NEW BEGINNINGS

We've travelled some 10,000 miles, spent a little over an hour travelling by car, 38 hours on three flights, eaten 3 airline meals, walked a few laps during the layovers, tried to bribe the Admiral's club attendant into a stolen shower and still have at least 2 -3 hours of driving to Jinja. We've watched movies, listen to music, played solitaire, and read. FILLER... All the things we've done as we wait. It feels maybe like the end of a pregnancy. Expectation, excitement and responsibility blend into anxious anticipation. Knowing that the next few days and steps have been planned out and set before us by The Lord, yet sensing a fair amount of parent-like responsibility for these "first borns".

Believe us when we say that we know we are not qualified, capable, nor entirely comfortable in this trek. But the God who showed us this need and plan months ago is all of those things. Last week when the adults of our group were stressing about missing passports, I heard 6 year old Deeds in the background singing away, not a care in the world and said aloud, "Boy, life was easier when we were kids! Just knowing that whatever might be going on in the trouble department would naturally be taken care of by the grown-ups in charge". I so wish my faith had the same carefree confidence; complete assured that my FATHER will take care of any contingency. It's humbling for sure to see the markings on the "faith" growth chart set so close together. Forward progress is called success even when it has followed some jet lag. 

The last flight each trip is full of humanitarians, missionaries, safari vacationers and returning residents. I don't know if it has been my seat assignments this particular trip, but it seems just a bit different. Every one seems seasoned and comfortable as opposed to the edge do your seat excitement we have experienced previously. Or maybe its my own familiarity now coupled with a good dose of sleep deprivation. 

Over and over we have asked The Lord to confirm his hand in Chayah: assure us that we are in His will, steer us away if not. I pray we have heard Him clearly, that He will continue to equip us for this and that as we step into this ministry, we also humbly and appropriately step aside in complete submission to his will. 

CHAYAH...new life, new hope...a new journey.
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A New Year, A New Beginning

It is the eve of 2013 and though we sit looking back over 2012, it's difficult to spend too much time reflecting on the past when a trip with so much promise sits just 6 calendar squares from today.

Four Chayah board members and five adventurous, Jesus-loving, mission-minded, servants are making lists, gathering supplies, checking passports, filling needed prescriptions and praying at every turn that God's will and plan will be accomplished for 19+ anxious children in Kakira Uganda.

You would think great anticipation would be tempered by nerves and an insecurity about our ability to assist a mighty God in such a fete, but tonight for the sake of this small tribe of children, we couldn't be more motivated to tear away the last page of 2012 and finally get to this new month of great beginnings.

The Lord has blessed every big and little thing in this journey. I cannot even begin to describe how much better He does things than we would have ever done on our own. Our greatest desire is that each child would know that the one true Savior, Jesus, came for them and only that he sent a few Americans to help them move.
We have met as a team and will complete our official pre-trip planning and scheduling. If a gust of wind, on the runway of any of the five airports we touch, happens to blow away our schedule, its just as well. We go with open hearts, open arms and ready to serve this new family as best we can and as each need arises. Plans will give way to what works best and if the two overlap it will be a surprise to all of us.

What we do know and plan, is that the first 2 days will be meetings, planning, and arranging for all that waits to be "ferried" and purchased and bought and moved in. Bunk beds have been built, a dining room table completed along with a smaller version for the smallest members of the family. Two staff members to assist have been chosen, one is ready, the other has yet to be approached.

Day 3 and 4 involves stepping into the plans that have been made, and cleaning, moving, purchasing, arranging, and assembling. Day 5 will be spent in the village itself. Church on Sunday Jan 13th and visiting the most desperate. This day will include packing up and moving ("shifting") Janet, our house mom, and the 7 children her current 300 sq ft protects.
Monday morning, the 14th of January, the first group of Chayah children will be ushered from their current situations to the hospital for complete physicals and then welcomed "home".

Tuesday the 15th, we complete the family's tree with the second group. Wednesday brings fun, crafts, games, stories, and comfort, joy and celebration. Thursday we will give Janet and her staff some time with their new family as we visit a nearby orphanage "Sonshine Baby Home" complete with 50+ orphaned infants/toddlers. How we leave them is yet to be discovered, but God will show us, lead us and comfort our hearts.

Your part can be best spent in prayer for us. Rejoice as we record our joy, petition our God as we report our sorrow. Appeal to the one who knows all for wisdom in confusion and comfort in frustration. We know He is real. We have seen His hand, heard His plan and are confident in His plan. 2012 will be surrendered into the history books with the title "Well, we didn't see that coming!"

