Welcome to God's Grace Orphanage

Imagine a group of university students sitting together at school one day talking about the children in need in the community. Then imagine them deciding to start an orphanage to help those children in need. A community member offers his house with the understanding that it will be worked on when they have money to be able to improve it. Other neighbours promise to provide food when they have extra. One woman agrees to be house mother. Teachers volunteer to work with the children. And children come. 90 of them between the ages of 8 months and 15 years. This is the story of God's Grace Orphanage.

We had the priviledge of spending several hours there today just reading with the kids. They live in a 4 room house with one room for all the boys to sleep, one room for all the girls to sleep, one room with one set of bunkbeds where 16 babies sleep lined up across the two layers with a caretaker sleeping on the floor, and one room for the 2 other adults to sleep. Every morning the mattresses are collected and two rooms are converted into two classrooms being taught on either side of the 8x8 rooms. The outside shed where the goats have spent the night becomes another classroom for 2 grades. And the children go their school. One boy, Edgar, is 11 years old, in P6 and he read all the books we brought to me. I would read them first then he would read them and after each page he would pause and translate into Lugandan for the younger kids.

The kitchen is an outside shack that has wood panels that are used when they run out of firewood. When there is money or a donation of wood, the wood panels are replaced. The children eat when there has been a donation of food. They don't eat when there hasn't. Today was a good day as they had runny porridge for breakfast and were getting posho (maize flour boiled and made into a mashed potato type paste) with 2 small tomatoes and 3 small red onions shared between the 90 of them. The fire burns, the pots are exposed, there are no child-guards and no-one touches it except for the older children who are in charge of cooking.

Some children have malaria, one has sickle cell anemia. They go to the community doctor when necessary who donates the time and medicine for the children.

And the children keep coming, dropped off in the middle of the night. Some have papers, others don't. But they have several things in common... they are beautiful, they are well behaved, they are clever, they are polite, and they are caring. If a smaller one cries, an older one comes. They exchanged books with each other. No-one grabbed the book from another or kept more than one book.

Bree has collected money to create a garden for the children so that they always have some food. This week they planned the garden, next week they will dig and create it. Her next project is to have a chicken coop for poultry farming. This will provide both income and food. One of the original university students is now an employed architect. Those chickens will have a well designed home.

 Everytime I return to Uganda I meet new people who inspire me. People who have nothing but create amazing things anyway. They don't wait until the conditions are right. They don't stall because the money isn't there. They see a need and they do something about it with what they have. The rest follows as it needs to do. It is truly amazing to see what people can do when they don't let things stand in the way of their dreams. A loaned 4 room house with an outside kitchen, a shed for 2 goats and 3 adults who live there becomes a safe haven and a school for 90 desperate children who need a place to feel safe and loved. Inspiring.