Hopeline Mission School and Orphanage in Mukono Africa!

What an amazing day yesterday was!!  We were blessed beyond compare to meet everyone and see the school for ourselves!  Truly brings life into perspective!  Spending just one day here with these wonderful people is so life changing!  I know these are all cliches.....but they really do fit our first experience in Africa!  

We do have a nice, clean and fairly new place to stay at night.....but in the morning we drive in a somewhat rickety old van about 45 minutes outside of Kampala, past buildings and houses the like I have never seen in America.  There are a lot of cars and a lot of people.....and more than cars there are motorcycles by the thousands they call borda-bordas....and more than that even are people walking ....lots of them with women carrying huge packages on their head....for long distances I imagine!

Finally we turn off the main road onto a passageway.....you can't even call it a street or a road.... for what seemed like miles.  The thought occurred to me that if it rained during the day like it had overnight.....we might not even be able to get out and back to that main road!!!  The potholes or ruts were so deep I also wondered if we'd get stuck or if our "safari jeep" would overturn.  But on we trudge.  There are no street signs, no "road" markers of any kind.....we actually had to pick up Pastor Roland up on the main street to show us the way......and we just kept going passing what we in America would call shacks...cobbled together with what they could find to make a shelter; and we see children....lots and lots of children!  Oh and goats....and chickens and the occasional cow!  At every turn I'm sure we were all thinking:  Could this be it??  But finally we come to what seemed like the end of the road to Hopeline Africa!

Here was what I wrote to John yesterday.....my first impression:

this school/mission/orphanage .....could really use all the help it can get.... wait til you see the photos!!   it is in the middle of nowhere.....in like abandoned looking buildings, but the nicest kids you'd ever want to meet!  when we got there they all ran toward the van and when we got out they clapped and cheered.....felt like rock stars on a red carpet.

This has been one of the best days of my life!