Wednesday, May 16, 2007

We have a winner


Congratulations Kara, you are the winner of a large bag of “Ensenene” or in our language “roasted grasshoppers”. Kara’s first guess at how many people fit in our van was 23, the actual number was 22. A tight squeeze.

I wanted to share a little more about one of the other works New Hope in doing here in Uganda. You may or may not know, but for some years there has been a rebel group operating in the northern part of the country. This has lead to thousands of “IDP” or “Internally Displaced People”, which are people who are refugees in their own country. These people live in camps that are little more than prison camps, yet are somehow safe from the night raids that are happening outside. The rebel group and their leader, Joseph Kony, mainly recruit forces by slaughtering a village and then kidnapping the children, which are then trained to be soldiers. Many of these children have been rescued or have escaped. Though they now may be free they still carry deep emotional scars from the torture they endured. New Hope is in the process of building another children’s center in Kumi district to bring hope to the future of these children. You may have heard of the “Invisible Children”, some of the children New Hope is helping are counted among them. Geoff will be traveling to this new site this weekend to attend a wedding and get a first hand view of this new project, more to come on his return.

3 comments:

Janice Speaks said...

Acacia, Your hair has gotten really long! It looks so pretty. Kevin you are getting to be such a big boy. Where is Toby? Grammie loves all of you!

Glenda said...

That is a great picture!! I was pretty close in my guess but no cigar.

We are sponsoring a boy from Uganda through World Vision and in his last letter he told me that it is mango season there and he sees lots of people going into Kasana to sell their mangoes. I am waiting for a response back from him to see how close he may be to you. Wouldn't that be wonderful if he could meet you?

Hope you are all doing wonderful eating fried grasshoppers and all. We miss you and love you!

ak_mama said...

I won!! That is amazing! Those trips are an experience, huh? Well, I miss you all so much and have been loving all the updates! Things have been insane here for our family...I've basically been gone for the last month, and had to leave the kids behind with daddy most of that time, so I am finally home and settling down to get back in touch with all my friends! (and my babies) can't wait to see you all this winter but until then...we'll keep in touch! love you,
kara