Beginning the Second Trimester
Another school year is underway, and students are absorbed in their studies. One exciting addition to the curriculum this year is the introduction of a Tailoring program.
Recently the government decided to require schools to set a program up that teaches practical skills that students can apply in real-world settings. Thank you for those who helped Kingsway buy manual sewing machines at the beginning of the year. You can read more here about the Tailoring program.
Kingsway Now Has a School Vehicle!
A longtime need has been met with the recent purchase of a minibus thanks to a generous donor. This bus will provide safer travel for staff and students to various events as well as provide transportation to and from school for students who do not live within walking distance to Kingsway. Read more about the vehicle here.
Many were overjoyed to be able to get their first ride from Mukono to Kingsway (about 15 km) at the end of school break a week ago.
Happy News for Vivian
You may remember Vivian’s testimony from a few months ago. She began attending Kingsway last year, and she only has one year left in high school. But she is nearly deaf, so it’s difficult to make friends and interact with teachers. Nevertheless, she very bright and gets the top scores in her classes.
Life has been very hard for her. Vivian’s deafness began after she came down with severe malaria, which was treated with quinine. The quinine caused her to lose her hearing in one ear entirely, and partially in the other. (Quinine is no longer recommended for treating malaria.) Her father also died, so her family had no money to pay for treatment of her hearing loss.
At the end of last year, we shared her story and asked folks to pray for her. A few months ago, one of Kingsway’s supporters asked if she could help Vivian get an audiology appointment to see if hearing aids would help her. So we sent funds to help out with this.
The audiologist examined her and said that hearing aids should fully correct her hearing in one ear and help some with the other. They are now being ordered, and we are praying they will be a great blessing when she gets them! Please continue to pray for Vivian.
Machine Knitting is Coming Soon
We are anticipating an additional possibility, that Kingsway could receive a gift of several manual knitting machines so that they could also have a program in machine knitting. Hand knitting is slow, but machines can speed up the process immensely and produce professional-quality results in a fraction of the time. In addition, manual knitting machines don’t require electricity.
These machines are expensive to buy new, but a friend of Kingsway has some that she’s been wanting to donate to the school for years now. She is the owner of a company called “KnitIt” that makes innovative knitted products – swaddling garments for babies and even adults!
We are working on bringing a team with these machines to Kingway right now. More details about our plans are in this post. It is exciting to think that Kingsway could have an innovative program that gives students an unusual opportunity to learn useful skills.
How Ebola is Affecting Kingsway
You may have heard about an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda and the Congo recently. As of this writing, the outbreak has become severe in the Congo (1262 confirmed and suspected cases) but only handful have been found in Uganda (15 as of today). Uganda has very strict health guidelines and has been better able to control these outbreaks than neighboring countries.
Milly says that when students across Uganda returned to school after break a couple weeks ago, many worried that infected students might transmit the virus to others. Some families kept their kids home just to be safe, and about a third of Kingsway’s students still haven’t come back to school yet.
Kingsway and other schools have been strict about hand washing and other guidelines to prevent the spread of disease. They are fairly confident that the virus will be under control soon. Ebola has struck about every two or three years or so, and the country knows what must be done to contain it.
The Ebola outbreak has also caused us to push back our plans to bring knitting machines to Kingsway, from June to August. Please pray with us for healing for all those affected and a speedy end to this outbreak, so that there are no problems when our team leaves.
Prayer Requests
Please pray for Milly’s son Hope, who had a severe fall in their home late one evening a few months ago and fractured several bones in his face. Everyone was terribly concerned when he was found unconscious in a puddle of blood, and they are praying for his full physical and mental healing.
Please pray for Milly’s mother, who is in her mid 80’s and continues to be confined to the hospital about 9 hours away in Arua, in the rural north where her extended family lives. In Uganda, families must bring food for their relatives in the hospital. Often someone from the family will sleep on the floor next to them if they need help in the middle of the night, because nurses are off duty. Milly’s sister has been staying with her, and Milly has sometimes gone up north to stay with her mother too.
Please pray for the writing that Milly and Lois Tverberg are doing together on their upcoming book. (More details at this link)
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We have more news, which you can read on our blog page.
If you are interested in donating to one of the many needs at Kingsway Christian High School, take a peek at Kingsway’s Wish List.
Check out Kingsway’s Wish List