Meet Silvester Egondi

 

Sylvester Egondi ~ By Dennis Wandera

A two hours drive from Bugiri town to the south west into Lunyo village ushers you to Sylvester Egondi’s home, one of the children sponsored under Beyond Uganda’s “Not Forgotten” program. The trip is punctuated by jarring roads. The sight of tall green stalks of elephant grass on either sides greets you as you snake through the jungle. The two-rut road with serrated bumps where we drove seemed like an interstate highway, no car had ever driven here for decades. Most of the kids in this village had never seen a car either. In most places, they scampered into the bush as the brave ones chased after a cloud of dust forming into a blue sky overhead. As the sun kissed the western horizons, light is overcome by darkness which engulfs the area as every household retreats to their grass thatched huts, no electricity here so lanterns substitute the light bulbs. A few hours into the dusk, voices in homes dim into bed leaving the sound of crickets around the surrounding jungle only. Such paints a typical community in which Sylvester and many other kids are struggling to raise their heads to reach their God given potential.

Born in a typical African traditional polygamous family of two wives and eleven children, before Sylvester was grown up to separate right from wrong, his mum divorced leaving him under hardship that had a toll on his childhood. He remembers times when his family survived on a single meal per day, when he fell sick and his dad couldn’t afford tablets because of a state of poverty they lived in. His dad brings home an average of two dollars a day as monthly income from crop harvest which he has to spend to sustain his towering family. Children in Sylvester’s community who face similar conditions are usually left with no choice but to ride motocyles to make a living, or at worst marry, as education turns into a luxury to them.

Sylvester says he would burn charcoal as a little boy to sell and buy books and pens to school. Life was meaningless to me, he says, with no role models to look up to in my family and surroundings. I contemplated giving up but the urge to press on for the sake of my dream often overcame the spirit of discouragement. I longed to see God bring me into the hallway of my dreams someday. That’s what poverty and its effect does to a child. There’s a silent whisper in their spirits, “give up” see your grand parents, parents and siblings never amounted to anything, you won’t make it either! Consequently the fainthearted throw in a towel for their hopes and their dreams are forever shattered. With lost dreams goes the potential and ultimate impact that a child might have had.

When children live in a nurturing, safe environment surrounded by family, friends, and a supportive community of people who love them, believe in them, and affirm their lives, they dare to dream of possibilities in life. That’s what changed of Sylvester when he joined BU program. From the support of his sponsors, he has been able to go back to school where his academic prowess has been felt. In the just released national exam results, Sylvester’s star shone when he emerged second best candidate in his school to book a place in high school…that’s what happens to children when we choose to believe in them. They’re more than we think they are; they can do more than we think they can do. All they need is a vote of confidence from grownups, and their dreams today will become realities of tomorrow.

His top performance, he says, was motivated by the desire to excel at everything he does. “My hopes have been rejuvenated and my family and society see a lot of values and respect in me. This gives me a hunger to embrace every opportunity and do my best at it.” He says. Sylvester’s current academic credentials aren’t so much to count going by Ugandan education standards, but even with his primary school paper alone, he’s highly respected and valued in his family and clan circles. As his dad, Wilson Egondi puts it; Sylvester is the family and clan flag bearer. He’s the most highly educated person that his clan of over 300 clansmen can ever front if asked to. “Sylvester has turned into the most trusted of my children with high integrity. I now look at him as my heir” Wilson says, with a beaming smile.

The family and clan icon says his life’s transformation journey of changing his family tree has just begun. He’s leaving no stone unturned until he achieves his dream of becoming a pilot. “My heart burns with ambition to fly a plane someday” he says. But what does it mean for a child raised under poverty in one of the remotest areas of Uganda where they hardly see even a car to dare dream of flying a plane! To Sylvester, when God gives you a dream, He’s already laid conditions necessary a head of you to propel you to see you it come to fruition. Abraham did not wait to see the entire world to believe he would become the father of nations. No, he just believed and it came to pass. God was working behind the scenes for his sake. That’s the spirit of faith that Sylvester is riding on to the cockpit.

