Using training from Care International in Uganda, community members have started several successful savings and loans groups to promote self-reliance and encourage others to reach their goals and follow their dreams.
From these groups we have seen many small businesses born! Our founder, Pastor Paul calls these groups “the backbone to the ministry.”
Today I want to highlight one of those groups — the Kirabo savings group. This group conducts their business by meeting together every Tuesday. The total number of members is about 30, and all of those members are part of a special group in ROWAN. Each time they meet there is a range of 2,000-10,000 Uganda shillings saved and together this group has saved a total of 3,500,000 shillings (over $3,000 usd) since they started!
George, who is also a zone leader for ROWAN, has also gone through business training. Because of the money he was able to set aside through Kirabo savings group, he was in a better position to start his mobile money business and is now making a profit.
Madina Mutesi sells second hand clothing to bring in money to provide for her family. When she started in the savings group, she had about 30,000 shillings, but that has grown to over 400,000 shillings and she now has a successful business.
Conflict in parts of South Sudan continues, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of people are being displaced to neighboring countries. Many of those refugees face food shortages, life-threatening illnesses and the fear of imminent violence. Other difficulties include an abrupt halt to education, the hyperinflation of food and necessities and inability to receive much-needed medical care due to various obstacles. According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, “one million South Sudanese children are not able to attend school, and nearly five million people face severe food shortages.” Even those who are fortunate enough to escape to another country are struggling because of these factors.
-South Sudanese man- “Since the fighting started again in Juba, I had to send my wife and my six-year-old son to Uganda. I don’t want them to be here. Life [here] is not only insecure but also very expensive, while in Uganda, even as refugees, they have access to health and education. When I was a child, in 1989, I fled South Sudan because of the war [1983 to 2005] and spent more than 20 years working in Khartoum and Darfur. In 2012, I came back hoping the independence would give us a better life. But all that hope is lost now. Selling vegetables in my small shop gives me around 7,000 pounds every month, which I need to convert to US dollars to send to my family in Uganda. With the current exchange rate, I barely get 100 dollars – three or four times less than [only a few] months ago. The currency depreciation has made supporting my family harder. Food prices are getting ridiculous in the market. For the past few months, they are three, four or even five times more expensive. Before, one banana used to cost 10 pounds. Now, it’s 50! How are people going to buy from my shop? I never rest. I work all week – more than 10 hours a day – just to keep surviving. It makes no sense to me. I’m considering leaving South Sudan for good and joining my family in Uganda. I think it will be better for all of us.” (http://allafrica.com/stories/201609151142.html)
About a month ago, 1,700 South Sudanese were arriving in Uganda each day. That number is rapidly growing and funds are getting thin. There is a push to register all of the refugees in Uganda in order to secure safety and peace of mind for residents near the transit centres. And rations have been cut in half, just so the demand for food can be met. Many pregnant women who have fled South Sudan are fighting to keep themselves and their unborn babies healthy due to the rapid increase in population at the temporary housing for refugees. They receive the same rations as everyone else, and often that is just not enough to sustain them and the life growing inside.
These refugees are people with families and hopes and dreams much like our own. They have been ripped from their homes, torn away from family and face insurmountable obstacles on a daily basis. Would you join us in praying for the leadership of this war-torn country? Pray that God would bring peace and people would eventually be able to return to their homeland. Pray for these precious people; that they would receive the nutrition, medical care and education they need. And finally, pray about helping to support the organizations providing aid and relief in these uncertain times in South Sudan. Want to know more how YOU can make a difference? Read more about the conflict in South Sudan here.
I don’t know about you, but I’m still adjusting to the fact that we are almost through July. Where did the summer go? While we’re at it, where did the last year go? As I turned 42 last week, I took time to reflect on the past year as well as check in with myself and how my heart is doing. Below are the few words I wanted to share with you – those who have committed to serving the Lord through ROWAN.
You have walked with us on this ROWAN journey, some have even traveled arm in arm with me to Uganda. Some of you I’ve never met, but we are connected to the heartbeat of the women and children. You have trusted ROWAN to maximize every dollar raised, and there are no words to express our gratitude. As you can view in the annual report, the ROWAN board is diligent to make sure every dollar is maximized and multiplied to support our women and children.
All our children are all in school, and the elementary kids are attending our weekly Saturday program at the Hall of Hope.
Our clinic serves our village community daily.
Our farm is harvesting food that supports our feeding programs, and providing training ground for our widows for their personal homes.
Hope in Jesus continues to be our anthem.
As most of you know, the past 2 years have been extremely challenging concerning mining in our region. In December of 2022, ROWAN raised over $88,000 which provided legal representation, purchased land to build a relocation office, and continues to empower our communities through weekly meetings. The report here shares all that we were able to accomplish last year as well as continue to meet with our lawyers and promote the rights of our precious people.
