New Decade, New Season

It’s a new year and we feel like new people. January marks 6 months since we landed in Jinja and almost a year since we started this transition from South Africa to Uganda. 2019 was challenging, taxing, and at times overwhelming just to be honest. Our God proved his faithfulness over and over to us! With the start of the new year we feel fresh, empowered, and full of vision and passion for what the Lord wants to do with us and in us here in Uganda this year!

January marks the start of dry season. The first two weeks of the year were very dry and DUSTY, but then last week it rained on an off every day last week, so who knows. I am starting to see why most Ugandans never look at the weather report. They just take it as it is and go on about life.

I love physical fitness, Lara loves community, and this is why group boot camp style classes work so well for us. Four years ago we were working out with a group at Carolina Sweat in Charlotte that changed our lives. We then carried that momentum to South Africa and now we are continuing it here in Jinja. Lara and I wanted to build a gym here at our home to help us, as well as benefit those in our community. There are many stresses with living and working overseas and we believe that this will help all of us become healthier, together. We have a class of 15 that is meeting at 9am Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and soon we will be starting a 6:30am class. We really believe that when you grow in physical freedom you will grow in spiritual, emotional, and mental freedom as well. #JinjaSweat

In January we kicked off our Thursday clinics in the village by visiting some places that we have been to before and worked in regularly last year. What we found was success! Most of the communities had remarkable improvements in the number of jiggers we actually removed. We went back this last week to the very first village our family visited back in May and we saw almost no jiggers! No child should ever have to deal with something as painful and embarrassing as jiggers and with good hygiene, education, and a pair of shoes they don’t have too. This is why we simply…Wash Feet, Love People, and Share Hope!

Our staff bible study is still one of the most meaningful times of our week. As a group we decided to meet out by the river to make it accessible for more people attend. I love being right by the water talking about the bible. Everyone else seems to feel more open and comfortable too. Instead of 1 or 2 of us doing all of the sharing we have had 5 guys step up to pray, read the bible story of the week (we are going through the book of John), and discuss. This past week I didn’t lead any of it!!! I am very encouraged to see the excitement around the bible and the interest in sharing our challenges together (this isn’t a natural thing to do in Ugandan culture). I believe that God is going to use this group of shoes makers and tailors to influence the entire staff in a super positive way at Sole Hope!

As you know we have been really looking and praying for a tough 4×4 vehicle. We believe that God has answered and we bought an old safari Toyota Landcruiser VX. It is older and needs some work done on it, but we are hopeful that it will be just what we need.

Reliable and dependable vehicles is one of the biggest challenges of Uganda. The back tire of one of our main vehicles at Sole Hope flew off twice in one day last week.

This is our new car that we are praying will be awesome!

Ways to be praying for us this month:

Protection…physical, spiritual, and over our relationships
Increased favor with our staff and those in our community.
Strong community of friends and encouragers in our lives
Sole Hope: Financial Partners, leadership, and direction
New Car: reliable, good running, strong, and carefree
For Jinja Sweat: healthy bodies and community
Increased vision and passion for the work God is calling us to here

Praises!

We found a car!
A couple new personal financial partners this month!
The Lord is continuing to protected us from Malaria!
Sole Hope is seeing life changing results in the villages!
We really sense a community of friends is growing around us!

How can you partner with us:

Pray Pray Pray
Have your church partner with us and Sole Hope through hands on events like shoe cutting parties and more. Sole Hope, Get Involved
Come visit us! or Bring a team to visit and experience Sole Hope and Uganda
Share with others. We would love for others to have the opportunity to be a part of this mission and Sole Hope www.rousehouse.org
Be generous. We regularly need new monthly givers Give Monthly
Give a special gift ($20-$2,000) to support the work here in Uganda Special gift