Round 2

"It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give and you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now." 2 Corinthians 8:10-11

We are back!!! Adjusting to a bittersweet return, but with the hopeful plans of returning for Uganda Round 2 in late August. The verse above speaks to Amanda & I and continues to resurface, even today at a prayer breakfast. If I've learned one thing throughout this journey, when HE speaks I should listen because He has got a plan and purpose!

As mentioned in our last blog post, by April God was moving mountains and "showing off" within the Sozo Women's Ministry. We were able to lead the women in an overview of every book in the Bible and while doing so sharing a highlight scripture and how it applies to life. God was leading 100+ women to gather with us for Bible studies and as we rejoiced in that we began to lead into the sustainability project at the end of that month. 

Since January we had longed to get to this step with the women’s ministry. It was time to trust the Lord in His vision while doing something we, as the leaders, nor the women had ever done before. Amanda & I facilitated the project while we proudly watched our group of women carefully hand-make 312 pieces of jewelry to be sold in America. Through this project and God's faithfulness the women were being empowered, learning a new life skill, and hearing about Christ all while doing so. For the first time the women were feeling important, remembered, and most of all loved!

Amanda and I have recently returned to the U.S. for the summer, and we are joyfully selling the bracelets/necklaces for $20 each. All of the money directly goes back to the women! Praise God for what this means.. food, medicine, school fees, and so much more. 




While working on the women's ministry stateside, we are also here to fundraise for our upcoming stint in Uganda. The Lord is calling us to return to continue what has only just begun in Sozo Women's Ministry. We plan to launch numerous other sustainability projects with the women, continuing to give them an opportunity to have an income.  Of course we will continue with a Bible study, believing that faith will continue to grow and lives will be eternally changed. 

We believe God will once again provide the financial support needed in order to continue this calling. We believe your prayers will continue to touch our hearts and fill our cups. We believe God has plans, once again, so much bigger than we are picturing for Uganda Round 2. Please continue to pray for us as well as insight into God's will for Sozo Women's Ministry. To Him be all the glory for the great things He has done!




THANK YOU for your love and sticking by our side throughout such a powerful, life-changing last 5 months. We love you!




Made for MORE,

Chelsie & Amanda

Paper beads change lives.

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' 

Acts 20:35

God knew what He was doing much more than us when he sent Amanda & I to Uganda to help give the families of a rural village a chance at self-sustainability. Our hearts have longed to help these people in such a way that they learn a skill, something long-term that will provide income for their families. You see, income in the “bush” is rare. There are not many jobs being offered other than working in a garden growing crops aka “digging.” It involves long days, back pain, hard work, and little money—about $1 per day.

So last week during our Monday and Thursday gatherings with the women in the village we announced this upcoming opportunity, which was learning a new skill and being a part of a special project. Without yet knowing a payout is involved the response was overwhelming. Grandmothers, mothers, and daughters joyfully started shouting Amen and yelling catcalls with gigantic smiles on their faces. To them, this meant a chance… a chance at learning something new, a chance at getting their minds off their daily struggles, a chance at providing for their family, a chance at getting their children in school, a chance at not having to worry if there would be any dinner to be cooked on the open fire each night.

Thanks to our supporters we have been purchasing the necessary materials the last few weeks in order to make this first sustainability project happen. It’s a crazy thought but the majority of jewelry here is made from paper beads, which consist of paper rolled up tightly in a very skilled way. In order to get the specific size of paper strips needed we spent hours cutting this special kind of paper in exact dimensions on paper cutters.

After recruiting one of our Sozo house mothers, Maama Maggie, to join us we did our normal 35 minute bumpy drive down the red dirt roads into Ngongolo Village. But this time something was different. I was reminded how we got here to this point. Since January we had longed to get to this step with the women’s ministry. We knew we needed to ease into it and be assured the women were coming for the right reasons, not to receive gifts from us “mzungus”. Every bump we bounced I was reminded of how much we left at home- our jobs, houses, families, friends, best friends’ weddings & baby births, and so much more. But as strange as it may sound it now does not seem to hurt as bad to have left these for what is now at our fingertips. A chance to help the forgotten, the unloved, the poorest of the poor…just to make a difference, an impact for these women we have loved dearly for years. This is what has weighed so heavily on our hearts for more than a year. The time is here.

