When Akite first joined the Child Sponsorship Program, her family did not know that they too would benefit. Akite’s father, Awany, was grateful to God for helping him with one of his four children.

We gave Akite school fees, medical care, a mosquito net, clothes, shoes, a blanket and a mattress. Awany knew he would have to continue struggling to provide for the other three children and his wife, but he underestimated how much the Child Sponsorship Program would help his entire family.

Awany has since received so much more than he had ever imagined. Today he looks back with a smile. It is hard for him to believe how far he has come. Even his community has benefited.

When the Adwari Child Development Center first opened, a 20-year insurgency in the northern part of Uganda had just ended. Everyone was still in fear.

Many had been tortured. They witnessed their loved ones die. Others were forced by the rebels to kill their loved ones. Property and crops were destroyed and the people were destitute.

The best thing that could have happened to this land was the gospel of Jesus Christ, yet Pastor Joseph, overseer of Corner Adwari Victory Outreach Church tells us that some people would not receive the gospel because they were too hurt. Some of them felt that if God really loved them, he would have rescued them and their loved ones. They were hopeless.

When we began a partnership with Corner Adwari Victory Outreach Church, most of the people were homeless and had no food. Many died from starvation.

Most of the survivors were still living in camps at the church and feared going back to their homes. Awany, who narrowly survived death, remembers that during this tough time there was a famine and our ministry distributed food to all the families of the registered children.

Awany received 45 kgs of beans and 50 kgs of maize flour each month for two months. He also received supplemental foods like eggs and milk for Akite, who was 4 years old at the time. Akite and her 2-year-old sister escaped death because of this intervention. Even as he received this food, Awany shared some of it with his starving neighbors.

He cannot imagine what he would have done without this assistance. At that time no one really planted crops because people thought that the rebels would come back any time.

Awany lost 84 heads of cattle to raiders and when he went back to his home, he found a shattered house. Awany had little comfort because he also lost three brothers to the war. He had to start from scratch.

A miracle happened when Akite got a sponsor. Akite’s sponsor sent her family a cash gift and Awany invested it in goats. Eventually these goats multiplied and he was able to provide for his family. One of his children often fell sick and he used the money he got from the business to treat her.

Many children in this area still go without clothes, but Awany was able to buy clothes for his children and also pay for their school fees. He was thankful for Akite’s sponsor.

Sometimes Akite’s sponsor sends personalized gifts for her, but many times she sends the entire family a gift. For each gift and letter that is sent by his daughter’s sponsor, Awany has ceremoniously recorded it in a book.

Perhaps the greatest gift they have received is the money Awany used to construct a new small brick house for the family. The house is almost complete and recently Awany bought 18 iron sheets to complete it. He is overjoyed. Awany and his family are blessed indeed; most of the people in their village live in grass-thatched huts of mud and wattle.

All parents of registered children receive different training at the child development center. One training that changed Awany’s life was that of sanitation and hygiene.

Awany confesses that before this training, he did not think that having a toilet was important. When his family needed to make toilet calls, they would simply do it in the bush or dig up small holes, use them, and later cover them with soil.

Most people in the village did the same. But when he received training on sanitation and hygiene, Awany resolved to build a toilet for his family.

Many people were affected with HIV/AIDS during the Lord’s Resistance Army war. Awany has benefited from the voluntary counseling and testing that the child development center arranged for all caregivers. He was found free of the virus and benefited from training on how to stay free from HIV/AIDS. Awany and his wife have also received training on nutrition and now their children are living a healthy life.

Awany also received seeds from the Compassion center to plant trees and they have since grown. He hopes to sell the wood some day and continue to generate income from the trees.

His wife, Amongi, planted a garden of ground nuts from the seeds they received from the child development center. They are grateful because now they do not have to worry about food. Their garden has since flourished.

The larger community has also benefited from the presence of our Child Sponsorship Program in Adwari. The center received Complimentary Interventions funds for water and they built a borehole in the community.

