Merry Christmas!!!

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Greetings from Uganda.

On Tuesday this week, our youngest baby Lilly, turned 1, and Rille (our second youngest) is turning 5 on Christmas.

We were able to go for a short family vacation at Musana camps, a Christian campsite on lake Victoria with the kids. We were joined by Pastor Freddie and Sandra and their baby Irma. It was a relaxing time and a joy to be with family.

Our school year ended in November, and all kids that have extended family, were sent to them to spend time with family. Some church members have also taken some kids to their homes for Christmas break. We have only 22 people at the village, including the staff helping out.

We are using this time to do remodeling at the school. We are laying tiles in classrooms, painting, clearing the compound and laying pavers.

According to the police crime report of 2021, 17,000 sex abuse cases were reported and of these, 14,000 of them were aggravated defilement cases. (Childen under 13 years sexually abused by an adult.) 1 out of 3 girls have been sexually abused in Uganda, according to the US embassy in Kampala.

This year, we have been able to rescue 23 girls who were victims. Recently, we launched a community action team. We are working in partnership with the local district, police, state prosecutors and other stake holders to ensure that children are safe and that these offenders are taken away from society. We are also raising awareness about the whole issue of sexual abuse.

We launched the campaign last week and we hosted many of the local district officials and local press.

Your prayers will be appreciated as we continue to reach these girls.

Meet our newest kids at Mercy.

Namakula (English name not yet known) is 7 years old. She is extremely malnourished to the point where she cannot stand, she only squats. Maria, who is 3 years, can stand.

Namakula
Maria

We rescued them this week; the mother is a mentally sick person who has been living in a shack.

The mother would take food from the oldest and feed the youngest. They were referred by the district social worker who was informed by the community.

They don’t have any known relatives, but we will begin to search for them as we rehabilitate them. Your prayers are appreciated.

Like the kids above, we have 46 kids that are not yet sponsored but are already in our care.

We spend $40 to care for a non-residential child and $100 for a residential child or child with special needs.

You can make a one time gift or signup to become a child sponsor. You can also make a gift towards the ongoing construction and renovations. Your gift goes a long way.

https://childrentolove.givingfuel.com/sponsor-a-child

Merry Christmas!!

November Update

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Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

With your support, we were recently able to distribute food to 300 families in the Karamoja region. We identified a local church there that we have partnered with to process the food distribution. We sent one of our church elders and some church members to represent us.

So far, we have made two food distribution rounds to people in Karamoja. It has been a joy seeing the smiles on their faces, as this has been an answer to their prayers.

Recently, Vena and I recently had the privilege to visit Manchester, United Kingdom for a 10 day visit. We had a wonderful time there. I spoke at several churches, and we had 8 children that were sponsored. Thank you, God. It was also a good time for us to be away and reflect on why we do what we do.

Upon coming back, we found our daughter Rille sick with Malaria. She is now on medication and is getting better, but she has lost a lot of weight. Your prayers are appreciated.

Around 16 years ago. We rescued this little girl Hope and her brother who were living on the streets of Kampala. After years of rehabilitation, she was able to find a job and started life as a decorator.

Last week, we had the privilege of hosting her introduction ceremony (this is the African wedding) at our place as we were her parents. Her husband is a pastor; they have been doing ministry together, leading a church of Ugandans in Dubai. They’ll be wed soon, we continue to pray for them.

Over the years, we have reached over 700 children. Some of them were invited for her function. It was a good reunion, and it is always a joy to see these kids grown up, as good citizens, making a difference for Jesus.

This past month, we had the privilege of visiting with the Minister of Gender Labor and Social Development as we picked up our home approval renewal certificate. Homes that do not meet standards are de-registered, but we thank God for His continued favor. Our home ranked best in the last assessments.

After 3 years of hard-work and inspections, our primary school was finally registered with the Ministry of Education and Sports. We are continuing to finish the school and create more rooms for the boys housing area. Our goal is to grow the school capacity to 500 children by end of next year.

