WE MADE IT TO AMERICA

Boys helping daddy change oil

We made it to America. The transition has been smooth and the boys are doing well.

Mitchell Update

The highlights of the past few months have been moving into our new home, which was completed at the end of April, and spending four days at Musana Camps with our Pacific family. It was exciting to watch our kids enjoy each other, the beauty of God’s creation, practice swimming in Lake Victoria, laugh hard, play hard, hike, sing, and delve into the word of God!
The rest of this News Letter will be a photo collage of our time there and, upon request; this and subsequent news letters will introduce you to our family members and help you get to know our Pacific family better. As many of you know, New Hope Kasana Children’s Centre is all about family. Well here’s ours… at least the immediate family:) Our family is made up crucial members. Our family father is Uncle Rukundo William (front right in orange & a blue hat). Rukundo is not married, but co-parents with Aunt Christine, (front, near center in a purple). To date, we have 21 children. Uncles and Aunties (like ourselves) assist the family parents, and love on these children! That’s the reason we are here! As a child, Uncle Rukundo was in one of the original families. He is now 32 years old, and has been a family father for 8 years, YES he became a father to 20+ kids at age 24! Auntie Christine, has been parenting in Pacific family for 5 years, and has two of her biological grandchildren with her in our family. Auntie Marian (middle row, left in pink) has been an Auntie for Pacific family for 12 years now, and heads our sponsorship program. Auntie Jenny (front, on the rock, in blue) is our newest acquired Auntie who serves as a nurse in our clinic, and the Jackson family Nathan, Kendra and 2 kiddos John & Hannah (in the back row) are working at Musana Camps. The other Uncle and Aunties (attached to different Kasana family groups) are the Boufard family (on the far left & kids scattered throughout the group) who are leading the Musana Camps team, & two short term camp staff members.

This will be our last news letter from Uganda as we leave for furlough in just a couple of weeks. We have mixed emotions as we pack and prepare to leave. It seems to have taken a full three years to see freedom of relationship with many of our Pacific Family kids, and leaving for an extended period makes us wonder how challenging it might be to get back to this point when we return! We are, however, very aware that our Father spares no expense when it comes to the lives of his children (Is. 43:1-7) and we are sure He has just the right people in place for this season of their lives and ours!
What a loving God!
With love from The Mitchell’s!
Address for online Donations www.newhopeuganda.org
Or
New Hope Uganda
PO Box 154
Belle Fourche, SD 57717-0154

