Hello family! We have a quarterly report from Sister Gertrude to share with all of you. Lots of beautiful and important progress have been made at the School, and we’re excited to share them with each of you! God bless!
– NEEPUganda Team
To our Dearest Sponsors,
The Director, Management Committee and Staff of Nyamabuga Foundation schools once again would like to say THANK you, all our precious donors, sponsors and well-wishers. We continue thanking our God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon the school.
Report: The year 2014
The Primary School Building
Since most of the classes are complete now, we are designing the compound, we have leveled and put boundaries and walking pavements for the kids in order to keep off the green which we are going to keep as A FREEDOM SQUARE. Most of hedges and trees all around the school compound have grown and a Talking Compound, which is required by the Ministry of Education. All the signs were made, and in place. [Editor’s Note: A “Talking Compound” is a Ugandan effort to educate children on how to effectively and appropriately handle issues currently facing them in their communities, such as AIDS, abstinence, reinforcing good work habits, etc. Signs are posted at different locations within the school that have positive messages and phrases on them, therefore “talking” to the children.]
The Secondary School
We are once again believing God to come to our rescue to start a secondary school building. Our assumption is that we will first lay the whole foundation, then build the first floor which will include Administration area, conference Hall, staff room, reception and accounts section. This will be the first phase where we will partition some rooms to fit in temporary classrooms.
We intend to be constructing this building in phases, we will be building when students go for holidays, but the time when the kids return and are in sessions we will halt the construction and embark on collecting building materials for the next phase.
Text Books
Our thanks goes to Bro Lance and Christie Thollander of Hope Builders in Virginia. In October they sent us funds to purchase text books. We purchased both Primary text books and Secondary text books and Laboratory chemicals.
Boarding
We are still having 86 boarding kids both Primary and Secondary. We did not register more kids, as we expected, which was good because we are trying to build quality and not quantity in our kids. This is a manageable number for the moment, as we intend to go on increasing with a specific number each year.
In November again our silent donor in Baton Rouge funded a separate boarding house for the Secondary kids who were residing with Primary kids, which was not appropriate. The two big boarding rooms for boys and girls, matron and patron extension and four stanzas of bathrooms have been complete and the children are being accommodated.
Secondary boys’ and girls’ dormitory have been completed.
Clean Drinking Water
Since my last communication, we reported that our silent donor in Baton Rouge funded the construction of an Under Ground Water Tank. The rain season of March – April have filled our tank, now children are drawing water and all staff are happy we have running water in the compound.
Grain Mills
- Grind Mill House in 2013. The building is now completed.
After all the contributions and offering I collected on my April – June trip to US and that which was sent to me later, the Grind Mill House is complete. The Power Company was waiting for our paper work, which we completed. But later another idea came in to use: a diesel engine of four piston rings, 45 horse power to operate the hauler and grind mill. Besides the electric engine, the diesel engine is equally powerful and operates at a low cost compared to the electricity and as the power shading which is off and on the diesel engine is constant provided if we have diesel to run it.
The diesel engine, the hauler and Grinding machine were purchased and the frames where they are to be screwed to the ground in the Mill House but they have to be assembled and tested first before they are transported to our Mill House. The construction of the Grain Mill workers latrine was done, but the chain link fence to keep the intruders out we still have to purchase.
Visitors
We had a team from different States namely:
Bro. Lance Thollander and Christie from – Virginia
Bro. Jon and Sis Becca Meadows from – Virginia
Bro. Paul and Bettina Stevens from – Virginia
Bro. David Morgan from – Texas
Sis. Jennifer Schuleh from – Maryland
Sis. Alisa Albers and Nate Albers from – Maryland
A delegation of 10 men and women were led by Sis Alisa Albers from 8th -22nd March 2014, it was such a blessing to the whole School community. Many activities were carried on by the following:
Sis. Becca and Bettina – Treatment of kids
Bro. Lance and Christie – Bible sharing with Secondary kids and Primary Teachers
Bro. Paul, Nate and Jon – Games and sports
Sis. Alisa – Registration of new kids who need scholarships
Sis. Jennifer – Shared with Secondary and donated bibles to all the secondary kids while
Bro. David – carried on series of interviews with Gertrude
Computers
Furthermore, Sis. Alisa’s team again blessed the school with 14 laptops, a projector to add to what Pastor Dennis and Sis. Jill’s team brought in November 2013. Bro. Jon fixed and gave more training to our Computer Technician.
Clinic
Again this team brought us a good stock of medicine which is more needed here next to food, because nearly everybody, teachers and support staff, have been helped by these medications. I thank God so much for this opportunity to be able to help our staff to keep well besides kids. Most frequently used medications are malaria medication, stomach-ache, pain killers, antibiotics and vitamins.
Evangelizing/Training
Our 5day residential Seminar for Church Leaders and Youths was from 21st – 25th January 2014. The evening of 24th and 25th we held a big crusade in Nyamabuga Trading Centre. It was a success and many people attended. It is expensive for us to run these seminars every time as they are always residential, and we have to count the feeding and other logistics.
Sponsorship:
Our Sponsors need constant reminding. As of now they have dropped in number further. This explains that my visits in the past years boosted the sponsors, whenever I shared with them in Churches, Schools and Colleges also individuals. In fact my coming there made a great impact, but now due to busy schedules with the kids I cannot make it to come to the US every year or twice in a year. I am praying that God opens another door.
The Farm:
The farm is doing well, we have planted corn, sweet potatoes and cassava and cabbage, eggplants and other vegetables for children’s consumption. We are still planning to give a cup of porridge to our day school kids when our grain mill starts operating.
Our farm has continued to support the boarding section feeding program, the community and evangelization. Whenever we have big evangelical gatherings and funerals we have food available to feed people.
Crafts
As the kids crafts are improving especially in basket making and paper beads. We are constructing a school canteen besides a craft Showroom when we can display our crafts to attract people who come to visit us at school and can purchase children’s crafts. Even people in the community look for certain baskets and mats to purchase. This will bring motivation to the kids to improve on their crafts.
I think that is all I can report of now and God bless.
Gertrude Kabatalemwa
