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Lulwanda's missionaries, John, Bobbi and Natalie, continually pour themselves out for the good of the children. They fulfill vital roles in Treasury, Farming, Administration, Development and Program Coordination, but their hearts are primarily for the discipleship of the children. They are always looking for ways to provide learning that is fun and meaningful.
After lunch on Sundays, John and Bobbi have begun taking groups of about 40 kids outside the gates for discipleship and fun. They begin with worship in the outdoor classroom led on the guitar by Joseph, a deacon in a church nearby, who has recently taken over the music and dancing program for Lulwanda. The Word of God is shared by John and relevant, age appropriate life application is made. Everyone loves this special time.
After the discipleship they walk down the hill and have a blast cooling off by splashing and playing in the shallow waters of the Manafwa River!
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Easter Celebration
On Good Friday and the Saturday before Easter the children and staff had the rare treat to watch parts of The Bible, TV mini-series visually portray the Easter story and the resurrection of Jesus. As part of a two day pre-Easter Bible class John and Bobbi brought their DVDs and projected the movie onto a whiteboard on the wall of the main hall. Bobbi made popcorn for everyone and they brought mango juice to drink. Everyone enjoyed seeing and listening to the story in this creative form of learning that we in America take for granted!
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Moving Towards Increased Sustainability
GICF takes the stewardship of your donations very seriously. We are always looking for ways to make the money go further as costs continue to rise. Much has happened at Lulwanda in the past year to this end. For example, we have made many changes to the livestock and farming program to increase production of milk and meat, and to boost the profitability from crops.
One of the biggest changes is we have taken a long term approach and planted a seven-acre hybrid Eucalyptus tree farm on farmland previously earmarked for rice and maize production. When fully grown, the trees will be sold for power and telephone poles, construction timber, and as fuel for cooking. We have planted 4,000 eucalyptus trees which will be ready for harvesting in 6-8 years. The harvesting of the trees every 7 years will provide about 25 times as much cash as the cost of the rice and maize production we will displace. For more details about this strategy see our 2015 Development Report (click here).
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Repurposing Shipping Containers
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The price of food fluctuates over 100% during the year in our area. In an effort to reduce the cost of feeding the children, we have adopted a strategy of purchasing maize, beans, and rice at harvest time (when crops are plentiful and therefore cheaper), and storing the food for consumption year round. Two old shipping containers on our property were relocated, and a roof built over them. They were secured with cement to discourage mice and we put in doors and windows for access. Now we have much needed storage space for the extra food. The rice, beans and maize are safely stored in special sanitary preservation bags, to ensure it will be unspoiled and ready to eat when it is needed. This change allows us to dramatically reduce the cost of feeding the children.
In between the two containers the new maize mill is stored. Hulling and grinding our own maize also saves precious funds that we previously had to pay others to do.
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Improving Livestock and Gardens
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We have a renewed focus on our dairy farm. We are grateful for recent donations from friends who helped us upgrade our dairy stock and purchase a different breed of cow which produces much more milk. Moses and some other boys are excited about learning the dairy industry, and are helping to milk the cows.
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Indigenous Micro-Organisim (IMO) Piggery under construction.
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Pineapple and papaya orchard ready for planting at Lulwanda. Yum! There's nothing sweeter than Ugandan pineapple!
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We encourage you to read much more about the changes we have made in farming and other areas in our 2015 Development Report. You can see that and many more photos on our website by clicking here.
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Write to Your Sponsored Child!
The children LOVE getting letters and hearing about what's happening in your life. Tell them about your family, special events such as weddings or vacations, even stories about your pets. Encourage them and let them know you are thinking of them and praying for them.
Ensure your child's full name is on the letter and mail it directly to:
Lulwanda Children's Home
Your Child's Full Name
P.O. Box 1650
Mbale, Uganda
Global Forever Stamps can be purchased at the post office for only $1.20 for a 1 ounce letter. If you plan to send a small package to your child check the weight, size and postage first as it can get expensive. Thank you for writing to your child!
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Resettlement of Children - Your Prayers are Needed
Lulwanda is home to children who are complete orphans. It is also home to children who have a living parent but the parent was deemed too sick or too poor to care adequately for the child, and the child was therefore neglected or abandoned. In order to preserve their lives, the government authorities assigned these children who had no one able or willing to care for them to Lulwanda for total care.
In the past few years a UNICEF sponsored group called Alternative Care Uganda (ACU) has been influencing the laws in Uganda with regard to orphans. They believe all children deserve to grow up in a family. We couldn't agree more! As good as we try to make Lulwanda, all children are better off in their own homes with a family that loves them.
ACU proposes that most children in institutional care actually have families that they could live with. They are pushing the Ugandan government to resettle all children with their biological families or relatives. An ACU group has been visiting Lulwanda over the past few months to ensure that we have resettlement plans in place for any of our children who are able to be returned to their families.
We became aware that some of the children who came to LCH several years ago may actually have living parents who are able to care for them. Put simply, the parents misled the government officials into believing that their child was not their own, and that the child was actually an orphan with no one to care for him/her. They did this in the hope of having their child live at LCH, obtain a great education, receive medical care, etc at no cost to themselves.
In light of the above, we have recently undertaken home assessments for a few children that we learned may have a biological family member or relative now able to care for them. We will not resettle a child to a home that would be dangerous to the child where they would be beaten, neglected or otherwise abused, as many had been when they initially came to us.
Based on these investigations, we anticipate resettling a small number of children with their families soon. We do not do this lightly. We know it will be a tremendous change for a child to move from Lulwanda back to a village and attend a village school. The child will no longer have his Lulwanda family around him, and the remaining children and staff will dearly miss the resettled child. However, we believe that poverty is not a reason to separate a child from his/her family and therefore resettlement is the right thing to do. The silver lining in all of this is it will open places for children who truly have no one able to care for them -- such as the 12 we received in May 2015. Extensive family investigations done by our own staff as well as the government officials confirmed that these 12 children truly had no relatives able or willing to care for them.
Please pray with us as we navigate these turbulent waters. Pray for the children who will be resettled and for those who will miss them. Pray the truth about the living situations will be revealed and no child will go back to an unhealthy environment. Pray for our sponsors, whose sponsored child might soon leave Lulwanda and their relationship will end. We will notify sponsors in writing when we confirm which children will be resettled.
In all this we praise our Sovereign God that He is the Heavenly Father of all the children entrusted to us and He has their best interests at heart.
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Our children hosted a Good Neighbor Program fellowship recently. Their friends from the village were provided with new school shoes in addition to a school uniform and school supplies. Jesus was lifted up and everyone had a great time.
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Joseph, back row on the left, is getting a fabulous response to his guitar and music lessons. He is part-time staff, hired to develop our children by teaching them songs and instruments. Our children are very musically inclined. The music equipment is in poor condition and we would like to replace it. You can read more about how to support this project here.
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We are grateful for your partnership in the work at Lulwanda Children's Home. Thank you dear supporter. May God bless you.
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Visit our website www.ugandaorphans.org for more information and photos.
Read about a talented Texas artist that is giving the proceeds from all her art sales this year to Lulwanda!
Read the Administrator's Reports
Sponsor a Child or Make a Donation
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Your partnership with Grace International Children's Foundation through donations and prayer is greatly appreciated. Your partnership in raising these children is instrumental to their well being.
God bless you.
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