Yesterday Maama Maggie, being her perfectionist self, slowly taught the 112 women who came for training. What a site! There has never been such chitter chatter amongst the ladies. The ladies came energized- hyper in way like I have never seen them. They were excited, they were thankful, they were ready to soak in some knowledge! Maggie showed them each step of how to roll a bead. It was much like a kindergarten class with women everywhere reaching out their hand filled with beads they had rolled to get Maggie’s approval. It was chaos in the best way- a beautiful mess.  She thoroughly examined the beads giving pointers for continued improvement or in some cases giving her disapproval with an explanation.

Thursday is another day of training and on Monday the project will be in full bloom. We are anxious but at the same time confident in these women. Next week we will share with them that the bracelets/necklaces they are making (over the next month) will be sold to our American friends/families and in turn these ladies will be paid for their hard work. When the time comes for this announcement I will be sure to have my earplugs in because there is sure to be much hootin and hollerin!!!

To many the pictures may look like nothing special. But for us it was everything. Everything we had longed for…for over a year. We certainly didn’t know how things would play out with this ministry we came to Uganda to start. We didn’t know their language, we didn’t know their situation, we didn’t know their interest, we didn’t know how or when. We just knew this was the call placed on our lives and that it had to happen.

Because of the generous donations from special supporters over the last 6 months the hearts of 112 women are happy this week. You are providing an opportunity for a group of poor, like you have never seen, that is lighting up their faces, their children’s faces, and especially their futures. This skill they have learned will empower the women of Ngongolo Village to generate a profit of their own to support their families. So there will never be enough thank yous or enough pictures to show you the impact you are making across the world.

Continue to be with us in prayer for endurance as this 5^th and final (for now) month approaches, wisdom as we continue to lead spiritually, discernment as we share with the women the financial incentive, and unity as we come together as 112 sisters in Christ to make a dream come true.

Made for MORE,

Chelsie & Amanda

Two of our babies, Bushila and Yonah, who were great little helpers keeping things under control at bead training. (note: Yonah happily toting his mommy's Bible for her). 

Power in Numbers

Update from Uganda!

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. So that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-6

We have shared many special and powerful days with the women's group these past few weeks! Our friends Bradley Haywood and Katie McElroy recently came to Uganda with Sozo and were able to spend two days at the women's ministry with us. One day they gave their testimonies, sharing how Christ has changed their lives. It was great to see the women engaged and relating to parts of their stories! Having our friends see and be a part of where our hearts are was so special to us. Since we had extra help those two days, we all got to lay hands on and pray for each of our ladies individually. The Thursday before Good Friday we celebrated communion with the women. Not only did we break bread with them but we also prayed over each woman again. We had asked if anyone wanted to accept Christ, we would love to pray with them. A woman and our friend named Jane came forward. Jajja Jane, who is about 70 years old (and cares for her 4 grandchildren alone), has been attending the bible study since day one. To share in that moment when she asked Jesus to be her Savior was truly amazing!! 

Over the past weeks after praying for our women we have learned that many of them suffer from illnesses, pains in their bodies, extreme poverty, houses being burned down, not having money for school fees and sick children.

We had a smaller group Monday, due to rain, so we decided to change up our program for the day (we were planning to go through each book of the New Testament). We had praise and worship and then prayed for specific prayer requests. We decided as a group to go and visit 3 of our women at their homes who were extremely sick. These women had not been to the group in over a month. It was a powerful afternoon walking through the bush with about 50 women wanting to show love for another. The Holy Spirit was alive at each of the houses we stopped to pray at. Our women are prayer warriors!!!

We ask that you continue praying for our women's ministry as we introduce our first sustainability project to them next week. We will update you as soon as it goes live!! We are so thankful to be at this point in the journey and we thank you for your prayers! 

