December 2022 Newsletter
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Nyayo Family!
We hope you have all had an amazing time with family, friends and loved ones over the holiday season! Nyayo ended the year on a high note in 2022! We raised a sufficient amount for the kid’s basic needs this month, reached our goals for two of our donation campaigns and even got nominated for a very generous donation! In addition, we created two new donations campaigns and a new donation page layout. In this newsletter, we also continue to show pictures and videos of our October mission trip to give you all a better visual of the children’s home and our kids!
We will be posting a special 2022 Wrap Up Newsletter sometime in January that will provide a summary of the past year from a financial point of view as well as break down the past years accomplishments.
December 2022 Giving Report
Donors gave $4,950 towards Basic Needs this month! This is the second month in a row and only the second time ever in 36 months of operating that we have ever had donors completely cover basic needs so once more we feel blessed. In addition to Basic Needs, the below graph shows all of the many other projects that were given to this month. Please click Monthly Financial Report for a full detailed breakdown.
A special thanks to our regulars and one time givers for this month’s allocation:
Bill and Tracey Walkup, KODA Technologies, Jordan Anderson, Lauren Russo, Angi Keel, Anna Barrera, Arman and Leslie Jahandafard, Taylor Sutton, Christan Yarbrough, Mahalie and Brandon Todd, Taylor Handley, Cayce McAlister, Kevin Krueger, Amanda and Jacob Patterson, Stacey and Earl Sutton, Alex Moore, Curran Hyde, Lydia Foutch, Cindy Dorsainvil, Joyce McConnell, David Phillips, Ryan and Sydney McKenna, and Shellie Mitchell.
We truly would not be close to meeting the needs without your help!
What’s New?
Piggery Goal Reached
Back in June of 2021, we started our piggery project with just 4 piglets and a brand new shelter. After a year and a half of raising money for this project, this month we have now reached our goal of constructing a pig pen and purchasing 40 piglets! Although we haven’t offset any basic needs with this project yet, our pigs continue to grow and hopefully soon we will be able to share the project’s impact in the kids’ daily lives.
Mosquito Net Goal Reached
At the start this year, we began raising money to replace 200 mosquito nets for the kid’s beds and in this past month we finished that goal! Mosquito nets are always needing to be replaced after constant wear and tear, so we appreciate all of the generous donations!
KODA Technologies Donates $3,000 to the Cattle Herd Project
This is our second time applying for the KODA Cares Nomination and both times we have now received very generous donations! We thank God for affording us these opportunities to raise money for the kids of Ibonde and Jinja. This donation will be extremely helpful towards our cattle sustainability project and we’re excited to see our herd grow.
New Donation Campaign for Bibles
Both orphanages were started by Silas and Betty from their convictions in what they read and believed in the Bible. The same is true for the creation of Nyayo. One thing that Gordon asked that we bring on our mission trip was Bibles and we would like to continue funding this now that we’re home. English Bibles cost $15 each and Rutooro (their local language) Bibles cost $30 each. We will be starting with the kids and caregivers at the orphanages but would like to be able to purchase bibles for local teens and others in the surrounding villages too as we can.
New Donation Campaign for Celebrations
Donations will be used to purchase cakes and sodas to celebrate holidays and quarterly birthdays for our kids and caregivers. $175 will go to Ibonde and $75 will go to Jinja.
New Donation Page Layout
As we get ready for 2023, we wanted to refresh our donation page to be able accommodate more campaigns that we are planning for the new year. We redesigned the page so that 2 campaigns can be seen simultaneously, limiting the amount of scrolling required. This is only applies to those viewing our website from their computer. Viewing the donation page from a mobile device will still only show campaigns one at a time. The design also makes it much easier and less time consuming for us to update as we add and update this page. We are looking into possibly color coding the campaign boxes by category to further help.
The new layout of the donation page when viewed via a laptop (mobile devices are stacked).
Mission Trip 2022
In last month’s newsletter, we talked about the events that occurred on Monday and Tuesday at Ibonde’s Children Home. This month, we’ll be continuing by sharing what occurred Wednesday and Thursday.
