Dear
Sponsors,
Five years ago, Sonja and I
watched 42 kids in Uganda head off to school for the first time. On my recent
trip to Uganda, I showed the kids pictures from that first trip in 2010. They
had never seen old pictures of themselves. We clicked through pictures from
2010-2015 and they pointed, laughed, and clapped as they saw themselves. They
have five years of overwhelmingly good memories. For kids whose memories have
been the sort that you try to forget, being a part of creating 5 years of good
memories is probably the most significant thing I have ever done.
Today, Beautiful Response is
partnering with Raising Up Hope for Uganda to provide food, support, housing,
and education for 58 kids. Raising Up Hope helps an additional 21 students by rescuing
them from slums in Kampala and placing them in boarding school. A further 140 children are receiving an
education through Raising Up Hope’s day school. Well over 200 children’s lives
are profoundly different because of our work with RUHU.
At 21, Sonja and I naively
embraced a responsibility we had no business embracing. We often think back on how outrageous and
impulsive it was to promise an education to Victoria, Arnold, Sylvia and the
other kids at RUHU. Two weeks ago on my 5th trip to Uganda, 5+ years
into our relationship with RUHU my eyes started tearing up when the 14 kids at
St. Mark’s High School walked up to the bench where I was waiting for them. They
were not kids anymore. They were young men and women with confidence and
passion, multi-lingual, on their way to universities and lives of service and
leadership.
In 2010, Sonja and I were
clueless. The growth of RUHU and the
success that Beautiful Response has had are daily reminders to us that God can
take naive faith and turn it into something far surpassing what we could ever
ask or imagine. We are more confident today of the excellent care and academic
opportunity that RUHU is providing than we were five years ago. We are starting
to glimpse just how impactful an outlandish decision made 5 years ago will turn
out to be.
To those who have given
financially to ensure that these kids receive what they need in order to grow
into their potential, thank you. Your giving over the past five years has
accomplished a lot!
The next five years are going
to be amazing. The first RUHU kids will
graduate! We will cheer them on, help them find jobs, and establish lives.
The littlest ones will make five more years of good memories. There will be
triumphs and struggles. We cannot see
what the next five years will hold, but if you had told me what the last five
would have been like, I wouldn’t have believed you anyways.