Sylvester’s dream got a boost in May 2014 when BU organised a children’s tour of Kampala, the nation’s capital and Entebbe International Airport. This was an icing on the cake for his vision, “I saw myself closer to my dream. It was an awesome experience to see a plane take off and land” Sylvester talks of his first time experience to come face-to-face with an airplane. Tipped on plans underway to get him to the States to further his education and undergo a better training towards his goal than he would receive in Uganda, Sylvester is all smiles, akin to a new dawn of hope in his life. “I’ve never doubted that God embedded a lot of innate potential in me, I can hardly wait for the opportunity to come, and when the stage is set, I want to prove to the world that a child can be born under poverty but isn’t an indication that they would never amount to anything”

To Sylvester’s sponsors and funders, he’s indebted and humbled that God has chosen and set him a part from a multitude. He pledges total commitment to God, and a great return to his family, community and nation of Uganda.

MEET MKWANO PETER!!! ~ By Dennis Wandera

Peter Mukwano

Peter  Mukwano, even as the name “Mukwano” meaning “Love/Friend” depicts, is the perfect assertion of Beyond Uganda’s “Not Forgotten” program. His has been a journey punctuated with lots of difficulties, abuse and ridicule from the society around him. Born and named Ian Karim 14 years ago to a Muslim family, he came into the world deaf and dumb and only grown up using self made sign languages. Peter Mukwano as he was later to be renamed after joining BU was to show him that despite the circumstances of his life, he was still loved and there was still a lot of untapped potential in him waiting to be launched someday.

All it takes is a single unkind word, an isolated act of cruelty or abuse to destroy a life! The reality that children are the sacrificial lambs when our homes break up through neglect, anger, hostility and eventually divorce, resonates well with Peter’s past. You can duplicate someone’s idea but never to their life story. Each one of us walks a unique journey, only designed by God and for Peter; his has been full of agony. His mother dropped out of school and eventually left home a teenage girl for Malaba town at the border of Uganda and Kenya to engage in prostitution. It was under this act of sex trade that Peter was born. Given the circumstances under which his mother conceived, neither Peter nor his mum has ever seen his “dad.” Caught in the cobweb of nurturing her baby alone and engaging in the illicit sex trade, Peter’s mum dumped him at his grandmother’s house when he was only two years and she disappeared into Kenya.

With Peter’s speech condition, it was hard for his granny to communicate with him. Circumstances even worsened when she lost her husband a few years after Peter had moved into her house. She had to fend for her children and still take care of Peter amidst biting poverty in their household. Madinah Bwerere remembers a time when she couldn’t afford house rent; her landlord displaced her with her children and ended up at their neighbor’s house. At this time, Peter was grown and he started following her to the mosque. He was introduced to the muslim leaders who started teaching him Islam.

“When Peter wasn’t in the mosque, he would wander around the streets of Bugiri since his dumb condition couldn’t allow him to be in school. People around town called him all sorts of abusive names. They knew he was wasted and couldn’t amount to anything” explains Madinah.

Peter’s uncle recollects a time when his nephew would follow strangers. He disappeared from home for a week and threw the family into panic thinking he had been abducted and taken for child sacrifice! A search was mounted and radio announcements placed which led the family to Tororo town, 35 miles away from Bugiri. Peter was found on the streets eating from garbage and spending nights under the cold in a taxi park!“When he returned home, we contemplated tying him on the rope to contain him from wandering around” Peter’s uncle explained, referring to him as “a boy who was a burden” to the family.

As fate would have it, one day Peter was passing around BU office. He saw children having a meal and he drew closer. One kid offered to share with him a plate of rice and beans. This was perhaps the best meal Peter had had in the recent past. He kept coming to office everyday. Like Jesus who had mercy on a blind man and restored his sight, this was the beginning of a new dawn in Peter’s life and situation. His condition compelled the BU staff to register him in the “Not Forgotten” program. “We saw his condition and realized such are the reasons why God called us into BU…to breath life into the lifeless and love what the world has forsaken” said the BU director, Konah Wafula. Deep down into those who’re hearted heart, languishing in the slums, whose future and hopes are still bound by the chains of poverty, are the very ones that God has called us to believe in and show them that they still matter in His kingdom because…They aren’t forgotten!

Through the support of his BU sponsors, Peter has been awaken to a world of “disability is not inability.” The 14 year has denounced his former muslim religion and now pursues school at Barclays School for special needs. Peter disproved the world that children under his circumstances aren’t productive. In just one year in school, he has risen to top his class in the previous exams. When his mother heard of such positive reports that a “well wisher” had taken her son to school that she had abandoned at two years, she came home for the first time in twelve years to visit Peter and his grandmother.

