Hope

All change this week. The big man is back.

So the remainder of last week was mostly concerned with sorting Stephen, getting him into a school. On Thursday after lunch time evangelism I had a chat with Janet about getting him into school. She suggested that he would go to a local government school and showed me the budget for that school, she also said that he'd be going into S1 (first year of secondary school). We chatted for a bit longer and talked about a sponsor partnership between CRO and JENGA, whereby we deal with the education and they deal with food/welfare, met with the boss and he liked the idea too. Went back again in the afternoon with Michael, but Janet had left, so we went to see the Pastor who Stephen had been staying with and discussed getting him into a better school than the government one. At which time he revealed that he had actually previously passed S1, 4th in his year, so should be on to S2.

On Monday we continued, we met the Director of Studies to sort out the formalities then went to the Bursar buy his uniform! It was so great seeing his face light up as he tried to put on what they gave him - he's a tall lad so only the biggest sizes they had could fit him.

I learnt a little bit more about him: He comes from a village near Jinja and after he'd finished S1 there, both his parents died of TB simultaneously and his elder sister got married and moved to Mbale. In Ugandan culture it's not OK for two men of different families to live in the same house and because Stephen is 17, he had to live on the streets, picking up scrap metal to sell so he could buy food. He was picked up by a Pastor from Namatala, and slept at his house, he was picked up by CRO last year, which is how I met him. I think it's really fun that I'm only a year older than him; makes it kind of like a big brother sponsorship. Really excited and privileged to be able to see this amazing guy run with God and reach a greater level of potential than he could have before. God has given him a new hope.

Over the weekend I went to Jinja with Paul, Natalie, Tiff, Ruth and Melanie to send Paul off. Paul's been such a quality bloke to have around, really fun but also a guy I feel comfortable sharing with. Miss Paul a lot already. Had a really fun send-off for him though, which included, post-goodbyes, Tiff peer-pressuring me to go back to Jinja when we reached Kakira, to surprise him with a final few hours of banter.

The big boss came back today! Robby has been on sabbatical for 8 months but came back to find all the work that Tiff had done on his house, making it look nice for him. Sure to be a banterous yet challenging (in a good way) last few weeks with him around.

3 weeks today I'm on a plane. Can't believe it.

BIG LOVE

Dan x

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