Uganda is currently having an Ebola outbreak; four districts are under lockdown. We have not had any cases close to us, but please pray with us that this epidemic ends.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.

The Plight of Eastern Uganda

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Today as I turn 37, I want to thank God for the gift of life. By the grace of God, I was called into ministry 20 years ago. Currently I’ve helped plant 4 churches, started an orphan children’s home, that’s rescued close to 1,000 children over the years, a christian school that is educating close to 400 future leaders and a medical center serving the Mende community. All by the Grace of God.

I could not have done it without my wonderful team of 70 committed staff, ranging from social workers, medical staff to teachers and our board members. I have grown to love them, as they are like family to me. They always go out of their way and sacrifice a lot daily to share Jesus and put smiles on people’s faces.

Special thanks to the CTL board and all donors that continue to pray and send us on this mission field.

Two of the churches we planted are in Eastern Uganda, Pallisa and Kasodo. Last month, I was there for the commissioning of Mercy Church Kasodo.

Currently, north eastern Uganda is experiencing a famine. In Karamoja, a region in north eastern Uganda, IPC acute malnutrition analysis indicates that 91,600 children and 9,500 pregnant women/breastfeeding mothers are acutely malnourished and in urgent need of treatment. 900 people have died to hunger in the last five months, including many children and elderly people.

The famine has been caused by the prolonged dry seasons, which are expected to last until next year, but also because of the rise in fuel prices. It makes it very expensive to transport food from other parts of the country to this side. This news seems not to catch the world’s attention.

This month our church is praying and fasting; it is not easy spending 20 hours just drinking water. My heart goes out to people that live in that state forced by lack of food to the extent of death. God has blessed us so much that we have too much food, and some of us are learning how to not eat too much so we lose weight.

For my birthday I am requesting three things:

  • Take a moment and pray for the elderly and the children in Eastern Uganda and Karamoja.
  • Please consider giving any amount. I will organize with my team and we will do food distribution in partnership with our church in Pallisa and will connect with churches in Karamoja region. That small gift will make a difference.
  • Share this so the world will know what is going on and more people join in the fight.

To give online please use this link and put in Memo Uganda Food Relief.

https://childrentolove.givingfuel.com/give-now

I have been blessed to see God touch so many lives

Celebrating A Beautiful Life

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Hasifah (Muslim name meaning Wise), one of our kids recently went to be with Jesus last week on March 12, 2022 at 8am.

She was born on April 13, 2008 at Mulago Hospital. Mulago is Uganda’s national referral hospital that offers free treatment paid for by the government. Hasifah’s parents were both Muslims living in Katanga slums, one of Uganda’s largest slums.

At the time of her birth, doctors were striking because of low and delayed payments from the government, and they were not attending to their patients. This was Mama Hasifah’s 4th child and based on her health condition, doctors had advised that all her kids were to be born by C-section. She could not afford to pay for a private hospital and ended up staying at Mulago.

She developed complications and no health care personnel was there to attend to her for several hours. A doctor finally came and helped, but at this point they thought she was going to die. She was rushed in for surgery and was later admitted to the ICU. At first, they thought Hasifah had died, but later on they found out she was still alive and took her to the special care unit.

As a result of these conditions, Hasifah developed special needs and Cerebral Palsy.

We met Hasifah and her family in the slums nine years ago, when the mother was one of the ladies in our micro loans program. We started sponsoring Hasifah to help pay for her therapy, treatment and supplementary feeding. Later, with the support of one of our donors, we built them a decent home next to Mercy Church and Mercy Medical Center and they left the slums.

The entire family gave their lives to Christ and currently go to Mercy Church. At some point, Hasifah’s mother has helped take care of many children from Mercy and they have even adopted Dalton.

God has used Hasifah’s life and death to minister to many of the family members and because of her, many have come to know the Lord.

