Feeding Program

Sorry for a lapse in posting, the last few days I've been in bed with migraines.

On our last weekend in Uganda, we went to Jinga to help with a feeding program...

These pictures are of the Nile River
This is main street in Jinga....Soooo much quieter than Kampala

Every Saturday 200 kids come to this little plot of land, where they are fed. It is absolutely beautiful up here! Amazima ministries is in charge. Wow. I LOVE what they do. They aren't fans of orphanages, they instead, support kids so they can go to school and still live at home with their parents. The ministry did a little experiment to see how much serving meat to the kids would improve their school performance. And they found that one meal a week that contained meat increased their scores by 30%! So every Saturday they come here to worship, play, and eat meat!

Here they are worshipping...
This is the amazing Katie! I've been reading her blog for about a year now and to get to meet her was pretty neat! This girl came to Uganda three years ago at the age of 19 and never left! She has adopted all these girls you see in this picture plus some more. She has 13 children in all!! And yes, she's like 21. This project, to feed all these kids, is part of her work, which she does through Amazima. I wish I had a whole day to spend just walking and talking with her. Please click on her name and go read her blog!
Kim, Christi, and I had the privilege of helping serve the kids their meal. On the ground there are green bags that go home to each family. There's food in there and soap, enough to last them for the week.
This is Esther. I carried her around all day:)

This is a playground the ministry is building. Several young men who dropped out of school are building it and they are doing an amazing job! They will get credit for it to hopefully help them get jobs. They planned it out and executed it, they're almost done!

This house is where they cook the food. This whole place is pretty self sustainable. To the right is where the groundskeeper lives with his family. Back to the kitchen...in Uganda women often suffer from respiratory problems due to cooking over an open flame. So here, they have vented the cooking area so the women are protected.
Okay, now to feed 200 kids! Can you see how big that pot is?
The lady leaning over it gives you some perspective. They were HUGE!!

I was the bean scooper

Interesting story time...Remember that everything in Uganda is corrupt. Police, government, military, you name it, it's corrupt here. When we left Jinga and were heading back over the bridge, we took pictures of the Nile. When we got to the other side of the bridge the soldiers pulled us over. They made us get out of the car and they started talking about how we shouldn't be taking pictures of the water. They made us get back in the car and drive over to their little camp. Then they took our Driver and put him in one of their huts and talked to him. Pretty much, they were trying to get money from him. Then they came back over to the car and made each one of us get out and show them what we took pictures of. They tried to tell us there were terrorist concerns with us taking pictures of the water, bridge, etc... They made one of the girls delete a few pictures and then made me go through my camera. But I had taken enough pics that covered up what they wanted, so they let me get back in the car. Then they start lecturing us about taking pictures and said, "There is a fine, will you pay it?" We said "No." And that was it, they let us go. Grrrr, so disgustingly corrupt! There were no problems taking pics of the bridge and water, they just wanted to see if we were stupid enough to pay them.

Anyway, it was another fun day loving on God's children and basking in His glory!