Wednesday 26 October: Mosquito Nets & First Bible Lessons
Breakfast, Bible Study & Worship
We started our day bright and early with breakfast and our Psalms bible study readings before setting out to morning worship with the kids on the school property! Rebekah led another great worship which ended with yet another surprise from the kids. The kids got dressed up and performed a dance which told a story between two of the main characters which was really unique and cool to see. It was a great performance and you could see how much hard work and dedication they put into it! We also were able to teach the kids more songs which included “This Little Light of Mine” and “Wise Man Built His House Upon a Rock”. The songs are really interactive and the kids seem to have a blast singing and dancing along to them!
Singing “He Knows” at morning worship!
The kids’ dance that they performed for us!
Mosquito Net Hangin’
After morning worship, the kids went to school while our team went over to the Ibonde property to help hang mosquito nets. Back in 2017, we bought over 200 mosquito nets which have been slowly but surely replenished over the years as the nets become old and damaged. Our team helped the caregivers hang 42 mosquito nets in the boy’s dorm which successfully covered all of their bunks!
Choppin’ it Up in the Kitchen
While most of us helped with the mosquito net project, a few of us were able to help the caregivers in the kitchen with some food preparation! We helped them shred cabbage as well as cut up red onions, carrots and bell peppers for the kid’s meal. We also had the opportunity to help heat up porridge in giant pots over a firewood stove. It was really cool to see the kitchen in action and allowed us to gain a better appreciation and understanding of how hard they work to make these meals possible.
This is also when we found out about the impact that the cattle project is already having. The amount of vegetables that were being added to the lunch soup looked abnormally high. The fact that meat was being prepared too was also unusual. Gordon explained that 3 heifers purchased through the cattle project are producing 30 L of milk per day now. We were allocating $150 per month for 10 L of milk per day per month. So this $150 now goes to purchasing more vegetables for inclusion into the the kids lunches as well as allowing the purchase of meat (was cow when we were there) once a week. If 3 cattle are having this kind of impact to our kids already, we are excited to see what 29 will have!
For this days lunch there were 50 carrots, 50 green peppers, 7 heads of cabbage, and 50 onions included. To give you some perspective, in January 2020 there were a handful of onions and a few tomatoes added.
Bible Lessons
After helping the caregivers with the mosquito nets and kitchen duties, we had a quick lunch before the kids finished their day at school. Once lunch was over, we split the kids up into their teams with their team leaders and headed into separate classrooms. We had five different bible lessons for the kids which were taught by some of our team members. The classes were fun, interactive, involving songs and games, and allowed the kids to have an enjoyable time learning about God!
Lydia taught her class on the story of Esther and touched on how regardless of the unlikely means, God can make them do great things and be assets in His Kingdom.
Curran taught his class on the connection between covenants and laws, as well as the history of God’s covenants with humans and Jesus’ establishment in the everlasting covenant with us.
Hunter taught his class on the Fruit of the Spirit and how these attributes help us live a more godly-life, led by the Holy Spirit instead of by the flesh.
Josh taught his class on the Armor of God and touched on what each piece of the armor signifies and how we need to use God’s armor to protect us every day.
Mike taught his class on how we should remember that we are all good because we are all God’s creations.
Kickball & Free Play
After bible lessons, the kids were excited to get out and play! We split the kids into four teams and broke out into two separate matches of kickball! Most of the kids seemed to have a blast learning a new game and were having a great time kicking a ball and running around with their friends. While some played kickball, others laid around with their friends or played soccer and volleyball. Our team did a great job at teaching the kids new games and ensuring everyone had a fun, yet safe time!
End of Day Worship
We ended our day with the kids at the evening worship, where the kids had yet another amazing dance that they wanted to perform for us! It means so much to us that the kids sacrifice all their time and energy to be able to present us with these awesome performances. To make the evening even more special, we closed worship with a prayer from the kids, which was a beautiful day to end our days as we headed back to the house for dinner and hygiene before bed.
