Dear Our Supporters and Friends,
At the beginning of this month, I wrote to you about what is ongoing in Portland Schools and the PCE Foundation communities at large. I also wrote to you about my planned trip to the U.S. I am excited to share with you my experience as this trip took nearly half of the month of April. I will also share with you new updates from Portland schools.
My journey to the U.S started on April 7th, I ended up in Kentucky on the 9th, after missing my flight from Boston to Kentucky. A whole cold night in the airport was one experience I couldn’t have imagined. As if an angel was watching, someone left a jacket and travel pillow right where I chose to sit from 5pm to 5am the next morning. I checked with others sitting nearby to make sure it wasn’t theirs, but no one claimed it. That covering was God-sent. As I left at 5am, I talked to it – to do good to another person in need like it did for me. I thanked it for real, talked to it as though it were a person.
I finally reached Kentucky, where the sponsor family I first got in touch with 23 years ago was waiting. I enjoyed feeding horses and meeting many more people, some who were part of the family, one who was a long time student sponsor and PCE Foundation supporter, and others who were completely new to me. I spent 4 wonderful days in Kentucky then flew to North Carolina, where other members of the extended family welcomed me.
While in Kentucky, the rains enjoyed having me – it rained every single day – but in North Carolina, the sun shined as though I was in Uganda! We took a walk in the Duke University Gardens with the entire family in NC. and I enjoyed gardening at Auntie Shelby’s. She has so many flowers, I had to be very careful not to mistake a flower for a weed. I will tell you that I didn’t see any vegetable plants at all in that beautifully watered and glittering garden. I thought to myself that I would not leave without vegetables planted and I was so happy when she bought a tomato plant! I am hopeful it will do so well there because by the time I left NC, it was happy in its new home, fully caged, readily prepared for spreading its many branches even when it was just a baby.
These vacation-visits were so relieving to me. I had enough rest – free from all the stress of dealing with the heart-hurting issues of my part of the world. Both families created time for me, and ensured I ate and drank exactly what I wanted – even when I didn’t know much about all the food. I was spoiled!
I then flew to Boston where the GOT Conference was – the actual reason for the trip. As I was being dropped at the airport in NC, a message popped up; the person who was to pick me up from the airport was going to be late, so I had an option of using an Uber. I quickly thought about someone I might know in Boston who could pick me up at a short notice. I reached out to Dr. Sumru, and it didn’t take 5 minutes before she assured me she would pick me up. She did! She ended up surprising me with a visit to her home in Cambridge where she prepared dinner for me before I left for my hotel room in Dedham. Dr. Sumru, a College professor at Wellesley Centers for Women and Wellesley College visited with our community 10 years ago. I was at Wellesley community for 4 months in 2013, that’s how we met, how we bonded, along with a few other people within the Wellesley community.
I arrived at the hotel in Dedham at midnight – I was originally supposed to arrive at 9 pm. Traveling without internet access is not a cool thing; Auntie Karen was there at the hotel waiting for me for 3 solid hours! I was her guest, she invited me to this conference and was originally supposed to pick me from the airport. . I wished I had texted her about my whereabouts. Her heart settled after she was able to get in touch with me once I reached my hotel room and was able to access the internet.
We met for the first time the next morning. Karen has supported us for 6 years, and has invested so much not only in our communities, but also in my personal life. She has built classrooms, dormitories, set up livelihood projects, bought me the house I live in with my family today, bought the bakery house, and was a major contributor to the house we are soon turning into a kindergarten. Meeting Karen face to face was as though I was meeting someone I had met many years ago already.
Jensine Larsen, founder of World Pulse, was not only my speaking partner but one person and organization that amplified my voice 14 years ago, when I was feeling helpless. World Pulse stood the ground for me when I was hungry to fight HIV/AIDS, the disease that wiped out much of my family, but also wanted to support the education of vulnerable young people, especially the girls. I chose to focus on education, and she has been such a caretaker and a mentor for me, and was a wing for me at the GOT conference.
The days I spent in the conference were awakening days, days of restoration and hope, I got to meet Korrine and Rich Manders in person; the family who are supporting 5 high school and college level students and who have massively supported the construction of Portland High school. I also got to meet Lori, who originally connected me with Karen. This networking story brought me to an even wider network of highly empowered people at the conference.
Almost unbelievably, following our talk at the conference, over $100K was pledged for PCE Foundation, to be applied to building schools and bakeries within East African countries.You can watch the conference talk here. My gratitude goes out to such a generous group of people, the GOT/Titans community! A trip is being planned for members of the GOT/Titan community to come to Uganda to witness and celebrate the work that PCE Foundation is doing, and we look forward to their visit .
As far as the bakery goes, there has been lots of rain throughout Uganda. The roads that lead to sales points have been rough and our only sales car has had several mechanical failures, resulting in low sales this month. Our solution is to set up six sales outlets/booths; three within Jinja city and three in Lugazi, Kamuli and Nkokonjeru on the far outskirts of Jinja city. This will minimize the cost of reaching individual customers who are widespread. To achieve this, we will need financial support to set up each of these booths at a cost of $692.54 USD each. We will also need 3 motorcycles, each costing $1,684.21 USD.
Following our last email, we are still pushing for the kindergarten in Jinja, next to the bakery. We have already received help from two supporters; Nina Hahn who donated $2,040 USD, and April Lukasik who has pledged $10,000 USD. We would need an additional $14,612 USD to make it a functional kindergarten.
It is a hard reality to start this message with my incredible experience within the U.S and end it asking for your financial support. We are forced to do this because of the current pressing needs. The pledges made to support the dreams of the PCE Foundation offer so much hope for the future, but we still have to contend with today’s issues. We really appreciate your support towards driving these major projects into reality. You continue to be the force behind our great achievements.
Thank you for sparing your time to read this long post and thank you for supporting our vision!