t e a m . u g a n d a

Juna Amagara's New Videos

2010-11-16T08:16:00.000-06:00

I was able to attend this event and contribute to this video. -Connie

W A I T I N G

2010-05-03T21:38:00.008-05:00

Kishanje, Uganda
At 17, Brian is quiet, serious and tired.

He's a default manager for a household of four siblings and grandparents, ages 94 and 85, since AIDS claimed his parents.

And Brian is waiting.

Read his story here.

R I C H

Just recently it hit me again. Like it did when I returned the frozen Iowa tundra with red mud still on my flip flops (which I quickly exchanged for more suitable footwear).

It hit me how very little it takes to sponsor an orphan. I waste more than the dollar-a-day that amazingly sponsors a child- ensuring food, a loving, home environment, and an education.

One dollar.

My husband and I chose to sponsor Patience just before I left for Uganda January 30 (actually she was chosen for us; we just specified a girl from the mountain village of Kishanje where our Team Uganda would be spending the biggest chunk of time).

And now we think maybe we could sponsor another orphan.

Heaven knows we get enough food each day, as the bathroom scale testifies. Come to think of it, our excess poundage probably equals the weight of a small person. An orphan, for example.

Celebration 101

2010-03-24T09:16:00.004-05:00

I’ve been endeavoring to learn, of late, how to be less celebration-impaired; I was in the slow class. Since my journey to Kishanje, I think I may have advanced to Celebration 101.

Treasures...

2010-03-21T19:39:00.009-05:00

Team Uganda spent two weeks in Uganda for Juna Amagara Ministries in February, 2010. The long ‘road’ there had some ‘ob-stack-les’, plenty of adventure, and a great fortune, some of which we sought, but about which we mostly didn’t have a clue.

The treasures are the place -the Pearl of Africa, the people -who God must’ve been thinking of when he pronounced his creation of mankind very good, and the possibilities.

Oh, the possibilities. What one dollar can do to build schools and orphanages is astounding.

But pssst: here’s the real treasure: sponsoring an orphan who is himself a treasure, full of wonder and gratitude. Yep. A buck a day for wonder and gratitude.
Sign me up. Again. -Connie Hoogeveen

From Team Leader, Arlene
It’s been an exciting and rewarding two weeks. We have laughed, cried, been awed by the beauty of Uganda and its people, and now return to be grateful for what we have in the USA.

Each team member is taking some great individual memories home with them as well as a sense of accomplishment for what we were able to share with God’s people in Uganda.

Melissa and I each enjoyed a “Rachel Ray” moment as we were able to instruct the Home Economics class in kitchen hygiene, some usage of spices and give them some menu ideas with the native fruits and veggies they have access to in this soil rich country.

Margaret and I played sous chefs, cutting up the vegetables as Melissa was instructing her recipe for potato/vegetable stew. Later we enjoyed eating chapatti, a thick tortilla made with ground flour, and topped with the cinnamon sugar we had brought with us. The Tones Spices donated were a real hit in the class.

Beading – making bracelets and earrings and a few necklaces – teaching the art to the class so they may continue to make and sell these at a profit, was also a hit. One class was held on the lawn at the guest house, another in the classroom.

Connie took every photo op and had almost continual dialogue with all the residents of Kishanje and wherever we traveled.

Our guys, Scott and Chad, were our real heroes. They patiently helped us little old ladies up and down the mountainsides, loaded the truck and van with our luggage, solved our computer and camera difficulties, charged all of our batteries each evening, and still had time to construct a temporary school classroom and shelving in both Kampala and Kishanje.

Back...With a Clue

2010-02-22T03:39:00.003-06:00

Re- Entry Post Coming Soon....

2010-02-17T10:58:00.000-06:00

10:00pm at Entebbe Airport

2010-02-12T13:09:00.000-06:00

We have returned to planet earth. Our flight leaves in a couple of hours. We are homesick, both for snowy Iowa and for our many new friends on Planet Uganda. We have packed many varied experiences into two short weeks.

Our posts have been few due to unavailability of email. We have thousands of photos which we are eager to post.

View all

Get your own

2010-02-10T11:51:00.000-06:00

Uganda. The parts of Kampala, the capital, we drove through in the dark when we arrived over a week ago reminded me of the landscape in the movie Wally, a gray smoky landfill, but densely populated by a mass of humanity rather than a lone robot.
Now, after five days in Kishanje, a remote mountain village almost on the southern border, I feel like we were on another planet, or at least in the region of the Garden of Eden.
Kishanje is a place you cannot imagine.
-breathtaking misty, carefully tilled mountain sides
-an HIV positive ten-year-old doing all the work for an entire household each day before and after she attends school
-authentic joy
-vivid Ugandan colors
-red dank mud floors
-soccer games on a cow-dung-dotted field
My ‘getting a clue’ about what life is like in Uganda has included:
Meeting Patience, my sponsored child
Learning more patience being on Africa time
Sitting barefoot next to barefoot on the hillside with the women’s weaving group
Hiking up the mountain, and down again
Singing in impromptu worship service in a van on a narrow muddy mountain trail
Singing in impromptu worship service in a small church on a mountain top with village children
‘teaching’ a Commerce class in the high school
Listening to a CD on a laptop in an attic while the generator is running with two high-schoolers choreographing dance moves to a Caucasian choir performance of an African song
Meeting Christmas and Grace (teachers)
Being helped down the mountain by a young man named Trust
More later.
Getting a bit of a clue.
Connie

Connie
From Untitled Album

Monday

2010-02-02T17:42:00.000-06:00

Hello from it-feels-like-June-in-Iowa Kampala, Uganda.

