This spring marks 10 years from the beginning of Beautiful Response. Throughout 2020, we will be tracing the growth of Raising Up Hope for Uganda and Beautiful Response in our monthly emails.
During the spring semester of our Junior year, Sonja and I studied abroad in Uganda. After our academic program ended, we decided to spend two weeks at an orphanage
We finished those two weeks with the same desire that many volunteers have, a desire to do more. So we returned home with the goal of sending a few of the oldest kids at RUHU to schools, since at that point, RUHU didn’t have the resources needed to send them to school. The generous and resounding Yes! that so many supporters offered us after hearing the story of RUHU confirmed that we should press further into the desire to respond to what we had experienced. After raising enough funds for all of the kids (!), we sent this in an email in August of 2010:
The money will be wired to their bank account in Uganda on Monday. School starts for the kids on August 20th. Please be praying for them. For many of the kids this will be their first time ever wearing a uniform and going to school so amidst the excitement there may be some nervousness or fear. Pray that the children will enjoy school, that they will be diligent in their studies, and be able to catch up quickly to the rest of their classmates. Also, please be praying for Patrick right now as he is sick with malaria.
The excitement in those early emails makes me smile. The underlying commitment to pray and our utter dependence on God are keen reminders of how this all started and how it will move forward. We made a commitment in 2010 to see those 41 kids through as much education as their minds would take them, and they have certainly taken us up on that offer. We also made a commitment to empower Patrick, William and the Ugandan staff, keeping a healthy distance between ourselves and what RUHU was accomplishing. It’s been our honor to partner with Patrick and William, but every accomplishment of RUHU has been entirely theirs, and we are so proud of that.
As the kids and organization have grown, so have the issues we face. Please continue to pray with us for the kids as they become young adults and deal with entirely new sets of problems. Pray for the little ones who attend RUHU’s programs and that we would love and serve them as diligently as we did 10 years ago.
Our Next Trip
We will be back in Uganda in early April for 10 days. Maya is joining Caleb and about a dozen others from Wisconsin and California. Our trip will focus primarily on advancing education initiatives at RUHU, the Primary School and the new Secondary School.
If you are sponsoring a specific child, we would love to bring a letter from you! You can email letters to 386 S. Watertown St. Waupun, WI 53963.
A theology of “response” was core to who we wanted to be as an organization. Responding to something is different than starting something. We started a non-profit to partner with Patrick and William as a response to the work they were already doing. We believe God is at work through people doing good all over the world, we want to respond.
Respond
Our new campaign, RESPOND, is centered around providing the recurring monthly financial support needed to follow through on the vision of Patrick and William to run a primary and secondary school that provides an excellent education for the kids in their neighborhood who cannot afford to pay for one of the private schools. At the link below, you can partner with us to respond to what God is doing through RUHU by giving a recurring gift that supports a student, a teacher, provides a scholarship, or empowers a future leader. Click here to respond, and join our new campaign.
