November 2010
Pastor Fred from Mayuge visited us, just to encourage us over the incident in which my wife was involved in a motor accident. Two days earlier I had facilitated a conference in his home town in which he and his wife were very much blessed.
Pastor Fred talked about his efforts of trying to help a community of the blind people. He encouraged me to pay a casual visit and probably share a word of hope with them. I readily accepted, and made an appointment with Pastor Fred. It did not occur to me that I was headed for another heart- breaking sight.
Pastor Fred, Beatrice and I drove to Luba Village in the Buyaba parish just 10 miles south of Mayuge town Council.
Busoga Kingdom (a cultural Institution) had set aside 5 acres of land for the blind people among their subjects.The communal living could assist the plight of the disabled more easily than if they lived individually. Good Samaritans can access them quite easily and probably help.
All in all, there are 51 people living with disability in a camp-like kind of settlement. Ten blind couples, 11 elderly people and 20 children share a toilet and water facilities (provided by Lion’s Club of Norway quite recently). I could not imagine life in the camp before that. These people live In grass thatched huts made of wood and wattle. Their livelihood is entirely on hand outs from good Samaritans, majority of who are indigenous people from Pastor Fred’s church. Pastor Fred has tried to help a lot.
These people have no beds to sleep on, nor proper bedding. Cooking utensils are equally in a sorry state. To make things even worse, some of them are HIV positive without drugs and without good feeding.
A majority of their children are not blind, though there are some who are blind also. I do not know if the blind children are the biological products of the blind parents or blind children are brought in to join their skills.
What amazed me is that these people have a great joy in the Lord. Before I shared the word; they sang great and meaningful songs about the greatness and the love of the Lord. I was very much encouraged instead. Their attitude is positive, which is rather unusual.
After prayer, they gave me four hot (top) items to pray about. And I would like to ask you to remember these people in your prayer items too.
(1) They are praying for good food during Christmas. They love to enjoy beef and Rice plus soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi for at least 3 days (25th, 26th December 2010 and 1st January 2011). In that connection, they are praying for laundry soap for washing, and sugar for tea.
(2) They need some blankets and bed sheets to use at night, or generally clothes.
(3) The need special Bibles for the blind. Six among them are trained to read the Braille Bible in English. These Bibles are available in Kampala, but are expensive.
(4) Some people made a contribution to build a permanent house for the elderly among the blind. This project has slowed down. They are praying for roofing of this house.
Pastor Fred invited Beatrice and I to join him for Christmas with blind. I declined the invitation for several reasons. However, it is my prayer that something comes my way to send to these dear blind people. If any of you, among my prayer supporters, would like to send Christmas gifts to the blind, I will gladly pass it on to them to them through Pastor Fred.
There are now two ways to send any help through us. You can do direct bank transfer or Western Union, Moneygram etc.
The second method is through PayPal right from our website. You can use your Visa, MasterCard etc. The money will first be received in Canada, by Sister Ruth Friesen, (who is our Authorized Agent) before it is sent to us. To use this method, please click over to our Partner with Our Ministry page
P.S. Pastor Isaac has added a note of his wife, Christine's progress: [See Okayo Family News page]
