Blessings

Merry Christmas!!!

wilfredrugumba1 Comment

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

wilfredrugumbaLeave a comment

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

wilfredrugumba1 Comment

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

Christmas Update

wilfredrugumba1 Comment

In Uganda, a country with a fast growing population, most pastors do not have formal Bible training. Churches are growing, but at the same time, there is a rise in the amount of heretical teachings spreading throughout many Ugandan churches today.

It has been always my desire, that we get a way to help train pastors. So about 3 years ago, I contacted Corban University in Oregon to help train, but they had a lot going on then. However, God later opened a door, and they agreed to provide training to 50 pastors, free of charge. Corban University will be sending their ministry school professors for two weeks, twice a year, for 3 years.

At the beginning of this month, we had the opportunity to host 50 pastors from all over the country at Mercy Christian School. They came to learn about how to study and interpret the Bible. Mercy Church elders and pastors have been a part of this, and it has been such a joy to see how much they have learned.

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.57.55 PM

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.57.54 PM

Mercy Church, in two years, has planted two churches, and I see more church plants arising in future.

For Christmas, with the help of gifts from Children to Love, our kids gave out gifts to some staff and needy people around the community. It has been a joy seeing our kids give.

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.54.36 PM

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.54.36 PM(1)

We have started working on construction at the school. We had to take off the roof on one of the original buildings since it was not up to code, and we are also remodeling the building by creating more windows and ventilation space. We are also in the process of building a house for long term interns.

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.56.14 PM(1)

WhatsApp Image 2019-12-23 at 10.56.14 PM

For our school break, we sent out most of our kids to their extended families. However, for those who don’t have extended family, they have been sent to be with our staff and church members. I currently have a total of 12 kids at my house.

Ways You Can Be Praying: 

  • Pray for safety of the kids this festive season.
  • Heavy rains have slowed down our building progress, please pray for good weather so that builders can build fast.
  • Pray for more finances to help finish upcoming building projects.
  • I am planning on taking a vacation with family to Jinja this Christmas season. Pray that we have a relaxing time.

April Update

wilfredrugumba2 Comments

It has been a while since I last blogged. A lot has been going on and am excited to share with you all.

Finally, Mercy Christian schools started. We now have 120 kids attending our school, most of them are the kids Mercy has been sponsoring in others schools. The kids are so happy. We are providing them a Christ centered education, but at the same time, teaching them practical life skills like computer, sewing, and music.

Mercy Church made two years. I am so thankful to God for how He has grown this church in such a small time. We had a big celebration and invited Pastor Wilson and the choir from the Worship House; they joined and encouraged us. We are now praying about planting another church plant in Bakka village.

WhatsApp Image 2019-04-04 at 10.05.54 PM

WhatsApp Image 2019-04-04 at 10.05.54 PM(1)

I had an opportunity to visit the United States with my wife to speak at the Children to Love International Banquet (our US Patner 501 c 3) in Bakersfield, California.

This was a good time to connect with some of our friends and supporters as we also visited Oregon, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Orlando. We were away for one month. It was a great time visiting friends and making connections with churches. We took some days and went to the beach which was relaxing, but we missed our kids so much. WhatsApp Image 2019-04-04 at 10.10.59 PM(1)

I was also able to see Ruby, Josephine and Jonah, these are some of our kids that were adopted but now live in Oregon, California and Denver. They have grown so much adjusted well in their families and they are deeply loved.

Jonah

Since the beginning of this year, we have rescued the most number of kids, we are now at 20 kids. I will share with you Adam’s story; he is the newest child at Mercy.

Adam was found abandoned in a swamp by himself; he was rescued and later brought to Mercy where he is now thriving. He is just about 2 months old, and I can’t wait to see how his life will unfold. We have began to search for his family, but for such cases like this, there is a high chance of failing to find his relatives. If are unable to find them, our next step would be to find a local family to adopt him.

WhatsApp Image 2019-04-04 at 10.07.28 PM(2)

WhatsApp Image 2019-03-09 at 4.32.26 PM

Please pray for the following.

  • Pray for social workers as they look for these kids families.
  • Pray for more local families to step up and adopt these kids.
  • Pray for more child sponsors. Just like Adam, we have many kids that are not sponsored and for $40 and $100 a month you can sponsor a child.
  • Pray for more financial provision, we still have some pending construction projects at the school like paving the compounds, leveling and construction of the play grounds and we still need financial support.

Happy New Year!

wilfredrugumbaLeave a comment

Happy New year!!

