Folks:
It is now a whole week since I arrive home from our (extended) trip, and this will be the last blog posting for this year's team. I invite you all to come for the sharing evening on September 13 to hear more!
This posting has the previously promised staff profiles; I am also correcting a couple of errors I made in previous postings.
FH STAFF PROFILES
These are compiled from various notes, and are not guaranteed to be completely accurate ... my apologies for any errors. But regardless, here are the profiles of the Food for the Hunngry staff in Mbale:
(from left to right - Livingston, Moses, Julius, Molex, Sarah, Miriam, Irene, Sam and the grounds/gatekeeper whose name I can't remember. Missing are David, Stephen and Edith.)
Moses Mwalye - “Uncle” Moses as he is called with an obvious mixture of respect and affection. He is the leader of the FH Mbale team. His wife’s name is Grace and he has four children.
Moses has had heath issues this year, as has his son Noah. It was good to see Moses functional at least during our visit, but he is still not completely recovered and tires easily; please continue to pray for him and Noah for a complete recovery.
Julius Wamanga is married to Susan (who was diagnosed with typhoid while we were here). They will be married five years in December. He had his three year old son Shammah with him one night ... the epitome of cute ...
Julius has an education diploma and is in his final year of a Bachelors in IT. He is currently works with livelihood programs – dairy cow, VSLAs. He was also our guitarist, leading worship (Daryl T. should be proud of his protégé!)
He is the 19th out of 26 children - his mother had 13 children. Some have passed away but they are now 8 from his mother, and his entire family are now 20, with 32 grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren. His father is 89. He is from the village (actually sub-county) of Busiu, which can be seen at 0.921267, 34.153430
Miriam Makai is a community development facilitator as well as their finance person. Roles include children’s correspondence, children’s fellowship groups, counseling and guidance. She has a degree in social work, and then learned finance on the job. She has responsibilities in both Nashisha and Marare. She is single.
Molex Namome is a community development facilitator who is the main FH person in Marare. She has a diploma in social work and a teaching certificate. She is in charge of women’s care groups and cascade groups. Cascade groups are a life skills training initiative in which skills are taught to key people who then train others in an ongoing expanding “cascade”. Work includes literacy and evangelism classes, in which they teach people to read using the Lugisu Bible. She also teaches functional adult literacy classes, where adults learn to read as well as gain skills such as health care, disease awareness, nutrition, farming techniques, income generating activities and others. Molex is single.
Livingston Okecho e is a community development facilitator as well as their construction supervisor. For construction he works very directly with the community on the technical aspects of building. He has diplomas in both social work and construction. He works with both Marare and Nashisha. Livingston is married with one child.
Livingston is the resident jokester of the team, and so naturally formed a close relationship with Al Traub, complementing Al’s serious and dour demeanor.* Al taught Livingston some important new life skills, notably how to fire the tops off of empty water bottles. What would the world be like without this?
David Wakhakha is a community development facilitator, primarily working in Nashisa. He deals with child development programs (sponsorship), VSLAs, Awana and Sunday School support. He was recently married.
Sarah Aanyu is a community development facilitator, with a degree in community psychology. Sarah will be married for four years in December and has two children, one two years and one four months. In her leisure time (not much with two small children!) she enjoys visiting friends, watching movies, reading and going to the market.
Her current role is the child sponsorship program, although in a previous rotation she worked with the livelihood programs. She primarily works with Nashisa, although she works with Marare too as need arises
Stephen Weswa is a community development facilitator. He is in charge of cascade groups for Nashisa and procurement for the Mbale office. Procurement deals with obtaining the materials and services that the Mbale office needs to do what it does.
Stephen was not with us most of the time as his father passed away soon after we arrived – we as a team went to the burial site, high on the slopes of Mount Elgon, on the day of the funeral to offer our condolences and support to Stephen. That trip was in many ways one of the highlights, and I’m sure any of the team members would be happy to tell you more about it.
Edith Nabulawala is a volunteer part time, primarily in Nashisa. She was recently married to her husband Dominic. She has a diploma in social work.
Sam Mukoya is a recent social work grad who is looking for a permanent position; in the meantime he is volunteering at FH, and acted as the primary cook for our team. Sam is a soft spoken chap who exudes sweetness; he has a powerful singing voice and impressive dancing skills.
Irene Nandutu is a volunteer, covering various roles; while we were there she was helping Sam in the kitchen. She is a recent social work graduate. We most remember Irene for her big smile and warm greeting every time we came into the FH office.
CORRECTIONS
And now a couple of corrections ....- In my post of July 21 I described Charles as a headmaster; in fact he is the deputy headmaster. The whole leadership team for St. James Marare school is:
- Sarah Lunyolo as acting head teacher, hopefully soon confirmed into the role
- Sam Nabusabi head teacher who is retiring,hence why Sarah is taking over
- Charles Masa is deputy head teacher.
- One vital thing I missed in my July 26 post about Susan is that she has now bought the land she lives on, a huge step - formerly she was a tenant.
*ps for anyone who does not know Al I’m kidding here. About the serious demeanor I mean...
