Celebrating A Beautiful Life

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.

Happy New Year!

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.

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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.

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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.

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The Rugumba Family on Family Vacation!