Facts About Life In Uganda

Population Population of 24.6 million (Census, 2002) Uganda has 1.7 million orphans, the highest number in the world Birth rate 47 per 1000 Death rate 20 per 1000 Life expectancy 42 years (UN, 1998) Infant mortality is 100.7 per 1000 live births Fertility rate is 7.1 children per woman Health At least 25% of all households look after at least one child orphaned by either HIV/AIDS or war. The number of children orphaned by AIDS is expected to rise to 3.5 million by 2010, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). AIDS is now the leading specific cause of death among adults followed by TB and malaria. In children, the main killers are malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea Pregnancy related health problems are serious and Uganda’s maternal mortality rate is over 12 times higher than is normal for developed countries. Education Majority of children enter primary school but only 49% of boys and 29% of girls complete this.  Almost 40% of primary teachers are untrained. Social & Economic The population of Uganda includes several hundred thousand temporary residents, particularly refugees from Rwanda and Sudan.  Insecurity remains widespread in the north where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony,  still continues to operate.  In Kitgum and Gulu districts three quarters of the civilian population are compelled to live in camps, known as protected villages. Only 11% of Ugandans are urban dwellers and of these 40% live in Kampala. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy. History of Uganda Uganda became independent in 1962.  General Idi Amin came into power in 1971, his incompetence and violence brought society to collapse.  Amin was deposed in 1979 by the Tanzanian army. The Amin era and its aftermath resulted in the neglect of health infrastructure and a loss of resources.  Mr Obote was in power from 1980-1985  Presendent Yoweri Museveni assumed the presidency on January 30,1986.  He was faced with the reconstruction of a country virtually destroyed by a series of regimes which had left almost a million people dead, 2 million refugees, 600 000 injured and incurable property damage. Uganda re-elected President Musevani in 2006.

We Better Get This Started

Well we are finally getting our blog together to keep everyone informed of our adoption journey.  Forgive us as we are new bloggers, so our page is kinda lame right now.

Here is where we are currently.  Our home study should be finished any day now. Now that we have a fire extinguisher in our house, we can adopt.  Oh the funny things about homestudies. I plan to dedicate a  post to the home study process later.  Matt is leaving for Uganda in 9 DAYS! His main goals while he is there are to make connections with as many baby homes, orphanages, etc., as well as meet with our attorney who will be doing the adoption.  Since our home study will be done, hopefully he can get a lot accomplished while he is there.  We are planning to adopt a boy, two or under and possibly a sibling group.  We are so excited to see who God picks to be our child/ren.  I have been going through the "nesting" phase, getting our house cleaned out and the room ready.  That is basically at a standstill now until we know more details.  We are so excited to become parents and time is flying by....as it has been two months since our original post.  Please keep us in your prayers through this process and for us to be sensitive to the Spirit in leading us in all our decision making. More posts and details to come! Thanks for your prayers!

Julie<><

He must Increase and I must decrease

An answered prayer!!! Julie and I have been trying to get pregnant for over 2 years now. After a long conversation with our fertility doctor, we have discovered that we are not able to have children. What I would have expected to be a huge burden and a devastating blow has turned out to be a warm blanket for our soul! We have felt for quite some time now that we would be adopting but wasn't sure on God's timing. Well God's time is NOW!!!

I would be lying if I said this was what I had planned for years. It's really not at all what I had planned. I wanted the American dream. I wanted the 2.3 kids and the golden retriever and live in a house on some acreage and grow old with my wife. I planned for Julie and I to have our own children one being a son who would be a basketball star and have a sub 2 minute FRAN! A daughter who looked just like my beautiful wife and would also play basketball on the D1 level and would want nothing to do with boys until she was 30. But that was MY plan clearly not God's.

I would confess that many times in my life I pursue "my plans". Sometimes I forget that the Man upstairs who built this whole thing, who created everything by himself and will shut her down when he chooses can probably handle the plans for my life! "He must increase and I must decrease"

So we're adopting!!! Clearly the first thing you do when you are adopting is... Start a blog! I am not a blogger and in fact this very blog will be filled with loads of punctuation errors, misspelled and made up words. Really we are starting this blog primarily for 2 reasons the first being we want to make sure we have record of this journey God has put us on and the second is we want to share this blessing with all of you.

Why international? Why Uganda? Why not DHS? Simply put God has laid Uganda on our hearts. I sure don't think that this is for everybody. I don't think it is some "Heroic" thing to adopt internationally. Frankly there our kids all over the world including here that need parents that will love them! It's just what we feel God has for us.

I do ask for your prayers, that through this process God would give us discernment. We want what He wants not what we want! "He must increase and I must decrease"

mp