Another one of the kids’ dance performance!
The kids closing us out of worship with prayer
Thursday 27 October: Helping the Caregivers
Breakfast, Bible Study & Worship
The next morning, we got to morning worship and praised God through more songs. It was nice to jump into worship after our bible studies each morning, as it really started our days off on the right foot. It was also really neat that we continued to learn new songs from the kids each day in both English and Rutooro! We taught the kids another new song called “My God is so Big” and even repeated “This Little Light of Mine” which seemed to be a fan favorite!
Sweeping, Mopping & Washing
After the kids broke off to class, our team broke off into teams to help the caregivers with various jobs! Some of those jobs included sweeping, mopping and washing. We got between and under the bunks as we swept and mopped the boy’s dorms, as well as an open space utility room, without traditional brooms or mops. It was definitely a unique experience, as the “broom” was just a hand-held bundle of needle-type branches and the mop was a wet hand towel, which made it more challenging. Not only did we get out of our comfort zones with sweeping and mopping, but washing clothes was incredibly humbling. Each article of clothing goes through about 3 buckets where they’re hand scrubbed with soap by the caregivers before being rinsed and hung to dry. They do this every day and it took about 2 hours. All the work opened our eyes and allowed us to better assess the needs first hand. It was difficult work, and the caregivers do it daily, which is so admirable and we are very grateful for them and all they do. This has actually inspired us to start looking into raising money to purchase washing machines to help them do this work.
Preview of the laundry process
Cookin’ it up in the Kitchen
While the others were busy cleaning the dorm’s and doing laundry, the rest were helping cook it up in the kitchen! We helped the caregivers cut up veggies, chop up beef, cook rice and sauté onions as we prepared a meat and rice dish for the kids. Usually the kids have beans with their rice, and don’t have meat often so it was nice to be able to switch it up for them with this meal. As mentioned previously, this is because of the milk production. It was really cool to see the kitchen in full effect and to experience how they cook using the resources they have!
Sneak peak into the kitchen!
Bible Lessons, Dance-off & Free Play
After helping the caregivers and grabbing a bite to eat for lunch back at the house, we went back over to the school where we broke into our bible lessons. We rotated the instructors into different classrooms to teach a different group of kids than from the day before. The kids seemed to have a good time singing and learning more about God! Once bible lessons ended, free play began, which consisted of local games and soccer! Gordon got everyone in a circle and created a dance competition between us and kids. Although we put up a good fight, the kids definitely beat us with their far superior dance moves. The dance brought out a lot of laughter and even ended with a push-up contest between Gordon and Josh, where there’s still debates on who actually won that contest.
End of Day Worship
Before the day ended, we were able to spend time worshiping the Lord with the kids before heading back to the house to rest. It was nice rewinding the days on the balcony, sipping on tea and taking in the beautiful evening sky. We would share so many laughs and good times together but tonight, we needed to get a good nights rest, because we had a 4:30 a.m. workout for our next day’s adventures.
Things We Are Praying About
We continue to ask for your prayers for God’s continued guidance as we follow along wherever the Spirit leads. Prayer is clearly being answered in ways we aren’t even asking for help in. If you’d like to pray along with us, these are things Michael, Gordon, and Hunter are currently praying for:
Blessings for the children and caregivers of Ibonde and Jinja Children’s Home
Guidance for Michael, Gordon, and Hunter as they continue to lead Nyayo
Guidance for others who are helping
Guidance on upcoming projects for the children’s homes
Healing to the residents of Uganda who have ebola and protection for those who don’t have it
Bible Study
Weekly Zoom Studies
Please reach out if you’re interested in joining our bible studies via zoom every Monday at 7pm CT! We welcome anyone who wants to learn more about Jesus, even if you just wish to keep your camera off and only listen in on our discussions! We like to keep it light and informal as we have casual conversations about the various chapters we read throughout the Bible! We are currently reading 1 Samuel.
Peace and blessings,
Michael, Gordon, and Hunter
