Rob's journal of first few weeks...

The first week - Arrived on the 5th of December after a 2 day flight via Cairns, Tokyo, Heathrow and then to Entebbe. Didn’t get much sleep and was covered in a bad rash during the whole flight, possibly a reaction to the malaria tablets. 3 hour drive from Entebbe airport via congested polluted Kampala to the base at Jinja . Never seen so much polluted air as there was in Kampala. Arrived at the base and was warmly greeted by 35 of the most beautiful kids who live at the home.Took a few days to get familiar with their names and the family relations.


Building - Started 15 Ugandans on the footings and base brickwork after setting out the house. The footing structure was a lot different to our standard. Am needing to be very flexible with building standards. Communication with the locals has been OK as some of them are reasonable at English you just need to get used to their accent and them ours. The flat block of land wasn’t so flat it has 4 foot fall over the house! Building is going well, worked with nationals in the 1st week, the only other people that were on the ground was Daryl who was working on an internet café that ISA are trying to set up and 3 older ladies from dubbo. Also Amanda and her husband Tony had arrived on the 1st of December who are part of ISA. Spent a lot of time looking at windows and doors and getting quotes. Working with the locals a bit frustrating because they seem very unmotivated and stand around a lot.

The kids in the home have a awesome worship service every second night they are very passionate about God and praise. They have a prayer time and a lot of them end up crying as there is a lot of hurt there still.

Jinja - this was one of the biggest surprises it is a very structured neat rural town, very livable. You bump into lots of Muzungu (white people) in town most are involved in different mission organizations. We have met Aussies, Americans, Dutch, English all helping the kids and widows. There are also many street kids in town trying to survive by begging. Jinja is on Lake Victoria which makes a very nice back drop for the Town. Where we are working and staying is approx 5 miles from Jinja. Also nearby is the nile and Bujagali falls which is where we did a day of white water rafting on grade 5 rapids. The boys will bring a video back of this. I think Roy and Mat will be suitably impressed.


Base - Our base is the childrens Home approx 35 kids, bedrooms for us are crowded, showers are cold, the main area can be noisy and congested. The power goes out every second day, and one time the power went of for 3 days in a row, had to charge my phone up on the site generator. The driveway is like a rough 4wd track. There are kids around all day and go to bed at approx 9.00 PM.


The Kids - What can I say, the kids are beautiful, they all have those beautiful brown eyes that are full of life. Every time we come home from site or being away they are so excited to see us back and greet us with hugs and much joy. On the way to the site all the local kids are so excited to see us as we move though the area, they wave and sometimes dance and are jumping for joy. We feel like celebrities!

The Doedens family has arrived and more pics..

Well Lynette, NIcole and Katie arrived safely and are starting to settle in to life at the base and with the kids and the building. However, they are getting ready to farewell Robbie, Ben and Nathan who arrive back in Melbourne on the 3rd. Here are a selection of various pictures that give you a feel for the happenings in Uganda.

Possible land for Hopebuilders and more arrivals..

We went and looked at some land on the 24th. The land was 20 mins north of Jinja. It was about 16 acres covering 2 blocks (see sketch). The block boundaries are just defined by landmarks - i.e. a couple of boundaries follow a path which is not that straight. Some corners are marked by certain trees. The land is mostly agriculture and has a house and a couple of other buildings on it. They're asking 50 million UG Shillings (about US$30,000 or AU$32,000).
We will be looking at some more land soon east of Jinja.

Rob was also quite excited today (27/12) as he was on his way to the airport to pick up Lynette, Nicole and Katie and other team members. It is around a 2.5 hour trip but it will be good to be reunited with family and the new members should inject more energy. Life is pretty busy on the project and getting things done with coordinating building supplies and the like is quite a challenge. Communications is also a challenge and getting around sometimes proves to be tough. The boys found quite a good inernet cafe in Jinja, which is about a 10 minute drive from where they are staying.

From the team...

Nathan - Yeah trip is going great the building is really slow because of the slow supply of materials... I have done my part in the plumbing anyways. We have done some awesome things like white water rafting and we went on a safari tour which was good. (see post from Ben pprevious) White water rafting was the best though we went down grade 5 rapids which is like massive, people die in that level.

Here are some of the kids from the Village we are staying in. Every kid that sees us goes nuts because they hardly ever see white people. They all yell MZUNGU BYE! Muzungu is white in Luigandan. We are staying in a house with some of these kids, its fun but at times you really need a timeout in your room. We have no hot water, which isn't really a problem cause its so hot here. The power goes off a lot but again its not really an issue cause they have candles and we also have torches.

For christmas we stayed in a place called Kewempi its a town just out of Kampala which is the capital of Uganda. Kewempi is where we have our churches sponsor kids. It was cool to see them and even cooler to join in their church service, church African style!! Jumping, singing, dancing and all sorts. Rob D is known as pastor Rob! He doesn't like the name but he does seem to have to preach a sermon everytime we go to a church. He is getting good at it too.

The kids are great, they faith in God is like nothing I have ever seen. Everything they do is totally focused on giving God praise. They have there own little services in the home, it's intense. There is no holding back they go crazy singing, dancing and carrying on. Well I have to go now but one thing that is for sure, one day you all have to come here and experience this. No excuses.

