We are nearing the end of October and, here in the US, that means one thing – the holiday season is fast approaching. We at ROWAN have been busy putting things together for this year’s Christmas campaign, and we can’t wait to share it with you over the week of Thanksgiving!
Your generous donations during our annual Christmas campaigns have made a difference in the lives of so many. When Uganda shuttered schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your contributions to our 2019 campaign – Education Opens Doors, allowed Rowan to continue our children’s educations through the learning center. And when Uganda went under lockdown due to the pandemic, ROWAN was able to get much-needed food and supplies to our members with the bus your donations funded during last year’s Christmas campaign.
With the lockdown in Uganda in effect through the end of January, this Christmas will look a little different for our ROWAN members. While they may not be able to gather together to celebrate, we are hoping that with your help, we will be able to deliver baskets of joy to each of them.
We at ROWAN believe hope, faith, and love can prevail – even in chaotic times. Helen Keller once said, “Alone, we can do so little; together we can do so much.” We are so grateful for the love shown by our sponsors and supporters. It is because of you that we have had the privilege of witnessing the power of love in action – a truly wonderous sight to behold.
In Wednesday’s blog post, we featured two caregivers (Katherine Nabirye and Badiri Mukose) in need of sponsorship. Today we are turning the spotlight on two of ROWAN’s sweet primary children who are waiting for their sponsors.
Elisa Mugoya is a little boy with a big heart. He is one of 8 siblings! Elisa dreams of one day becoming a police officer so that he “can help keep people safe.” With your help, we can support Elisa as he grows up and works toward accomplishing that dream.
Wahabu Kafero is one of two siblings who live with their mother. He is a kind little boy who dreams of becoming a lawyer one day to help “protect and defend” others. Wahabu knows that this dream will require a lot of work, but he’s willing and ready to put the work in to make his dream a reality. By sponsoring Wahabu today, you are showing this determined little boy that he won’t be alone on the journey toward his goal.
A ROWAN sponsorship costs as little as $38 a month. Your sponsorship dollars help ROWAN cover the cost of:
Medical Care
Education and Literacy costs
Business training
Nutritious meals
In addition to meeting the physical needs of our ROWAN members, sponsorship builds relationships. Once you sponsor a ROWAN member, you can write to the individual you sponsored – and have them write back. You become a treasured part of their lives, and they will quickly become a precious part of yours.
To sponsor Elisa or Wahabu, simply click on their names anywhere in this post to be taken to their individual sponsorship pages.
When you sponsor a ROWAN member, you are changing lives and lifting hearts. We are so grateful for each of our ROWAN sponsors! Your generosity helps ROWAN stand in the gap for our members, and we couldn’t do that without you.
This week we will be spotlighting a few of our ROWAN members in need of sponsorship. Today we are shining the light on Katherine Nabirye and Badiri Mukose – two of ROWAN’s incredible caregivers. The caregivers that ROWAN serves genuinely understand the scriptural passage found in Matthew 25:40, which teaches, “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Katherine Nabirye is a woman who knows the meaning of christ-like service. She takes in orphans and lovingly raises them until they are old enough to be independent. She serves those in her community selflessly and without hesitation. Katherine is love in action, and she has touched the hearts of many in the ROWAN family.
While raising his ten children, Badiri Mukose has also taken in his nieces and nephews, who lost both of their parents to HIV/AIDS. Badiri is a peasant farmer by trade with a full house and a full plate, but he doesn’t allow the stresses of daily life to stop him from being there for those who need him. He is a man with a huge heart who shows, by example, the power of choosing love.
We would love to see both Katherine and Badiri get fully sponsored this week! Will you help us meet that goal? Together, we can show Katherine and Badiri that they are not alone on their journey as caregivers.
If you are interested in sponsoring Katherine or Badiri, please click here to be taken to ROWAN’s sponsorship page or click on either of their names anywhere in this post to be taken directly to their individual sponsorship pages. Thank you for standing with us in the gap!
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” – Oscar Wilde
Happy first day of Autumn! Crisp mornings, colorful leaves, and pumpkins on porches – all sure signs that Fall has arrived. What better way to celebrate the arrival of a new season than by making a purchase that helps lift someone else? The new ROWAN merchandise gives you a chance to do just that. All proceeds from our Fall merchandise go to feeding our ROWAN families during the continuing COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda.
To see all of the merchandise available or to make a purchase, click the link below:
https://www.bonfire.com/store/rowan-store
If you are interested in learning more about the situation in Uganda, click here. Please continue to pray for the people of Uganda and our ROWAN families, and if you can, please consider purchasing a shirt or a mug to help keep food on the tables of our Ugandan families.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” – Proverbs 3: 5-6
Recently pastor Paul said, “The world is in total confusion, but Uganda is confused more.” Like so many places in the world right now, there is a lot of uncertainty in Uganda right now. People are not sure where to turn or what to do. Children long to be back in school and their caregivers don’t have any clear answers as to when that will happen. The Ugandan government is saying that schools are reopening and is now demanding school fees be paid in order for children to return to in-person learning, but there is a general feeling of mistrust surrounding this. Ugandans are worried that they will pay these fees and then schools will close once again. For many these fees take up a large amount of their income, ROWAN would have to pay $6,000 (USD) in fees to have all of its children return to school right now.
