This year has flown by so quickly, to think we are coming to the end of the year is quite scary. This year has been a good year for us all. Everyone one has done well at school, Orikodi has now finished school for good and is now moving onto a new period of his life. He is now looking for a job and looking forward to higher education later on in the year. Charles finished last year and has had a good year of opportunities. He obtained his driving license and has been working in a lodge. He will be starting a tourism course sometime in the new year. Although he feels its been a hard year for him I think its been a fruitful year where he has achieved a lot. The rest of the boys are happy and working hard in school, a few of them will be going into there final years of high school this year. I can't get over how the years have past so quickly and how they have now grown into responsible great young men.
The school is developing quickly, just in the last few months we took a big step in renting a much bigger building in a more expensive area. We moved into the upstairs for our residential home to help with costs. Although its a beautiful building and has a big garden it means I spend a lot more time at work which can be more tiring. Its been an exhausting term for me with the changes and the pressures, but I am excited to see us moving on. The new children that I wrote about in my last blog are doing very well and settled in. Its good to see the changes in them already. We have 46 children, 24 free and 22 paying. Because of the higher expenses in the school we are looking for 32 extra paying children to cover our costs so you can think of us in the new year as we work hard to achieve this.
We are also really in need of international volunteers that are interested in coming for more than 6 months to teach and work in the school, so if you are interested or know people who are interested please contact me.
We have been doing family savings with the parents of the children we work with and training in life skills. This has been going well and good to see their enthusiasm to develop their lives. It has been especially difficult in the last 6 months with the alcoholics we have been working with. For some reasons they have been less interested in looking after themselves and not really wanting to help themselves change. One of the ladies has gone back to drinking and given up her job after she had been doing so well. I hope to spend more time this year in the community to work amongst these people to help them out of the problems they face which cause them to drink, it will be a hard job but I hope that this year they will be helped.
Grace is now in her final year of primary, she will be finishing in May. She is doing so well and is a beautiful girl. Its a blessing to see her grow up so happy. Diana is doing so well at school, she loves reading and studying and is so happy just generally. I keep thinking of how she use to be so shy and use to hide around the back of the house playing especially while visitors were around but now she so sociable and happy to be around people.
Jude and Lizzie are now three years, they have grown up so fast and its so enjoyable to be around them. I love watching them play together, they really love each other and have so much fun together. They are both different in their characters but so loving and happy.
This year has been a good year for myself, although I found out I had diabetes which has been quite devastating and life changing still I can say that I have seen a lot of good developments in my life. I am happy to be here in Uganda which has been a hard thing to say for awhile. I am looking forward to seeing what 2012 brings us.
Thank you so much to you all for all your support.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lots of Love from us all!!
