The Rugumba's Updates

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.