With the help of his uncle to conduct this interview in sign language interpretation, Peter says he wants to acquire a hands-on skill in future and help to train other dumb children in his community for he better understands what they go through and the scorn the world pours on them.  Gesturing in signs, Peter touches his chest, points into the air and smiles. Ideally to mean his female sponsors who live far away that he’s proud of.

But how does Peter’s muslim family feel about their son being part of BU? His grandma says that it’s a clear line that what her grandson is gaining from the BU program is priceless! “We can’t and shall never stop him” Madinah says adding that Peter has found very resourceful friends in BU who keep him engaged. If he’s not at office attending children’s programs, he stays at home and helps her with home chores. Now Madinah hopes to join the BU women entrepreneurial program…One child despite the circumstances of his life, is not only reuniting his mother and grandmother but also influencing his muslim grandma to attend women weekly Bible classes at office.

MEET AKOTH JENIFER – By Dennis Wandera

Jennifer Akoth – By Dennis Wandera

It’s hard to talk about Beyond Uganda (BU) ministry without mentioning Jennifer Akoth’s name along the way. She’s the spark to which the candle of ministering and transforming children’s lives and widows in a small town of Bugiri, Eastern Uganda was lit three years ago. Every child you encounter is a ‘divine appointment.’ With each one of them, you’ve the opportunity to build them up or break them. It all begins with the very next child God brings your path. Jennifer, often referred   had a divine encounter with a missionary group from Heartland Worship Center in Paducah, Kentucky, US that was visiting her village in Tororo, eastern Uganda.
“I was digging in the garden along the highway and saw a group of [Mzungu] white missionaries going to a nearby church. I left my hoe and followed them because this was unusual to see white people in my village” Jennifer reminisces with nostalgia. I didn’t know how to speak English, but there was a young lady whom I learned was called Hunter who kept asking me several questions about my home. I was so terrified because of my low esteem. Hunter offered to pray for me and her mum gave me shoes, clothes and a book. “This was my first pair of shoes at 14 years. All my life I had been walking bear foot”.
This encounter would later breath into Jennifer’s life fresh dreams and restored her self esteem. Days later, news ripped through Jennifer’s family that one of the missionaries who was in her village had offered to take their daughter to a better school and pay her tuition. “It was such great news!” she says. It seemed as though life in our family was starting anew. I was asked to look for a school of my choice but I was too naïve and even my parents in their illiterate state, didn’t know anything beyond our village.
The 16 year old remembers her childhood as very “tragic.” She grew up as a “sit-alone-girl” often crying all the time in a state of hopelessness. With no memories of a decent meal and accommodation, Jennifer reminisces how her entire family had one meal of porridge and cassava a day and shared a mud hut as their main house. The only thing she ever slept on was a mat, and her family’s only possession was an old bicycle. In Africa, especially Jennifer’s community, girl-child education isn’t so much cherished. Often when the family tuition budget becomes stiff, it’s usually the girls who drop out of school to give boys a priority. And Jennifer was no exceptional! As she explains, her early school days were marred by missing classes due to the poverty-stricken family she hailed from that could not afford tuition.
“I remember being sent away from school due to a 2,600 shillings (1 dollar) tuition debt. My mother had to go and dig on a neighbor’s farm to get me the money” Jennifer speaks of her school turbulent days amidst sobs. Raised by peasant parents with seven siblings, Jennifer’s family lives in a typically remote village with dirt roads, no electricity and running water. Her home sits on a bare and dusty compound on quarter an acre of land which can’t sustain her big family for agriculture. They depend on subsistence farming on the small piece of land. She explains that because of a towering population in her village, natural resources like land have become so scarce!
With the support of her sponsors through BU, Jennifer says her hopes have been rejuvenated. She now goes to school without worrying about tuition, her esteem has been restored, and she’s encountered Christ as her Lord and Savior and now a tower of hope in her family and community. It took the obedience of Jennifer’s sponsors to invest in her and transform her life for a potential that was but a dream. Their small pebble in the pond of Jennifer’s life has sent out ripples that have transformed her family, and possibly her community. We never stand so tall as when we stoop to help a child, for in them, lies a multiplication effect and that’s what’s being witnessed of Jennifer with her family and community.
Despite the challenges that life has thrown at her, Jennifer still keeps her hopes very high. As she explains, her past struggles have shaped her into the young lady she’s becoming. “I consider it all joy!” Jennifer says as she bows her head for a minute gazing into the horrible past. I would not be in position to understand what it means for a child in my village to go for a day without a meal, to walk to school without shoes, and at worst lose my soul without knowing Christ! With the support of her sponsors through BU, Jennifer has been given a chance to dream again. She hopes that someday she would study to become a nurse and support her community which doesn’t have a health center. She hopes to use the nursing profession to influence her community and nation. Listen to her heart…
“I believe that an empowered lady is an empowered society. I want to be a nurse some day and invest in my own people because there’re few nurses in my community and nation who serve patients with respect and dignity”
Jennifer is disappointed that her family and community walk ten miles on bumpy roads to access the nearest health center. She hopes to “fix” this someday by extending a clinic nearer to her people. The now senior two student of Iganga Progressive High School is determined to set the pace for her siblings by raising the academic bar high.
Her mother Luisa Amollo, describes Jennifer as the “pride of her home and village.” Jennifer has become a source of reference to other young girls. She carries her self with respect unlike in the past when life had no meaning to her. Luisa talks of her daughter with a beaming face. We hope that someday she will add value; someday she will make a difference beyond our wildest imaginations.

