The Village Help Foundation is in need of school supplies for this school year. School begins Monday, September 11 in Uganda. There are 52 students this school year. We are in need of school uniforms, all sizes. We are also in need of supplies such as backpacks, pens and paper. Textbooks are needed as well as school fees. Any donation will go to school funds and preparation for this coming school year.
God makes no mistakes...
(By Mark Kordic, Village Help Foundation Board Member)
Four days before Christmas, 2017, I received a special present when a neurostimulation unit was surgically implanted in my lower back, attached to my spinal cord. Finally, the searing pain in my lower legs and feet subsided as the unit blocked pain signals to my brain.
But one month later, infection had settled in the implant, and my long-awaited pain-blocking unit was removed during emergency surgery at Harris Hospital in Fort Worth. To say I was disappointed was certainly an understatement.
However, as I awoke following surgery, I was being cared for by a very tall, very pleasant African man who was a patient technician. Gatjang Deng told me he was from South Sudan, and he had formed a foundation to help orphans in the world’s newest country obtain a Christian education. I was immediately drawn to his compassionate nature and extraordinary vision for the next generation in war-torn South Sudan.
I was involved with prayer and financial teams focused on supporting trauma-healing workshops in South Sudan. So we wondered out loud about the possibility of collaboration. He left the room and unbeknownst to either of us, we each began to daydream about our providential encounter.
Over the next few months, Deng would contact me to further our discussion. I told him I didn’t see how I could assist him, given my limited availability due to my severe chronic peripheral neuropathy pain.
Then in April, 2018, my wife Paula and I took the trip of a lifetime to Jordan and Israel. The trip brought us both closer in fellowship with God than we’ve experienced in many years. As we took time to visit the places where Jesus walked 2,000 years ago, Scripture like Psalm 22 came to life. In particular, these two verses:
"The whole earth will acknowledge the Lord and return to Him. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him … Our children will also serve Him. Future generations will hear about the wonders of the Lord." — Psalm 22:27, 30
I immediately thought of the 250,000 orphans of South Sudan and our friend Deng’s vision of new life for each of them. I determined to do all I could to partner with Deng in this adventure of seeing God transform the lives of a new generation of young leaders.
God makes no mistakes. I believe the encounter in the hospital was not a coincidence but a providential meeting to advance God’s Kingdom in East Africa.
Support Orphans in Africa : Village Help Foundation
Our Founder, Gatjang Deng lived through unimaginable horror as an orphan & child soldier in war-torn South Sudan.
"Our Next Steps Together" describes not only his journey but solutions to help educate and empower the next generation of Sudanese orphans.
VHF provides relief to a child in danger of :
South Sudan has over 250,000 orphans as a
result of 50 years of civil war.
Impending famine is just one problem wreaking havoc across the country. Getting involved in the lives of South Sudan’s orphans doesn’t necessarily flying to the capital city of Juba and crossing "the pond" of the Atlantic.
The conflict, harsh weather conditions and evacuation of communities has made it incredibly difficult to access clean water. The fighting has made it difficult to get to water, and heavy rains have contaminated the supply. Prior to the conflict access to clean water in some areas of the country was already difficult.
Here are five ways that you can get involved today!
Thanks for taking a step towards empowering orphans of South Sudan to be the leaders of East Africa tomorrow!
Greater Love Nursery and Primary School
Provide an educational experience for the orphans and children based upon God's word and a solid foundation in Jesus Christ
His vision for the children...
In January 2012, Pastor Sam Magumba shared with our ministry his vision for creating a new Christian elementary school and preschool in the Jinja, Uganda area. His vision was to provide an educational experience for the orphans and children in the community that was based upon God's word and a solid foundation in Jesus Christ.
As a result, Greater Love Nursery and Primary School opened its doors on January 20, 2014 and currently there are just over 530 students attending this Christian school! In 2016, Greater Love became a boarding school with room to house 300 students on campus.
The goal is to have 20 classrooms, 2 classes at every learning level, with approximately 35 students in each class. This would allow for potentially 700 students to attend Greater Love Christian school.
The official school launch was celebrated on May 2, 2014 with a marching band, parade, singing, dancing, and of course great food! Below are some pictures of the official school launch, staff members, renovations of the school campus, and some of the students learning.
