working! Each class of children is taken in turn to spend time doing the farm work practically and also to receive lessons on the theory behind what they have been doing one of my hopes and plans is to marry this up with the agricultural knowledge which is on the curriculum here. (Sorry I don’t have any photos of this!).

Sadly, upgrades to the site security were also needed with the recent violence in the region. The little building next to the guards hut is for people to wait in who have come to visit (usually to ask for help). There is a huge amount of need in Karamoja and so people coming to the doorstep to ask for help are relatively frequent. The problem is that listening to what they have to say (which may or may not be true) and following up (which may or may not be something Shalom can help with) can take a huge amount of time and energy, and a significant amount of this falls to Rainbow, who is always very busy! Having the little spot to house people in before they are invited into the office just gives the opportunity for a bit of breathing space before they are attended to.

There have also been significant changes in staffing with a bigger team as the ministry aims to do more. I’ve loved seeing seeing some familiar faces again as well as getting to know some of the new staff, although I still feel like I’m getting my head around what everyone’s role is!

However, the essential things are very much the same: the heartbeat of the ministry, the desire to invest in the next generation and the obedience to the command to go and make disciples. I love being here and I doubt that will ever change too!

Setting the scene

I’ve started writing this blog post many times, partly because I keep being distracted when I sit down to write and partly because I’m struggling to put into words the last few days. I’m going to mention a few different towns/districts, if you want to get your bearings a bit better with them, you can check out the places tab at the top of the page.

Driving away from the airport, it felt like I had never left. Everything felt so familiar from the adverts painted on buildings, to being hassled by people trying to sell you something, even down to the paspalum grass and orange soil I mentioned in my last post.

After a day of resting, having not slept much in the previous 48 hours, I took the opportunity being in the Kampala area to catch up with Pastor Justus – a friend of mine from my gap year in Wakiso. I was immensely encouraged by the news he brought of the church planted in Kabale in 2016 by his church that I was attending at the time. They have grown in number and are seeing tangible evidence of people’s lives being changed by the gospel – both of which are answers to my prayers!

I had asked that we come up to Karamoja via Nebbi/Packwach as I had an issue to sort out over some land I had bought there a while ago and had asked one of the guys there to sell it for me. Having not heard anything about it for three years, and being told we would discuss it when I got to Uganda, I was afraid that it had been sold and someone had run off with the money. However, I am assured that the land is still there and they were waiting for me to come back before they looked for a buyer (even though that was very much not my instruction 🙄). I am also assured that now I’m here, they’ll sell the land swiftly and send the money the way if asked them to. We’ll see what transpires there!

Although I felt at home as soon as I landed in Entebbe, there is a fullness that comes to that feeling from being here in Kotido, Karamoja. My heart has been bursting at the seams to see Shalom bringing real hope in so much brokenness. And there is plenty of brokenness here. Even since the days of disarmament, which have been relatively peaceful, there have been spats of killings here in Karamoja. However, recently things have heated up and “insecurity” has been a buzzword on people’s lips. Drought and failed crops caused cattle raiding to increase and people to turn to road ambushes in order to feed themselves and their families. Unfortunately, this becomes a vicious circle as people in the more fertile regions have refrained from cultivating their land, in fear of being attacked on the way.

As part of a response to this, Shalom have organised a “peace tournament.” The Agape football team at Shalom have usually travelled to the areas around to build bridges across ethnic tensions (which are common in the area). They do this by playing football together and serving the community – this could be litter picking, cleaning or any other dirty job nobody wants to do! Recognising the same tensions much closer to home, they have organised the peace tournament for local teams with the same goal. It will bring youths together who might otherwise feel defensively tribalistic towards one another for a constructive game and with Agape always modelling good sportsmanship. A district official opened it today and was very complimentary towards Shalom and impressed with the idea.

Sadly, the brokenness here doesn’t stop with insecurity. The lack of food has also driven parents to abandon their children to the streets, as well as creating more orphans through starvation. I’ve been amazed at how easily mothers are willing to give up their children but I’m convinced that more often than not, it is a result of the mothers own experiences and brokenness. Shalom has taken on more children from the streets with the goal of resettling as many as possible with their families but also realising that, for some of them, that won’t be an option or at least not immediately.

On the topic of Shalom, it’s been amazing and heart warming to see how the project has changed and developed. However, that is enough for a whole other post – so stay tuned 😉😊

Orange Soil Once Again!