With all the progress from above, I admit that I’ve struggled with fear and doubt. There are countless nights I’ve laid awake wondering if I should give up. As ROWAN staff were bullied, threatened and even arrested for standing up for the people’s rights, I thought to myself, “There must be someone else better to handle this crisis. This is too much. I’m not strong enough.”
That thought ever cross your mind?
Moses must have felt the same way when God called him to speak on His behalf. (In Kelsey’s abridged version) Moses reminded God Almighty, “Um, you may have forgotten but…. I have a serious speech impediment. I’m Not your guy!”
Oh the countless times I’ve reminded God, “I’m not your gal!” And you know what I heard? “You’re right. You can’t do this on your own. That’s why you need me, and I’m bringing you others who will walk with ROWAN.” And that is exactly what He is doing.
So friends, these first 6 months may not have been the most visible, but God is re-working and uniting the staff and boards across the globe to see His vision for our future. I would say 50% of the work ROWAN is doing is unseen. We may not be building houses, but we are building a foundational bridge of empowerment and vision for our next chapter.
We are taking this crisis and turning it into an opportunity for God to show us the way forward.
In August the USA and Uganda board will meet and seek God’s direction for the next 5 years, and we need your prayers!
Meanwhile, what is our current need? Our kids have outgrown their uniforms! Please join us and support our “Back to School” campaign that will help each child get a new uniform and school supplies that will take them into the next year! $80 will supply uniform, shoes and school supplies! More info coming out next week!
4 weeks ago one of our special mamas in ROWAN, Anne, passed away. She was a widow, mom, HIV+ community member, and hope-filled believer. She breathed her last at 39 years old as cancer took her life. 3 weeks ago one of our ROWAN staff, Jeremiah, died suddenly in a car accident. He operated our ultrasound machine for the maternity center and for cancer scans. He was only 27. Last week my friend’s daughter passed away from a long battle of cancer here in the States. She was 13. As I share about these precious people, I know I’m not alone in this journey of loss. It happens suddenly, whether you are in a good place or not; yet how we process that news is so crucial to our relationships with God and each other. There is never a “convenient” time for loss. I don’t know about you, but some days I wake up, hear heart breaking news and think to myself, “That’s it, I’m done. I’ve got nothing left.” Other times I am able to rally around others and simply share tears of pain. I recently got other news, too:
— That a pre-mature baby girl has gained another pound and is growing strong.
— That one of our orphans in Uganda has grown up to become the best car painter in the region.
— That the mining crisis in our region has slowed down because of ROWAN’s effort to promote justice, per an update from our lawyers.
Oh, and my daughter started reading chapter books by herself.
What I love so much about our Father is the way we can enter into His presence in the very space we are in.
I so often feel conflicted between life’s heartaches and victories, and the whiplash we feel getting pulled from one to the other.
But I suspect that we aren’t meant to experience only one and never the other (we all know what we’d choose).
When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He knew what had to be done. He was sweating blood as he asked for “the cup to pass Him by.”
Even Jesus longed for the victory of the cross apart from the suffering of the innocent. At the last supper Jesus found joy in laughing and joking with His closest friends around the dinner table, and at the same time awaited His betrayal and death around the corner. He lived in the “both, and” …and taught us how to experience life fully and honestly. No matter what is in your path today, whether you are walking through something painful or celebrating a victory (or both), He is right there, in it with you. God created us to fully experience His love through everything in our lives, both in tears of sadness and tears of joy. So let’s do this one thing together: Let’s laugh and eat at the table of friendship even as we feel the weight of grief within us. Look across the table… And know you aren’t alone.
Tears can express all forms of emotion. Tonight, the ROWAN team sheds tears as one of our dearest members suddenly passed away. Anne Naroti, 35 years old, died in an emergency surgery. We met Anne 7 years ago when she was struggling with HIV/AIDs and needed support. Her husband had died from AIDS and left her with 6 children alone. We couldn’t do much, but we did all we could to find her loving sponsors (which there were 2), and invite her into the fold of the Lord’s love and trust. She had a hard time smiling. She was weak. She didn’t have much to live for, but she knew she had to stay strong for her children.
Thanks to the love of God through ROWAN, she experienced friendship, generosity and empowerment these past 6 years. And as you can see in the picture, she found reason to smile again.
ROWAN has walked with people through all seasons of life. We’ve celebrated hundred’s of childbirths while also attending the burials of our closest friends. What we have learned is that God’s love is unchanging, and He has called us to the least of these. Everyone is a child of God and is His beloved.
Pray with us as navigate helping the family place her 6 children. If you would like to sponsor one of them, please contact us here. Details coming soon on how to love her family in this time.
Do you ever wake up with your first thought being, “I didn’t get enough sleep,” or “I don’t have enough time,” or “I don’t have enough ideas,” or “I don’t have enough money”? Yeah, me too.
