We took the school supplies out to the orphanage last week and it was a wonderful experience. I just wished that all of the people who contributed these supplies could have seen how really needed and wonderful it was for the kids living there. I have asked the head master to write a thank you letter to the people in your ward.
We took pictures of the hand out and it was very heart warming. We will send them to you.
We drove out to the Orpanage called Good Hope and pulled up into the center of the yard. We lucked out because the kids were all outside taking a break. They had mugs in their hands that were about one-fourth full of some very thin white liquid. I think it was a root of something they grow in the yard of the orphange. It didn't look very filling to us. They have a school at Good Hope with three different classroom for kids of different ages . Some person or organization contributed school uniforms. So you will see in the pictures some of the kids in uniform. They may look good in the pictures, but the uniforms are pretty shabby, missing buttons, etc. but they are uniforms just the same. The kids were all excited to see us and ran and stood by our truck. We found the person in charge and told him that we were delivering some school supplies for the orphanage and asked if he would bring some tables out to to put the things on. The teachers also came out to help and were very excited.
We unloaded the boxes from our truck and put them on the two tables in the yard. The kids gathered in front of the tables and they were told to be very orderly and they watched while we opened the boxes. WOW ! I don't think these kids or their teachers had ever seen anything as nice as these school supplies in their whole lives. We were all impressed. There were so many things and of the quality you don't even see in the stores here. The boxes were loaded with the best of notebooks, pens, crayons, markers, etc. etc. etc. It was a wonderful experience. I am sure that most of these kids had never had or maybe ever even seen things like crayons, pens, markers etc. We laid them all out on the tables for all to see and I wish everyone who contributed to these supplies could have been there to see how much this contribution meant to this orphanage.
I am sure in their class rooms that the kids share a pencil. I have seen the blackboard and it is just small and leans again a chair and can hardly be seen by all the kids. There was one piece of chalk the day we visited the classroom and I didn't see that any of the kids had anything of their own to write on or with. It was a much needed and wonderful generous contribution from your ward. A lot of the kids do not speak English and so we did not know exactly what they were saying, and the kids brought in from the north where they have experienced terrible things connected with the war, usually do not show a lot of emotion, but we didn't have to speak the language to understand and see that these kids were happy and excited.
We told the headmaster and also the founder of the orphanage that in addition to the school supplies, your ward had also given us a generous amount of money to buy additional things for the school. We asked them to give us a list of what they needed and we would buy it for them. We did not want to give any of the adults the money because we wanted to ensure it was spent for the kids. People are so poor here that to give them money would have been too great a temptation. They called the next day and said they would like us to buy some desks for the school with the money. So we are going to buy some desks if that meets with the approval of your ward. We have asked Ssimbwa to help us find some desks and purchase them for us. He is a Ugandan so we will get a better price. We will let you know how many we were able to buy, and we think it should be quite a few. We will take more picutres when we deliver them.
Love, Elder Ron and Sister Sandra Bean
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