My First Visit to Kobwin

By Brevin Anderson, 15-year-old NHUM Missionary Family Member

My first trip to Kobwin Children’s Center was not exactly a dream ride. To start, my computer battery was no match for the seven hour trip. My movie watching was postponed indefinitely. The car we were going in was not a luxury vehicle. Like a lot of cars here, it was dusty, dirty, dented, and scratched. The shocks on the car were interesting too. I feel I got to know them really well, as I discovered the front shocks were the equivalent of rocks, and you felt every jar and rattle, while the back wheel shocks were more like springs. They, I found, were also very interesting. With only two hours to go, we managed to find a town with plenty of speed bumps. In Uganda, these speed bumps are thin, steep, and clustered lines of cement that go across the road. The ones we met were in sets of four or five; and there were a lot of sets. After a lot of banging and thumping my head on various parts of the car, we pulled off the tarmac onto a dirt road, and began to approach Kobwin. The bad beginning didn’t help my expectations; they were low to begin with as I had heard of the oppressive heat, the lack of water and electric power, and the sporadic internet.
One exciting part of the trip was my first sighting of Mount Elgon. At first, when we entered Mbale, the last big town on the way to Kobwin, we weren’t sure if it was Elgon, but we found out soon, because every other store had a name containing “Elgon”.
As I now write, I am listening to a portable voice recorder that contains all my notes of the trip. I must say, though my voice annoys me, I am glad to have this, for everything that I write is from experiences recorded when they happened.
As we approached Kobwin, it became obviously more barren, with more space between each of the trees or bushes. Large boulders began to appear all over the landscape, and the bedrock appeared to poke through the ground in many places. The road got significantly rougher, and I hugged the seat to try and prevent injury. I largely succeeded, I think, but I missed some of the sights on the way in. As we pulled in to the Kobwin Children’s Centre, the first thing I saw was the main staff housing, which was a cluster of round huts made of concrete and bricks with papyrus roofs. A little distance away were two other clusters of huts, which were the children’s living area and the guesthouse/clinic/school. We stopped near the guesthouse cluster and got out. I was pleasantly surprised by the coolness, but it was the evening, and I wouldn’t know the real heat until the next day.
Most of the kids were outside, and they and the staff members around all greeted Uncle Tal (my dad), Uncle Dan (our driver) and I with handshakes. I got called “uncle” more than once, hopefully because I am obviously so mature and not because of my height or muzungu status.
I was able to hang out with the Kobwin kids for a short time before their devotions and dinner, which my dad and I had with Uncle Charles and Uncle Dan. That night the moon was the brightest I had ever seen it. I later found out that it was the pre-super moon, the brightest the moon will be for 18 years. After lying on a raised boulder in the moonlight for a bit, it was time for sleep. This dad and I proceeded to do, and we soon drifted off.
The next day I was able to meet and learn about the staff members in greater detail. Uncle Allan and Auntie Hope have been here since the beginning, and rest have come along the line. Uncle Shadrach, the Kobwin family father, and I met while he was making a pen for his piglets that had just been weaned from their mother.
Later in the day, around 8:00am, the kids made their way to their classrooms. As there is not a real school house at Kobwin, school is done in the covered, open areas that are used to eat and work in. The children divide according to grade, not age, so the diversity in the ages of the kids in the classes is radical. As some missed a lot of school time, some kids are twice as old and tall as their peers in the same class.
One of the first difficulties I noticed was the Kobwin water situation. Since their well has stopped working, they have to walk or drive down to the lake nearby for water. They use the lake water for bathing, and cleaning, but to get drinking and cooking water they have to walk two kilometers. There is a place closer, but the locals who own the land don’t let the Kobwin kids get water from there. The reasons I have heard for this include the fact that the kids here were involved as child soldiers or were affected by the war, and so are “untouchables”. The other one is that, because Kobwin is involved with Bazungus (whites), locals think the Kobwin kids should have enough money to build their own well. To get water for bathing and cleaning, the truck goes to the lake every other day to fill up lots of buckets and barrels. To get drinking water, the kids have to walk the two kilometers every single day; two there with empty jerry-cans, and two back with 50lb jerry-cans full of water.
One cool thing I have briefly mentioned about the Kobwin site is that there all these huge boulders around. Some are big enough to be little cliffs. I and Uncle Dan, who I hung out with before I twisted my ankle, had the goal of climbing every rock we could see. We were making a good time of it too, and only had had to give up on one impassable one and to turn back on another because we saw a snakeskin in a wonderful area for snakes. We got some great views from the tops of some of the rocks. I had my good tennis shoes with traction, but he had (sadly) slip-in shoes, so his feet would slide out of them unless he careful. I showed him how to climb backwards, and then we didn’t have as much of a problem. We had a good time.
At nine forty a.m. I made another entry into my little voice recorder. “It is now 9:40, kids are still doing school. Just finished conquering a bunch of large boulders. Got most of them, but a couple were impassable. But we got most of them.”