We held a funeral for her at her family burial ground. Pastor Wilfred shared Hasifah’s life story, preached about the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and then presented the gospel to her family members, most of whom were Muslims.

A day later, Mum Hasifah came giving a testimony of how many family members had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior after the message shared during Hasifah’s funeral service. They are asking us to consider planting a church in their village, a predominantly muslim village.

Join me as we celebrate the beautiful life of Hasifah.

The Rugumba’s – Finally Home!!

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It’s been four months since we finally came home from California. Rille, the boys, and I returned home first, and Vena and Zoe joined us later. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support during that journey. 

We found a lot of things changed, but we are thankful that we are finally settled in now. Rille started school and the other kids resumed school.

During the school break, we had a wonderful opportunity to go and stay at friend’s home. We were able to enjoy a short family vacation near a lake.

With the ministry’s standard operating procedures in place, our school has reopened and about 75% of our kids are at school. We now have 251 kids attending Mercy Christian Schools.

We have continued the construction on our learning center near Mercy Church. We have completed the ground floor, and the center includes a library, computer room, musical school, a science lab and several classrooms. Currently, we are working on finishing the classroom floors. 

We are still continuing to rescue many children. One child we rescued, Little S (name not revealed for her privacy), a six year old little girl, is always on my mind. Her father went to work and left in her the community by herself. This is very common as many parents cannot afford baby sitters, so they will just leave the kids to play by themselves. Little S was found sexually assaulted by an unknown man, but we have rescued her and she is now living at our transition rehabilitation home (Mercy Village.) At the village home, she is able to receive care and protection. Little S started school and is meeting with Vena to receive counseling. When she first arrived, she would run away any time she would see a man. Nowadays, my heart fills with such joy as I see her playing joyfully like other kids. 

Last week, we rescued 6 girls. One of the girls was baby Blessing. Blessing was found abandoned in a long drop, toilet hole. We are thanking God, that after being in there 2 days, she was found alive. 

On the same day we found Blessing, we also rescued 5 girls with special needs. They were found staying in an illegal shelter that the government shut down. 

Please pray for them to assimilate well in the new environment. 

We have opened up a new home at our village to accommodate for the increased number of kids.

Last month, we hosted a team of professors and students from Corban University, in Oregon. They help provide formal training to 42 pastors at Mercy Church. They also participated in a medical outreach, and we were able to see over 80 patients, who are unable to afford medical bills. We were able to share the gospel and offered them free medical care. 

We are currently looking for sponsorship for close to 50 children that are in our care, but are not sponsored. I am asking you to consider sharing this email/blog with friends and help us get these kids sponsored. Sponsorship for residential kids is $100 a month and $40 for our non-residential children.

You can also make a one time gift to our sponsorship fund to help us trace these children’s families and provide for these children. The link below will direct you to our sponsorship page.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

https://childrentolove.givingfuel.com/sponsor-a-child

New Year Update and Prayer Request

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Greetings again and Happy New Year 2021.

I can’t thank you enough for your support and prayers through this journey.

Tuesday, January 19, was our 13th wedding anniversary, and Vena had her last cancer treatment that day. For the next month, she will only have to go for doctor reviews, since her white blood cell count is still low. Please pray it gets up quick and she will be able to travel home.

Last week, I went fishing with my dad Tom and Mickey in Redding. Mickey, thought he had recovered from the flu and tested negative for Covid, was with us for about four days. On our way back, he was advised to test again since his symptoms persisted, and he tested positive. We dropped him at the airport in Sacramento, and he rented a car and drove back to Bakersfield. We remained in Redding and self-isolated. I did a test on Monday and another one on Friday, both came out negative. It allowed me to spend more time fishing with Tom.

I missed being with my family during that time, and I was unable to be with Vena for our anniversary.

Uganda school starts this week, I am now traveling back to Uganda with 3 kids and 15 suitcases full of donations. Vena and Zoe will join us later when she is done with her doctor reviews.


