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Libraries of Love board members and volunteers began travel on June 7
Check the travel blog for updates from Uganda.
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Illinois group, from left, Debbie Rhoades, Connie Lovelace, Shannon Wingler and Jeanne Bell. Debbie and Connie traveled to Uganda in 2007. All are from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Winchester, IL.
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Kansas group, from left, Debbie White, Melissa Busby, Melissa Ramirez and Dave Moore. This will be the first trip for Melissa Ramirez. The other volunteers from First Baptist Church in Mulvane, KS, traveled to Uganda in 2007.
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Texas group, from left, executive director Trudy Marshall, assistant director Donita Ortega and Elena Mott. Back row, facilities director Paul Ortega, volunteers director Scott Porter and Buming Bian. Not picture is David Bian. Elena and Buming are volunteers from Dell. David is Buming's son. This will be the first trip to Uganda for Scott, Elena and the Bians.
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Four Libraries of Love board members were joined by three volunteers from Texas, four from Kansas and four from Illinois as they left for Mbale, Uganda, on June 7 to create libraries in two schools. North Road Primary and Mbale Secondary will receive libraries.
Joining the Libraries of Love team in Mbale will be children's author Nancy White Carlstrom. She also will be doing programs at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage School, which received a Libraries of Love library in 2007. Check out Nancy's website.
In addition, the team will visit existing Laurel Libraries in Mbale and Kampala that were completed in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Each library has Laurel in its name to recognize the support of the Laurel Mountain Elementary School family where Libraries of Love was begun as a school project in 2004. |
(The following was sent June 5 by our executive director to Libraries of Love supporters and posted on our travel blog. Additional updates will be posted on the travel blog as possible from Uganda.)
Friends,
It is that time already. We will leave Saturday at 3:30 pm, arriving in Entebbe, Monday morning, at 7:40. It will be exciting for our Austin group to meet in Chicago with those traveling from Illinois and Kansas. This year, like last year, all of those traveling will be wearing our Libraries of Love t-shirts. It makes it much easier to spot the rest of the team!
I am so excited about returning (my fifth summer) that I am already packed. We hired a Ugandan carpenter to sand and stain the 14 foot planks needed for the bookcases. With the planks finished, Paul and his team will quickly be ready to start creating bookcases.
The ladies will tackle unpacking 24,000 books - plus stopping often to hold little hands and visit with the kids. The teachers are interesting. When they open boxes, they are so amazed they forget work. They just sit down and start looking through the books, which totally thrills us!
We have so many wonderful relationships which we have built over the last several years, that it is a blessing just to see our friends once again. As you know, we will not only be creating two large libraries, we will also be revisiting our previous six schools that have received libraries and looking for locations for future libraries!
It will be an extremely busy time while the team is there - busy, but so rewarding.
As the Ugandans would say: Please pray with us for 'traveling mercies', as we go to provide libraries and share His love.
Trudy
The books have arrived in Mbale, Uganda!
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The 450 boxes of books packed onto a container in Round Rock, Texas, on Feburary 5 arrived in Mbale on May 10. They traveled on container ships from Houston to Mombasa, Kenya, and overland from Mombasa to Mbale. Libraries of Love board members and volunteers were especially concerned about the shipment this year because of civil unrest in Kenya. However, the transit was uneventful other than typical customs clearance issues that were handled by our pastor friend in Mbale, Rev. Wilberforce Okumu.
Our thanks to Wilber for his able assistance. | |