Another entry a little later begins talking about a pigpen, but then switches to this, “The kids here seem really…I don’t know how you’d say it…really devoted, I guess, I mean they are just quiet and I mean I haven’t seen any fights or anything. Just doing their school.…seem to listening. And the teaching seems to be good too.. . it is just really, really beautiful here, a really beautiful place. Thankfully, I am here on a day when it isn’t hot. So that is definitely a blessing. Think I might try to go interview a staff member.”
Now, back to the pig thing. When we had arrived, Uncle Shadrach had just finished a pig pen for some piglets he had. Dan and I were taking a break from climbing, when I went to check on them. I got down there just as some were climbing up and out, and were making their escape. I tried unsuccessfully to catch one, but it escaped. I went back to the guesthouse area, running, and brought back Uncle Dan and another Kobwin boy who had heard me. We tried herding them around back to the pen, and even caught one or two, but once we put them back into the pen, they just hopped out again. We figured out that were heading to their mommy pig. They headed across a field that had been prepared for planting and had holes everywhere. I, in my brilliance, decided to sprint across this field and try to head them off. I got about a fourth of the way when I stepped in a hole, tripped, and fell face-first into the dirt.
At first I thought nothing was bruised but my pride. However, as I tried to get up, I collapsed back down, as my ankle was sending failure notices and giving way beneath my weight. As I was helped up by Uncle Dan and the boy, whose name I will give as George, I figured out a little too late that my ankle was sprained.
For the next few hours I wallowed in pain and self-pity. When it was time for lunch, I barely was able to get over across the courtyard to the table, but I managed with my Dad’s help.
After lunch, I went to do a lengthy interview with Uncle Charles (Kobwin Manager) and his wife Aunt Felistus (Head Mistress of the school).
In the interview I learned how they were brought to New Hope in the first place, how they met, and how they ended up at Kobwin.
Uncle Charles was the first drawn to New Hope. He had wanted to work with children and knowing that New Hope was a Christian organization brought him to it as a teacher.
As for Auntie Felistus, Uncle Charles was at New Hope for six years before they met. At a Christmas holiday Uncle Charles attended a conference and met Aunt Felistus. “It was where I saw somebody unique in the crowd,” he said. “And after that I was like ‘who is this one, I need to meet her’ and after that it was like maybe there is something, but I didn’t take it so seriously. But it leaned on my heart. I started praying about it, I shared with some other people who were counseling me and that’s how things worked out.”
As I went on to ask them Uncle Charles and Aunt Felistus about the kids at Kobwin, their successes and difficulties, and other things. One success they talked about was a boy named Vincent (not his real name).
“One has come out very clear as somebody who is committed, and who is serious, we see him playing the responsibility as a big brother in the family,” said Uncle Charles. “He helps the other children, the brothers and the sisters, and that is Vincent, Vincent Afamo; he is in S3 (9th grade) now, and in his secondary school he is the Head Boy. At home, when the family father is not around he can lead devotions, he can lead programs on Sunday. He really helps counseling the friends, and the rest of the children. Yeah, we have really seen him come out, and really taking the Word of God seriously. [He helps] the other children that are still not seeing life so clearly. We have seen him counseling his fellow children. We see the way he interacts. Vincent is really someone who is committed, responsible, who is honest and hardworking, so I really am proud of talking about Vincent. He is someone who is taking responsibility as someone we can trust, even when we are not around.”
I actually met Vincent later that day, when, bored from putting my foot up in my room, I went out to meet up with the kids.
Uncle Charles had given me a pair of crutches that, though a bit small, did the job. I was now semi-mobile, and with my new freedom I decided to put the Blink card game that my mom sent along for me to give to someone to good use.
After checking with some of the staff members to make sure it was okay, I made my way over to the kids’ compound. There, I found some willing players, and, starting with one, then moving up to three, I taught the kids Blink. They really enjoyed the game. The cards, however, didn’t. With the power that they were slapping the cards down, I don’t think that those cards have a good life expectancy.
One of the boys who came to play the game was fast, really fast. Later on, when I decided to get a few kids’ names down, I asked this boy his. He replied, “I am Vincent.” It was fun to meet the guy who I had heard such good things about.
I played with them for an hour and a half. Their enthusiasm was fun to watch. I didn’t play the whole time, but I stayed there. I left the cards with one of the kids, and then went for dinner.
The last meal I had at Kobwin was uneventful enough, as I remember it. We mostly talked about tribal conflicts in Uganda.
I recorded in my audio journal, as one of the last entries, this; “One other thing that I can say is that God, I mean, he really took what started as a really bad trip; my expectations weren’t that good, I really didn’t want to go, and I missed my [Online] English class that I really enjoy, but I was able to meet some new kids, see a new part of Uganda, see some lives that have been changed, you know, from beyond what you could really expect…I had a great time with some of the boys playing Blink…”
The very final entry talks about the conversation at dinner. One thing that Uncle Charles said was this, “The beginning is better than the end,” referring to the fact that we were leaving tomorrow before sunrise. I however, took it a different way. For me, at least, on my first and hopefully not last, trip I found the opposite was true. The End, was better than the Beginning, for though it was sad to leave, the End happened with understanding and was with the expectation of another trip, My Second Trip to Kobwin.