Please pray for my trip. In order for us to travel through Amsterdam, each one of us had to take a corona test due to the new requirements of KLM and Dutch Government. We were also required to do an antigen test 4 hours before we boarded the flight.

Please pray that nothing new comes up that will disorganize our trip. We have a direct flight from LAX to Amsterdam and a short 50 minute layover before we will catch our last flight to Uganda. I have been on that flight before and the terminals are close, but please pray that our flight is not delayed.

Zoe developed a fever, and we were giving her Tylenol to help her feel better. We had to make the last minute decision to leave her in California with Vena.

In Uganda, a lot of preparations are going on as we plan to reopen the school soon. We are building more classrooms and finishing the existing ones. We are now planting grass in our field and I can’t wait to be back.

Thank you again for your prayers and support through this journey.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021

November Update

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It has been a while since I last wrote an update; a lot has been going on in our lives, so here is our latest update.

After being separated for about 6 months as a family, in late September, while the Ugandan airports were still closed because of Covid-19, we miraculously received a special pass that allowed us to travel out of the country. It was a 70 hour journey of faith to the United States. We had to drive through Kenya and hustle with immigration, but we finally made it. My plan is to stay until the end of January, when Vena will be done with her treatment.

It has been a joy for us to be together as a family. The first few weeks were difficult as we were adjusting to staying for a long time rather than a short visit. We are currently staying with Rille and Tom, in their home; they have taken us in as their kids.

Legacy Christian School, in Bakersfield, allowed our kids to join their school for free. Joshua was assessed and is in grade 3, Graham is in grade 4 and Zoe is in grade 1. They attend school two days a week, in person, and for the remaining days, the school gives me work and I homeschool them.

It has been a growing moment for me; I am more appreciative of teachers. The school provided us a tutor who comes and helps me learn and to teach the kids.

This week is Thanksgiving Break, and we took the kids to a cabin in Redding. The kids had an opportunity to see and play in the snow for the first time.

Vena has finished Chemo, and she is now starting two months of radiotherapy. The last time they checked her, the cancer had cleared, and we are thankful to God for that.

Pray for her, as of recently, she is tired of the medicine and the continued effects.

Back home ministry is going on; I have continued to work remotely. Our Senior Management team at Mercy has continued to oversee the day to day management of the ministry and Pastor Phillip, together with the church elders, are leading the church.

Our hearts are grieving the loss of Daniel (one of the kids.) At the beginning of this month, he was found abandoned a few days after his birth. He did not show any signs of sickness at the time of admission, and a few days later, we sent him to a family that wanted to start the journey of adopting him. Last weekend, he got suddenly sick, and was rushed to our national referral hospital, where he died of pneumonia. The doctors said that he had dirt in this lungs which could have been inhaled during the abandonment process, where he was dumped, and that bugs might have crawled in his nose and beyond. We are finalizing his burial process this week.

We are also grieving the loss of my Aunt. My Father’s sister died early this week due to Corona, she was buried on the 22nd.

Your prayers are greatly appreciated as we grieve these two losses.

July Update

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We have been blessed that the Government is considering our Children’s home, together with another home, as model homes in the country. We are expecting to host the Minister of Gender Labor and Social Development soon, so this week we had several inspections at the home ahead of his visit.

Since our children’s home is under lockdown, the staff staying there have been missing life outside. We have started taking them for a city tour every weekend to help get them away from the village and to visit some places in the city. This week, they saw the Parliament building among other things.

WhatsApp Image 2020-07-31 at 10.03.37 AM

For our kids, every weekend, we take some of them to the school facility; they help in our farm and play games on our play ground. This has helped them not feel like they are locked in prison.

I was blessed to baptize 26 people, mostly teenagers who are staying with us. Many of them gave their lives to Jesus during this Covid season and we are holding a “Foundations Discipleship” class to help them grow in their faith. We were also able to give them new Bibles. Please pray for them to grow in their faith.

