A couple pretty great stories

In the midst of some sadness about leaving and how quickly my countdown for goodbyes is coming, this week we have had a few pretty great stories.

Wednesday, our social work team went to Kampala to present two domestic adoption cases to be assessed and hopefully approved. The cases involved two of our mamas who were interested in adopting two of our little boys, James and Josh. Both of these women are single moms of multiple children, but still had the desire to adopt a child with a disability. These women are rockstars!

Long story short, one of our cases passed, and the other one, due to some questions about living situations and income, did not. It was hard news for that case, but they are issues that we are able to work through with this mom, hopefully create a better budget with her and help her come up with a way to get a bigger place, and then be able to present it again. We have no doubts of the love that this mom has for Josh, and we want as much as she does to see him in a loving home and family.

But for Rosemary and James, we are ecstatic, as this adoption go approved! This is another home and forever family for an Ekisa kiddo, and we are so thrilled to see Ugandans step up to adopt these kids! This is a blessing and praise, and a good, last hoorah for my time here working with our social work team. We need to get a few more papers signed before James gets to go home with Rosemary, but hopefully it won’t take too long!

As for my other story, it’s about Ashraf – one of our community care kids. Back at the end of February, I believe, Ashraf and his mom came to live at Ekisa in our emergency housing due to a couple different issues. Ashraf was very malnourished, and his mom did not have a way to earn a steady income, so therefore was not able to adequately care for him. We wanted to bring them in to help him get healthy, as well as hopefully help his mom see him for the truly incredible child that he is.

They were at Ekisa for about a month, and they moved out several weeks ago, back to their home about 45 minutes from Jinja. I had asked Genesis, one of our Community Care workers, if I could go with her to visit him this past week so I could see him before I left. (I really fell in love with him when he was at Ekisa, and it was a bittersweet day when they left to go home. When I gave him a kiss and said goodbye, I told him I would come visit him and asked if that was alright, and his reply was “enkya” which means tomorrow. I told him I couldn’t the next day, but promised I would.) So on Thursday, Genesis and I went to see him. He was in the house alone, his brother was not far from the house, and he was so happy to see us. Almost too excited to manage to eat the biscuits and soda that we brought! They told us that their mom wasn’t around, that she was working but they didn’t know where. After some time, we left and I was a bit discouraged about him not being able to go to school, not knowing if the mom was really working to provide for them or just out of the house, and just wanting to do more for this precious little boy.

Yesterday several of us went gone to Kampala, and when driving back home Emily and I saw this jewelry store that we had wanted to stop at months ago, but they were closed. After passing the sign again, we decided to turn around and go check it out. When we pulled up, Mama Ashraf came running out to the car yelling “Auntie B, Auntie B, Ashraf told me you came.” She doesn’t speak great English, but she asked if we went to visit again and then came to find her? As shocked as she was, I said no, we were just wanting to look at the jewelry, but can you talk about a God-thing?! The day before I had been praying that his mom would have a job where she was able to provide for her kids, and that her time at Ekisa was impactful, and that she would be serious about her responsibilities as a mom. I wanted to cry seeing her there, and I wanted to buy just about everything in the store to support this ministry that gave her a job (check it out, they make beautiful jewelry and employ women that need help, just like Mama Ashraf – www.musanajewlery.org)

This may seem small, but it was the kind of encouragement that I needed as I prepare to leave. It’s not easy thinking about saying good-bye to so much of what I have fallen in love with here, but stories like this remind me how much God is in control, and how little I am in His story anyway. Right now, He’s calling me home to Virginia, and I trust that, knowing he has something pretty incredible planned.