I am writing this after arriving yesterday in Uganda...we have so much to do in 2008 with the children, the HOPE Ministry, and the staff. And our long awaited Children's Center will finally be open for continual use, which can pave the way to increased educational, spiritual, medical and nutritional possibilities for our kids. Already, we are dreaming about a breakfast program for the children, since it is so conveniently located near to the primary school that the children attend.

James and I will be heading up to the village after the weekend which we will spend planning and developing some policies for our new location...the holiday programming begins on the 8th. I can't wait to see the kids again...they grow so much between my visits. And I have heard so many things about our new caseworker/teacher Betty...I look forward to meet her as well!

Our film crew from ths San Damiano Foundation will be joining us to do a follow up visit with Sam, Esther and Jane, attend our grand opening ceremony, and to help us buy some animals donated this Christmas!

Anyhow, please visit the our news site at www.village2villageproject.org/news/ to see current pictures of the Children's center, and visit www.myspace.com, click on Myspace TV and search for Serere, Uganda to see the clip of the SDF's film due out this summer featuring V2V.

Many blessings, and I would appreciate your prayers! Thank you all for your invaluable support that makes the work of Village2Village possible.

Laurie

The construction is going so well on the Children's Center, and they have begun using it on the past two Saturdays! We are hoping for an "opening" in January when all the activities are moved to the site. The flooding delayed the roofing, since it took several weeks to receive the shipment of the iron sheets needed after the bridge collapsed. However it eventually got there and did what it needed to do!

James has taken more pictures recently, but has had difficulty sending them due to viruses on the local computers, so I am hoping that when he travels next week he will be able to send them along.

The final project is 23x36 feet, with a large eating/studying/meeting room, an office, and a storage room. The guardians have built a grass thatched kitchen house outside the center and then will serve the children inside.

We are in the process of bringing water to the site, and have put in rough electrical under the plastering, although there is no source yet of electricity. Several computers are on their way in a container so I hope we will have a lab sometime in 2008. Our crafts and books are on shelves in a private home, so they will move over in January.

We will be trying to fund raise for a chair for each chid that has an attached desk, and will build cubbies for the kids as well. They are so excited about having a place of their own! Monday they will be scrubbing off the paint the builders dripped onto the concrete floor...James says that when they are working as a group they are so happy. Since they live in dreary little homes and the school is not well kept, this building is a real source of pleasure for them.

We are realizing that we are so close to the primary school wih this building that it will be possible to serve breakfast now to the kids as well as the main hot lunch...so your gift will not only help us with meeting space, an eating place, tutoring and spiritual life space, but also the option to improve school performance by giving them a hot breakfast as well. A typical Ugandan breakfast for children is porridge, and milk tea. (Milk is served hot for hygeine). I am hoping we can include fruit as well if we can handle it. An enriched diet stirs an egg into the porridge.

The kids begin their school day at 7am and have a break for breakfast around 10, but most don't have anything to eat from home. James is hoping they can run over to the center during that time and be served each day. Pretty exciting!

I hope this summer we will be able to add some splashes of color to our new building.

I will send you more pictures as I recieve them!

Many blessings and thanks,
Laurie

Next Sunday, for the first time the children are ministering in several churches. They have been practicing some songs to share while they are on holiday break, coached by the older kids and our new caseworker, Betty.

Greetings, friends!

Between my daughter Christen's malaria in September, my own several weeks of pneumonia and laryngitis in October and early November, and the flooding emergency in Uganda it has taken me a long time to catch up on communicating with you all! Fortunately, even when I am sick the work in Uganda goes on...and it has been going on WELL!

If you would like to see a clip of the upcoming film featuring the work of V2V, please click on http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20840695 .

Here are some amazing photos that I received last week from James. He has done such a huge and wonderful work with these two very needy children...I am so proud of him! For those who haven't heard the story of the discovery of these starving kids in August, it is featured in the film clip above.

As an update, during the flooding, James was cut off from Sam and Esther's family due to the conditions in that remote location. After the water receded, he took our visiting American nurse out to find the two children for evaluation. It was heartbreaking, as they were again left alone by the grandmother as she returned to the distant garden to continue trying to get more harvest...even though funding and food was being provided to her for the three children. Little eight year old Jane was again in charge for days, and Sam and Esther lay helpless in the dirt.

As a temporary measure, the nurse and her helper, who were both guests of James's birthmom "Mama Hellen", offered to keep all three children with them in the grass thatched house where they were staying. So, for the month of October Jane, Sam and Esther were doted upon by both the visitors and James's extended family, and they thrived. We worried, though, as every home, school or treatment program checked out was not available or appropriate for the two for one reason or another. However, Sam and Esther got daily loving care, and little Jane was enrolled in Serere Primary School...able for the first time to truly be a child.

In early November, the American visitors left, and Mama Hellen extended her hospitality to the family by inviting the children's grandmother to move in as well. James said that if someone came by, one would never know that these kids were not part of the family...his sister and nieces play with and care for them daily. They have now been with Mama Hellen's family for more than two months. Sam wakes up screaming every night at about 3am...and James takes him into his own bed with him so that the grandma can sleep. He has found that listening to music with headphones calms Sam down.

A little over a week ago, James took Sam, Esther, Tata (grandma) and his niece Christine Akol (our 17 year old secondary student who just finished Senior 4) to a rehab facility in Kampala. They are able to work with the kids until December 16th. There has been AMAZING progress! James has visited every day and is now back in Serere. Christine is trying to memorize the physical therapy routine...she is quite a bright girl and plans a future in medicine. Little Jane continues to be cared for by Mama Hellen while the others are gone.

This is still not a long term solution for Sam and Esther, but they look so HAPPY! (especially in photo 21) We hope the rehab facility will take them back again in January and that we will be able to facilitate a long term treatment program for them in some way. Special needs children are caught in a difficult situation...the government wants to have treatment in the least restrictive setting, and so mandates that children live at home and have outpatient treatment...yet does not provide any outpatient treatment outside of Kampala. James was surrounded by people in the rehab facility asking him to advocate with the staff for them as well...all are so powerless and they saw that Sam, Esther and their grandma had someone who really cared for and protected them. James prayed with one especially desperate woman who was from the Soroti area, reminding her to trust God and lean on Him when there are no other resources.

It makes me smile inside, as both a mom and a mentor, as this young man that I love has grown in confidence and authority over the past five years. He is handling this very complicated situation so well, with both grace and joy.

Please continue to pray for him, and for all of our children...not all are as physically vulnerable as Sam, Esther and Jane, but each has his or her own trauma that is wrestled with daily.

I personally thank God for James, for our other determined and loving staff members, and for those who support us in prayer, with encouragement and finances. It takes all of us to do this work that is set before us...to nurture God's forgotten children in this remote location.

I am especially thankful for the help of those at the San Damiano Foundation, (www.sandamianofoundation.org) who through film have brought the plight of these three forgotten children to the notice of the world.

Many blessings during this sacred season.