Meet Dennis Wandera!

Dennis Wandera has a story that only God could have weaved. He was born in a small village in Eastern Uganda, one of five siblings. His father worked for the revenue authority and mom was a stay at home mom that worked the garden and made the meals. He says life was good in the early years, but at the age of 3, Dennis’ father died and all that changed. In this culture, the widow is often challenged for property after the death of a husband and so was Dennis’ mother. She fought to keep their small home and property to keep her children together. Dennis explains how hard his mother worked to keep them fed even when she had to go without food and 1 meal a day for the rest of them was a treat. He eventually made it to primary school age and it was there that he found himself working hard to be good at school work because that was something in his control. Dennis didn’t really even know how well he was doing but God had someone watching and at age 7 he was chosen, among others, for a global sponsorship program. This meant that he would be supported in school fees, school supplies and uniform to attend school all the way through secondary school (high school). He was not going to give up on this opportunity and worked hard to be head of the class. During those times, Dennis recalls getting a school uniform and very first pair of shoes. This was the nicest clothes he had ever had and still only had one pair. School in Uganda is boarding school but Dennis’ mother didn’t have enough money to ever come visit. But after high school, Dennis applied, went through very rigorous interviews and was finally accepted into the leadership program that would take him to the  university. It was at his commissioning to go off to college that the organization helped pay the transport fees for his mother to come see him and his mother realized the hand of God on her son and her family and she gave her life to Christ.

Dennis went on to graduate university with a degree in Photo Journalism (I would later find out that it was because of the simple words from an aging woman that sponsored him) that her nephew was in photo journalism and she was proud that moved Dennis to pick this degree. What power simple words have! An education, a degree and passion but in a country with little opportunity this sometimes isn’t enough….or doesn’t seem like enough. You see, God sometimes takes us where He needs us and other times keeps us where He needs us. Dennis was volunteering on a local mission trip to his region with some “Mzungu” people that were coming and this is where our paths first cross. Since then, God has used Dennis to help raise money, raise awareness, educate us, learn from us and help his own people through the opportunities and ministries that God has grown. And more recently, Dennis was able to come to the U.S. to better understand the people he is working with in Uganda and help tell his story here. He shared that he never imagined being in the United States but God has no boundaries. Dennis was able to do so many amazing things here that he has been able to take back and share with people in his own country. Here are just a few of the great pictures.

I share Dennis’ story first because he now works for Beyond Uganda and is using that photo journalism degree to change lives. His job is to travel to the different villages and interview the kids and women our programs, take the pictures of where they are and dream with them of where they want to be. This started out as a simple task to help people see beyond the faces of our children in the program and hear their stories and possibly be moved to do something to help change their story. But even with the very first interview, I knew Dennis was doing something more. He was sending back video, pictures and full length articles that were amazing and needed to be told. He mentioned he would like to have a blog but where he is the internet is unreliable so this blog was born to post those articles here. I wanted you to see the face and know the story of the one telling all the other stories. Most of the articles will be from Dennis and will be noted as such. He came from much of the same backgrounds but he himself have been moved by these children. I, in turn, have read the stores and thought I knew the kids but realize I know nothing and am learning why God has called us to this region and why some of the struggles at home are so worth it. My hope is that these stories move your heart to do something. That may be sponsoring one of them, getting involved in some organization or simply getting involved at home. Change starts right where we are at, no effort is too small or too big. But the tragedy of life is doing nothing!