This month through Hearts for Mercy fundraiser, we received money and were able to to buy more new computers. We have now set up a computer lab at the village and our kids are blessed to have computer lessons. For some kids studying from home, we have been able to send some work to them on laptops, and it has helped on our remote learning program.

One of the abandoned babies at Mercy, baby Newton, has stayed here since he was a baby. While we were praying for a family to foster him, God answered our prayer and this month, he was fostered for adoption.

We have continued to distribute food to vulnerable people in our community, and now, we have served over 2500 families.

When the pandemic had just began, our numbers at the medical center hiked up and after a few weeks of lock down, the numbers dropped way low. At first, we were happy, thinking that our community is now healthy because of the lock down and hand-washing. We did further research and found out otherwise; people were very poor and could not afford our subsidized medical care.

With the gifts from Market of Hope for outreach, we started holding free outreaches at our medical center. Currently, every Sunday morning people come and are treated for free while also hearing the sermon played on the church megaphone.

We have had many heart-breaking cases at the Medical Center. We received a breast-feeding mother, who had a tumor on her breast, but stayed with the pain of continuing to breast feed until when we reached to her. Many men are abandoning their homes in such times.

Another case, is of a young man Donald Ashabe, a refugee from Rwanda who got knocked by his cow as he was trying to milk it. He had internal bleeding, but since he had no money, he stayed home and forced himself to work the next day. He became unconscious and by the time he was brought to our center, we put him on oxygen and rushed him to our national referral hospital for specialized surgery. We have no ambulance, so they used my car and it was all stained with blood.

This week, we received the sad news that he did not make it. He left behind a widow and two kids. Mercy is working with the community to help sell the two cows he owned in order to help get the family a small plot and house where they can stay. We are taking up the two kids on our sponsorship program.

WhatsApp Image 2020-07-31 at 10.03.36 AM

We want to do more work to be on the prevention side. If he was able to get medical care early, his chances of living would be high and he would be caring for his family.

I turned 35 yesterday on August 1, and ran a half marathon with 3 friends; unfortunately I couldn’t run with a big group because of Covid restrictions. For my birthday gift, please consider donating towards free medical care for at least one person. During our outreach the average bill is $9. I am asking friends all over, to treat at least one person during this Covid season.

You may give online on this link below or contact children to love on (661) 588-9000

Thank you and God bless

https://childrentolove.givingfuel.com/give-now

Select Mercy Medical Center.

Finally, Brian Returns Home

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As you may or may not know, a few months ago, when the Covid pandemic had just hit, street children became more at risk to exposure of the virus. Since the nature of their lives made them more at risk, the government collected many of the kids and distributed them to different homes. We were gladly able to take in 11 boys when they asked us.

My first time to meet the boys at our village, I was able to quickly identify them from the kids that had been at Mercy for a long time. These boys were dressed in rags, they spoke vulgar language, and many were recovering from drugs.

WhatsApp Image 2020-07-10 at 4.01.44 PM

One kid that stood out to be the roughest, was Brian. As I observed him, I noticed that he fought with his friends on various occasions and that he had been on drugs. I was drawn to getting to know more about him and I was able to learn that he is a good chess player; we were able to play several games together.

Brian shared his story of how he got to the streets. He explained that after hearing stories of life in the city, he stole his brother’s phone and embarked on a journey to Kampala. When he got there, he was moved and impressed. For the first time in his life, he was able to see large buildings and many cars, as these are not common in the villages.

While in the city, Brian spent all of his money and didn’t have an idea of what to do next. He met street kids, and they oriented him to street life and taught him drugs; this became his new lifestyle.

While on the streets, he was approached by a Muslim cleric, who converted him to Islam. He loved the fact that on Fridays, he was able to get free food outside the Mosque.

When the government distributed the kids they collected, Brian was a part of the eleven that was brought to Mercy. While at Mercy, we have shared the gospel with him, and he gave his life to Jesus. The past few months have been life-transforming for him.

