joy.

This last week has been filled with activities as we try to pack as much into our last weeks here.

Last weekend we went to Kalangala island in Lake Victoria. We had an amazing experience there. Not only was it completely beautiful, but the people we met were just wonderful. It was much more of the Africa you imagine. The people lived in huts and had no electricity or daily conveniences we take for granted. There were about 12 women to 80 children. Some of the fathers were dead, some were away working, and some of the children are just orphans that have wandered there. Most of the women are HIV positive and slowly dying. It was so hard to see these women worry about what will happen to their children. We are working to get vitamins to them because it helps greatly with their disease, for they don't get the proper nutrition they should. Hopefully this will slow the progress of their horrible disease. The most vivid part was that through all of their poverty and pain, their faith in God in incredible. It's almost like that is all they have. Though America is a wonderful country, we have so much that sometimes our faith in God gets covered up and tangled in the mess of money, material objects, relationships, and careers. In a way, it is so refreshing to see these people say they have so much just because they know that God is on their side. Their joy was evident and it reminds us why we always need God.

This week we have traveled to Kampala several times. We saw more street children this week than we usually do there. Street children are children that sit on the sidewalks of Kampala and beg for money. Typically their parents force them to beg while they go do who knows what. Some of the children were literally 1 year old. It breaks our hearts and it takes all we have to fight the urge to pick them up and walk away with them.

We also got to visit the Remand Home, which is a children's prison in Kampala. The sad part is that most of the children have done nothing. In the African culture, when parents divorce and the dad remarries, the step mom hates the kids. Often she will turn them into the police for doing absolutely nothing just because she doesn't want them. Here, the legal system operates on a "guilty until proven innocent" policy so they are automatically thrown in jail until further investigation. The place is so sad and hard to see, but it is also refreshing to hear the children's hearts for God and their faith even through their situations. It again reminds us how God is with us through everything and if these kids can remember that, we sure can.

Please pray for the villages of Kalangala and the people there that have captured our hearts. Pray for their health and the care of the children. Please pray for the street children of Kampala, that they will find comfort and safety amongst their hard lives. Please pray for the children of the Remand Home, that they will get the justice they deserve and that they will continue to feel hope for their futures. Above all, pray for the place of God in each one of these people's hearts. Pray that they will continue to have faith through situations we can't even imagine. Pray for their continuous love of God and that he will forever bring them joy.