Captured by Orphans

My brother and his family returned safely to the US last month from a two-week trip to Uganda, Africa.  But maybe it wasn't completely safe, because love is never a safe thing. Although their bodies returned to the United States, chunks of their hearts have been imprisoned in Uganda.

Two of the orphaned girls

They came up to visit us last weekend and showed us pictures and videos and told stories.  They read us handwritten letters given them by the orphans saying heart-grabbing things like, "We'll never forget you.  Please don't forget us."  My brother told me, "When we went I expected that we would be changed by the experience.  But what I didn't expect was how we would actually be able to bless them."  And God did indeed bless them through my brother's family.  The unique talents each family member had, God used to help the orphanage, from cake decorating to automotive mechanics to math to digital photography to simply being a good listener (to name a few).

 Brent wrote me, "Oscar was born with his lip unattached and he would drool/slobber all of the time making simple tasks of eating and drinking extraordinarily challenging.   He actually already has had some surgery since being at OTW, and he has a sense of gratefulness that he is a bit more normal.   He has an amazing sweet spirit, and silently warmed up to me rather quickly."

My brother said the two most amazing things were how quickly his heart became attached to the orphans (within hours), and how little he even wanted to think about life back in the US while he was there.

There are far more stories and pictures than I can share with you here, but I really want to encourage you to take time to study their blog, photo gallery (over 1000 photos), and YouTube collection.  Here are the links for you:

Blog Remember, with a blog things are in reverse date order, so to see it chronologically you can go back to the beginning and read forward.
Photos (each photo on the main page is actually a folder containing many pictures, click on each to see the pictures within it)
YouTube (make sure to watch both the Uploads and Favorites)

I'd encourage you to sponsor an orphan there.  After hearing my brother's family's stories, I'm sponsoring a boy there myself.