It's been another very full month. We did not have any new projects or more teams come in this month, but we are continuing to grow and progress with what the Lord has placed in front of us. The Chicken House, the Greenhouse, and the Garden are continuing to mature and evolve into very productive projects for the school. We are excited about the response from different church groups about scheduling team trips for 2019. As for this year, we still have 3 projects that we will be completing. We have Campaigns for each of these on our website. We will be planting a new crop in the Garden at the end of August. In October we will be building 2 more Pit Latrines. Then in November we will be adding 2 rooms onto the home of a widow and her family. If you have any interest in coming to help us with any of these 3 projects Contact Us today.
We started this month with Birthdays. Andrew had the first anniversary of his 39th birthday on the 1st. (He has chosen to remain 39 until the 20th anniversary of his 39th birthday) Then on the 2nd, Ivan turned 8! To celebrate we took a family vacation and stayed 2 nights in Entebbe. The kids got to spend time in the water on the shores of Lake Victoria, and we visited the Zoo. Ivan got the treat of taking a behind the scenes tour where he was able to pet and feed some of the animals.
The Chicken House is already showing wonderful potential. We are already providing eggs for the school children and selling enough to pay expenses and save money for future expenses. We are now harvesting over 50 trays of eggs a day. Each tray has 30 eggs. That's over 1,500 eggs a day!!! The children, the school administration, and the ministry have expressed great appreciation for all of our efforts to make this project a success. They have shown that they have not only taken a great interest in caring for this project, but also that they see it's potential to provide for the children, the school, and the ministry for years to come.
We have completed harvesting the vegetables from the garden. We have turned much of our attention to the Greenhouse. We have 600 plants that will soon be providing vegetables for the children at Victors. Most of the plants are tomatoes, then there are also bell pepper and eggplant. They have already begin to flower, and the fruit will be coming soon. Everything we harvest from the Garden and Greenhouse is given to the school. The children receive porsho (hydrated maize flour) and beans for lunch and dinner each day. The vegetables are added to the beans to flavor the sauce and to add nutrition. Again, the children make a point to thank us for this each time we visit. They are very grateful.
Sandra, the wife of Pastor Adam, runs a skills training center for young women that lack education and employment. When we had the team here in April we had ladies that were part of the team that were able to teach these young ladies some new sewing skills. During this term they have been coming to our home on Thursday afternoons so that Heidi can teach them some new cooking skills. This has been a wonderful opportunity for both Heidi and the girls. Heidi loves to cook and is wonderful at it. The girls can greatly benefit from learning how to cook meals that are different from what they are used to. This gives them a better chance of finding work at restaurants, hotels, or even starting their own businesses.
We've had "Football Fever" this month. We were the hosts to young men from the church that needed a place to watch the World Cup games. It was fun to enjoy those games with them. Andrew has started playing soccer again with a team of young men from the church. He has also been helping to train 2 teams of boys from Victors. PUR has provided all of the equipment for the boys to be able to compete in local primary school competitions. They are continuing to train and improve every day. Before this term, the soccer teams from Victors had only experienced one tie, and the rest were losses. So far the younger team has tied twice, and the older team has one win and a tie.
We are continuing to grow more and more into being a part of this community that we are involved in. We have children that come and spend time at our home most Sundays following church. Andrew is continuing weekly Bible classes studying the book of Romans, and this past Sunday morning he was invited to share some of his teaching from the class to the congregation.
Every day here is an adventure for us. We are living a dream. Thank you so much to all of you that have helped to make this experience possible for us. Again, we live life to Love God and Love People. We could be doing that anywhere, and we will do that no matter where we end up going from here. Our "job" is to make ourselves available to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do through us. We pray every day that the things we are doing continue to advance the Kingdom of God here on this Earth. So many people's lives are being positively influenced here in Uganda because of the efforts of PUR International as a whole. Thank you for trusting us to be good stewards of this opportunity. The lives of people here have been Blessed, we as a family have been Blessed, we pray you and your family are Blessed as well!
The Kanagy's
