Saying Farewell

May brought some significant transitions to POH Bwaise: the older girls returned from boarding school, the drop-in center women graduated from their hair dressing course, and “auntie” Katie returned home to California. Having shared life with the girls since September, and seeing them through a number of challenges (a massive bead order before Christmas, bringing on new staff and and new girls, setting up sponsorships so that they could receive a good education at boarding school), it was hard to say goodbye. Until the last day I don’t think the girls could believe that she was actually leaving, but reality set in and they pulled off a smashing goodbye slumber party! Allow me to relay the evening (and dawn) of May 4th, 2011:

* The evening began just before dusk as Katie ducked and entered the POH compound through the small door in the gate. Whoops and hollars resounded as the girls pummeled her and collectively lifted her off her feet and carried her to the front porch.

* As the sun set we attempted to make no-bake peanut butter cookies over the charcoal stove without measuring cups and using the local odii (a paste made of ground nuts and sesame) as a substitute for peanut butter.

* A hysterical “news report” from our two budding house journalists started off the evening’s program, covering the recent political unrest in the city. They had us all laughing at their satire of the mayhem.

* Dancing in the turquoise enclave of the sitting room commmenced, which led into a time of prayer and singing and, of course, the power went out. Undettered, we continued by lantern light.

* Most would agree that the pinnacle of the evening was the “basi ceremony”, used in Laos as a symbolic way of saying goodbye. When someone in the community is leaving, everyone gathers and each person is given a string that they bring to the person and as they tie the string around that person’s wrist they share with them how they’ve touched their life. The person leaving then reciprocates, tying a piece of string around their friend’s wrist. It serves as a physical reminder of the time that was spent together. One can either keep the string on until it falls off, or if the time comes that they feel ready to let go, they can cut it. In our basi ceremony, Katie stood at one end of the sitting room and one by one the girls came forward to exchange their strands of colorful thread and words of love and affirmation. It was a heartfelt and tearful time, and hopefully it served to give each of them the opportunity to express their thoughts, be affirmed and begin to have closure with letting go of someone who has been so dear to them.

* At this point it was likely 10pm -- and if you’re Ugandan -- the preferable time to eat supper, and that we did. A classic meal of matooke, rice, beans and greens.

* I likely have the order of events wrong, but at some point there were some beautiful gifts given to Katie, namely a brilliant pair of beaded sandals

* The day closed with the girls hauling mattresses from all corners of the house into the sitting room to make one big cushy floor where we gathered for a movie with a giant sauce pan of freshly popped and salted popcorn.

* We slept.

* Uncertain if the scheduled ‘walk to work’ protests in town would escalate and trap Katie at the home, the wee morning light found us drinking milk tea and cassava and bidding her a tearful goodbye at the gate, before it got too late. Katie hopped on a boda, exchanging waves with the girls as she rode away. We will (and do) miss you Katie!


-Lindsey Whyte

Saying Farewell

May brought some significant transitions to POH Bwaise: the older girls returned from boarding school, the drop-in center women graduated from their hair dressing course, and “auntie” Katie returned home to California. Having shared life with the girls since September, and seeing them through a number of challenges (a massive bead order before Christmas, bringing on new staff and and new girls, setting up sponsorships so that they could receive a good education at boarding school), it was hard to say goodbye. Until the last day I don’t think the girls could believe that she was actually leaving, but reality set in and they pulled off a smashing goodbye slumber party! Allow me to relay the evening (and dawn) of May 4th, 2011:

* The evening began just before dusk as Katie ducked and entered the POH compound through the small door in the gate. Whoops and hollars resounded as the girls pummeled her and collectively lifted her off her feet and carried her to the front porch.

* As the sun set we attempted to make no-bake peanut butter cookies over the charcoal stove without measuring cups and using the local odii (a paste made of ground nuts and sesame) as a substitute for peanut butter.

* A hysterical “news report” from our two budding house journalists started off the evening’s program, covering the recent political unrest in the city. They had us all laughing at their satire of the mayhem.

* Dancing in the turquoise enclave of the sitting room commmenced, which led into a time of prayer and singing and, of course, the power went out. Undettered, we continued by lantern light.

* Most would agree that the pinnacle of the evening was the “basi ceremony”, used in Laos as a symbolic way of saying goodbye. When someone in the community is leaving, everyone gathers and each person is given a string that they bring to the person and as they tie the string around that person’s wrist they share with them how they’ve touched their life. The person leaving then reciprocates, tying a piece of string around their friend’s wrist. It serves as a physical reminder of the time that was spent together. One can either keep the string on until it falls off, or if the time comes that they feel ready to let go, they can cut it. In our basi ceremony, Katie stood at one end of the sitting room and one by one the girls came forward to exchange their strands of colorful thread and words of love and affirmation. It was a heartfelt and tearful time, and hopefully it served to give each of them the opportunity to express their thoughts, be affirmed and begin to have closure with letting go of someone who has been so dear to them.