Coming to America

Hi Everyone,
Many of you have asked about the process with our work permits and the boy’s visas to America. We wanted to update you and thank you all for your prayers. Uganda Immigration has granted us two year work permits. Praise God! Since that approval we were able to process the boy’s visas quite simply with the US Embassy in Kampala. We want to thank all of you for your prayers and notes of encouragement. WE WILL SEE YOU SOON!
Caleb, Alair, Nico and Nate

Holiday with Pacific Family at Musana Camp

Games

Ladder ball

On a hike at Musana Camp

Swim time in Lake Victoria. (Caleb did not participate)
Kayesu blowing the lunch horn.

New Hopes Kobwin Center

Nabulungi Scovia*, 16, was abducted by the rebel group “Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) when she was nine. She escaped after six months but the scars from that time run deep. Scovia came to Kobwin with a lot of anger. Though she enjoys living in a place where she is not referred to by the demeaning label “Kony’s Wife” that she has often heard, she is still very insecure and affected by the trauma of her ordeal. The Kobwin staff continue to love her and look forward to seeing her freed from the chains that bind her.
14-year-old Latolo John*, one of 15 boys now living full-time at New Hope’s Kobwin Children’s Centre, spent significant time in Interally Displaced Person (IDP) camps following the chaos and atrocities of the LRA. Such camps can be quite dehumanizing as those there have no work opportunities nor hope of providing for themselves. The only option often seems to be to sit and wait for the next relief agency to come and provide food.
John’s father had died and his mother was unable to pay for any schooling. There seemed to be no future. John enjoyed getting to know New Hope teams who would come to his area and offer camps. When Kobwin officially opened in March, John and his mother jumped at the opportunity. Now, receiving daily remediation schooling, John is preparing for his P7 exam. He talks about being so thankful for the opportunity to go to school and looks forward to one day being able to help his family with the skills he is now acquiring. Though he is still fairly quiet, he has started to develop into praise and worship leader among his peers, even though he is one of the youngest at Kobwin. John is very much still developing, but God is transforming his life and he now lives with hope.
*Names have been changed
Our Kobwin Centre opened officially with the first 21 children like Scovia and John and coming to live with us in mid- March of 2010. All of these
Water color pics of scriptures
children came from Amuria District and where each of them either lived in an Internally Dispaced Persons (IDP) Camp for a prolonged period of time and had been either traumatized by the war in the North or had actually been abducted by members of the LRA and consequently, had become a part of them.
Kobwin Centre was a long time in the making, but God’s timing is always perfect! In 2003 while members of New Hope Uganda’s Kasana Children’s Centre were part of a month-long relief effort in Soroti, the vision for Kobwin Centre was birthed. We actually took possession of the land at Kobwin in 2005, after having moved from what we thought would be the start up site in nearby Bugondo. From 2005-the end of 2009 only a skeleton staff of two couples and their children were in Kobwin, developing the gardens, planning for the future, building the existing structures. Those two couples are still with us as part of the current Kobwin staff and have had the joy of seeing their long wait pay off this year.
In August of 2007, after having identified Amuria as the area that we would bring our first children from
the group of 50 children from Amuria, came to Kobwin to attend our first camp held for them. Thus we slowly began building relationship with a large of traumatized children from whom we would eventually chose the first 21 children from 2 ½ years later. These camps continued as our relationship with the children continued to blossom so that when they arrived in March of 2010 it was more like a homecoming than a coming to a new place. The two years of camps was one of the best investments we could have ever made in these children and really was testimony to how waiting on the Father’s perfect timing has great rewards!
Our ChildrenWe currently have 21 children from Amuria lining in the family group headed by one of our own sons with his wife and three young boys. The children range in age from 14 – 18 years plus one 21 year old. Of the 21, 10 are former abductees. They were each with the LRA for varying amounts of time, from 2 months to 1 ½ years. The other 11 had their lives tremendously disrupted by the life in various IDP camps. All are behind where they would be in school if not for the war in the North. There are six boys who attend a nearby (walking distance) secondary school and are in S1 and S2. The remaining 15 attend our primary school on the Kobwin site and are in P4, P6and P7. We have 5 girls and 16 boys.
In their time outside of school hours, our kids can be found in the normal activities of the people of Uganda. They dig in the gardens, maintain our compound, fetch water, clean their houses, wash their clothing, help with the family parent’s children, play football and other games, develop their artistic talents attend family devotions, small group mentoring and counseling and just enjoy one another, in general!
We currently have maize, cassava, ground nuts, sweet potatoes, and vegetables growing in our gardens. We are yet to be self sufficient but should produce 40% of our own food this year.
We praise God for all He is doing at Kobwin and for all of the prayers and support that have made it possible.

