It is Friday and I am asking you to pray for Suubi Teen MOPS in Uganda.
After nearly 2 years of lockdown, Uganda finally opened its schools on Monday. I have read so many difficult stories about the broken school system. Some people arrived at school only to find termites had eaten the books and giant anthills had grown in the floors. But these problems can eventually be solved. What might be more difficult to address are the many schools that can no longer find teachers willing to teach. A very large percentage of the schools in the country are private. And if the building was not converted into another business, the teachers who received no pay for two years found a new occupation. Some schools have opened on Monday and are already closing again. They simply can not find the staff to keep the school open. We choose a wait-and-see attitude. They have doubled the school fees in Kampala. We can not afford to pay the doubled fees. And the government said it would be illegal for schools to raise fees. So we just kept our kids home to see how the dust settled. The plan this term is to continue with private tutoring. Once the chaos settles, hopefully, we can send the kids back to schools that have cleared the anthill and hired staff, and reduced the fees again. There was no wisdom in paying doubled School fees and having our kids sit in classes that had no teachers. Pray they eventually work this mess out. I am sure they will. They just had to start again. Bricks are being made at the Suubi center. It's a hard job. Please pray for the 4 men making our bricks. The women at the center cleared the space we want to build a 25-meter x 12-meter shade house. In the shade house, they can grow salad crops, spinach, and kale. They can start seedlings to use and sell. They can perhaps start tree seedlings too. It will be a pleasant place to work. It's so hot being always in the full sun. So God willing the shade house goes up even next week. I have been doing a lot of research on finishing dirt floors. I might have to instruct them on how to finish the floors in the kitchen and dining room we just had built. We also have ideas to improve the toilet. And I have an idea on how to build an outdoor shower using two IBC totes. My list of what we might try to do is getting very long. Nicole and I got tickets to fly to Uganda on the 22nd of January. That's in just over a week. I am very quickly filling up our bags. I have our Airbnb reserved. I am praying we stay healthy. Germany is of course in an epidemic of Covid. I really am isolated until we fly. Hopefully, it will be ok. Nicole and I both have our booster shots. As long as we don't get Omicron we should be ok. My daughter Jessica is home this week because one of her teachers tested positive for Covid. But we tested Jess and so far she is fine. It's definitely just a time of ....if the Lord wills it , we will do this or that. We have the builder giving us a quote on building rental homes for our women at the center. Juergen and I meet the architect on Saturday to go over the design. Hopefully, we can have 12 houses built this spring. I want to move the women out of the places they are staying in now. The rooms are not nice, and people look at them like prostitutes. It is an uneasy situation. The music from a nearby bar pounds until 3am. They hate it there. They rush every day to the quiet and beautiful center. They feel safe there. I am so sorry. There were no good rental options. So we feel compelled to build some houses now. I am glad they love the center. I believe it will be a wonderful place to be. www.teenmopsuganda.com
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