Three years of dormancy, will she still work? After a wheel spin and a dodged error message it seems that yes, she does! The Hannah in Uganda blog is up and running again because Hannah is in Uganda! (Although the user interface has been updated so please bear with me if some bits aren’t quite right!)

I’ve felt so out of practice this trip! I was at the last minute with some things I forgot I needed to organise: vaccinations, water treatment tablets; and yet nearly applied for my visa too early as the bizarre Ugandan system gives visas that are valid for the day of approval, regardless of the dates you enter into the form. I think I am organised now though, by the grace of God! The next few days will tell though…

This has been my longest journey to Uganda, with four separate legs and some long waits between them. There is something a little depressing about realising you’ve been traveling for 24hours and haven’t yet left Europe, with 16hours still to go! However, praise God I’ve arrived on time, despite my initial flight being delayed (one of the long layovers turned out to be a handy cushion!) and an argument with one of the airlines with regards to the meaning of “departure” and therefore whether my PCR test was done in time.

And yet it is totally worth it – worth two nights of broken sleep, worth the airport panic, worth being cooped up and fed aeroplane food for – to embrace friends, crossing cultural and language barriers, to hear the hustle and bustle of such a friendly place, to be at home.

Back

Hello!

A number of you have asked when I’m coming back to the UK. Well I actually came back last week. I’m sorry that I didn’t send and update from the airport as usual. I was busy on the phone and later on I was so tired I wasn’t convinced I could put a cohesive sentence together!

I spent the last week largely seeing old friends which caused me to reflect a lot on the journey I’ve been on these past three years. I’ve learned so much from university, life and church that I could never have learned in Uganda.

So here I am trying to figure out what God’s plan is for this season of my life. I haven’t got a teaching job like I had planned but I feel like that’s for a reason, it would just be handy to know what that reason is! Although I still have a very strong focus on the longer-term plans. Almost every day at home there is a conversation about something related to moving to Uganda and it’s so exciting that it’s starting to feel so real!

Hope to see you guys around soon!

Travelling!

Well in true African style I’ve turned up at the Ssentongos house (the Ssentongos were my closest friends on my gap year) without making proper arrangements and so (not unreasonably) they’re not around. Therefore I thought I would take the opportunity to update about my recent adventures while sat on a verandah, wrapped in a blanket.

The last week or so in Kotido were quite busy but I managed to visit most of the places I wanted to.

One of them was a school owned by a European (I think German) lady, although she seems to no longer be particularly involved. I was hoping to see how another school might have combined principles of good teaching researched in the West with a sensitivity to the Karimojong culture. What I found was that they teach an American phonics curriculum alongside other subjects taught in a fairly typical Ugandan way. It’s not quite what I’ll be aiming for in my school but it was nice to start a relationship with a school that has a slightly broader outlook.

I also visited an ABEK (alternative basic education for Karamoja) centre run by Save the Children. Aside from being appalled at the contrast between the resources spent on administration and transport compared with the work making a difference on the ground, I have taken an interest in their curriculum as it combines English with Ngakarimojong (the first language of most of the children) which aligns well with the principles of the research. I want to cherry pick from it as my main focus will be on the main Ugandan national curriculum, the structure of it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to me and I think they introduce too much to early before the child had fully understood. However, it could be a very useful resource for Ngakarimojong teaching material (because who publishes schemes in such an obscure language??).

Perhaps my favourite visit was to the Primary Teachers College in Kotido (the Ssentongos have arrived now so I’m now sat more comfortably on a sofa). The college were very welcoming, despite the fact that we didn’t quite make it there until the evening. They have asked me to dialogue with the trainee teachers about the UK education system as part of their comparative education module and have said they will recommend their best students when I am looking for teachers to employ.

I left Kotido with Rainbow who was traveling to Kampala to pick his children up from school. We spent the weekend with Adrian in Ndi Bulungi (which means I’m fine in the local language, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of chucking at that). Always good to catch up with him, even if I still can’t remember how to navigate the farm (not a surprise when you know how confused I could be coming out a different door to usual at the campus I studied on for 3 years)! Shalom now has a restaurant as a fundraiser business with a target audience of bazungu travelling to Kidepo National Park and slightly upper class locals. We spent a day shopping for supplies for it in one of the big supermarkets in Kampala (it was weird, they even had Yorkshire pudding tins!). I’m staying in Wakiso for a few days to visit all my friends from my gap year, especially the Ssentongos.

Right, now that’s all said, I’m off to play with a gorgeous little girl called Abigail!