What’s Your Story???

  

This blog is being started from the many people we have had the honor to serve through the non profit organization, Beyond Uganda. Beyond Uganda has a story of it’s own started by a face with a huge heart but the story started long before that.  In 2011, the face of a young girl (Hunter Gurrola)  was seen for the first time in remote villages in Eastern Uganda. Hunter, my daughter, was there with almost our whole family to simply meet some of our sponsor children and take a family trip of a lifetime. What none of us knew was that God uses people to love and impact other people. This is just part of a large story…

I am a mother to four children, 3 girls and a boy. It has been amazing to see God use every one of them and even use every one of them to impact their mama and daddy and mold our family into a family that puts God first. Lexi and Hunter are in the pictures above and they always seemed to be close, well in between the sibling rivalry kinda close. All the kids went on mission trips early in life because my husband and I thought it was good for them to see what others do not have and maybe that would help these little people appreciate what they did have. And I truly believe it has helped mold each of them have a greater appreciation for life but Lexi seemed to absorb what she saw even deeper. She specifically was hooked on mission trips almost immediately and spent up to a month at a time in Poland, Germany and Botswana. It was Botswana that seemed to really change her on her return. By then she was a freshman in highschool and seemed to be very distraught with the petty things of teenagers here when there were people dying on the other side of the world. At the time, I had not been on a mission trip because I was busy raising very young kids and fundraising to allow them to do these things. I think it was frustrating for a child with so much vision and passion to have parents with a limited perspective that couldn’t help find an outlet for her. But Lexi helped remind our family on little things to check our spending and behavior and how to help others in so many little ways it would take pages and pages to tell you. But the depth of her understanding didn’t hit me until she was applying for colleges and I read a paper that said, “So many people just listen to the news but for me it was different, I saw the faces and the individuals and the stories behind the horrible headlines and my heart would break”. This was Lexi, she didn’t see a bombing of 300 people as a horrible current event, she saw 300 individual lives(and the ripple effect of each one of those). The name of this blog is a tribute to her impact of instilling that into our family…to look behind the face and see the real person and the condition of their heart.

I tell you all of Lexi’s story because I believe it was years of her prayers and influence that set up her sister’s heart to be touched on our very first family mission trip. Hunter had always been the quieter and more reserved child and things were no different on this mission trip. She said before the trip that she was nervous because children hated her. You wouldn’t have known that by the hundreds of little African children following and climbing all over her. It was one team meeting that Hunter spoke up (to the shock of us all) and said she thought we needed to do something Beyond Uganda and hence the idea and name was born.  Hunter’s heart was touched by the poverty she saw and the people she met and it was her passion and simple “raw” response to what she saw that moved this mother to help foster that once we got home. She went on to collect several hundred pairs of shoes, clothing and money that led to education for children and so much more. Both the girls are not involved today in the daily operation of the ministry but it was their faces that helped start it and their hearts that have impacted the foundation of it. Their older sister, who was not on that initial trip, is hands on and involved in the ministry in so many ways today. (Her story to come) Hunter once said that it “just got bigger than what I wanted”. Isn’t that the way God always works. He uses us for a season and through that uses it to change others and more importantly to change ourselves, if we let him.

Today these two beautiful faces have moved on to college, marriage and new adventures that God is using them for but their stories, in this short chapter, are just 2 to lay the ground work for the many to follow. Through this ministry, Beyond Uganda, we have been honored to serve people both in the U.S. and Uganda and even beyond that. We have met incredible people and realized that every face really does hold a heart and a story behind it that deserves to be told. So this blog serves as a platform for those that have no voice but have something to say. We will post the pictures and stories of those we have the opportunity to meet and give you the opportunity to do something with it. Please feel free to share your stories with us to post on here as well and learn from each other.

Thank you to my kids (all of you) for teaching me, growing me, calling me out, and encouraging me to be the best I can be and to always follow Christ no matter what the cost. I love you all!