• May 2010 Newletter (PDF)
• March 2010 Newletter (PDF)
• January 2010 Newletter (PDF)
• November/December 2009 Newletter (PDF)

This site is currently being rebuilt after the last webhost went into liquidation and erased all our files including the recent site backups! I’ll try and have everything back up in the next couple of days!

Happy New Year to you all. I hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas and have had a good start to 2010. Thank you for your continued prayers, support, emails and cards (a few have reached me in the last fortnight which was a lovely surprise!) Christmas here was definitely ‘different’ but enjoyable all the same. It was actually relatively cold here and we had torrential rain which meant we had to have our lunch together in the church rather than outside as planned. I was very thankful for the rain however, as my water tank was completely empty on Christmas Eve and I had spent several hours that day collecting jerry cans of water with the children, tipping it in the tank until there was enough to allow me to pump some and give me some running water! Sadly, since then the hot, dry season has started properly and once again my tank is dry so I`m paying some of the kids to bring me jerry cans on a daily basis. Psalm 63 which we memorised in the institute is becoming more and more relevant…….this land is certainly very dry and weary at the moment!

As most of you know, my Gran passed away last week and I want to thank you all for your prayers and encouragement which have definitely made a difference. Obviously I was devastated and desperately wanted to go home and be with my family. It really made me aware of what I had sacrificed to be here and a part of me just wanted to give up and go home! However, God has provided me with such a loving family here at Kasana and has given me a real peace in my heart that Gran is with Him and that one day I will see her again. It is hard not to be able to go to say goodbye at the funeral which is on Tuesday (2^nd Feb) but I am planning to go and visit her grave and some of the places we used to go together in the summer when I come home for my sister`s wedding.

These last couple of months have been a challenge for Hassan and I as he has been in and out of the hospital with Malaria and various problems with his feeding tube(s.) However, this last week he had a proper gastrostomy tube fitted that someone sent out from the UK. Hopefully this one will stay in for longer (a year, we hope!) as it is being held in from the inside rather than by a piece of flip flop and elastic bands taped to his tummy (don`t ask!!!) I had to help the two surgeons insert the tube last Wednesday which was another bizarre ‘only in Africa’ experience; they didn`t have the endoscope that they were meant to use so they had to get Hassan to swallow a magnet……thankfully he was surprisingly calm throughout and was laughing all the way home from the hospital in the clinic vehicle. The road is so bumpy at the moment it is probably like a mini roller coaster ride J

Hopefully Hassan won`t be getting Malaria again for a while as we were able to screen in the verandah of his house thanks to money that people raised – thank you sooooooooo much! We are still waiting for a door to be made so in the meantime you better pray that the mozzies stay away!

Thankfully I have remained healthy but I have been really struggling with the lack of privacy here, not getting any time to spend alone as well as being overwhelmed by the many needs people have here and being seen as a ‘rich mazungu’ (white person/foreigner) who can solve everything by giving out cash. God has really spoken to me about giving out of love and in obedience to him and NOT out of guilt. I`ve also been reminded that money is definitely NOT the ultimate answer to people`s problems.

I was very thankful to be able to spend 5 days away in Entebbe with another English lady called Jill in January; we just booked ourselves into a lovely guest house and did very little other than sleep, read and sunbathe at a nearby pool. I have also decided that in the next few months I will spend my days (and hopefully nights) off away from Hassan`s house – I will either stay at Nancy`s over on the secondary site or (probably once per month,) I will go spend the weekend with my friend in Kampala. Hopefully this will stop me getting totally exhausted and make sure that I get some time to really focus on God and remember why I am here and what he has called me to do.

The new school year started today (February 1^st) and I joined in the chaos as all the classes shifted rooms. I will be helping in pre-school and P2 (accompanied by Hassan,) although I found out this morning that the pre-school teachers think I am taking the class for them which could be a challenge as most of the kids don`t speak a word of English. The lower school are still taught in Luganda which will hopefully help my language skills develop further but could be a struggle to begin with.

I still feel very strongly that God has called me out here to minister specifically to children with disabilities and am really praying that God will open more doors in this area in the coming year. New Hope are really struggling financially at the moment so new projects are understandably being put on the shelf for the time being. However, I am certain that if God wants us to begin a class / day centre for special needs children next year, He will make a way! Whatever happens, it is clear to me that God wants me to be out here for at least another couple of years and I feel comfortable committing to that but obviously it is largely dependent on people continuing to support me.

As I`ve already mentioned above, New Hope as a ministry are facing difficult times in regard to their finances at the moment and we have all been asked to look for ways in which we can reduce our expenditure, make better use of what resources we are given and become self sufficient where possible. In the family meetings we have had regarding the situation, the leadership have really encouraged us all (including the children,) to really seek God at this time and remember that ultimately HE is our provider and the one who sustains us. It is all too easy to trust in ourselves or in other people rather than in Him. Before Christmas, we were asked to send out an email to our supporters which, due to the situation with Hassan, I never actually got round to but I shall send it out now as an additional attachment.