This month I’ve been reading Brene Brown’s book Daring Greatly, and one of her main points is that we don’t live in a culture of self-centeredness but rather one of a scarcity mindset. And scarcity isn’t only believing there isn’t enough, but the continued belief that there is never enough.
There have been countless days in the past 22 years of ROWAN where I started my day in the red. The fact is there isn’t enough time in my day or people I know or grants I can write or money in our bank that will supply every need. I can see how people start believing the lie of unworthiness which is a slippery slope to despair. Right where the enemy wants us to be: unarmed and ashamed. Have I visited that valley? More than I’d like to admit.
But what does our God say about this? He speaks loud and clear on this very issue in scripture:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is NOT from yourselves. It is the gift of God- Not by works so that no one can boast.” Eph. 2:8-9
“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man…” Eph. 3:16
In these powerful words Almighty God disarms the lie of scarcity by reminding us that He saved us not because of what we do, but because of who we are. We are His children with faith in our King and all power comes from Him. He doesn’t have a grid for productivity like we do. He is not bound by time. He is the supplier of ALL things. When this truth moves from my mind to my heart and soul, I begin to view the world from His perspective.
“I experience peace in my life when I get out of the driver’s seat and receive direction as a passenger.
When I wake up thankful for all God has done for me, I’m ready to receive His love. In trusting God’s abundance I posture myself to listen to His truth. In other words, I’m letting the Lord drive my day. It may be that I set my to-do list aside and do the 1 thing He asks of me. Sometimes He reminds me to pick up that list and highlights actions to move on. The difference?
I find my actions produce lasting fruit. I have experienced miraculous answers to prayer not based upon my grit but on His grace. My stress levels decrease and joy becomes my strength. Basically I’m led by Him, not me. This is not a formula for successful living. However this moment of self-awareness, if you are really honest with yourself, can lead to lasting peace, because He is our peace.
I invite you to do a simple thing with me this month.
Every morning you wake up, remind yourself of who you are. You are His beloved. You are His son / daughter. You are loved for who you are no matter what happens today. (I mean it. No matter what.) You are a child of the King who supplies every. single. thing.
Song of the month: Steady Heart by Stephanie Gretzinger
I was never like the other kids growing up. In High School my friends wanted to be teachers, ranchers, dentists, counselors, and I wanted to go serve God in Africa- exciting, right? Well at that time (1994), it sounded absurd. No one, including my family, knew how to encourage that passion and perhaps concerned for my future!
But one winter night while at high school church camp I felt the Lord’s tangible presence and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. Amid my tears and prayers, I was stopped by the audible voice of God. I didn’t know God could speak that way. There was no doubt it was Him. He told me two things: “I love you”, and the word “Africa”. As wild as that sounded at fifteen, I held onto that promise. It wasn’t until 2002, 8 years later, that it came to pass. Nowadays I can’t hold onto a promise of God more than 5 minutes without the temptation of doubt and fear creeping in. I remember how I cherished that promise like a secret between best friends, and when I flew across the globe to Uganda, I was not alone.
God taught me early on how to dream big. (Him and later Bob Goff!). With Holy Spirit as my guide, He introduced me to a village community that understood His miraculous ways and needed a storyteller. I saw firsthand accounts of suffering and pain. I wept with mothers who had lost their babies. I held the hands of hundreds of malnourished children. I witnessed droughts, floods, disease and death. But I also witnessed light that pierced the darkness through local believers who were bringing hope to the hopeless. I’ve never met such mighty men and women of faith. Together with their vision and mission, ROWAN was established to love and serve widows and orphans affected by AIDs. If you have ever been somewhere or met someone where your heart felt like it was leaping out of your chest with joy, you know how I felt. Maybe God knew that about me all along.
In short, it’s been a 22-year journey with ROWAN (Rural Orphans and Widows AIDs Network). Did I know how to start a nonprofit? No. Create a Strategic Plan? Heck no. Fundraise? Never. And yet in each phase, when I wanted to throw in the towel yet again, I was reminded of the promise in 1994. I can’t tell you how often I sink back into that chapel pew and envision that night; the Lord’s loving presence. Suddenly everything around me fades and I find the peace that began the journey. I find my voice in His voice. And there I find hope for the widows. The orphans. For me.
So, some other big events happened in my life since then. While I was traveling across the globe, I met the man of me dreams, got married, moved to a small town in the mountains of Colorado, had a beautiful baby girl in 2016, and became passionately involved in our local community. So if someone asked me, “How are you able to navigate working with ROWAN full time while involved in all these things?” My honest answer would be, “One day at a time!” There have been many months where I easily became overwhelmed and believed the lie that I was a failure. I needed to be fundraising more for ROWAN. I needed to be doing more homeschool activities for my daughter. I need to be making healthier meals. I need to work 3 other jobs for side income. I could be “doing” more…
But when I get quiet, truly quiet in my mind, I remember His promise.
