Vision of Destiny School, Kampala, Uganda: 2010

Cari is raising money to feed the children of Vision of Destiny Preschool. These children often go hungry due to severe poverty. For $3,810 we can feed 127 (that's all the kids and teachers) both breakfast and lunch for an entire term. That's just 25 cents per person per day! Will you help us? It is our biggest expense but is so worth it! Let Cari or Eric know if you'd like to donate for this term. It will make a HUGE difference in these children's lives!

Your donation will feed the children breakfast (porridge 3 times a week and tea with bananas twice a week) as well as a varying lunch - things like rice, cassava, potatoes, matooke, posho with beans and veggies and fruit. Also, they get meat and juice on Fridays! Not only are they not going hungry, it greatly improves their health. Thank you so much for helping with this expense! It is deeply appreciated by all the children and teachers as well!

Living Under His Grace and Mercy,

Staci Guthrie

   Last month my family and I returned from a trip to Uganda. I enjoyed my time in Kampala and Pakwach with my friend Cari and her family. It is my blessing to be able to sit with her and love her and love the children of Kampala along with her. Several people went with us on this trip. I love taking people with me who have never traveled to the country that we're going to. I love sharing it with them. I love seeing their reactions to a new culture and new ideas for the first time. I hope that God allows me to do this the rest of my life. When we arrived in Kampala it was well after midnight. At the hotel, our fellow travelers asked Eric and I what we would be doing in the morning. I told them I was going to Cari's school and would leave around 9:30am. They wanted to know what we were going to do at the school. I told them that at 10:00 recess would begin. I could not be late for this. They asked again, "What are we going to do at recess?" I smiled. I said one word - watch. Now this may seem funny to you but there is something that happens everyday at recess at Cari's school.   It so took me by surprise the first time I witnessed it that I came back day after day to see it again. What could this be? What happens on the playground every day that leaves me speechless? It's JOY! I witness in these children joy every day! The children come streaming out of their classes in the morning Ugandan sun and begin playing. They laugh, jump and run. They yell and sing. They carry each other on their backs. They chase each other and climb on top of one another. They smile. They are...happy! How can this be? How can children who are orphaned, sick with AIDS, living in severe poverty be so happy? How can they run and play like this? It just HAS to be Jesus. I take in this spectacle every day that I'm in Kampala. I watch God do it over and over again. Maybe their lives aren't as hard as I think they are. Are these kids only kinda poor? Nope. That's not it. They are often hungry when they go home. They have no clothes to wear that are not torn, wornout and ripped. They have no electricity, no plumbing, nothing really to protect them from bad weather. If it rains it comes into the house. They've experienced death at some point. Maybe it was a mother or a father or perhaps both. Half of them have HIV. Many only get good meals when they are with Cari at school. It's deceiving to sit on the steps of the school at times. I watch children in their new green and orange uniforms play in the grass, sit and eat a bowl of rice, peanut sauce and greens for lunch, sing along with children on a cd in their classrooms and smile while having a great time learning the letter of the day. God is so good. I can make a difference in a child's life. I can give up going out to eat one evening and change what happens on a day to day basis to a child living in the slums of Uganda. I can do it. I did. I met my sponsored children. I've seen how going to school changes their lives but also the lives of their parents, aunts, uncles and grandmothers as well. It gives them hope.

   One day Cari took me down into the slums where the children live. We went from home to home. I walked the alleys where they play. I sat on the floors in their homes. Rats ran around me. I witnessed myself the struggle to eat each day. I saw how frustrating it would be to want to live in better circumstances knowing that you are trapped in this breaking, overwhelming poverty. I knew that if I was born into it that it would require someone on the outside to help me out of it. Getting out requires an education. Thank you Cari for answering the call to change the lives of children that God stands before you. Thank you for loving them, feeding them, clothing them, educating them. Thank you for showing Jesus' love to them each and every day. Thank you for letting me go on this journey with you. My sponsored children bring me great joy. I can't wait to see what they'll be when they grow up.

   Here are a few pictures that I took in the slums. I wanted to take a bunch but I didn't want the people there to feel uncomfortable with me taking pictures of their homes and the poverty they live in. But I did take a few:

Not one time was I asked for money. They want to work and provide for themselves. They just need a chance. An education gives them that. Plus a lot more. They hear about Jesus' love every day. They experience it each day they walk through the gates at school. So did I.

Until All Have Heard!

Staci Guthrie