I know that many of you are already supporting me financially and I am very grateful for that but if any of you (or anyone you know) would be interested in becoming a sponsor for Hassan then please let me know and I can put you in touch with our sponsorship office. Due to his multiple disabilities and special needs he needs at least 8 sponsors to cover his expenditure and he currently only has 3.

I think this is the first proper news letter I have sent out since I arrived back in Uganda back in June – sorry! My excuses are the usual ones of being manically busy and there being a rather intermittent internet signal here in Hassan`s house. I get easily frustrated when I have written a long email which is then lost when I try to send it and fail!

However, things are going very well here and I definitely feel at home and in the right place! Hassan and I moved into his newly built house back in July. It is right in the middle of David family which has been both good and challenging. Hassan loves being with the other children who have all been great with him – they take him for walks, come and play or read to him and include him in as much of family life as possible. However, when the kids get up to fetch water at 5am and wake me up with squeaking wheelbarrows, I am not as thankful for where we are! I have been trying to establish boundaries for when they can come into the house to socialise so that I get some time to do work and some peace and quiet. It has been particularly difficult the last few weeks as they are in school holidays so are at home all day. The family father, Uncle Mulu has been a great help in this. Highlights of family life have included the welcome party for Hassan when his father came to visit, harvesting the maize (I got some big blisters!) and having a special birthday meal with the children – we had matooke (cooked plantain bananas), ground nut sauce and the ever present beans!

I am currently attending the institute course which is 8.30am – 1pm every day. We then have lunch together so by the time I get home it is usually about 2pm. So far we have studied secular worldviews, biblical worldview, the fatherhood of God, the orphan heart and biblical counselling. It has all been very interesting and challenging; God has really been speaking to me and changing many of my beliefs and attitudes.

This last week we all went on an outreach to Kobwin in Kumi district which is where New Hope are establishing another centre for children, many of whom were abducted by the Lord`s Resistance Army and have continued to face many hardships since returning to their villages. On Monday, 63 children arrived on a truck from Amuria to stay for the week along with 27 of us from Kasana! Unfortunately there were not enough mattresses for all of us so we had to share – I shared one with 3 of the girls so was rather relieved to see my bed when we got home on Friday night! It was an amazing week and I felt privileged to be able to share God`s love with the children who came. Each day we started at 6am with worship followed by lots of teaching, games and group time. Our group was great and we had some wonderful times of sharing struggles and praying for one another. Thankfully, several of the boys in the group had very good English and were able to translate for the ones who couldn`t understand. On the last day, we got up at 3.30am and drove 4 hrs (much of it ‘off road’ to Amuria to distribute food to the families of the children. It was great to see where they lived and meet some of their family members but very sad to say goodbye. We then had lunch (spaghetti and goat!) before starting the rather long (8hr) journey home. On Saturday, I felt like I had done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson…..I will NEVER complain about the M25 or any other road in England EVER again and I will be so thankful for the lovely toilets at our service stations as they could never be as stinky and disgusting as the pit latrines we had to use on the way home.

The weekend before last, Zoe Oliver and I went on another long journey (with 2 other N.H staff members) to Mbarara (Western Uganda) to visit a friend who works with street children. He lived on the streets from the age of 10 after his parents were put in prison for being Christians. He now has 8 street children living with him and ministers to many more. We were mainly helping him to sort out a budget and other practical things but he also showed us around the town and took us to meet some of the street kids he works with on the town rubbish tip where he used to live. We bought some bread and juice to share with them which they were really thankful for. Many of them were high on drugs or very drunk but they all seemed happy to see us.

Back here at New Hope, Hassan is doing really well and seems a lot more alert and responsive since Zoe put in a nasal gastric tube so that we can ensure he gets enough fluid and calories; he had been struggling to eat and drink enough and was getting severe constipation. We are hoping to see a German doctor at Kiwoko hospital soon to see whether they can do an operation to put in a gastrostomy which will enable him to be given additional liquids directly into his stomach.

We are very thankful to have found a lady called Lydia who has started working with Hassan in the afternoons and who seems to be great with him as well as very efficient with the housework. She gets on brilliantly with the girls in the family group too and was the one who stayed with Hassan all last week when I was away. It is likely that she will move in and take over when I move out – possibly at Christmas. She has a sad story though as she lost her husband and very young baby a couple of years ago. She says that someone ‘bewitched’ them; Witchcraft is very prevalent here and a lot of illnesses/death are attributed to it.

I am currently working on my special needs class proposal and hope to submit it to management this week. I have met several other children in the local community who have significant disabilities who would really benefit from being in the class.

Welcome to our Kate’s new website which will be used to keep everyone up-to-date with Kate’s work in promoting special needs education in Uganda. The site has been built by Jonathan Tolhurst as a free commmunity service and has been tested to work in Firefox 2+3, Internet Explorer 7+8, Google Chrome and Apple Safari. The site is proudly based on the WordPress Content Management System.