Not just the Africa part, but the “I love you” part. He didn’t say He loved what I can do for Him. He didn’t say He loved what I could achieve for Him. He just loves me, as I am.
And there are hundreds of promises of God to you personally in scripture. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. He will never leave you. He will always be there with you. He will never fail you. Never.
I got a call in March of 2022 that an international mining company was entering our villages in Uganda to displace and destroy ROWAN plus up to 2 million lives. 2 million. I became numb to the world around me. I remember getting in my car, driving in circles, and crying out, “WHY LORD? This feels too hard. I don’t know what to do.” I didn’t hear anything audible, but I was reminded yet again of His promise. He not only loved me, but He loved the people in Uganda more than I ever could, and He never fails them. I took a deep breath, and muttered, “Ok Jesus. I am all in. Show us what to do.” And as darkness tried to create despair yet again, Jesus was right there. He spoke to me 30 years ago so He would be glorified and do miraculous works through His children today.
Friends, leaning on His promises is not just a far-off concept for me; they carry me through my days and quiet the lies that masquerade in my mind. His promises to you are binding; a forever abiding covenant that can never be broken. Our relationship begins with His promises, and all He asks of us is to trust His promises are true. May 2024 begin and end in His promises.
(photo from Ionic Rare Earth, which got approved to begin plants like this across our villages)
As of today, Ionic Rare Earth has received approval of the Surface Rights agreement with the Uganda Government. This agreement must be understood and signed by the land owner. This document, once signed, allows the mining company to have access to the land for mining purposes. The owner has no future rights of that land. All ownership is relinquished once it is signed. What are they Actually agreeing to?
ROWAN is working with our legal team to execute a comprehensive empowerment plan that will educate all the people on their land rights, what all is included in the Surface Rights Agreement, and empower them to make their best decisions as their representatives. This will include face to face weekly meetings from now through December, radio talk shows, involving high level leaders in government with the people, and ensuring every person knows their rights as land owners.
ROWAN is purposefully not getting loud and active outside Uganda, because we know and believe that the strongest voice in this fight is the voice of the people. We give everything we can to empower them to speak up for their lives, land and freedom.
Will it be easy? Absolutely not.
Do we know the outcome will be best for our people? No we don’t.
Will we have to be displaced and lose all of our land? We don’t know.
But what we DO know, is that God is with us. And He is going to protect His people. And we as an organization Dare to Hope that our God is able. Standing with ROWAN is standing with every widow, no matter what, until the end.
What do we need? Join our prayer team. Email info@loverowan.com and ask to be added to prayer team. Weekly emails sent out on how to best pray for this threat.
Every Single widow and orphan we serve has a sponsor!
Its how we get kids in school and make sure they’ve had enough to eat and be able to learn.
It’s how we empower widows out of poverty, by giving them a hand up as they learn a trade or open a business with teaching, support and guidance from our entrepreneurship program.
It’s how we are able to respond quickly in emergencies, whether those are medical, home-related, or anything else.
This summer, we asked you- our community of supporters and prayer warriors- to consider supporting an orphan or widow through monthly sponsorship. We are blown away by the love and support we’ve received to reach our goal, and now…
Every Single Widow and Orphan We Serve has a Sponsor! Pray with us as our staff work on growing our sponsorship program!
She passed away last month in her home town of Nakafunyu Village, located in the Bugiri District of Eastern Uganda.
At the time of her passing, she had two loving sponsors who supported her all the way to the end.
Although heart failure was the immediate cause of her death, the long term cause was her battle with HIV/Aids.
ROWAN was able to supply her with anti-retroviral treatment (the standard for HIV treatment), and we were heartbroken to find out she had become terminally ill. She received excellent palliative care in the days leading up to her last breath. The medical workers had done their best in managing her condition although their efforts ended in vain. Ajuma passed away in her family home, surrounded by loved ones: 5 adult children (2 girls and 3 boys).
They were devastated to lose their mother, an incredible woman and huge part of our community. Uganda-based ROWAN staff said,
“Ajuma will be remembered as a faithful woman who loved the Lord. She should be an inspiration and legacy for those whom she loved and related with.”
Her funeral was filled with friends, family, mourners, and ROWAN staff who contributed to the food to share with everyone as they poured out their memories, tears, and stories.
As we at ROWAN mourn the loss of our dear friend and jajja (grandma), we celebrate the time we had with her. It was a joy to help her through her medical needs and spreading hope in the name of Jesus! Thank you especially to Ajuma’s sponsors, for your love and support for her. You loved her tangibly on the ground, providing real care and support. You have been so committed and she was thankful for you every day.
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