2013 begins a chapter in the lives of Chayah children called "New". The author is a Savior who values the orphan, and has proven his commitment by submitting to a cruel death which allows each of us to follow His leading with great joy. As you reflect on 2012 and all that has been accomplished in your lives...be confident that anything you have given away, at any cost is immeasurably more valuable than what you have gathered or kept. The best part of this life is that part you give away for another...a humble savior proved it...don't live another day without believing it.

We are so grateful for you!

AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR CHAYAH FAMILY

Chayah Family,

The Christmas season is here and in this season of celebrating the birth of Jesus, we are so so grateful that you have each supported us in the birth of Chayah Children's Home. Family sponsors, child sponsors, key sponsors and those of you who have prayed for us...we don't know how to thank you for your incredible gifts.

Grace was born in a lowly manger over 2000 years ago and with the first cry of that tiny baby Jesus, the world was offered new life and new hope. Its impossible to miss all of the celebration during the season, but its also so exciting to consider the new life and new hope that 19 children in Kakira Uganda are about to experience.

The new year holds great promise. On January 6th, board members will leave from LAX, travel for nearly 48 hours and begin several days of planning, organizing and preparing to furnish Chayah's first house. We'll work closely with Janet, our house mom and make arrangements for the rest of the team's arrival on the 10th. Bunk beds, mattresses, sheets, tables, towels, pots, pans, stove, refrigerator, mosquito nets and more will be moved in.

As soon as everything is ready, we'll arrange to pick up the children and take them right to the hospital for a complete check up. When everyone has seen the doctor, we will take this tiny tribe to the house and once they arrive...Chayah becomes a home. Janet plans for the cook to have their first meal ready for them when they walk through the doors. We plan to stand in awe of the amazing grace and provision of our loving Father. What God has planned for that day is yet to be seen, but surely it will be a day that is more than we could ask or imagine. It is His way, after all.

The days following move in will be busy with activity. We plan to get each child registered for school, buy uniforms and two sets of other clothes, shoes, socks and bed clothes. We'll play with, wrestle with and do crafts with them; help them label their clothing, learn to make their beds and make a plan to keep 24 toothbrushes from get- ting mixed up. We're taking tools and the older boys will get to build something together with the men. Somebody will be going with a Ugandan friend, Solomon, to find the perfect van to shuttle this new family around. We'll attend church with them, go to the village marketplace with them and make sure they have the 2 brooms and 4 rolls of toilet paper required for the first day of school.

They will be uncertain, perhaps fearful, maybe grateful, and begin feeling the first glimpse of hopeful. We will be prayerful and excited, patient and anxious all at the same time. None of us have walked this exact road before and in our own strength, we'd be sunk. But God has already proven that he is more invested in these children than we could ever be and we know he is faithful to complete the work he has started.

As the days fly by during this busy month, we will be wrapping gifts here and trying to wrap our minds around the tasks ahead. We'll sing carols and hang ornaments, mail visa applications and collect things to take.

We consider it such a privilege to be allowed to see this through, to be able to watch God pull together so much in such a short time and to be part of rescuing tender young lives for the Glory of God and all He has planned for them.

We are so grateful for your partnership, for your encouragement and for trusting us to take what you have sacrificially given to the other side of the world. Chayah's house mom, Janet, has said to us over and over again..."I do not know how to thank you or have anything to give you. I can only pray that the God who sees will bless you for all you are doing for these children". We cannot say it any better. We pray that the God who sees will bless you, our Chayah Family, for all you are doing for these children.

Merry Christmas, 

Chayah

*Meeting the Chayah Kids

A Brief History

Olivia:

In 2010, a young girl named Olivia, then 13, spent most of her days caring for her two young siblings in a small village in Africa. Her father, long gone, had been replaced by a new man. Her mother, carrying his second child, worked the ground each day to provide food for the family. In Uganda, a father in the home is rare, a legal marriage is uncommon and the idea of providing for a previous man’s child is beyond the desire or ability of most. Women are valued little, daughters less. So Olivia, sandwiched between two biological sisters, survived by living on the fringes of the family home and provision. Someone suggested Olivia attend a women’s conference in the neighboring village of Kakira. Traveling an hour by foot each morning, Olivia sat shyly near the back of the basement church surrounded by 200+ women gathering daily to listen to a group of missionary women teach about Jesus.

One American, in particular, noticed the petite child by mid week and smiled in her direction. With each passing meeting, the timid girl moved closer to the front, where her Muzungu friend sat waiting to teach the next session. Why these two became a pair could not be attributed to commonality or conversation...they lacked both, as generations, oceans and languages separated their lives. But invisibly and without human effort, the Holy Spirit was binding their hearts together as mother and child.