I am in one of many internet cafes haphazardly strewn amongst the balance of haphazard Kampala.
Things you notice right away:
-chaotic traffic- U.S. demolition derbies have more regulation
-the irony of at least 2 traffic police per block standing on the curb
-the city landscape very much resembles a landfill with a population and crazy traffic added.
-people of all ages hawking wares at traffic lights (yes, they are mostly obeyed)
-the absence of wastebaskets and garbage cans
-the wide variety of vehicles carrying products (this morning: a bike with 6 full size mattresses on the back. The native woman with us noted only that he was overloaded
-the beauty of the Ugandans

My internet cafe hour is over.

Highlights So Far

2010-02-02T12:31:00.008-06:00

Today is Tuesday, we left our wonderful accommodations early, journeyed through heavy traffic (Uganda style), to Lilian's new craft booth to install shelving and flooring and to drape the walls. See the picture below for a view of the final effort. Most of the cutting was actually done by hand since we couldn't charge our power tools the night before because of a power failure. Lilian was very grateful for our work, and she and many of the other shop people in the area were very impressed. This is where some of the hard earned money you donated has gone.

We're not sure of our internet access over the next week or so, but if we are able, we hope to be able to post a couple more updates.

Hope you are all doing well back home. We are very grateful for all of your prayers.

Team Uganda

Itinerary for the Next Few Days

2010-02-02T12:20:00.002-06:00

Wednesday, Feb 3
- Leave at 6:00am for Mbarara and Kishanje, this trip will take all day.

Thursday, Feb 4 - Tuesday, Feb 9
- In Kishanje teaching classes, continuing construction on the school

Wednesday, Feb 10
- Travel back to Mbarara
- Going to Queen Elizabeth National Preserve to see the wildlife.

Thursday, Feb 11
- Going to Komwanje, to visit JAM children at their farm

Friday, Feb 12
- Travel back to Kampala
- Shopping in the market
- Fly out at midnight

Saturday, Feb 13
- Back in DSM at 11:00pm

2010-02-01T22:20:00.007-06:00

On our way!

2010-01-29T23:23:00.002-06:00

We leave Des Moines at 12:35pm Saturday afternoon. We are so excited to be under way! Amazing things are on the horizon! We leave Chicago by 5:10 p.m. (diner time). It will be another 10 long hours on the next flight to Entebee, Uganda, but we will finally be there! We'll pray that Ben meets us at the airport. We'll sure be tired and happy to see him. More adventures to come. Stay posted!

Getting Ready

2010-01-27T01:03:00.001-06:00

Getting a Clue

2010-01-14T02:41:00.011-06:00

So how did it come to be that six people, each representing a different decade, are getting all drugged up (with vaccines), carefully packing their carry-ons, and plan to spend more 38 hours on airplanes to the other side of the planet on January 30?

If it was to escape this brutal Iowa winter for warmer temps at the equator, a trip to Phoenix would’ve been easier. And cheaper.

As it turns out, Arlene Fjellman, a self-employed seamstress and veteran of long flights, inspired the group with tales of her experiences helping to set up the Amagara School of Fashion and Drapery Design in Uganda in 2005, giving young orphan women themselves the opportunity to be self-employed seamstresses.

After hitting the tarmac in the dark of night near the capital city of Kampala at Entebbe Airport (of Raid of Entebbe fame) they will pile into a van for the hour drive to the guest house of Ben and Lillian Tumuheirwe, founders of Juna Amagara Ministries.

The next morning, with weeks of detailed planning and scheduling under their metaphorical belts, a highly productive and thoroughly efficient American culture-ized Team Uganda will step into a world much different than the hurried one they've just left.

'Hurry, you missed it, it's too late’, have no good translations in Swahili. In Africa, the sun comes up – and the sun goes down…that’s time. Thankfully, a slower pace translates nicely into awareness. Come sun-up, a host of opportunities for a new way of seeing may include:

food preparation over a fire
working up a sweat in worship
the tender sadness of holding an orphan baby
building stuff without a Home Depot across town
making bricks of mud
travel minus traffic laws (Uganda has no discernable ones)
poverty and joy in the same place

Although Uganda may be a fertile environment for being the face of Christ to each person encountered, these six adventurers are fairly certain they will be getting w-a-a-a-a-y more than they give.

One of those things will be... a clue.

Baby Jerusalem

2010-01-13T05:34:00.000-06:00

Jerusalem, infant daughter of Matt and Crystal Kehn, died Friday, January 9 of complications of HIV. The Kehns are missionaries in Mbarara where Matt serves as the Director of ABIDE to equip and disciple the high school graduates of Juna Amagara Ministries. Crystal focuses on raising their children and using their home as a haven of hope for abandoned babies with HIV. Read article...

"Where Do I Start?"

2010-01-04T12:13:00.013-06:00

Larry's just been where Team Uganda is going. Is my Africa trip over already? Man, where do I start?

It was a long trip.... I got to the Entebbe, Uganda airport after dark and waited for Pastor Ben to arrive in a couple hours. (full article)...