Today most schools went on a one month break.  It was interesting that all the children in our program reported at St. Monica at different times.  As the students of St. Monica go home, we get the children of TOW for a day of two transiting via the Centre as they go home.  While for some like Innocent, Patrick, Joy and a few others,  St. Monica is their home.  Its great to see that St. Monica is a Centre for all.  I thank God because He keeps us busy.

The children who have been in Boarding Schools since the start of this year, because they could not study at home due to so many problems, look much happier.  The ones who have so much improved are the two sisters, Molly Katsaabe and her sister Juana Nakiwala.  These girls have a positive change just in 3 Months because TOW is giving them a future.

James Rubangakene is still trying his best and he has even maintained his 1st position in the new Jesuit Boarding school.  We need to keep encouraging these children when we can.  A word or two from Sponsors to their children will always give them more confidence and they will treasure it.  Lets keep a link and pray for one another and the children as we try to give them a better future through education.

The scholars from Pope Paul II, Negri College,  Gulu Central,  Ocer Champion Jesuit school and Restore Leadership  Academy are doing very well and getting very serious with their studies.  They are seen as leaders in the whole group and they are.  These are achievers and future leaders of Uganda.  May God bless everyone giving them support to reach this future.  TOW program is making a huge impact on many children in many ways.

Unfortunately, our Coordinator Brother Beda has been transferred to another mission and could not collect them as usual.  They were sad their Beloved Coordinator could not get them from their different Schools.  I personally felt there was a gap somewhere but had to face the adaptive challenge of change.

Well there is time for everything and Brother is a religious who must obey his Superior.  Before going away he had a lot of concern as to who would continue with his noble work with the children of Tree of Wisdom.  He loved his work and was well connected with the children and all the schools they were in.   I would like to greatly thank Brother Beda beda for his great sense of commitment and love.  He was a rare kind of person indeed.  We all enjoyed working with him.  We wish him well in his new appointment in Arua.

We are going to officially invite  Brother to come and  greet the children during the  long vacation in December in order to  say a proper BYEEEEEEE to him.  We shall miss him!

God sent us another good and humble Coordinator by name Oscar to replace Brother Beda.  Brother took some time to mentor Oscar quietly before he left.  Oscar has very few words compared to Brother but he is quite smart and very kind too.  I am sure he will do a good job as well.  Today I was so happy that all the children were collected by Oscar and he even found ways of sending some of them home just as Brother used to do.  He is already embracing his new work.

We warmly welcome Oscar as the new Coordinator replacing Brother Beda Beda.

Thanks to everyone for the great support given to the children in the program.

May God bless you all,

Sr. Rosemary

If you wish to contact your child by mail, please send correspondence to:

St. Monica’s Girls’ Tailoring Centre

c/o Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe/TOW

P.O. 669

Gulu, UGANDA

Sister Rosemary will be sure to get the items to your child.

All mail takes approximately 3 months to arrive.

Thank you for caring for your adopted child.

Great thanks to all of you who participated in the 2nd Annual Tree of Wisdom Appreciation Night.  It was a wonderful evening!  For those of you who couldn’t make it, click on the link below to see Sr. Rosemary’s presentation.

Sr. Rosemary’s Presentation

(click on link to view video in a separate window)

Second Annual Tree of Wisdom Appreciation Night

September 30, 2011

Refreshments and Social 6:30 pm

Presentation 7:00 pm

Holy Spirit Parish Hall

Avon Lake, OH

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Please join us for an evening of information on Tree of Wisdom.   Sr. Rosemary and Dr. Monique will be giving an update about the nearly 200 children who have been adopted, the feeding programs and the Wisdom Bead program.  Come and see how your generosity is touching the lives of so many needy women and children in Northern Uganda.

This is a great opportunity to sponsor a child or renew your current sponsorship!!

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Wisdom beads will be available in

new colors and styles!

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Come and bring a friend!

Happy Sunday in Atiak

Click link to watch!

Our final stop on our Tree of Wisdom tour across Northern Uganda was in Paidha, a small village in the west, just on the border of Congo.  What a beautiful part of the country!  On the 3 hour drive there (not so bumpy this time) we saw amazing animals as we approached the river Nile.  We saw many antelopes and birds and a whole pool of hippos.  The ones that stole the show though were the elephants.  They are huge and beautiful, 5 of them, just hanging out about 40 feet off the road.  They were flapping their ears and chewing on grass just enjoying the Ugandan sunshine.  Africa as you would imagine it from reading the pages of National Geographic!

