Rural Education: An Opportunity to Help

Greetings from Uganda!

Uganda. What are you doing in Uganda; I thought you were in England? Was that the question you just asked yourself? Yes, we are in Uganda. Jon is currently in his “research” year of his Ph.D. We arrived here in mid-October and hit the ground running. While Jon is off interviewing different political figures and digging through old dusty boxes, Jennifer is filling in as the field treasurer for World Gospel Mission. Kiah, Jacob and Karis are also enjoying their time here.

We would like to share with you a special project that we are helping with here in Uganda. Many of you have seen on our facebook or read on our blog something about a school in Uganda. So here is some information about the school and how you can help.

In April 2009, we purchased--- with our friends Livingstone and Stella Illakut--- a nursery and primary school in rural Uganda. Good Daddy Nursery and Primary School is located in a small village called Mukura and serves 294 children from nursery class (pre-school) to P7 (7th grade). Yes, we know--- the name of the school is certainly unique, but we assure you it is culturally appropriate.

Good Daddy Nursery and Primary school is a private institution and we rely on parents to pay school fees each term (there are 3 terms in a school year). It costs 45,000 Uganda shillings for a student to go to school each term, the equivalent of $23.50. There is an additional fee of 45,000 for meals. So for $47 per semester a child can go to school and eat lunch. These fees are minimal, but the average income in this area is only about $600 per year. Also, the families that we serve are mostly farmers who rely on the success of their crops to pay for the school fees. Unfortunately the conditions were particularly dry last year, resulting in extremely low crop production.

Families in the Mukura area tend to be large, having anywhere from six to twelve children. In short, if they paid fees for all of their children, it would cost more than what they earn for an entire year. Due to this, many children are simply unable to go to school. The families that can afford to send their children to school will bring in a small amount of money each week to help with the costs, but many of them are unable to pay for an entire term. Currently fifty percent of children in Uganda do not complete primary school mostly due do the cost.

The average school day begins with most Ugandan children walking 1-2 miles in time for classes to begin at 7:00 a.m. and they finish their studies around 5:00 p.m. Many families are making the tough decision to send their children to school but can not pay the additional fee for meals. This means that we have many children at the school who cannot even afford to pay for their lunch. We try to stretch our resources and feed all of the students, whether or not they paid their fees, but we can only do so much with our limited means.

Imagine if you were unable to send your child or children to elementary school? What if you were able, but couldn’t afford to send the funds for them to eat lunch while at school, knowing that they will go hungry all day? These are only some of the challenges that many of our parents face in Mukura, Uganda.

As a response to this enormous need we would like to start a scholarship fund to help children pay school fees. Currently, if a student has not paid their fees after the first month they are expelled from school. For just $47 you can send a child to school with lunch for one term (sorry to sound like a TV campaign). A gift of $140 will send a child to school with lunch for an entire year. Will you help us keep these children in school? Will you help us send children to school who cannot afford school fees at all?

Thank you for considering a gift to support the education of the students of Good Daddy Nursery and Primary School. We have not received our 501c3 status, but hope to finish that process in the near future. In the meantime those who would like to make a tax-deductible gift can do so by sending a check made payable to Oakdale Free Methodist Church with “Good Daddy” written on the memo line and send it to:

Oakdale Free Methodist Church
5801 Beattyville Road
Jackson, KY 41339

If you are not concerned about the tax deductibility of your gift, you can send a check written to Good Daddy Primary School directly to the school account at (earmarked: Account #2374):

Grant County FCU
6033 E. Big Play Way
Marion, IN 46952

In the coming months, we hope to get a lot more pictures up on our facebook wall and blog. We hope that you will enjoy seeing our progress and interacting with us there. We are open to questions and suggestions and look forward to hearing from you.

We cannot thank you enough for considering a gift to Good Daddy Nursery and Primary School and supporting us with your encouragement and prayers means so much.

Merry Christmas from Uganda

A Long Overdue Post

I will have to admit I have gotten lazy about blogging. Well, maybe not, lazy, but just so busy I haven't had time to post anything.

First, can anyone guess where we are living now?? We are in Uganda. We arrived here in the middle of Oct. Jon is in his research year for his Ph.D. We will be here until June 2010.