Ben - We got told not to go to work yesterday morning because it was raining, but it was nothing - I only felt about
3 drops, and after half an hour at work it was sunny! It's probably about 30-35 today. The building is coming along, we've finished the base brickwork and started on the main walls. On the 24th we watched them slaughter and skin a goat for their Christmas lunch at the base. For christmas day we went to Kawempe where a few people from Wantirna have sponsor children from Rob's last trip. It was great to spend the day with the kids there and their church. The trip to get there was through Kampala, which has the worst smog!!! It gave me a headache and made me nauseous, and I'm still feeling the affects now. We spent Christmas day in Kawempe with the sponsor kids from our church in Wantirna. They live in a lower-class outer suburb of Kampala, the capital city. The day was fun, and we joined them in their church for a 3 1/4 hr service - it seemed to drag on a little bit. We all stood up the front and introduced ourselves to the church and (Pastor) Rob D shared a christmas message. After church we had lunch with Pastor Tom and gave gifts to the sponsor kids.

I think I already mentioned it but here it is again - we went white water rafting last friday on the nile. It was awesome, awesome great fun and if we had time I'd do it again, but I don't think Rob will let us go.

This week we will be working every day setting up profiles and scaffolding for the bricklayers. I'm really enjoying my time here, but at the same time i'm missing some of the creature comforts back home - mainly my own bed and car.

The transport has been very interesting. We have been on the back of push-bikes (bota-bota), motor-bikes (bota-bota) with my suitcase, squeezed four into the back of a small taxi car, squeezed 17 into a taxi van (some people had live chickens with them!!!), and had about 30 in a coaster bus. The roads aren't very good quality and the driving is a bit mulalu (mad/crazy)!

News from Ben ...

We (Nathan, Robbie Mc and I) arrived safely in Uganda 1 day late after missing our connecting flight in Dubai because of a delay on our flight from Melbourne to Dubai. The airline - Emirates - organised a hotel for us and we stayed there overnight and caught the next plane the next morning. We arrived at Entebbe Airport and drove for 3hrs to Jinja, where we are staying.

At first the kids were a bit shy when they first met us at the children's home, but the next day when we arrived back from an outing in the van they swamped us and were giving us hugs as soon as we got out of the van!!!

We went on a safari at Murchison Falls National Park on the weekend and saw the amazing waterfalls and plenty of animals - giraffes, elephants, hippos, antelope, warthogs, a hyena, crocodiles, but unfortunately no lions. Part of the safari was driving through the park in a van and part was a boat cruise up the Nile to the waterfalls. It was spectacular!!! We stayed at Paraa Lodge - a 5-star hotel overlooking the nile - very nice!!!

I have been laying bricks to build the walls for the new children's home which has been fun and tiring in the heat. It's been about 30­°C every day except for the day when we arrived - it was about 22°C and rained that night. There are 6 guys here at the moment including myself, and we are going white water rafting on Friday. I can't wait!!!

News from Rob ...

Hi from Uganda... Internet access is not so easy and like every thing else here extremely slow. Work on the ground is going OK and we have just reached subfloor stage. We have about 15 nationals working for us on a daily basis, this will drop of once more of our team members arrive.

Life here at the moment is very busy, allot to organize and my communication skills are really being tested with the language barrier a lot of them know some English but struggle with our accent, we need to speak slower. We had our 12 sponsor kids over at the care for kids base last weekend it was a real blessing for all of us.

At the base the kids have worship every night, this is a whole new level of passionate worship, often some of the kids break down crying during this time you really sense Gods presence during this time of worship.

Nathan, Ben and Rob arrive safely - except Nathan's bags - he didnt seem to concerned. The boys got into the work and have already had a chance to go on a safari on their first weekend off - they seemed to have fun.

The start of the project ...

Rob left for Uganda on Monday December 3rd and door-to-door it took him nearly 54 hours - WOW! He also developed a very bad rash on plane, which could have been a reaction to the Malaria tablets.

The kids are awesome, he experienced his first worship time with them yesterday - Rob was awestruck, here is what he said - "WOW! you should see these kids worship God, never seen such passionate worship".



The power going of is a regular thing, which means no hot water so showers are quick. Jinja (where he is staying) is a very clean town, which is surprising and impressive, as Kampala is busy, dirty and smoggy. There was a massive tropical downpour last night and he discovered in the morning that the roof (where he is staying) is not so waterproof. Where Rob is staying is a children's home, which is great but you don't get much alone time. This will be something that those who have been to Yalata could relate to.

The building has started and they have recruited about 15 nationals to help, communication with them is quite good. We will attempt to provide photos of the building site on a daly basis, which should give a good idea of the progress.
There are some photos of kids and the building site, one of the kids on the building photo is Dorothy, this is the oldest child of the family that Rob spoke about at the fundraising night (she had to bury her own mother).

Welcome to Hopebuilders - Uganda Project

I hope to use this blog to keep you all updated on what's going on with our projects. At this point I will especially be keeping you posted as to the progress of our first 'joint' project with ISA. Members of HopeBuilders are over in Uganda building a children's home - one of our very own - Rob Doedens is project managing this project and he will be over there for nearly two months.