Wednesday, March 17, 2010



























































































Here are a few photos of what we are currently doing in our departments...

March 17, 2010

So many kids, huge language barrier, one love!

When I was here in 2006 we worked with about 200 community kids. We broke them up into "houses", 50 kids per "house". We had the house of David, house of Luke, house of Elijah and house of Joshua. House of David came to the center on Tuesday, Luke on Wednesday, Elijah on Thursday and Joshua on Friday. We taught the same curriculum every day to all 4 houses, the little kids (age 4-7) would come in the morning from 10-1, the big kids (8-15) would come in after school around 2-5. On Saturday, we would have ALL 200 kids, ALL day!!! It was somewhat organized chaos! The kids loved to be around all the other kids, and Saturday was the day to shine! The kids would do different performances depending on what they were working on throughout the week. The kids also loved Saturday's because they got served lunch!!

Things have changed a bit since I was here in 2006. Our community program turned into a Saturday program only. We see the majority of the same kids on Saturday's along with a bunch of new faces from our local Bbunga community! Now throughout the week we are focusing on 4 programs; Art, Music, Drama and Futbal. We have partnered with 12 schools within a 5 mile radius of Bbunga!! This equals up to over 1100 new faces!!! Some of the schools come here to the center for classes, and for the schools that lack transportation; we commute to them. We work with 3 schools a day Tuesday thru Friday, then our community "organized chaos" on Saturday, then exhaustion sets in and we head out to Shiloh (our property out in the bush where we live) for Sunday and Monday to rest!

Each of our programs has a head instructor and an assistant that work here at Christopher House Development Center. Elijah and Harriet run the Art department, Enoch and Fred run the Music department, Alisha and Salivia run the Drama department, Abdul and Motovu run the Futbal department; Quinn and I mainly help with Futbal because there are soo many kids, but there are days we work with Alisha in Drama or Elijah in Art.

Instructors and assistants are responsible for creating a curriculum that fits our standards, one that brings learning, motivation and creativity to all kids. We are trying to build these kids from the inside out, challenging them to step our of their comfort zones and allow them to be creative, to have fun, to be children.

2 comments:

Julie A said...

Hi Sheena. I absolutely love hearing about your Africa stories. The children are beautiful. Keep updating the blog. Let me know if you need anything.

Elanor said...

Sheena,

I don't know if you remember me but I met you several times at Ukiah Bible Church and (surprising as it may seem) at Mount Giliad Bible Camp. My name is Elanor Davies, (as it might be important to add this bit of information) and I am a good friend of Enoch's and Shelly's although it has been a long while.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello as I was looking at your fascinating blog. I find myself growing a little bit jealous (in a good way, i think......)reading about your fabulous adventures in Uganda and the marvelous work that God has been doing at Christopher House Ministries. As a child I have always had a strong passion for Africa and it is my desire and dream to go to Uganda actually.... of all places... in Africa. I met Enoch in 2009 when he came to UBC for about three months and when i learned that he was from Africa, let alone Uganda, you can probably imagine the ecstasy i felt having before me a resident from Uganda itself! LOL

Anyway, I continue to pray for Christopher Ministries daily and earnestly ask God to provide a way for me to participate in the ministry in the future.