Trust God for Success
The Greater Love Nursery & Primary School is a Christian mixed day and boarding school located in Njeru Town Council. Our mission is to produce disciplined and self-reliant citizens. Our slogan is "Trust God for Success".
to defend orphans, to seek justice for vulnerable people, and to deliver them all from their wicked oppressors. The ministries that comprise the Greater Love Ministries-Uganda have been established to help fulfill this mandate from God and to seek out orphans, women and widows in their distress. Our goal is to plant the seeds of HOPE in their hearts, one child/women at a time.
They had no one and nowhere to go...
The Lost Boys of Sudan was the name given to a group of over 40,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups. These boys were displaced or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1987–2005) in which about 2 million were killed and millions of others were severely affected.[1] The name "Lost Boys of Sudan" was colloquially used by aid workers in the refugee camps where the boys resided in Africa. Many believe the term was initially derived from the children's story of Peter Pan. [2] The term was revived, as children fled the post-independence violence of South Sudan with Sudan during 2011–13.[3][4]
The boys embarked on treacherous journeys to refugee camps in Ethiopia where they were sheltered for a few years. Soon, official resettlement programs begin throughout the US. The Lost Boys were offered new lives in major US cities.
The Sudanese conflict, which incited the journey of the Lost Boys, stemmed from divisions among the Northerners and Southerners. Following Sudan's independence from Britain in 1956, these divisions became contentious. The northern region of the country was primarily Muslim, which contrasted ideologically with the Christian and animist religions that were more prevalent in the south.[5] Religion played a crucial role in this conflict because British Christian missionaries were welcomed in the South, yet the North wanted a homogenous nation of Muslims. [6] In the Northerner's minds, the South was a legitimate place of conversation because the Christian religion promotes secularization. For each side, religion constituted identity, making the conflict extremely personal for all involved. Further, the Northern population was primarily Arabic-speakers, while the South comprised an English speaking population. The new Sudanese government was dominated by Northerners who sought to Arabize the South, which had previously associated more with their African ethnicity rather than Arab.
God Grew Tired of Us...
Documentary about "The Lost Boys of Sudan" - a group of about 25,000 young men who fled the wars in Sudan since the 1980s. This chronicles their culture shock & experiences when they moved to the United States and their INCREDIBLE stories. It is such an eye-opening, touching film. Life-changing.
The Perilous Road...
Many children were orphaned or separated from their families because of the systematic attacks in the southern part of the country. Some children were able to avoid capture or death because they were away from their villages tending cattle at the cattle camps (grazing land located near bodies of water where cattle were taken and tended largely by the village children during the dry season) and were able to flee and hide in the dense African bush. Some of the unaccompanied male minors were conscripted by the Southern rebel forces and used as soldiers in the rebel army, while others were handed over to the government by their own families to ensure protection, for food, and under a false impression the child would be attending school.[7] Children were highly marginalized during this period. Resultantly, they began to conglomerate and organize themselves in an effort to flee the country and the war.
Motivated by the loss of their parents and their need to find food and safety from the conflict, an estimated 20,000 boys and girls from rural southern Sudan fled to bordering Ethiopia and Kenya.[8] Much of the travel took place by foot in large groups with the boys traveling in single file lines.[9] The journey from South Sudan to the nearest refugee camp could be up to thousands of miles. Travel ranged from a span of weeks to two or more years. Often, the children traveled with no possessions besides the clothes on their backs.[10] The Boys often depended on the charity of villages they passed for food, necessities, and treatment of the sick. However, most of their travel was in isolated regions with very little infrastructure. Groups of Boys were often organized and led by the oldest boy in the group, who could be a young adult or sometimes as young as ten or twelve years old.
The Lost Boys on this migration were on average extremely malnourished, as food was sourced through donations from villages encountered along the way, hunting, and theft.[8] They were also vulnerable to heat exhaustion, pneumonia, malaria, and other diseases for which they had little means of prevention or treatment.[8] Additionally, attacks by lions, snakes and other wild animals were not uncommon. It is estimated that over half of the young migrants died along their journey due to starvation, dehydration, disease, attacks by wild animals and enemy soldiers.[11] Conditions were made even more dangerous by the SPLA soldiers, who would attack the boys or forcibly recruit them as child soldiers. The SPLA estimated that 1,200 boys were recruited from groups of displaced children, although they deny forcing any of them into conflict.[10] Experts say the Lost Boys are the most badly war-traumatized children ever examined.[1][8]
The journey of the Lost Boys was filled with suffering and unknowns as the boys rarely knew the direction they were headed.[12]
The Amazima School
Amazima is a ministry made up of many different people, working together for a shared purpose…
Mission and Vision
Amazima Ministries International was founded by Katie Davis in 2008. The organization, based out of Brentwood, Tennessee, feeds, educates and encourages the orphaned, poor and vulnerable in the country of Uganda. The name we chose for this ministry represented what she longed to see take root in the lives of everyone who came in contact with our ministry. In Luganda, the local language, Amazima (Ah-mah-zeemah) means "truth." Amazima Ministries desires to reveal the truth of God’s unconditional love through Jesus Christ to the people of Uganda.
