An Update on Miss Gibson and her time in Uganda
Week 1: We arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning after a crazy 30 hours of travelling. We visited the “New Life Choir” where the children sang lots of lovely songs for us. It was a pleasure meeting this choir as they visited NI last year singing in many different schools and churches. We bought them KFC as a special treat & to say thank you ! We experienced an Ugandan church service (this was quite an experience ) and then travelled a further 5 hours east to the “Arise and Shine School.” We spent the week there and got straight into painting the school, both inside and out. We painted a beautiful mural on the wall to help the children and staff remember us. We also held holiday bible clubs every day , teaching over 350 boys and girls different Bible stories followed by fun crafts and games. We gave the children the books donated from school and they were absolutely delighted to get these! and with the money raised by school we were able to treat the boys/girls and all the staff to a very special meal of rice, meat, stew and fizzy juice , a treat they never have! We visited some of the children’s homes. This was tough to see. Some of these children walk up to 5 miles to school everyday. We said our goodbyes and had a special leaving ceremony with cake and soda.
Week 2: We visited the “Prince of Peace Primary school “ and carried out Bible clubs, talent shows and had lots of fun playing games. We moved on to the “Rainey Primary school” which was proudly built by the Rainey school in Magherafelt a few years ago. Here we got to meet our sponsor children and I was delighted to visit my wee girl. It was an emotional but amazing experience meeting her and her family. We had a long journey of 5 hours back to Kampala but had a lovely chilled day and went for a river cruise along the Nile. We spent the last few days doing streetreach which was spending time with boys who live on the street. This was very hard hitting as boys as young as 6 were living rough. We did a Bible club with them and played games and crafts. They absolutely loved this and seeing their wee smiles made it all worth while. We went to “New Life Boys Home” which is a home for boys who have been rescued from the street. Again we spent time with the boys and even took them to the pool. Dungannon swifts football club donated kits to the boys and they couldn’t wait to get wearing them. Such joy! It did our hearts good. Every school we visited got books donated from school! Thank you for all your support and generosity to help make this trip a resounding success.!