The praise and worship time each day was peppered with individuals sharing a testimony of God’s faithfulness, a dance expressing their gratitude or a song. Someone nudged the visiting child and suggested she go up to sing. With a smile that eclipsed her tiny frame, she went forward, and to a group of strangers sang “Soon and very soon”. Why she sang in English, how she knew the lyrics, when her own language was Luganda, only the Lord knows. Perhaps she was honoring her foreign guests as she offered her heart in worship.

On the final day of the conference each attendee was asked to submit a written prayer request. Olivia’s simple request “I want you to pray for me, I am an orphan, no school fees”. She quietly turned in request #206 and this anonymous child returned to her own village. The American teacher, like mother’s do, went seeking the details of that one child’s plea to her maker and unfolded the tiny piece of paper that would prove to undo her heart and consume her thoughts.

Janet:

Kakira’s church hosted an organized week of teaching, testimonies and worship. Janet, a school teacher by trade and servant by heart, was the liaison between church and missionary team. Her humility and grace, as she served the visitors and her own church, was amazing. She was tall in stature, her slight figure evidence that she was giving away more than her heart to the people in her village. It soon became clear; these two American and Ugandan church girls shared a love for their savior and a passion for abandoned children.

As the conference ended and the goodbyes began, Janet agreed to try to locate the child that she had neither met nor noticed during the busy week. She would find out whether her family would allow her to attend school if fees were paid by the American woman. With only a name, Abbo Olivia, she began a search of nearby areas, walking distances and through places and children completely unfamiliar to her, asking about this “Olivia”.

When finally she heard a “yes” to the question “Are you Abbo Olivia?” she announced that an American woman wanted to pay her school fees, her search was over, but her desire to help make two dreams come true would not yet be accomplished. To Olivia’s dreamless heart, Her great God had answered her prayer.


It was clear that there was more to this story than school. The evident neglect and poverty eventually led Janet to ask the parents for custody of both girls, Olivia and her younger sister. She would take them back to Kakira, where they could be fed, loved and where their education would be guaranteed.

The adults agreed without issue... relieved of two daughters. Janet’s humble one room home, already occupied by three, now swelled to embrace, feed and educate two more. What causes a women of humble means, struggling to support her own younger sister and her own son, to stretch her arms and resources around these two tiny strangers? Only God.

Over the next two years, texts and emails of gratitude and encouragement were exchanged between this American woman and her new Ugandan sister. Money was sent and accounted for to cover school fees. Report cards were shared along with news of the progress being made by the girls. An American mother’s heart was growing more tender to this extended family and the young girl who wanted to go to school. Trust and a great confidence was building toward this Ugandan woman who unselfishly chose to stand in the place of mother and return value to the lives of Olivia and her sister Jesca by taking them in. It’s not difficult to adjust to affection, attention and hope, even in cramped quarters and sharing a divided portion of rice and beans feels like a banquet when its served with the love of Jesus. How is it this single pair of sisters are rescued in the midst of a continent overflowing in orphans? Only God.

The Curtain Call

In 2012, Unchanging Truth Ministries offered an opportunity to revisit the village of Kakira and the American woman whose heart was being transplanted there, one fiber at a time, made plans to return along with the team of 9 others. Preparations over several months prior would allow for another woman’s conference and a children’s conference. Excitement grew over the weeks leading up to the trip on both sides of the world. The Lord had answered the pleadings for this reunion and a chance to see each other face to face once again. It was far more wonderful than imagined, as the two years of separation became invisible instantly.

It was a week packed with ministry opportunities. Being used of God, for his purpose wore on us physically, but bolstered us emotionally and spiritually. We talked about, sang about and celebrated the love of our wonderful Jesus and shared our hearts with children from 6 months to 16 years at a Children’s VBS and women up to their 60’s or 70’s (they were unsure of their age). We visited orphanages and ventured deep into villages. At every turn we were hit with the reality of great poverty and children trying so hard to survive, they had no energy or inclination to dream.


As the week closed, and the team finished their commitment to the village, God began to open the curtain that dramatically revealed our true purpose and the vision He had been weaving together since the beginning of time. Four mothers, living continents apart, had been given identical callings: A God-given passion for the children of this village, who have been orphaned by death or abandonment, many living on little food, without education or medical care and hearts surviving and searching for hope when there is none in sight. It was as if the week’s end was really a beginning. We agreed to pray and begin a walk of faith in the name of Jesus and true religion (James 1:27) allowing Jesus to be the key to unlock all that He has for the beautiful children of Kakira, Uganda. Who sends everyday ordinary broken people to help a village whose children need supernatural saving grace and love? Only God.


“I asked God through tears, how He could allow so much human suffering. I really felt like He was asking me the same thing. How can you allow it? What are you doing?” Kristen Welch, Founder of Mercy House, Kenya