Pastor Paul is meeting with ROWAN staff to brainstorm ways in which the Learning Center can be used for help in continuing the education of ROWAN’s children. You may remember that thanks to last year’s Christmas campaign, we were able to purchase an educational curriculum and now have a staff of 4 teachers in our Learning Center. So, thanks to the generosity of so many of you, our ROWAN children will have access to education during this time of uncertainty.
As Pastor Paul says, “Gratitude is our foundation. COVID has pushed ROWAN outside of its walls, outside of its programs. What does ROWAN look like when we are outside our walls? We rely on God’s daily bread for our direction, inspiration, and provision. Our courage is expressed in surrender.”
We at ROWAN have so much to be grateful for – even in these uncertain times. We have not had a single member of the Ugandan ROWAN community test positive for COVID. We have supporters whose generosity and kindness have allowed us to meet the needs of our members throughout this pandemic. We have been on the receiving end of miracles and had so many answered prayers during this season of hardship. And we have seen the power of love in action. God is great. Prayers are heard. Hope is real.
“Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to spread, people worldwide facing floods, famines, and political unrest, the world can feel very heavy. But we at ROWAN think there is also a tremendous amount of good in the world, and we are choosing to look for and see hope. We believe now is the time to gather together and to pray. To this end, we put together a prayer prompt campaign for September. Each day this month, we will be sharing a scripture and prayer prompt, and we would love to have you join us in prayer.
We have seen the power of prayer in action, and it is a beautiful sight to behold. Just this week, ROWAN’s co-founder, Kelsey, had a powerful experience with prayer. During a conversation with Pastor Paul, he shared a need for funds for tires, land titles, and other backend costs for the ROWAN land in Uganda. These needs totaled up to $2000 (USD). These items weren’t in the budget, but they were necessary, so Kelsey sent the money to cover them, and then she prayed. In relating this experience, Kelsey said, “I remember praying out loud and saying, ‘Lord, I just trust you, and I pray that you somehow bring this money in today’.” and then she went about her day. While running errands, Kelsey ran into a woman she hadn’t seen in a while. As they were talking, this woman asked Kelsey about ROWAN, and after hearing about some of the struggles our Ugandan members were facing, she said, “I’ll just cut you a check right now.” This kind and generous woman then wrote a check to ROWAN for the exact amount needed to cover the expenses Kelsey had prayed about that morning.
What an incredible example of the power of prayer and of the way God provides exactly what is needed!
We would love to have you join us this month as we pray. Our prayer prompts are shared daily on ROWAN’s social media stories or, if you prefer to see a week’s worth at a time, we share them weekly via a post on our social media accounts. We are grateful for all of those who pray with us and know, as Mark Batterson says, “Prayer is the difference between the best we can do and the best God can do.”
Do you remember Ibrahim from the post we did last April? He is one of 16 siblings who were taken in by their grandparents after their father’s passing. Before his passing, Ibrahim’s father had started work on a home for the family, and it was Ibrahim’s dream to be able to finish what his father started.
With the help of his sponsor and other supporters, ROWAN was able to build a new home for Ibrahim and his family! What a beautiful and joy-filled day it was when Ibrahim and his siblings saw their finished home!
Despite all that Ibrahim has been through, he continues to carry a spirit of gratitude and love. In speaking of his sponsor, Ibrahim recently wrote, “Dear my beloved sweet sponsor it is my joy and happiness to extend my sincere gratitude of appreciation for the love and care that you have shown me ever since you chose me for sponsorship, indeed l want to express my inner happiness and feelings towards the golden gift of a house that you have managed to construct for me and my family, may the almighty God bless you so, so, so much.“
It only takes $3300 (USD) to build one of these homes, and we are hoping to build more homes for our ROWAN families. With your help, we can do just that. If you are interested in donating to our next house-building project, please click here.
Thank you to all of those who helped us make Ibrahim’s dream a reality. Your sponsorship and donations left a lasting impact on the lives and hearts of Ibrahim and his family.
Last Thursday, August 19th, the 2021 Uganda Unite Summit was hosted via Zoom by Kelsey Hargadine and ROWAN. We had representatives from 12 different organizations and over 40 participants in attendance. It was an incredible summit filled with inspiration, messages of hope, and information sharing between organizations.
We were fortunate to have Bob Goff as our keynote speaker for this year’s summit. Bob’s words of hope and encouragement were so inspiring!
Some of the messages that stuck out to those in attendance were:
“Don’t let setbacks stop you from doing something. Do what you can.”
“Don’t engage in every fight. Be picky about issues you want to take on. You don’t have to swing at every pitch.”
“We have to decide when something burns down in our life – when something goes wrong – not to let it distract us. Don’t give up. Remember why you’re doing what you’re doing. Finish your work. Never give up.”
“Know what you want. Why you want it. And what you’re going to do about it. Figure these out, and you’ll run your race.”