Now the people in this area enjoy fresh and clean water. Before this borehole was constructed some families had to walk many miles to fetch water from ponds.

Awany is grateful to our ministry and the church, which have been a great support to him, his family and his village. The practical help that we offer to the caregivers has also gone a long way in helping people in this area receive the gospel of Christ.

Pastor Joseph says that since the Child Sponsorship Program started more people have joined his church and our presence is a blessing to all the families of registered children and to the community.

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It’s chilly and the teacher starts the lesson. As drum beats fill the air, children fill with excitement — the right mood for a story.

Teacher Mercy starts,

“Once upon a time there were two buckets that hung by the Simenya Well. They kept on being drawn by the residents of Simenya. One late afternoon, tired with the day’s work, they took time to rest and spoke to each other.”

At this point Teacher Mercy coughs and holds two buckets as visual aid while pointing them to the children.

In the background, one hears a symphony of coughs and sneezes from the children because of the weather. Her “classroom” is outside.

She continues,

“One of the buckets was always grumbling. It never looked at life cheerfully. On this particular day, as it rested outside the well it said to the other bucket, ‘I am tired of the life we lead. However full we are when we are drawn up out of the well, we are sent back empty again. This makes me disappointed and dissatisfied.’

The second bucket looked at life differently. It did not grumble because it looked at the positive side of life. It said, ‘That’s true, but I always look at it this way — that however empty we are when we are set down, we are always full when draw up.’”

Teacher Mercy declares the end of the story, looks at the children, sees the cloudy skies, and whispers a prayer to God, “Please Lord, help us build classrooms to house these children.”

For the last three years, trees randomly placed in the Simenya Child Development Center church compound have been serving as “classrooms” for the children. Unfortunately the days can be nightmares for some of the children in the center, especially when they come to the wall-less classrooms, during extreme weather conditions.

According to Mercy,

“The long rainy seasons fall in March to May, while the short rainy seasons are during the months of August to September and sometimes trickle into October.

These are dreaded months by children, teachers and parents alike. One is likely to meet children shivering in the chilly days with hands tightly clasped across their chest, to preserve the little body temperature.

It is during this period, we have seen children affected by periodic fever. These are the times when we see children walk out of class or even stay away from the classes, with parents citing fear of fever attack.”

During the hot season months, we have not been spared either. This area has characteristic dry spells, which leaves the indigenous trees without leaves. Scorching sunbeams through the sketchy branches penetrate the out-door classes. Because of this, Simenya Child Development Center has made numerous efforts to address this immense challenge.

The community is aware that infrastructural development is their responsibility; however, with the ravaging rate of poverty in this community and high cost of living, they are not able to save money for this much-needed infrastructure.

The host church organized a community fundraiser (harambee), and approximately $400 was raised, which was used toward the acquisition of corrugated iron sheets as roofing materials for a semi-permanent make-shift structure built with trees.

In July 2008, God remembered Simenya Child Development Center in the form of a surprise gift for the center. It came from John, Benson’s sponsor, and it came at an opportune time.

According to Mercy,

“The contribution enabled us to come up with with capacity for 70 children. Though a two-roomed class, the construction has been made in a way that the middle partition can be opened up and the building turned to a hall for church or student center events and functions. Even the church partner hosts a few meetings in this new facility, courtesy of John of the UK.”

Benson is proud of his sponsor, who not only touched his life, but those of 70 children. However, some 230 others still learn in a nearby church hall, while others learn in the child development center director’s office. And more are still under the trees in the church compound until classes are built.

Benson is now a very happy boy. He is glad for the program he attends because he has access to his basic necessities, including a new classroom. He says that he cannot attribute any of this to anyone but to God. Despite being an orphan, Benson is looking at the brighter side of life, he hopes to pursue a good education and he confesses,

“God has given me a friend (his sponsor) who will take me to school until I become a teacher which is my dream career. I now believe Jeremiah 29:11. God indeed knows the plans he has for me to give me peace and an expected end. Even when society thought I was nothing, God and my sponsor saw me as someone.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates