Schoolies visit and visa interview.

Just a quick update here!

School holidays have just arrived which means 'Busy Busy Busy!'
We have holiday programs, dancing groups, fellowships, Christmas time, chickens, young people popping in all the time, not to mention hopebuilders teams!

It has been good though, it means time goes fast and January and the baby will be here before we know it!

We had the Schoolies Revolution team come and visit us the other day which was great! I shared about some of the vision for YSU, and the team came and prayed for us on the block of land. They also prayed for Agnes and I in the coming weeks with the birth of our baby, which we appreciated from them.

Then the team were treated to lots of dancing performances from our young men and women.
Our tailoring girls shared about what they do, as well as offered some of their products for sale.
Then we had our boys dancing group perform a dance for the Schoolies.

My good friend Solomon also shared a message about following Christ at all costs, and how in the end we never really make a sacrifice because of what Christ has offered us in Eternal life.

Solomon also shared some of his personal testimony which I wrote about here:
http://lukev-uganda.blogspot.ug/2015/07/how-much-would-you-give-up.html

Afterwards all of the schoolies got up and tried some of their own dance moves, much to the amusement and excitement of the Ugandan youth.

The Ugandan youth also got to pray for the schoolies and bless them as well.
Usually we have always done it the other way around ... where the teams come and give a message and pray for the Ugandans and come to bless them!
But I have had a bit of change of thought on how things can be done, mainly because of a great book I have read called 'When helping hurts'.
Instead of having the foreigners always come and do everything to bless the locals, this book suggested flipping that on it's head.
So even though the Ugandan youth had no performance, no prayers or no message given to them to bless them, I believe they felt more empowered by being the ones who had something to offer to the 'Muzungus'.

When I had explained to the Ugandan youth I'd like to do it this way, they were so excited .... it made them feel very valuable!

Agnes and I will also be travelling to Kampala on Monday afternoon so we can go for an interview early Tuesday morning.
The interview is in regards to Agnes' partner visa to Australia. We have no idea what the interview will include, but we appreciate your prayers ... especially because right now it is a difficult time for Agnes to travel with her very large stomach, and her feeling rather sick the last few weeks (although the large stomach is the best proof we can provide of a "ongoing relationship")

We pray it goes smoothly and that this will help in granting Agnes access to be able to live in Australia when ever we please.

We thank everyone again for their love and support.

You can check out our young guys dancing for the Schoolies here:

https://vimeo.com/147750348

Quick update for November

Sorry for the delay in blogs.
I know I used to write a blog every two weeks. But it feels like I have only been managing one once a month.
So my apologies, it can take quite an effort sometimes to think of something exciting and insightful to say.

We are a little bit quiet at the moment, but we are anticipating the busy season of the Christmas holidays.
Not only will we have lots of youth looking for things to do, but two new babies will be joining our household, as well as all our new chickens that have just come in.

We have started our next lot of broiler chickens this month. Two days ago we picked up 600 little chickies.
The first week (especially first 4 days) are very important, as the chickens are so sensitive. They need constant warmth, and so a charcoal pot needs to be kept burning, as well as topping up their food and water.
They also need to be checked every hour, because at such a young age it is easy for them to be crushed when they huddle together.
But this means you have to check them all the time, not just during the day, but also at night.

Farouk and I are taking shifts sleeping down at the property in our tents. Farouk has done the last two nights, and the next two nights will be my turn.
I actually look forward to sleeping under the stars and having my own camp fire. Of course it is very safe because we have a night guard who also is at the property protecting the place.

Our youth are also excited for the schoolies to come! We have a dancing group which is looking forward to performing for the schoolies revolution team, as well as sharing their own messages for them.

They also look forward to doing their own outreach these school holidays, which has been initiated by the group themselves.

We have also started a prayer and fellowship evening, every Wednesday at YSU. We really felt that we were lacking in communal prayer at YSU, and felt the need to commit to weekly prayer for each other, Uganda and the ministry.

We started with a few people on the first day and it has grown since. We have made it open to all people connected with us, and it has been interesting to see how many people are attracted to coming and simply singing together and praying for each other.

It is all a part of bigger journey of mine, to rediscover prayer, and how important it is.
It is so easy to run on your own steam, and want to serve the King without asking for the Kings strength.

Even in ministry work, it is very easy to fall into a pattern where you actually don't feel like you are living out in faith day to day.
Often we stress that we should serve harder, do more for the kingdom, sacrifice more, give more, and all of those things are true. But often the place to start is on bended knee, humbling yourself and asking for help. If you skip that process ... you will burn out.

I know I have been close to burn out here before, or at least have recognized I could be on the trajectory towards burn out.
And so constant prayer and leaning in towards God is the most vital thing. Not serving harder, and sacrificing harder .... those things will be a natural over flow of resting in God's strength. But first come seeking the presence and rest of God.

Our weekly fellowships.

Agnes is also doing well! Although she gets very uncomfortable at night, and struggles to sleep because of the large belly in her way.

We are also very thankful for the contributions people put towards for us to be able to purchase a Boda Boda. This Boda Boda has been very helpful, especially with our chicken project.

Farouk and I also completed two adventures in the last month! Since we know that the next few months won't really give us time off to do such things.

We went for a camp in the African bush, and we also walked from Kampala to Jinja in 2 days (100 km)
You can watch both little videos here:

https://vimeo.com/144285549

https://vimeo.com/145478847

Otherwise I want to thank everyone again for all the support and prayer that they give to Agnes and myself here in Uganda.

We love you all very much.

God bless.

Quick update!

Hello everyone!
I am sorry about the long time between blogs! Things have been a bit quiet here, since we have finished the tailoring class, and Agnes has been having lots of rest.

I thought I would give a quick update to let everyone know what has been happening.

Lots of our time has been put into this chicken project and right now we are selling all our chickens!
Due to some mistakes on our behalf (in regards to feeding amounts and feeding schedules), and some advice from others that hasn't been the greatest, we look like we will just break even with this first lot of chickens!
But it has all been a valuable experience! We have learnt a lot and can now adjust what needs to be done for the second lot of chickens!
We are confident with the experience we have gained and look forward to yielding better results with the next lot of 300 chickens that we will get in November.
Agnes brother has also come on board, and wants to volunteer with us to give us some good tips, as he has been involved in rearing chickens for a long time as well.

There has been a lot of work over the last 7 weeks, but everything we have learnt has been so valuable.
People have actually been surprised that we managed to keep so many of the chickens alive and healthy, many people lose so many chickens on their first try.
So although I was a little disappointing at the lack of profit we made from the first lot of chickens, we are looking at the positives. That is the nature of starting micro businesses!
You get experience and you learn and learn until you get something that works just right!

Andrew was recently here for two weeks as well! It was great to have him here! And I always enjoy his pastoral support.
His presence is always so helpful, to be encouraged, supported and guided. He often does so much here in Uganda, and can be a silent workhorse, getting lots and lots done! But Agnes and I really appreciate all his hard work to support the work that goes on Uganda.

One thing he did while here was buy YSU a boda boda. This boda boda is going to be so helpful in running the chicken project.
Running to the block of land, as well as picking up things like maize bran and chicken feeds, has often taken up a lot of transport money (because we have to hire boda boda drivers)
Now with our own boda boda we can save costs on transport, and do everything ourselves.
We want to thank everyone in Australia who supported us and contributed towards the boda boda.

I continue to run my Friday night devo's with my group of boys, and I have encouraged them to start thinking of some of their own lead outreach ideas for the holidays!
We have come together studying the word for that last few months, but since (as James said) faith without deeds is dead, and the fact that you can be an expert in the bible but still not follow Jesus, we want to encourage each other to use our gifts and skills to reach others.
So these boys are coming up with ideas on how they can use their skills to reach others, whether it be hospital patients, street kids or the poor.
That fact that it will be their own initiatives, instead of me telling them what to do, is also encouraging. I will just give them advice and support where I can.

Right now we are still interviewing girls for the next tailoring class, which should be starting in February.
If anyone is interested in supporting girls through a one year tailoring course! Please feel free to contact hopebuilders on info@hopebuilders.org.au
This course has been very valuable in helping these girls. And the stories have been encouraging, seeing young girls getting work in the Jinja main market, or starting up their own businesses.

Otherwise we are doing well health wise! We just have two very tired pregnant women in our house who need a lot of rest (which is one of the reasons we will start the next tailoring course in Feb .. after delivery)

Again we thank you for all your support and prayers! Your support always means so much to us here in Uganda.

Safari, graduation and chickens

It has been a long time since I last wrote a blog, due to being very busy and not finding (or putting aside) the time to sit down and write one.
So I apologise for the delay, today has been the first time in a few weeks where I have not had anything on.

Recently my sister Carlee has come over to Uganda after traveling around Europe and America. Carlee is visiting Aggie and I, while also using her skills and knowledge in childhood development to teach some classes to a range of people. This is a real need, as most people here don’t have any kind of access to learning about the inner workings of the development of a child, and we have many single young mothers who are struggling and frustrated with their children that are interested in learning more about what makes a child tick.

It has been great to have Carlee over, Aggie and I have enjoyed the conversations and time spent with her, and she is settling in well (even being courageous enough to ride on public transport)

The first week that she arrived, we actually went on a safari. This was a bit of a birthday present from Carlee and my Mum for Agnes’ 30^th last April.

It was great to have a bit of a break and enjoy a safari up in the northern parts of Uganda. What a beautiful country it really is, and so different from the south.
The north is your typical African savannah and dry bush, and we enjoyed a safari drive and a tinny ride up the river Nile, seeing lions, elephants, hippos, crocs, giraffes and more.

It is really wild country up there, and living in a highly populated area in wairaka it was really interesting to see parts of Uganda that is just land and bush with not many houses or people living on the land at all.

The first night on Safari was pretty interesting and funny, as we were sleeping in a big tent near the river Nile, and hippos where walking around our tent at night.
I was kind of freaking out, and both Carlee and I were laughing in the morning because we both had a sleepless night. When we did manage to find sleep, we both ended up having dreams of hippos barging into our tent …. Only to wake up realizing it is a dream … only then to realize that we were still actually in a tent in the African bush with hippos walking around our tents haha.

Aggie didn’t hear anything, and as usual, slept through it all (which is probably a good thing)

It was a great experience (although a long drive) and some other highlights included trekking on foot through the bush to get up close and personal with a rhino (to which the guide told us that if it charges we should climb a tree .. and which a pregnant Agnes didn’t seem too thrilled about)

We also saw a chimpanzee on the side of the road while driving through a forest, which is actually pretty rare to come across.

Another highlight from the last month was having our graduation for our tailoring girls. They have now finished their one year course, and have been sent off with their machines (which they have payed off about half of) to start their own small businesses. 

The graduation was filled with dancing, speeches, words of encouragement and a big feast.
This was a special occasion for many of our girls, as they have never gone through anything like it, and they were all thrilled to receive their certificates.

Agnes and I were even given some chickens as gifts of appreciation!

We have already been encouraged by some of the opportunities the girls are pursuing. With a few girls going to work for clothing stores, some wanting to work in the main town market, or some starting up their own small businesses from their homes.

We were both sad and happy to say goodbye to our young girl Eseza, who has been living with us for a full year while doing her course.

When she came into the course, she was a very shy, dejected looking young woman who could not look you in the eye. She left being a young woman with a lot of confidence (and sometimes a bit of cheek)

One of our other tailoring girls escorted her back to her home village, and she reported that the whole village came out to welcome Eseza when she returned to them.
Apparently a crowd of people had come running to greet her and hold their own ceremony for her when she returned. Many of the villagers where running around with joy, exclaiming how no one from their village had ever graduated from a course.
Someone who left the village as a nobody there, has now returned as the only person from the village to graduate from a course.
The village also has no tailoring services nearby, so she already has been getting requests from all the villagers.

Stories like this make us very happy to hear, and we only pray that we have given them the strength and confidence to know that they are valued by God. That as a woman they are valuable and not someone to be walked over! We pray that this encouragement will help them have a bit of strength in not allowing people (particularly men) to walk all over them.

Have a look at the difference in Eseza after one year.

Before

After

It has been a great time to invest in these girls, not just in teaching them new skills, but also investing in them spiritually, trying to show them and tell them about the love of Christ.

We thank all of you who contributed and sponsored these young women in helping them get through this course.

We hope to start up another tailoring course in the next few months, as they are such a great way to reach the community.

Another big project we have started up, is our chicken project.

Farouk and I picked up 300 small chicks two weeks ago, and they have been a lot of work!
They eat so much, and you need to be checking on them and changing water every four to six hours. This includes at night time as well.
So this means Farouk has been leaving the property at midnight, while I usually do the morning shift at around six or seven.
We have also camped out down at the property as well when our night guard went away to his village (just to make sure they were ok .. as they are worth a lot of money)

This chicken project will hopefully bring in an income for YSU, and my goal is to get it running to a point where we can pay the salaries of our workers with the profit.
At the moment we just have 300 chicks which are being raised for meat (sorry to all you vegans and vegetarians) but we also plan to house egg laying chickens in the future as well.

We also want to use this chicken project as a way to train up some young men, give them employment and new skills in chicken farming.

Farouk has been great in running and managing this, as well as doing his research, as this is his area that he loves (agriculture and animal rearing)

Otherwise we are well. Agnes is starting to feel the pregnancy now, with her big tummy and sore back!

We have also just applied online for a partner visa for Agnes. It took me five and a half hours on the immigration website to complete! But finally we have the application in.
Now we just have to wait nine to twelve months to see if she is accepted!
Please pray for us, as it costs a lot of money and it would be terrible if she was not accepted.

Lastly, I continue working with a group of boys from the community. I feel like I have my own little fellowship group of boys who are at my house constantly.
I continue to be amazed at their faith and their stories. Most of them have suffered some form of persecution from coming to Christ, as most of them have come from different religious backgrounds.
Some have been completely cut off from their family. One young boy and his mother came to Christ, only to have his whole father’s side of the family, who are Muslims, cut them off. That means no support for shelter, education or even food. 

Total rejection for changing their faith

Yet still they are unwavering in their faith! Even on their free time these school holidays, they decided to spend the time visiting local hospitals to pray and encourage the sick.

I have felt the need to do what I can for these young guys when it comes to their education. Especially because some have been cut off from their families after coming to Christ, I believe that they now belong to the family of Christ, and we need to treat them as fellow brothers and sisters in the faith.

So arranging some small labour work here and there, or contributing a little bit of money is the best I can do to try and push them through school. Usually if they pay a 50k UGS (about $20 AUD) to the school, it can keep them there for about a month before they get chased away again and told to find the remaining money. So each month we try and work out something to try and ‘push them though’ for a few more weeks.

The good thing is all the boys are hard workers, and do whatever they can to top up the money. I appreciate their efforts to contribute to their schooling as much as they can (including hard labour) and not just relying on others to sponsor them.

It can be hard because I don’t really have the money to get them through school. But again, we do what we can do for our brothers and sisters who are persecuted.

I want to thank everyone again for all their support and prayers over the last few months. Agnes and I want to say that we love you all very much.

July Update!

It has been a while since my last update. I apologize for the delay.
Sometimes it can feel like an effort to set some time aside to write a blog!

I have some good news about my visa! being that I now have a two year working permit!
It took a long time to get it, and cost me a lot of money, but after all this time I finally have a legal working visa. Getting the visa is usually the hard part, but from what I hear, renewing it is much more easier.
This NGO visa will also help a lot when I try and go for a residents visa in the future. If they see I have been volunteering in the country for an NGO legally for a few years, it will help build my case when going for the long term one.
Now Agnes and I are just preparing to apply for her Australian partner visa. So we appreciate prayers for that!

It is really a big relief to finally have this visa, and I want to thank everyone that prayed for me to get it!
God is good.

We have currently been running a leaders empower training session, here at YSU the last few days. We have selected a few people who we see as leaders in the community who are doing work among the youth. Some people participating are good friends, who are also doing their own youth ministry, and we love to support them by offering this training. Others are people that we have our eyes on to train up for our own team. It would be great to have a team of men and women who would be able to run empowers more often at YSU. So we have a mixed group at the moment of men and women.
Agnes and I have been working well as a team, running the training and empower program together. It is really nice to work alongside your wife in ministry! When you have a common goal that you are working towards, which is really important, it gives you less time to get caught up in silly arguments! .. although we are not immune from that either hehe.

Speaking of my wife, she is doing well now that she has entered her 2nd trimester. The sickness has mostly gone, and she is feeling much stronger, and able to do a lot more.

The chicken project is just about done, and we expect to bring the new chickens into the coop this month! The builders have done a great job, and the place looks great.
The new block of land looks better and better each day. And we have a very tough guard dog (named Spurgeon after the great Charles himself) who looks after the property.

The tailoring girls are also on their last month, and will be graduating at the end of this month! We are organizing for some final lessons on how to repair machines so they can do it themselves without having to pay anyone. Then we hope to send them on their way to start their own small businesses, or look for employment.

They are selling some bags to help pay off their tailoring machine loan! If you are interested our team in Australia should have some to sell. These bags will be the last ones being sold for a while to come.

Instead of starting up another co-op, we have decided that we would like to invest the time and money into reviewing the tailoring class, and making it the best we can. This may include getting in an extra teacher that can specialize in teaching areas that will help develop the girls to the best of their abilities.

Please pray for these girls as they finish up their course and start on their own.

We had another experience the other week, which reminded us again of the frequency of domestic abuse in the community.
An older village women, who we don't really know, came running to our house a few weeks ago. She was clearly distressed and upset and wanted to talk to Aggie and I.
She explained that she had just been beaten by her husband who is a drunkard, and she had run to us expecting that we are close with the local police and could help get the man arrested.
This is due to the news of what happened a while back being spread around the community. If you read my blog a while ago, you would have heard the story of how I tried to intervene in the beating of a 13 year old girl, only to be beaten myself, and ended with the main culprit being arrested by the police.
This new woman was under the impression that we advocated for abuse victims and are tight with the police. The problem is we don't even have the local police phone number here, and we don't have any connection or relationship with them. It was Robert K who brought us to the police station last time, and because we were directly involved in intervening with the beating, we could make a statement.
It was very difficult listening to this woman and not really being able to help in any substantial way.

In the end we prayed with her, gave her money so she could get up to the police station to report her husband, and we called a local community leader so that he was aware of the situation and may be able to help in anyway.

The problem is we don't know these people, or what happened, nor do we have a car to be able to drive her up to the police (if I had a car, I wouldn't hesitate to personally take her myself)

I know it sounds shocking, coming from a country where police response is very good. But you have to understand there really is not much of a functioning legal system here on the grass roots level. We tried to offer the best we could. But there is still a part of me that doesn't feel satisfied, a heavy burden on my heart that I wish I could of/did do more.
The woman had heard that we are people that stand up for abuse victims and so thought she could run to us, even though we didn't know her. All because of the gossiping that went around the community after what happened last time.

In the end I heard that the man actually spent a number of days in jail, as the woman paid off the police with some money she had (perhaps maybe with some of the contribution we gave her ... :p which I wouldn't have much of a problem with)

These are the sorts of things we face daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. The ups and downs of ministry work.
There is a constant reminder of not trying to run on your own strength. Oh how so easily I would burn out here if I wasn't relying on the Grace of God. There is no other way to keep up at this type of work without relying on God.
I am but weak flesh and bone, but He is strong and wise.

Lastly, Farouk and I have been able to go on another two micro adventures! We found the most beautiful open hill overlooking lake Victoria. This small mountain range we camped on, which is surrounded by bush and jungle, is all owned by a local pastor. This pastor was the friendliest man, who felt honored that we would ask him if we could camp on his land. He also gave us a large supply of avocado, cassava and maize to cook on the fire and keep us happy.
That night around the fire we got a bit of a fright as large mongoose's kept snarling and snorting as they charged between our feet. But we survived the mongoose's and the monkeys!

What a great way to get a little bit of an adventure in the wilderness, and a camp around a fire.

Baby!

Agnes and I would just like to make it public that we are going to be having a baby in mid January.
Agnes is now 12 weeks pregnant! So she is entering her 2nd trimester.
We are so happy as this is something we have been praying for, for quite a long time. Agnes and I actually lost a child last year through a miscarriage, so we are overjoyed that we are now going to be having a baby.
The last few months have been a bit scary though, as Agnes has had a few complications, and we have almost lost the baby a few times.
We have spent a lot of time in the hospital, including overnight stays, over the last few months.
Agnes also had malaria at one stage, which is dangerous during pregnancy, and they can only treat it with medicine going straight into the body on a drip.

But thankfully Agnes' health is improving and the baby is healthy in the stomach. Now that Aggie is in her 2nd trimester, things are looking a bit more stable.
I even got to see our little baby jumping, while doing the ultra sound.
Agnes is still a bit weak and tired, and needs to take lots of meds and have lots of rest, but she has certainly improved.

We have also found a hospital that we are really happy with. It is a bit more expensive, but we really want good quality care for the delivery. It is an international hospital in Jinja here, with high quality care.

We thank you for your prayers! and ask that you continue to pray for Agnes throughout the pregnancy.

We are both very excited (Agnes has already started buying lots of baby things) and can't wait to be parents (I feel like living in this community house has been a lot of practice time with little babies and children haha)

Thank you for all your love, support and prayers.

Luke and Agnes.