Love from Uganda,

Amanda & Chelsie

Halfway there

If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion-- how can God's love be in that person? 1 John 4:17

Women’s Ministry/Sustainability Project

I don’t even know where to begin. Today we began week 7 of Sozo Women’s Ministry! How in the world has it been 7 weeks?! Time is flying by and we are soaking up every gathering with approximately 85 women in attendance. In total, 141 women have come through Sozo Women’s Ministry joining us in fellowship/bible study at least one time. Every woman has received a Luganda Bible, notebook, pen, and bookmark. And eye glasses for those who needed them. They have learned how to open a Bible, reference the Table of Contents, flip to a book, and look up scripture. We have given them an overview of every book of the Old Testament and next week we will begin on the New Testament. They are enjoying the study and are very engaged in learning and eager to share their life stories.

So, the big question everyone has (including us)…. WHEN does the sustainability project for this group of women (bigger than we ever planned for) begin? Landing in Uganda December 29 we had a small number of women in mind (maybe around 14 or so) that the Lord would bring to this ministry that we came to launch. He obviously proved us wrong, very quickly, and reminded us that His plans are greater than we could ever imagine. Praise God for this because looking back we were thinking “small small” (as Ugandans say) compared to what He is unfolding now. PLEASE pray with us on this topic – for creativity, clarity, discernment, and wisdom on the specifics and logistics  - to make some large decisions soon that will mark the beginning of the sustainability project. We are in talks with a US ministry, which has operations in Uganda, discussing our women making a type of bag that will carry this ministry’s product, which is a solar panel for village families. We have identified 2 example bags, which we will soon take to a seamstress to get an idea if we might be able to make a combo bag which includes perks from each (and serve as a model for our women to copy). In addition to that sustainability product, we also have a few jewelry ideas for our women to make! We are excited about these for the here and now as this could potentially solve an issue we are currently praying through with our women in the village.  Long story short, a Chinese group bought land in Ngongolo Village and are hiring women for gardening. Job hiring in the village is rare and great except this group is refusing their employees to attend our gatherings. A few women in the group are lying to their boss using the excuse that they have a sick baby in order to come to our gatherings, therefore risking their jobs. Lately these women have been approaching us in distress asking for our opinion as to what they should do. Make money in order to feed their children and send them to school … or continue as part of the Sozo Women’s Ministry as they wish.  Needless to say we feel the pressure now more than ever to get the sustainability project moving so these women aren’t torn and can do both… make money WHILE being a part of the ministry. Praise God in advance for the way He is going to work all this out, even with such a large group number. We are eager to see what God’s plans are for these heroes of ours and are anxious to see how it is all going to happen!!! Please pray with us and email us with any ideas you might want to contribute. You never know if it could be exactly what we needed to think of.

Amanda & I teaching the ladies of Sozo Women's Ministry

Song and dance at a women's gathering. Yes, we are in the middle of the bush.

Our women proudly showing off their first Bible

Land

In other news, after the last 3 long years of praying and searching, God has given Sozo 27.72 acres to call home in Uganda. We closed on the land 2 weeks ago in Ngongolo Village and The Village Project is underway. We absolutely cannot wait to see the building plans unfold and break ground. We hope to be finished building within the next year and everyone from our four Sozo homes will finally be on one piece of land surrounded by village community! Not to mention it’s right down the dirt road from where our women currently meet. God is good!

Our Ugandan Executive Director, Daudi, and & I excited to walk Sozo's beautiful land for the first time since the closing 

Birthday party

Have you ever experienced a birthday party in Africa? Until yesterday, we hadn’t either. It looks a little bit like this… the one year old birthday girl, Nina, holds a huge knife to cut her “birthday cake”, we sing happy birthday with a few extra sentences that aren’t included in your typical Happy Birthday tune, the muzungus (white people) being us (the neighbors of Nina) are the majority of guests in attendance, the brother steals the toy that the muzungus gave the birthday girl, and the list goes on. We arrived with birthday masks and horns that were the hit of the party. What a great experience to take part in which served as a fun reminder how different our cultures are but we can all come together in love and support.