I will admit I wasn't eager about this move. I was a little excited to come back to Uganda, but the thought of packing our lives again in 50 pound bags did not excite me. We moved from Cambridge at the end of July back to the United States for two months to see our family. We now have things on three continents; a storage unit in Lexington, things in a friend's garage in Cambridge, and our things we have right now in Uganda. At each move in our lives, Jon and I dream of a day when we will be able to settle in one place.

Jon spends most of his days interviewing people and reading through different archives. I have been staying busy also. I am back working 2 days a week in the field office doing accounting. We are also home schooling Kiah, which takes a good part of my day. She is in part kindergarten and part 1st grade. She loves school, always begs to do more. I cannot believe she will be 6 next month. Jacob just loves to play. He loves cars, trains and anything else with wheels. He loves playing and talking with our gardener, Mugisha. Karis is such a fun baby. She is rolling over now and for the most part is pretty happy. My favorite part of the day is when I walk over to her bed and peak in, she smiles from ear to ear when she see's me.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I am reminded how much we have to be thankful for. I am thankful for 3 healthy wonderful children and a husband who loves me and takes such great care of me. We will be celebrating on Friday with our friends here in Uganda. I am a little nervous as the 2 turkeys are my responsibility to cook. My oven is very big and they will both fit. Unfortunately, there are no Reynolds Turkey Cooking Bags here. I have to cook them the old-fashioned way.

I am going to try to do a much better job at blogging. We have already had some interesting experiences while here that I will share next time. Thanks for reading!!!

Summer Part 1

I cannot believe it has been two months since I posted last. We have been so busy.

Here is a brief update of where the time has gone. First, the last weekend of August we joined my birth family for a houseboat vacation on Lake Barkley. There were 19 of us and we all stayed on a huge 80' houseboat for 4 days. It was such a great time. The weather was beautiful.


A week later we took off for a 3 weeks adventure through 8 states to visit our family. We first headed to IL to visit my Dad. We took a big trip to the Decatur Zoo, the play area at the mall and Dairy Queen. There really isn't that much to do there. We had a great time there.


Next, we headed to Cincinnati to the Great Wolf Lodge to meet Jon's mom, sister and family. If you haven't been to the Great Wolf Lodge, you must go. We love it and the kids love it even more.


After three days of the water park, we headed to Oakdale. Oakdale is one of our favorite places in the world. Jon and I both worked there and we love to go and visit as much as we can. We have so many dear friends there. Kiah got to participate in the home school coop while she was there, which included soccer practice. Jacob enjoyed playing with "boy toys."

We left Oakdale for North Carolina to visit Jon's brother Brad. Jacob thinks Uncle Brad is pretty cool, he can lift him to touch the ceiling and he has a motorcycle. Jacob wanted a ride, but he is just to little.

Our last visit on this trip was to Spartanburg, SC to visit my birth grandparents. The kids had fun playing with silly Aunt Shelly on grandpa's scooter. Jacob loves it there because there are trains. Grandma was happy to meet Karis, since she is named after her.

From here we headed back to KY. This wasn'y the end of our traveling, more to come...

Kid's Photos

Summer

It is hard to believe that it is August. The summer has seemed somewhat a blur to us. Since Karis joined our family in June we have been so busy. I have spent most of the summer getting used to having 3 children with a little amount of sleep. Jon has spent his summer looking at really old documents in libraries around England. Since, having a baby wasn't enough adventure for us we decided to move. Yep, we packed our lives again in 50 pound bags and headed back to the USA. Well, this move to the states is technically a visit, it is preparing us for our next move to Uganda in October. This next year is the "research" year for Jon. So we will be heading to Uganda for 9 months. We have been in the states for about 2 weeks and already miss Cambridge very much. We miss our friends.

This past year we have had the privilege of meeting people from all over the world. In our apartment complex of 70 apartments, we were the only American family. We now have friends from Oman, Israel, Russia, Japan, China, Ukraine, Pakistan Malaysia and India. Almost everyday, the children would gather in the courtyard and play. When we left Cambridge the weather was actually a little cool, about 65 - 70 everyday. The kids are now enjoying playing in the water. We are still getting used to the humidity, if one can really ever get used to it.

Will post some pictures soon!!

She has eyes!

For the first few days, Karis didn't open her eyes. But the other night, she decided to take a look around. Here are few pics.