Paidha is a quiet, beautiful village.  It is lush with coffee, bananas and avocados.  Last year they were without running water or electricity.  Since then a great group of people from the US called Pros for Africa came and dug a well in the village.  Such a simple thing that makes the fetching of water not nearly such a daunting task.  The water quality from the well is far better too.  How thankful they are for this new luxury!  Prior to this well, many people were taking water from a little muddy river that serves as the border between Congo and Uganda.

"The bridge to Congo"

Yes, we stepped across it without our passports and enjoyed a little afternoon walking tour of the jungles of Congo guided by 2 little 10 year old boys from the village.  What a great day.

The TOW party with the children was on Sunday.  I hate to sound like a broken record, but it was great!  There are 35 children in this group, so much less mayhem than in Atiak.  The  children are much younger on average–most ranging from 4-11 years. They were adorable and incredibly well behaved.  When we sat them down to draw pictures for their sponsors, they took their jobs very seriously.  Next came the singing and dancing– always the highlight.  They always sing about how grateful they are for their chance at an education, and sang individually about their plans for their future.  Even the youngest ones sang at the top of their voices.  The tears always come to me when I see the impact on their young lives, and the smiles on their faces.

Every time we meet with a group of children and guardians, the overwhelming message from all of them is THANK YOU to all the people in America who are making all of this possible!

As we start the journey home in 2 days, I find myself thinking of all the stories yet untold.  There are many.  We plan to keep posting even after our return so please stay tuned.

Thank you for all your support, comments and prayers.  We could never have made this a reality without all of you!

God bless you all,

Monique and Stan

Wow!  The TOW party in Atiak was so moving.  It was amazing how many children there were, and how far they had come.  There are 107 TOW children in Atiak currently.

These children have been meeting together every Sunday with our coordinator Robert Komakech since the inception of the program.  Last summer we began the feeding program and the children dubbed it  “Happy Sunday”.  Since then they began more activities on Sunday.  They have a TOW choir, and are practicing and performing cultural dance.  They are such a cohesive group and obviously care so much for one another.

When we arrived, we were greeted with singing and dancing of the guardians wielding small axes (not sure of the significance of that).  The children of the TOW choir then sang a few songs.  One was is their native Acholi language.  They acted out the horror of the rebels and the abductions.  Some of the children were crying as they did it.  I became acutely aware that the trauma that they witnessed as recently as 2008 remains seared in their memories forever. The next song they sang was titled “Save the children today for a better world”.  It was beautiful.  We struggled to hold back the tears.  Later a teenage girl who had recently had a baby, gave a dramatic recitation of a beautiful poem she had written about how hard it is to be a child mother.  Her gratitude for  the ongoing  support of her education was heartfelt.

Next came the cultural dances of the children—I was exhausted just watching it.  Two young boys were the drummers and many others played the calabash.  The girls had traditional skirts and danced beautifully.  This incredibly energetic music and dance went on for no less than 45 minutes.

Time after time, the children and guardians were sending their thanks and prayers for the help they are receiving from all of you in America. They are all so appreciative to have the opportunity to have an education.  It’s amazing when enough people get together and work towards a common goal, the change that can take place.  That day we fed 172 children and the same number of adults.  Much fun was had by all!

Many thanks and blessings to all of you who are making this possible through your support of Tree of Wisdom.

Last weekend we travelled the very bumpy road 3 hours north to Atiak where the new St.  Monica’s is being built and most of our Tree of Wisdom children are.

St. Monica’s in Atiak is coming along very nicely.  There are 30 students enrolled in tailoring classes and they are ready to learn most anything.  2 classrooms are full of sewing machines, there is another multipurpose classroom, living quarters, latrines and a kitchen.  The large hall is built up to the roof.  It will be a beautiful building when complete.  The plan is to have a restaurant and start catering classes soon, as they are located on the main route between Northern Uganda and Sudan.  There is a new full time employee there named Doreen.  She welcomed us with open arms in true Ugandan fashion.  She lives there, oversees the school, the grounds and the construction.  She is affectionately referred to as “The Mayor”.  Her presence has really been instrumental in the ongoing progress of the project.