* At this point it was likely 10pm -- and if you’re Ugandan -- the preferable time to eat supper, and that we did. A classic meal of matooke, rice, beans and greens.

* I likely have the order of events wrong, but at some point there were some beautiful gifts given to Katie, namely a brilliant pair of beaded sandals

* The day closed with the girls hauling mattresses from all corners of the house into the sitting room to make one big cushy floor where we gathered for a movie with a giant sauce pan of freshly popped and salted popcorn.

* We slept.

* Uncertain if the scheduled ‘walk to work’ protests in town would escalate and trap Katie at the home, the wee morning light found us drinking milk tea and cassava and bidding her a tearful goodbye at the gate, before it got too late. Katie hopped on a boda, exchanging waves with the girls as she rode away. We will (and do) miss you Katie!


-Lindsey Whyte

Auntie Diana

Meet our lovely and determined role-model and Purse of Hope house mentor, Diana. Diana has been living with the young women and girls for the past six months, serving them as an “auntie”, offering an exemplary picture of where loving support, prayer, hard work and perseverance can take you.

A journey of discovering the capacity of her own heart and potential prepared Diana for her work and life at POH. In 2008, she noticed that she had “developed a heart, a love, to care for the uncared for ones” and looking around her church, noticed a handful of kids. She would meet with them on Saturdays and when she had some extra money from her own sponsorship she sacrificially gave, using it buy them shoes, shirts and pens for school.

During her campus holiday in 2009, she worked with the Cornerstone Home in Gulu as a mentor. Reflecting on that time, she says “I loved being a mentor because I was sharing what I had within me to others...being there showed me that I have the potential to change someone’s life...to be a leader...(the girls and I) were learning from each other.” Inspired by the comprehension of her talents and ability to encourage the same within others, a year later she began volunteering with POH.

Diana loved hanging out with the girls at POH and they loved her; she was invited to live and work as a mentor. At POH she says, “there is a way you develop love...If you can’t love you can’t be a mentor, the love has to be in you. When you are a mentor, however old they (the girls) are, they are like your children.” Her life and presence among them offers them inspiration and strength. “When it comes time for praising and worshipping, (the girls) can say, ‘if Auntie can do it, we can do it’ and we find our life, new life in Christ.” She’s thankful to invest in a place where the girls say they find home, and works earnestly to solve problems that arise, “If someone is battling with something, I can try my level best -- if it means praying or talking to someone” she is always ready.

Describing what keeps her going as a mentor, she says “I feel good to know that someone has grown up in my hands...when that girl is fulfilling all the dreams that she has when I have helped her and put a hand in there so that she can become what she really wanted.” Her responsibility is considerable and she has challenges. She can’t always go out with friends, at times she has difficulty understanding some of the girls under her care, the older ones don’t always listen and sometimes the girls come to her asking, “‘but auntie, what is this?’ and also me” Diana says, “I don’t know. That is a challenge.” Yet she insists that through love and prayers they are overcoming together. She finds that these challenges also help her to grow, “...when you are someone’s mentor, you are showing the character and you have to respect yourself first. If it comes to caring, you have to care, when it comes to talking, you have to talk well, you have to be a role model. Me, I have to move the right way so that that someone can also move the right way. When I am a mentor, it’s like I am serving God. When I praise God with these girls we are serving God together.” Her favorite verse is 1st Corinthians 13, because it demonstrates to her that the whole bible is based on love, that God is love. Even if the child she is working with is “so hard, I say in my heart ‘I will love you no matter what, to see you changing to become the person that everyone admires in the future.’ God loves us like that and that’s the love I would like to show to someone else, however hard she might be.”

Along with her work and life as a mentor, she is a determined student studying telecommunication engineering. Always curious, she chose TE because she wanted to understand technology. She used to wonder about things like transmissions, pondering how radios and televisions operate and how someone could be in the village and hear and see others? Seeing computers, satellites and solar panels she would ask herself how they worked and at home would try to fix the TV. Growing up, the people around her had many challenges and she would think, ‘God, how can our people change?’ In the future she envisions having her own radio or TV station that she’ll use as a platform to solve peoples’ problems and help them to explore their talents, perhaps being an answer to her own question. In six months she’ll graduate from Uganda Institute of Information and Telecommunications and hopes to find a professional job so that she can hone her skills, but will continue the work of her heart, mentoring.

We are profoundly thankful for her and the great mentor she is at POH.