Good day family and friends! While my usual blog posts are just me rambling on about something that I found interesting about life, this one is different. This post means so much more to me than any of the other posts ever combined. If you have the second to read any of my other posts at all, then spend just a few minutes reading this one, because it means this much to me. It's me asking something to you. I need your help!
On June 8, 2013, I will be graduating high school from Fossil Ridge High School in Keller, TX. I plan to attend Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, enrolled in the Honors College, while majoring in Biochemical Engineering. While usual high schoolers ask for a graduation gift to aid their purchase of a new laptop, TV, or any other accommodation towards their college life (which are all fantastic things by the way), I want your help in supporting me on my mission trip to Uganda in the summer of 2013.
In July of 2012 the Met Church took their first international mission trip to Uganda, East Africa. The Met partnered with Buyamba Uganda, a non-profit ministry organized to support the orphaned and disadvantaged children of Uganda. Buyamba Uganda supports the vision and work of Pastor Bethuel and Florence Dongo at Buyamba Orphan Outreach in Uganda through God Cares Schools (GCS) and Orphanage.
Our 2012 Mission Team consisted of 14 individuals who felt God’s urging to step out in faith and travel to Uganda to work alongside the staff and teachers of God Cares Schools (GCS) and Orphanage in their efforts to provide a safe, healthy, spiritually rich environment for children to learn and grow. The lives of those 14 individuals were changed forever and the impact of their efforts on behalf of the children at GCS will be felt for years to come.
In 2013, the Met will return to Uganda and God Cares Schools to continue our support of the children and staff. Our mission projects are still being defined, based on needs identified by Pastor Dongo and his staff and on the talents of our mission trip members. In 2012 our mission team members taught in the
classrooms, painted offices, built clothes lines, gave haircuts, lead devotions, conducted a women’s conference, and even put on a puppet show. While we don’t yet know what our 2013 mission projects will be, we know that whatever we do, as long as we do it as to The Lord, our efforts will be blessed.
Uganda is one of the world’s least developed and resource-poor countries. It has endured the scourge of civil war and the deadly AIDS epidemic, causing an environment where an estimated 85% of Uganda’s population live in rural areas with 50% of its total population being children. Of those children, it is estimated that at least 20% are orphans. Very few of any of these children have access to an education. School life
expectancy is 10 years and the adult literacy is only 66%.
Uganda’s current population is about 32.7 million (last census 2010), with 50% being under the age of 14, the Sub-Saharan African nation has more than 2.3 million children orphaned due to AIDS-related deaths. With a total population of more than 30 million, Uganda has the highest proportion of AIDS orphans of any country in the world.
Though Uganda now has a stable government, it is still crippled by debt, lack of industry, and the AIDS crisis. Therefore, the government is unable to support services to rescue its children. Churches and international relief agencies are vital to confront this crisis on a daily basis.
After seeing such a great need within their beloved country, God put it on Pastor Bethuel and Florence Dongos’ hearts to reach out to His people, people with Aids (HIV), orphans, and children who are abandoned, destitute and poverty stricken.
Recognizing thousands of children lacked love, education, and simple basic needs, Bethuel and Florence started Buyamba Orphan Outreach to provide love, care and assistance to orphans and needy children whose parents were too sick or destitute to care for them.
Buyamba Inc., a non-profit corporation, was founded in the U.S in 1999, to support the Dongos’ efforts with Buyamba Orphan Outreach in Uganda, through its child sponsorship program and provision of needed resources. As a result, God Cares Nursery and Primary School was started in 2002 with 97 children. Today the Nursery and Primary School enrollment is approximately 800, with an additional 400 students
enrolled at the God Cares High School.
I will be in Uganda from July 1 - July 12. The total cost of this trip is $3500, which $1000 needs to be paid by March 15th. As much as Pastor Dongo's hearts reach to those children, mine do as well. Any donation will mean the world to me, whether it be $5, or the entire trip, it's all the same. If you feel the Lord leading you to give, and to help support me as I reach this goal, then I would be more than excited to give your more details in that regard. My email is piefer.matt@gmail.com, you can message me on Facebook, or Twitter, and I can give you my address to send. Cash, check, anything goes.
You guys are amazing. Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this. Anything helps. Even just a press of the "Share" button on Facebook, or a retweet on Twitter. It all goes a long way. God bless you all!
