Newsletter December 2004

To all my friends, supporters and family,

Another Christmas is here and I pray that all of you are having a wonderful Christmas season. I am sitting here on a sunny afternoon with temperatures in the low 80s. We are just finishing the rainy season so everything is green and beautiful.

This has been a year of big decisions and change. Firstly, I have resigned from the Church of Uganda Childcare Outreach that I have headed for many years. There are disagreements and problems between the American Episcopal Churches and the Church of Uganda concerning church doctrine. It does not appear that there will be simple solutions soon. I feel pain and sadness over all of this but I feel that the Lord called me to Uganda to assist the vulnerable and suffering children here. The Bishop said that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. I replied that then I may have to transplant my grass (children.) This is what I have done by forming an N.G.O. (Non Government Organization) called Youth Encouragement Services, Y.E.S. It has passed the government N.G.O. Board this November and I am now awaiting the certificate of registration in order to open a bank account it that name. The children who have been assisted will continue being helped by my new organization, unless, as a donor, any of you feel that you would like to continue sending funds to the church program. Please inform me if you decide to do that and I will in turn inform the child and church here. Also please feel free to email me with any questions you have.

Another big decision I faced was how to best use some insurance benefits I have received from my late brother Bill. After much prayer and advice from friends, I have undertaken a huge project of buying land and constructing a girl's hostel for schoolgirls. This will be for the public and the funds will be designated for the administration and other expenses incurred in the Y.E.S. organization. When more funding becomes available I have designed the hostel to hold a second story where we will have offices, computer training and email facilities, a library, a large training room for conferences and training sessions for the orphans, and finally, a self contained two bedroom apartment that I hope some of you may stay in some day while visiting the orphans and program.

I am also trying to join the age of computers and Internet. There is a new system here in Fort Portal that will allow me to use Internet. With that I needed a better system, as my poor old computers are not doing too well these days. Some good friends have been assisting me in buying a good computer and a projector that I can use to teach many things with DVDs. Another lady whom I have not yet met has volunteered to hand carry this equipment here when she comes to visit in mid-January. I am very grateful to all of the people assisting in this. I now have two emails working. The orphans@africaonline.co.ug and now orphansyes@yahoo.com . Soon, I will have only the yahoo address. I am finding all of this computer technology quite confusing so please bear with me as I try to work all of this out. Also please check with my web page to keep updated on the construction and progress of Y.E.S.

The website address again is:
https://www.angelfire.com/country/childcareuganda/index.html .

I will be able to send and receive pictures with my new email and I will ask my friend working on the web page to assist me in updating things.

Lastly, the reason for all of this, the orphans. Malaria and AIDS have claimed several lives this year. We are working with the local government medical personnel trying to get some of our people assisted with ARV medicines for the AIDS and we have distributed mosquito nets to all of the orphans to cut back on the malaria attacks. I am very grateful to generous donors worldwide who have helped make this possible. Also from the generosity of all of you we have assisted over 530 orphans this year. Forty-eight scholarship students have now finished senior 4 studies and are waiting for the results. We have a program working with Send a Cow Uganda involving training families in agriculture and animal husbandry and we hope soon to have well bred goats to distribute to the qualified families within the program.

We are very busy in many directions and I thank all of you and I praise God for all that He has allowed us to accomplish this year. I pray to always continue in His directions with all of this. I value your prayers that I stay in His will.

I am concerned that I have neglected some people by not corresponding enough concerning your children/families. Please always drop me a line to remind me and ask any questions you might have.

I also really hope that this next year I will be able to go back to Maui for a visit. It has been over 4 years and I do miss Maui and all my friends there very much. I will be moving to a small rented office the week after Christmas and the transition into the new building should be sometime in late spring. Perhaps after all of that settles down I may be able to leave for a short time.

I have no words that I can express to all of you how grateful I am for all of your ongoing generosity, prayers and friendship. I pray that all of you have a blessed and Holy Christmas season and day.

Much love to all,

Carol