Nina and her mom cutting the cake

Birthday girl's 1st birthday party

CoRSU

March is here which means we started our work at CoRSU Hospital (Compresensive Rehabilitation Servces in Uganda) last week. They have asked us to start by working in the classroom. The hospital’s patients are severely burned children from all across the country of Uganda. Because they come from near and far we found ourselves running into a huge language barrier. Even our mediocre Luganda we have picked up while here isn’t even understood by most of these children because they come from other tribes and tribal languages. But nonetheless, Amanda & I had about 20 children broken up in groups based on age. Anywhere from 2 years to 15 years. I’m not a teacher but I, myself, couldn’t think of any lesson plans that would be beneficial for kids of such varying ages, not to mention whom cannot understand you. So, that led me to “shading” coloring books with the small babies as well as making videos on my phone (could entertain them for days) while Amanda tried to read a book to the older ones with the help of a translator who knew a few words in English- haha- like I said, it’s a challenge. But we go back tomorrow expected to have a “program” together as the teacher asked us what ours was on the first day last week. We looked at her stunned and were speechless… T.I.A. We are not getting stressed about it though because we know in our hearts how blessed we were in one day interacting with these joyful small children with missing limbs, burned faces, entire body skin graphs, etc. And we can only hope that the love and attention we are sharing with them will make a lasting impact. That they never forget the Light they see in us as long as they live.

Some of our baby heroes who are patients at CoRSU

Power

What is power? Sometimes when you’re living in Africa you wonder. Why do you seem to lack electricity some weeks more often than have power? Who decides to turn off the city power? Now we are in Africa and don’t expect life to be the same as US but this is one thing that we can’t seem to get used to.  This past week we have experienced little power. Almost every night the power has been off and we have tried to learn how to sleep without a fan, to keep the mosquitoes from eating us alive (even under a mosquito net), but we find ourselves longing for power and even rats (a common thing) instead of mosquitoes due to no air flow. But as we all joke when things happen over here that we as Americans just cant wrap our head around we simply say T.I.A. (this is Africa!). Without forgetting we are thankful to have it when we do because afterall, we are in the minority when the power is on.

Teams

The last month we have had Sozo Directors in town from the US working on the land closing and many other things. This has kept us very busy while allowing us to have our hands in all kinds of “off-the-wall” operations. It has been an adventurous time but we do apologize for the lack of updates during this hectic time! Beginning Saturday the first of our March teams will arrive in Uganda. When teams are on ground we are also going non-stop but it’s going to be great to continue on with our normal schedule in the village, etc but also experience life with them for 10 days. Amanda’s parents come in the following weekend for a quick visit, and then another team (with a few of our friends!) arrive at the end of March. Bring it on is all we can say about the rest of March!!!

Sozo boarding school kids at Kitende Primary School (just because we're proud)

 

All our love to you!!!

By the way, the title of the blog "halfway there" marks halfway for our first 5 month stint in Uganda. We are 2.5 months down and couldn't be doing better! We'll be seeing you all over a trip to the US June 1.

We love you and love hearing from you! Thank you to those who have sent us such sweet encouraging words. We know you are in this with us and feel your prayers. 

MADE for More,

Chelsie & Amanda

Something Bigger!

"Jesus replied, you don’t understand what I’m doing now, but someday you will." 
John 13:7

God has definitely brought them! The first two weeks of the women’s bible study has been truly amazing. 60 woman are now joining us every Monday and Thursday for praise & worship and to learn God’s Word.

Last week we were able to distribute Luganda Bibles to about 20 of the women and have placed an order for another 50 to come in soon! …. A moment we will never forget because it was many of the women’s first time to own and open a Bible! Something hard to fully understand because the majority of the women are Christians but have not had the money to purchase a Bible of their own. The cheers of delight, clapping, and huge smiles as they held tightly to their bibles is hard to put into words.  We knew we had to start very basic so the women were split into groups and Auntie Dorah led them through reading (in Luganda) all the books of the Bible. The women quickly started to learn how to find each book in the old and new testament!  Our next step is to teach a basic summary of each book of the old testament (which we began Monday). It will be a slow process as the amount of information these women are hearing for the first time can be overwhelming for them. 

Meet Harriet...she received her first Bible!!

Something we are not complaining about is that we are constantly on the hunt to purchase and bring more mats to each meeting and the fact we can't keep up with all the new faces. We have about 25 of the women’s names with faces memorized, so we have decided to get official name tags to make it a little easier for us.

With such a larger group than we had expected already, at just week 3, we are in awe of the Lord's plans for Nnongolo Village, as well as the sustainability project to come for these women. Please pray for clarity and discernment as we move forward.

With Love,

Amanda & Chelsie