We finished up the projects that we started. We added a door to the chicken coop. Sylvia’s mom will no longer have to worry about her birds getting stolen. She and her family are all very happy! We also taught the women how to use the tools to build a basic pallet couch. Working with wood is a “man’s” job in Uganda, but the girls gave the tools a try. And they were so proud when they had a couch to sit on.

Sylvia’s mom and 2 grandkids

We went to the craft market to help set up the soap stand for our women. They didn’t sell so much, but they are becoming more and more known. People are giving the samples a try. Hopefully they will like the soap and start buying more.

We also went one more time to the church where the women meet and hosted a meeting. I taught them a simple song I wrote (hopefully I can post it in the near future, but the file size is too big, now). Valmira taught the women an input on how to interact with their kids. These women all had very bad backgrounds, so they need to learn how to be moms, how to even be functioning people. But they are learning, and over time, I hope they can be in a better place than they were before. Finally, my mom did a teaching on the importance of caring for each other. Some of the women have been abused so badly that they can’t trust. But they will need to learn this if they want to be happy in friendships and in their families. Given their background, they are so strong. I believe they will learn. I believe God will heal some of that brokenness.

We ate dinner with them and took a lot of good-bye pictures. The moms were jumping around from one group to the next, taking selfies and laughing. It reminded me of just how young some of these moms are. Some are just 15 or 16 years old. It’s so much responsibility for a girl to carry. She should be allowed to just play at this age. But she can’t. As sad as that is, I am glad for this ministry. The girls have support, here.

Then we drove to the airport. We were in 2 cars because several people came to say good-bye. There were thousands of flies swarming around the lights at the airport. I’ve never seen so many bugs in one place in my life. Later my mom told me that our driver of the front car had slipped the guard 5000Shillings (about 1,50Euro) to get us through the gates. Otherwise, we would have had to unpack all the bags. But even with this happening, we wouldn’t have been able to smuggle anything through security: there were sniffer dogs and several screenings. We said good-bye to our friends and flew home. It has been a very full and inspiring 2 weeks. I will be back, someday!