And my favorite:
“God just wants to surprise us. The story is not where we are the victim or that we are the hero. It’s that we are a participant. Show up – fallible as you are and bring everything you’ve got because this is something worth doing.”
So many nuggets of wisdom! It was such a wonderful and uplifting way to start this summit.
Following Bob’s remarks, two breakout sessions gave the participants a chance to share their organization’s work in Uganda and talk about the different challenges they are facing. So many insightful ideas were shared during these breakout sessions!
To close the summit, Kelsey Hargadine, Co-founder of ROWAN, discussed the impact the COVID-19 Pandemic has had on the people of Uganda. During this discussion, Kelsey shared that Pastor Paul, Rowan’s Co-founder, and his wife had been in the United States when the COVID-19 Pandemic began to impact the U.S. in mid-march of 2020. Their planned stay of a few weeks became a stay of nearly five months due to the travel bans that were put in place. These five months turned out to be a really special time. Pastor Paul and his wife were able to truly rest for the first time in their lives. Through that rest, creativity began to flow, and Pastor Paul and Kelsey were able to come up with new, creative solutions for ROWAN, its programs, and the people we serve.
When Pastor Paul and his wife finally returned home, they carried with them a new sense of calm. Recently, Pastor Paul was speaking with Kelsey and sharing with her some of the hardships, roadblocks, and issues that ROWAN and its members are facing during this second wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the subsequent lockdown when he paused and said, “But Kelsey, I have joy. I have never had this much time at home with my family. I am getting to know each of my children, and I love getting to know them. Yes, there is a lot going on around us, and there are so many hard things, but this family time has been so wonderful.”
Pastor Paul then asked Kelsey to share the following message at the Uganda Unite Summit:
“Tell them that COVID is a checkpoint for us. That this is an opportunity to take inventory of what you have and value the relationships and families that you have. COVID will come and go. But how will we look back at this time? Take it as an opportunity. An opportunity to spread hope.”
I love that.
“An opportunity to spread hope.” Or, as Bob Goff said it, “Faith expressed in love.”
Conflict, climate catastrophes, and the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed people in East Africa to a crisis-level food shortage. According to a report by World Vision, over 7.8 million people in the region are facing starvation, and an additional 26 million people in the region are living on the brink. The United Nations reports that over 12.8 million children in East Africa are severely malnourished.
Large-scale flooding and an inundation of desert locusts in late 2019 through 2020 caused crop devastation and led to a sharp economic downturn. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2021, it only exasperated the continuing food crisis with its lockdowns. Farmers could not tend to or harvest crops, and people living in urban areas in eastern Africa became stranded with limited food access.
According to an article written by Godfrey Olukya for AA News, members of the Uganda parliament have begun urging the government to move some of those living in urban areas back to their rural villages where they would have better access to food supplies. When questioned by AA News about the food crisis, Thomas Kapo Kigozi, a local leader in Uganda, said, “Many of us are either starving or on the verge of starvation. Police have blocked all roads to the city center. We are asking the government to provide us free transport to take us to our villages.”
ROWAN continues to work to help the people in our Uganda villages as they face this food crisis. Recently, Kelsey Hargadine, a founding member of ROWAN, held a birthday drive that raised close to $4000 for additional food supplies for our Ugandan members. And last week, Kremmling Community Church gave ROWAN a $5000 donation for much-need food supplies for our widows and orphans in Uganda. We are currently serving close to 400 families in our Ugandan villages, and these donations will allow us to give each family around $25 for the month. While $25 may not seem like a lot to some of us, it means a great deal to those who receive it.
We are so grateful for each of you who have donated to our food campaigns. In addition to helping provide much-needed food supplies for our Ugandan families, your donations are letting each of them know they matter and are loved.
ROWAN has been operating in Uganda since 2007. During that time, Kelsey Hargadine, the co-founder of ROWAN, has encountered many other organizations that work in Uganda but have a US base in Colorado. In 2015, Kelsey came up with the idea of starting a collaborative organization called Uganda Unite. The sole purpose of Uganda Unite is to help promote a sense of unity and togetherness across the Colorado organizations that work in Uganda. There are currently over 20 organizations that participate in Uganda Unite. While each of these organizations varies in terms of their work in Uganda, they are all united in their goal of trying to be of help to the Ugandan people.
Uganda Unite holds yearly summits that allow members of these organizations to share the successes and challenges of their work. In addition, these summits are a way to help encourage and inspire those who attend. The 2021 Uganda Unite summit is coming up in a few weeks and, after the year the world has faced, the organizers of the summit have worked hard to create a summit filled with hope and encouragement. The keynote speaker for this year is the always-inspiring, hope-building, best-selling author, Bob Goff.
Bob’s messages of love and hope are what we all need more of, and we can’t wait to hear the message he has prepared for the summit.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the people of Uganda. The organizations operating in Uganda have faced a year filled with setbacks and roadblocks as they try to help the people there, but they have not given up. They continue to choose the path of hope and love. They continue to show, through their actions, the power found in a collective sense of kindness and humanity.
We are looking forward to this year’s summit and the chance that it gives us to learn from and with our fellow Uganda Unite members!
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