The last few weeks have been the busiest weeks I have ever experienced. Our school is set to start at the beginning of February, and our HR was tasked to hire staff. The first set of interviews did not go well as we had many applicants, but few met our standards, and I began to panic as time was running out. Thank God, we were able to do massive advertisement again, and we had another set of interviews which helped us get the teachers we need.

It has been stressful and sometimes I felt lonely, but I got encouraged each time I prayed and let God take charge.

My parents and sisters came to my home, and we celebrated Christmas together. We shared the day with our staff that was working such as our medical staff, Baby Home Mothers, and Security Guards, and we also shared it with our patients that were admitted to the Medical Center.

I took a few days and vacationed with my family after Christmas and that was energizing. In times when I am done, I just imagine the thousands of kids that will walk through this school, know Christ and be nurtured to become Godly leaders that will impact our country, and I am so humbled that God has called me to be a part of it.

A few weeks ago, nothing was up at our school, but I am thankful to God that we have built six classrooms, and they are now on the roofing stage. It is not just about the buildings, each day over 20 men come and work on our site, and I see 20 families that are cared for because of this building project. We have bought bricks from local villagers, and they are thankful to earn money so that they can feed and educate their families; our local businesses have also been boosted because of the cement and supplies we continue buying from them. Thank you for your prayers and support. Our goal is that the school will be done in 3 weeks pray for me.

whatsapp image 2019-01-09 at 11.06.37 pm

Our annual camp starts today; we invited all the kids that we sponsor to come to the Village for 3 nights. We will be sharing with them from Romans 12. We are blessed to host a team from Chicago that will be helping us in the camp, and will also be doing a medical outreach as the team has two nurses and a doctor.

We continue welcoming in new babies at the village, and each day we receive referrals for babies that need to be rescued. This breaks my heart knowing what these kids go through, but I am thankful we have a safe place where they can be. Our last set of kids that we rescued are twins, Kato and Wasswa. They are currently at the national referral hospital to receive treatment for malnourishment.

whatsapp image 2019-01-09 at 11.03.29 pm

Please Pray:

  • Pray for Kato and Wasswa that they will be fine soon.
  • Pray for good weather that our builders are not delayed.
  • Pray for me and my fellow staff that God will give us strength in this time.
  • Pray for the Camp that our kids will be transformed by the power of the gospel.

whatsapp image 2019-01-09 at 11.06.53 pm(1)
The Rugumba Family on Family Vacation!

What Happened This November

wilfredrugumba1 Comment

It has been a while since I last posted.

Lots of things have been going on, and I would love to keep you posted. My trip to the USA went well; Vena and I got to meet friends and supporters.

On my visits, I share about what we do and why we do what we do. I get to step out of the leadership of Mercy, and as I am away, my senior managers lead. I am always encouraged and energized seeing what God is doing and has done at Mercy in just a short time. Can you imagine that 7 years ago that was just a bush and we were caring for only 30 kids? Today, we have grown to over 200 kids, a Microfinance serving over 500 people, a medical center that saw 6,000 patients last year, and a church of close to 500 members growing in Christ. Only God can do such a thing. Thank you for all your support and prayers.

We had a tragedy here in Uganda when a fishing boat, turned into a boat cruise, capsized. Over 120 people were on board, but only 27 have were reported to have been rescued. Most lost their lives because they had no life jackets and did not know how to swim. Our nation is mourning over the loss of these young middle class business men and women that passed on. One of our church members lost a sister and her Fiancée in this incidence. As I have been thinking and mourning over that, I am so thankful that on my trip to the USA, through Market of Hope, an event organized by LBC church, we were able to raise enough money to give our kids swimming lessons through out the year as a life skill.

WhatsApp Image 2018-12-02 at 12.33.04 AM

We also raised enough money to start on the remodeling of our school and building more classrooms.

WhatsApp Image 2018-12-01 at 11.41.02 PM

This past Friday was Worship Night; this is an annual event we organize, where we invite the nation for a night of prayer and worship. Normally, we do it in a stadium, but this time we organized it at the Worship House, our main campus. We had a very big turn out, close to 20,000 people attended and our overflow section was filled, so many people stood around.

WhatsApp Image 2018-12-02 at 1.05.41 PM

Friday was declared a national mourning day for families of those that died in the boat tragedy; we spent time praying for them at our worship night. We had special musicians, from all over the world that performed. Jack Cassidy, from the United States, who was on the Voice TV show last year came and performed. He is staying with my family for the next two weeks.

On Saturday, we had our staff, Isaac and Tracy’s wedding. Isaac works as our accountant and Tracy is a physician assistant at our medical center. I had the honor of doing their wedding, and the reception was held at Mercy Church.