He has blessed me in a special way and we have developed a special bond. His dream is to become a farmer or mechanic, and I was able to take him to our farm. He became interested in taking care of pigs; we brought one pig home with us and he has been taking care of it. Later on, I bought 3 goats that he has also enjoyed taking care of each day.

On Friday, I was woken up by his voice saying, “it is me Brian, I have come to say goodbye!” Filled with emotion, I had to come and say farewell to him. Our social workers were able to locate his family, and they were going to reunite him.

I got him a little goat that he could go along with and some money, so he could buy a pig when he gets to the village to help carry on his farming dream.

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Mercy will continue to support him like all of our non-residential kids. We are going to find him a nearby garage where he will apprentice and learn mechanics while also taking care of animals at the same. We will check on him regularly.

I can’t wait to visit him and see how God is going to use him to transform his community. Your prayers are needed; I miss him and so does the staff and friends who have been with him. He changed in a very short time and everyone liked him amazingly.

How you can be praying:

  • Pray that he finds a healthy church family that will help him grow in his faith and be a witness to his family.
  • Pray that he is able to adjust to life in the village.
  • Pray that our social workers are able to find the families of these kids and that they are able to start the reunification process.
  • Pray for our social workers and their safety as they have to travel long distances in their search, to find these kids’ families.

Thank you for all your prayers and support.

WhatsApp Image 2020-07-10 at 3.50.21 PM

June Update

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Greetings!!

I would like to start by thanking you for your continued prayers and support.

Vena had her third chemo round on Monday. She is feeling better than when she had her first and second round. Pray it is not hard on her. We are still praying for flights to open and we can all join her.

Zoe has graduated from Kindergarten. We continued to teach her at home and we are doing the same to all our kids at Mercy village. We have teachers that stayed and were quarantined with us. This has also helped keep our kids busy and occupied.

The kids had a break from our homeschool, they went and spent some time at my parents’ and my sister’s home. They had not seen them for the past 3 months.

We were able to get most of the boys sponsored, and they are thriving at the village. We were able to not just furnish one house but two, and were also able to buy them clothes. It was a joy as each received 5 shirts and 5 shorts. Thank you for the support.

Since we cannot meet in church, we turned the Sunday school rooms to food stores and have transformed the main sanctuary as a food distribution place. We have reached out to over 1500 people from our community with food and face masks, and we would like to continue reaching out families with the goal of helping at least 5,000 more.

We have reached out to close to 50 rural pastors, boda riders and teachers with care packages; these groups have been affected the most by the pandemic. It has been a joy to see Muslims, and many non-believers come to church for the first time to receive food, and it has given us the opportunity to pray for them.

For the food that we distribute, we buy it from local farmers and food distributors, some who are members of our church. By purchasing from them, in a small way, we are helping these local businesses survive during this pandemic.

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It is currently illegal to walk without a face mask in public; you can be fined or put in Jail for that. At this time, tailors don’t have Jobs, so we have provided jobs to widows and teenage girls in our program and they are making cloth face masks.

Daisy, a mother to our sponsored kid, Angel, is a single mom whose husband abandoned her with the kids in Nansana slums. She later became homeless with her kids, and that is when Mercy started sponsoring her oldest daughter, Angel, who is now in Grade 7. During this Covid season, she could not afford to feed her family, but through the masks program, she is now making enough money to care for her family, pay rent, and even bought her own manual sewing machine.

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Vicky, a teenager who dropped out of school due to her parents not being able to afford her education, has joined our vocational skills training program and has learned how to sew. She has always had them of owing her own electric sewing machine, and because of this program, she has saved over half of the money. In two months, she has the goal and hope of having enough saved up for it.

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Now that public and private transport has been allowed, we have started searching for families of our kids that were rescued from the streets, please pray that we are able to find some of their families.

Your prayers are highly appreciated.

Thank you very much!

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