Zirobwe Village

January 21, 2012

Our Christmas food project that we started back in December for the holidays is still continuing on.  One of our special friends is Ernest Buyondo.  He is a Christian young man who has special-hire vehicles for his business.  Ernest and his drivers are often used by our team to get places.

Ernest told us about his village in Zirobwe, about an hour north of Kampala.  There isn’t an orphanage there but there are several families there who have taken in orphans. We decided that it would be good to help these families with the extra children they have. One of our connected churches in the States wanted us to buy animals (goats and pigs) to help the families be self-sustaining.

Buyondo’s dad, Lawrence, is a farmer and had several goats and pigs himself.  We decided that he could be the person to oversee the project and bless the other families. 

Buyondo (right) and father, Lawrence

Greg, Lawrence, Madinah, Jan, and Ernest

Before we bought any animals we held a discussion to decide how we could best help these families.  Lawrence would oversee the project and help the families who might not know what was best for the animals.

 We spent the morning buying goats and pigs, then the rest of the day giving them to the families that have taken in the orphans.

Lawrence had gathered goats from others that we might want to buy.  Yes, we bought them.

More goats to buy

Greg Rainwater buys this pig.  Nice piggy!

And three of these piglets

Still needed another goat, so we buy this one from a nearby neighbor.

Bean, Posho, and the first goat loaded.

Loading the second goat.

We have made all of our purchases.  Now we are ready to start .


This was the first place we went to; the home of Francis.  Francis has 14 children of his own and he took in these four orphans.  I believe they were probably his nieces and nephews.  But with this big a family, help is certainly appreciated.

4 orphans with MK Hannah 

Francis receiving baskets of beans.

One of the girls with their new piglet

On to another house.  

This young man, not the guardians, was to be in charge of taking care of the piglet (with the help of Buyondo's father)


Another home. Another orphan.  He is just nine years old.

As we left each home, we prayed for them, that they and the whole village would be blessed.

Of course, all along the way,  we gave out beans and posho to nearly everyone that we met.

Madinah giving out posho to some of the Jjajja's (older ladies) of the village.

After we visited everyone that we could we returned to Ernest's father's house.  His mother and some of the ladies of the village fed us a wonderful, typical African meal.  Beans, posho, irish potatoes, matooke, sweet potatoes (they like a lot of starches) beef in a stew.  It was delicious.

Ernest's mom (right) and ladies from the village

Finally, in appreciation of the day, Lawrence gave two chickens to our group. 

Madinah with her new chicken.

It seems like I say this in every blog, but even though we went to bless the people of Ernest's family and the people in his village, I believe that all of us would say that we were the ones that were blessed.