Uganda Update Part 3

The girls arrived on June 5th. I had 3 wonderful days alone in David's village until the girls arrived ready to go. The night they arrived we went on an impromptu visit to David's village, Birra, and were treated to a wonderful music program. The school consists of mostly orphaned kids and they gave the Goals for Girls team a welcome like none other. The next day was jam packed. We started out volunteering with the orphaned babies at Sanyu Babies home in Kampala. We happened to be there the day volunteers came to immunize. Imagine my suprise when I saw that the volunteers vests said, "Mormon Helping Hands". Wow, all the way across the globe, members of my church were doing great things. I was so proud. I was extremely moved by the way the girls handled the situation. It was a heavy load and they jumped righ in feet first. There were 2 babies in particular that were in dire straits. They were both completely malnourished and desperately needed feeding tubes. There is a wonderful women from the US named Hedda who is over there adopting herself, but she is also a volunteer social worker for Sanyu. Two of the girls approached her independantly and both gave her $100 of their own money to get feeding tubes for the two babies that were sick. We were all completely overcome with emotion. Hedda had had a very hard week and was so grateful. Of those two babies, one of them, Esther caught a special place in Kimmy's heart (one of the girls on the team). Her mom Susan was along and they talked and later asked me if they could get help to adopt Esther. Esther is one of the sick babies. Without help, Esther was most likely going to die, so Susan called up her husband and he said, "Bring her home". It was one of the most selfless things I ever witnessed. Susan is 51 and her kids are almost all raised. I was so impressed with her and learned to love her deeply while I was there. She is now in the process of adopting Esther. After Sanyu, we went and played a soccer game against disabled children in the Kampal Kids League. KKL is who we partnered with. They bring sports to disadvantaged kids, street kids, orphans and disabled children. It was so fun to watch some of these kids running on their hands as they had no legs. They were bright and fun. Like I said, the day was jam packed. We soon left KKL to go to the Salvation Army home for disabled children. We gave all of the girls pretty headbands made by Kimmy and the boys got rubber bracelets. The home was very humble and it was a sombering experience. We then went onto Katanga Slum. There is a soccer field (if you want to call it that) that we met with a KKL girls team and taught a short soccer clinic, followed by a game. The field was dirt, completely bumpy, bushes randomly growing in it, followed by an occasional cow crossing during the game. This was a huge highlight as the field was situated lower than the slum and whenever there was a good play the people up above in the slum would cheer. We gave everyone Calle shirts and took lots of pictures and film. Calle is a street soccer brand and they donated tons of balls and shirts. In return we were to get footage of the girls and African girls wearing their brand in a street soccer setting. The pictures turned out beautifully. It was a jam packed day. What impressed me the most, was the fact that we could drage these girls all over to extremely emotional situations and they were always ready and willing to jump right in feet first.