Last year we visited five schools and were shocked to find large classes with almost no teaching resources and limited access to food or clean water. Many of the pupils and teachers walked as far as 3 miles to get to school each day which starts at 7:30 and lasts 10 hours. Over the last five years we have made visits and supplied valued teaching materials, books, paper pens, pencils and sports equipment which brings hope and excitement to these extremely poor villages.

For 2012 we are aiming to raise £1000 for these resources. And we aim to help the communities to sink wells for fresh clean drinking water to improve their life and health, rather than having to drink dirty ditch water. All travel and accommodation expenses are paid by each team member.

Every penny collected sponsoring Jon will go towards resources for those in Uganda.

All week we had driven round dusty tracks to remote village schools. Pastor Isaiah was always at the front of the bus, always smiling. He was one of a group of church pastors working together to help this forgotten community.

Pastor Isaiah's medicine cabinet

At each school the children had been eagerly awaiting our arrival and rushed out to greet us, shouting excitedly. At each school we were shown into the headmaster’s office. Horrified we learnt the harsh facts: children arrive at school around 7.30am, returning around 5.30pm, often walking 3 miles daily. That is a day, every day without food or water. No water for drinking and no water for sanitation. There are no wells in the school grounds. There are no significant resources: each class has one textbook, per subject per class. The classes were overcrowded; up to 180 per cramped classroom.

On the last day we arrived at Pastor Isaiah’s church school. It was the only school with a well; it is a good school. Because it is a good school it is so popular children sit outside – there is no room in the classroom. The school is crowded because it teaches English which is discouraged by the government.

(English is the official language of Uganda).

That Sunday we were at his church.

Afterwards we had lunch, cramped in a tiny school office. It had just a table and a tiny cardboard box in the corner with all the school’s books. His story unfolded. Did he have a family? Yes, 17 children but 9 ‘were in the ground’. Had we heard what I thought he had just said? Yes. 9 of his children had died from malaria which is pervasive in this region where there is no medication and nets are too expensive.

We sat on the grass outside enjoying the sun. We looked at a small piece of land – for sale for just a small sum with which he could increase the church but this was way outside his reach. He had already sold all his cows – his livelihood – and his car – his transport to reach villagers in his church over a wide area and he was not a young man – to provide the village with its only medicine. Some vitamins for undernourished expectant mothers, some malarial treatment, a few antibiotics and aspirin. However there was no fridge, essential for some of the medication and no -one to dispense the medication. But without his sacrifice there was no healthcare in this area. Out of the little he had, he had provided all there was. And he was justly proud of this small cabinet.

On the last day, still with us and still smiling we said goodbye.

‘Don’t forget us,’ he said.

‘How could we?’ I replied, ‘You’re too difficult to forget.’

But beauty is beguiling and it was not long before we found that this beautiful land holds a terrible secret. It’s not in the newspapers, the headlines or flashed across our TV screens, although if it were in our own country it would be. The shameful secret? Sheer, grinding poverty. Sickness and disease with no healthcare; education without books, chairs, water or food and a land where crop failure means famine. Children die young…

Our van arrived at its destination. Children rushed on the van excited to see us. Our team piled out to meet the children and dance with them to the music. The crusade had already begun for the evening. A rickety stage in the middle of the grass was surrounded by over 200 people as the loud music blared out across the village. Pastor Bob got up to speak across the crowd as the African sky darkened into night, retelling a familiar Bible story. An altar call was given and tens of children rushed to the front to give their lives to Jesus. Surprised? Half the population of Uganda are children. They are the next generation. They are the future and they need Jesus.

As darkness fell the large screen showed the Jesus Story. An extraordinary experience watching this outdoor film in luganda beneath the night sky in a remote African village where this was the only ‘television’.

We came every night of our stay and many children particularly were saved. The sick were prayed for. Extraordinary miracles. Notably an old woman who we had known from previous visits who walked long distances to be at the meetings but whose back was bent over double was prayed for. She stood up straight. A woman whose husband had been sick for a long time brought him to the meeting. He was well now!