Dear Friends,
This summer will be the fourth summer we are taking a trip to Uganda–a place and a people who have become very dear to us. What began on our end as a story over the grill with friends about a Ugandan pastor who cared for hundreds of orphans across the ocean has turned into a beautiful relationship of mutual love and support.
As Dan has come home from Uganda after each of these trips, he always tells me the same thing…
“Amy, they need mothers. These children don’t know what it’s like to have a mother. We need to send a team with moms…”
And this is the reason why it is me—Amy—who writes you a letter this year and not my husband. For as much as he would LOVE to return to Uganda this summer, we both feel lead that I am the one to go. If motherhood and nurturing is one of the needs of the children, staff, and babies an ocean away, that is ONE thing I have some experience in!
This June I will travel with my two sons, Daniel and Luke, along with 6 other team members to the Hands of Love schools in Uganda. Our hearts ache to hold the babies at the baby house my husband and Daniel helped build three years ago. We cannot wait to hug our sponsored daughter, Halima, and spend time with our Ugandan sisters, Solomy and Deborah. But even more so, our team is excited to come along as a support to love and serve those who sacrifice in ways that are hard to imagine as they care for more than TWO THOUSAND children who call Hands of Love home.
In a place where decades of genocide and the HIV pandemic has left behind a humanitarian crisis of orphans, more than a million children in Uganda are in desperate need of help. Joining the pastor and founder of Hands of Love, Elijah Sebuchu, we will be bringing much needed supplies and extra hands on the ground to serve in various capacities while there. Our trip is scheduled for June 18th through June 30th, and my sons and I would welcome your help both prayerfully and financially.
We are praying that we will be able to effectively communicate love and hope to the Ugandan children and those who faithfully care for them every day. We hope to sow seeds that will contribute to Ugandan cities and villages being one day filled with empowered, well-educated, Godly families that bring life to their nation from within. Each team member will need to raise just over $3500 to make the trip, and additional financial support will be used to help purchase needed items for the baby house while we are there. (Last year the team purchased two refrigerators in Uganda, and this was a trip highlight for everyone!)
If you are interested in helping us with raising our financial support, please click HERE.
After our friends left that night four years ago, Dan and I found ourselves praying that God would use us to be a part of caring for the fatherless there, and today we stand in awe at all He has done in the time since—both for the children and staff at Hands of Love in Uganda, as well as our family and church family here in the States. We are so incredibly grateful for getting to be a part of His great adventure in Uganda, and we are so incredibly grateful for all the supporters along the way. Thank you for prayerfully considering joining us another year in this exciting journey!
Sincerely,
Amy, Daniel & Luke Rauch
Follow Me:
facebook.com/amyelizabethphotographs
instagram.com/amyelizabethphotographs