By Constance Dobbs

Hope Family

Back in 1999 Matthew and Julie Shorack took seven babies into their home, into their family and shared the hope of Jesus. Since that day, over 40 babies have passed through the unique place that is Hope House. Some of them have been reunited with their family, some have been adopted and some have joined our family groups here at New Hope.
Last June, we had the privilege of joining the New Hope family here at Kasana. We are now overseeing the work of Hope Family and look forward to developing the care and provision that we can offer to these precious babies.
Hope House is now Hope FamilyWe have changed the name from Hope House to Hope Family and this is because we recognise that words are amazing things!!! We all know that words whether spoken or written can wield unusual power, they can be both positive and negative. We desire to speak positively and truthfully over these little ones and let them know that when they join Hope Family, they are no longer alone but are in a family that will love, care and protect them. Here at New Hope we know that family is important to God, we had seven families, now we have eight!
As this new year began Hope Family had a pretty large growth spurt! We had 3 new babies join us all in a very short time – Carol came to us having spent five weeks in hospital being treated for severe malnutrition. She was found by a visiting New Hope team in the nearby village having been abandoned by her mother. Elderly, sick grandparents were struggling to take care of her and she weighed in at just 3.4Kg, being 12 months of age. Here at Hope Family, she is making good progress and putting on plenty of weight! We are delighted that her father, although very young, has taken some responsibility for her. He is coming on a weekly basis to Hope Family to work in the compound and spend time with his little girl!
Mary came to us over the Christmas period. She is 5 months old and currently with us because her mother is critically ill in hospital with a heart condition. There are no other family members to care for mother or baby and the church here at Kasana is supporting with medical bills as well as spiritual support. We have been taking Mary regularly into the hospital to see her mother!
Our youngest member of the family is Saul who came to us at just one week old. He was collected from the local police station just before New Year’s Eve following a dispute and disagreement about who the mother was. Sadly as more information came it seemed that the mother was ‘lending’ out her new baby to another woman in order to made some money and both women have now been charged with 64 months in custody.
As you can tell we are pretty busy here at Hope Family and now up to our maximum number of babies. We have had to turn abandoned babies away in the past when we had no room and we are praying that we will not have to do that again in the near future. More importantly we are looking forward to the completion of our new baby home for Hope Family, which will house up to 20 little ones, as well as accommodating more staff members. We still have a long way to go with fund raising although the building work is progressing well. We are praying in faith that the money will arrive over the next few weeks and months so that construction work can be completed by August!
A very big thank you to all of our existing supporters and all those who sponsor Hope Family. We are also so grateful to all those who have made donations towards the new build. Thank you!
Stu & Sarah Dendy – Hope Family