WhatsApp Image 2018-12-01 at 11.40.12 PM

Last week, we had a national MTN marathon, I missed running it because I was preaching. After my birthday, some of our staff that participated discovered that they could run, and three of our staff participated. Mujuni, our security guard, placed seventh in the half marathon race, out of the thousands of people that participated, including professional runners from Kenya. This was his first time to participate. We plan to start a running team at Mercy as running has become a part of our lives.

We held our first set of staff interviews for Mercy School. We want to employ 10 teachers, and we have already hired 7 out of close to 100 applicants. We are advertising again and have interviews scheduled for the end of the week, where we hope to get the remaining 3 and a head teacher. At the end of December and January, we shall start having teacher training.

Prayer requests:

  • Pray that we get the right teachers to be selected on our team.
  • Building has started, so pray that our builders get work done fast and nice before February when our school year begins.
  • Pray for more money to come in to enable us finish building and furnish the school.

Our new school’s blueprint
Our new school’s blueprint

Preparing for Fall Trip to USA

wilfredrugumba1 Comment

This coming week, my wife and I will be traveling to USA. The purpose of this trip is to visit our supporters, share updates and raise money for renovating Mercy school so that we can meet building code and build 4 more class rooms.

The school will start running by February next year, and around 150 of our kids will join this school where they will have quality Christ-centered education. We have already started recruiting good teachers.

I will be traveling to Michigan, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Austin, Baton Rouge, Washington D.C., Iowa and Chicago in the next 3 weeks. If you are available to meet me or you have some one you know who you could introduce me to, please reply me back and we can make plans.

A few weeks ago, after waiting for over a year, our tractor arrived from England. We are so excited, and our staff is learning how to use it. We plan to use it on our farm, and people in the community have already started contacting us about hiring it. We intend to hire it out the community and raise extra money to support the ministry and care for the tractor when it breaks.

Tractor

We are always looking for new opportunities to reach the youth in our community. Last Sunday, we had a free dance concert, and we hosted over 500 youths from the community at Mercy Church. The gospel was presented to them in a music dance performance.

Please pray that the seeds that were sown into their hearts will bear fruit.

 

Friday night, I visited Mohammed; he was our neighbor about 16 years ago, when we planted the Nansana Church under a mango tree. We would witness to him, but he was negative to the gospel. The church later moved to the main road, and he moved to Bukasa, near Mercy Church. Three weeks ago, I met him and told him that we had planted a church near by, and he promised to visit. Since then, he has been coming to church. We went and prayed with him at his house, and at the end, he and his entire family gave their lives to Jesus. I feel so encouraged to never to stop sharing my faith; God is able to save anyone.

Pray for him and his family that they are able to grow in the Lord.

Mohammed and Fam

August Update

wilfredrugumba2 Comments

Today, I want to share with you a story of Baby Blessing. A few months ago, the police called and notified me of newborn baby, born by a mother with mental sickness. After the mother had her, she took her and threw her in a 30 feet toilet hole. At this time, the baby had just been rescued with maggots coming from every hole of her body. Racheal, our social worker rushed to pick her, and we took her to the hospital where she stayed for 2 weeks. I want to thank God she survived and is now thriving at our babies home.
We have had several cases of abandoned babies that by God’s grace, we have managed to rescue, and every single time I visit the babies home, I can’t thank God enough for their lives.

A few weeks ago we witnessed Fatina’s Wedding. Fatina, is one of our girls who came from a Muslim family that could not afford to educate her, so we sponsored her. She gave her life to Jesus and is now working for a Non-Profit Organization as a secretary.

Sunday was Mercy Sunday at our main church, the Worship House. This is a day when our kids and staff lead church. The kids put in a lot of hours rehearsing to lead worship; they made a special presentation of our story and we showed videos of Mercy.  I challenged church members to adopt, and after church, we had over 30 families that are interested in adopting kids, this has been a big answer to prayer.

Please pray for these families as we are planning to meet them again on Sunday and that God would prepare them.

Mid September, we will host a team of surgeons from U.K. They will be joined by our doctors  and by surgeons from Nsambya Hospital, one of the referral hospitals in Uganda. We will be hosting a Hernia camp at our Medical Center. We are looking at giving free Hernia surgery to over 100 patients, and we have already registered over 50 patients. U.K. Surgeons will use this opportunity to share their knowledge with our Surgeons and doctors.

Please remember to pray for patients attending this camp.

Kids are now on school break. For the kids we sponsor that have extended family, they have gone to visit their extended family.  Pray for our kids that their light will shine.