Medically, Atiak is an extremely underserved area.  About 9 months ago, they established a Saturday clinic at St. Monica’s staffed by the people from Gulu.  What an eye-opening experience to see the need.  On Friday night we were sitting out on the front porch and saw people arriving at about 9:30 PM.   When we asked what they were doing they said they had walked from a place about 40 kilometers away and wanted to be sure they could be seen the next day in the clinic.  The need is overwhelming.  They only have the capacity to see about 120 patients in a day so they hand out numbers and if you don’t get a number you go home.  They have had over 300 people show up some days.  We found out later that the few doctors they had were on strike at that time.

We worked in the clinic on Saturday morning before the Tree of Wisdom event.  I saw one little 5 year old girl whose face was all swollen and she was obviously suffering from malnutrition.  When I told the mother she needed more food, especially protein, she just looked at me with a sad and hopeless smile.  I asked if there were any feeding programs available in the village and was told there were not.  The NGO’s haven’t made it to Atiak yet.  There are so few resources and so much need.  We gave them some medicine and packaged up some food for them, but it’s only a temporary solution for them.  As doctors we are trained to try to fix things.  It’s heartbreaking to be faced with basic problems that have no apparent solution—at least for now.  The rains have started, so we’ll pray for a successful growing season for these very needy people.

An amazing sight to behold indeed!!  What an awesome coincidence that we are here for the show.  Almost midnight at St. Monica’s sitting in the clearing watching the moon glowing orange in the starry sky for the past hour.   According to Google the next one won’t appear until year 2141….will have to leave that one for the generations to come.

Stay tuned!

We arrived safely in Uganda 1 week ago without a glitch in the travel. Every flight was on time, and all bags came without any problem. The 13 hr flight from Washington, DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was a killer. I was lucky enough to sit in the very center of the plane squashed between Stan and an Ethopian diplomat who was about 6’4”, 240#.   At about the 8 hr mark I felt the need to jump up and down and scream, as the many toddlers and babies on the flight were doing. We made it through though and are no worse for the wear. I decided to look at it as an exercise in self-control. I kept calling to mind the long time suffering of the people we were on our way to see, and decided it was a very small sacrifice in comparison.

Our first days were spent in Kampala recovering from jet lag, gathering many needed supplies and doing a little exploring. We visited Jinja, the source of the Nile as it exits Lake Victoria and flows north to Egypt ultimately emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. What a beautiful place–still natural and unspoiled by commercialism. There was a bird rookery in the middle of the river that held an amazing number of beautiful ibises, cormorants, and many others. We also sampled some of the local delicacies—big Tilapia fish fresh from the lake and “Osene” or grasshoppers. Sounds sorta scary but they taste like tiny little delicious shrimp—yummy!

We travelled north to Gulu on Friday on a now-paved road. What a difference concrete makes! The trip is half as long and a lot easier on the back. The scenery is wonderful—lush and green with growing. Beautiful flowering trees, bananas, cassava and tobacco fields. As we crossed the Nile, we were welcomed once again by the ever-present baboon families. Our arrival at St Monica’s was a great homecoming. The Sisters greeted us with open arms and song and dance.

Our first Tree of Wisdom meeting was on Sunday with 27 children and many of their guardians in attendance. The children are thriving. They are happy and well fed. Most of the older students are doing very well in school and are so appreciative of the help they are getting from their sponsors–a heartfelt “Afoyo” from all of them! We were happy Gulu was the first meeting because it’s our smallest group of children–a good warm up for things to come.

We have begun planning for the Atiak party this weekend. There are 107 children in Atiak , so we are expecting more than 220 people to be there. Atiak is the poorest area we serve. There has been a prolonged drought, which is intensifying the suffering and starvation in that area. We will be participating in a food distribution program on Friday.

During our stay at St. Monica’s, I have had the opportunity to meet several of the women involved in the bead and bag-making program—Wisdom Beads. As you read in the previous entry from Sr. Rosemary, the program has been life changing for so many women, and we are able to provide for the special needs of the children. It is amazing how far reaching something so simple can be. Many, many thanks to all of you who have participated in ways both large and small! God bless you for caring for your neighbors across the globe.