We show our love for God by obeying His command to care for the least of His people and make disciples of all nations. Every outreach program of Amazima Ministries, whether education scholarship, feeding, vocational assistance or community outreach, is accompanied by Biblical teaching and spiritual encouragement. We know that nourishing the physical needs of these people is not the ultimate goal. We long to see them fed spiritually and restored into a right relationship with God.
We have worked to articulate core values that drive our individual and organizational posture. These six stated values serve as guides to remind us what we are about, what is important to us, and what we want to strive for in the future.
PASSION We are not simply employees of Amazima, but men and women passionate about living out the gospel in the communities we serve. We work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. (1 Corinthians 10:31, Colossians 3:23, Matt 5:16)
BIBLICAL TRUTH We are servant leaders who strive to love our neighbors as ourselves. We choose to live and serve according to the truth found in Scripture. We do not avoid conflict, and when it occurs, we approach it in truth and grace. (Mark 10:42-45, Mark 12:30, Philippians 2:2-4, Matthew 18)
RELATIONSHIPS We believe each person is made in God’s image. Since people matter to God, they matter to us. As such, we will intentionally engage the poor, the oppressed and the needy in the communities in which we serve. We believe life change happens through relationship. We will value people over tasks. (Proverbs 22:2, Hebrews 10:24-25, Psalm 82:3-4, Jeremiah 22:16)
FAMILY We believe that children are a heritage from God and a blessing from His hand. We are committed to God’s plan for passing His love down through the ages by encouraging parents to love their children "so the generations to come might know" the love and forgiveness of Christ. We are equally committed to upholding the concept of family as God’s original and primary means of producing a Godly offspring and passing on Godly values from generation to generation. (Psalm 78:5-7; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 3:20)
STEWARDSHIP We are responsible with the resources entrusted to us (money, people, and time), recognizing they are God’s gift and provision and not our own. We will be generous in our giving of care, time and finances. (Acts 20:35)
INTEGRITY We will do what we say, and we will say what we do. We place the needs of the team over our own and we value teamwork over individual accomplishments. (Matt 5:7, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31)
Meet Gift:
Gift is one of hundreds in Amazima's Scholarship Program who receive daily meals, educational scholarships, medical care, and most importantly, discipleship.
It began as a dream...
The Amazima School. An African classical Christian secondary boarding school in Jinja, Uganda. A dream that drove us to our knees in prayer.
After four years of planning, designing, building, and much prayer, that dream became reality. On February 13, 2017, The Amazima School opened for its first day of classes. Located on 70 beautiful acres just off the Nile River, approximately of 800 vulnerable children will receive an exceptional Christ-centered classical education from a Ugandan perspective.
Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
At The Amazima School, education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty so that in Christ a student is better able to know, glorify, and enjoy God.
The Amazima School is a classical Christian secondary boarding and day school located on 70 beautiful acres near Jinja, Uganda. We offer a top-notch academic education for students from S1 – S6 and an exceptional two-year vocational school. The Amazima School focuses on excellent academics, critical thinking, servant leadership, nurturing relationships, and a Christian Worldview. We believe that every child is made in the image of God and has infinite worth. Our well-trained school staff are life-long learners and come from all over the world. We all share a passion for giving Ugandan high school students the tools of learning so they will be able to live life fully for the glory of God.
The Amazima School desires to graduate young Ugandan men and women who will love the Lord with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength. We expect graduates to be skillful in using the tools of learning: to think critically, listen carefully with discernment and understanding, reason persuasively, and articulate precisely. We intend for our graduates to be exposed to the Classical virtues of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in order to demonstrate those through the Spiritual virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. We endeavor for our graduates to be socially graceful and spiritually gracious, having strong integrity and a lifelong passion for learning. We strive to produce graduates who will not conform to the pattern of this world, but are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ: serving sacrificially, profoundly impacting their families and communities in Uganda, and boldly bringing the message of Christ’s salvation to a broken world. Ultimately, our desire is that all Amazima School graduates, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, will do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.
villagehelpfoundation.org