It is with heavy hearts that we share news of the passing of a great man and founder of Buyamba USA, Jerry Lehman, who went to be with the Lord early this morning in his hometown, Kingston, New York. Jerry was 82 years old and is survived by his wife Pat Lehman and family.

Jerry and Pat established Buyamba in 2002 in Kingston, New York, after Jerry had met and befriended Pastor Bethuel and Florence Dongo and their family while he served as a missionary in Uganda from 1984-1987. Jerry was passionate about helping the Dongo family reach out to those children in Uganda who were orphaned and fatherless. He opened the non-profit called Buyamba Orphan Outreach when he returned to the United States and began the process of finding a sponsor for each of the children that the Dongo family had brought under their care. Pastor Dongo considered Jerry and Pat his spiritual parents.

His life was that of following the Lord all of his days, and with that, Jerry impacted many. He carried Buyamba Orphan Outreach for five years and then joined hands with the new Buyamba non-profit that was born in California in 2007, as he and his wife Pat retired. Jerry’s vision for calling people in the United States to help those across the sea, continues today. We will miss him dearly, and extend our love and prayers to his wife, Pat.

Florence Dongo upon reflection said it best …..

by Rogers Talemwa

I am Talemwa Rogers from Uganda, East Africa, and I am 22 years old, 23 on August 15, 2018.  I am graduating with a bachelor's degree in Community Health, a field under Public Health at Africa Renewal University, a Christian university where I served as the students’ president. I am the middle child, between two brothers, raised by a single mother who has HIV/AIDS and just got remarried a few years back. God saved my brothers and me from the “Mother to Child Transmission of HIV” at a time when preventive measures were not yet known. We lost our father due to witchcraft and poisoning by his rivals he contested against in leadership for the leading economic market, then called “Shauri yako,” that his "friends" wanted to steal from him. As a victim of AIDS, this terrified his situation as we watched him die in pain after a period of suffering.

Our mom found a way to an orphanage called Buyamba Orphanage Ministry, and we got somehow better schools, and later we joined God Cares Primary school where the late Pastor Bethel Dongo received us after hearing the story of our family thus brought us in and sought for us sponsorship to support us in school. I would like to extend my appreciation to all the people out there that helped me. Mark and Leslie, those that are giving hope to the African child, the orphaned, homeless and hopeless like some of us were. God bless them. I've grown up through an orphanage school throughout my school life, and I attended elementary and high school there at God Cares schools since 2006, when I was 11, and it completely changed my life.

That very year I received a calling from God to be a preacher, teacher and generation changer. I didn't know exactly how this would happen, but throughout my elementary and high school, God was raising me as a spiritual leader and student pastor and an overall students’ leader in elementary, then in high school, and now at the university. I've always been encouraging, teaching, and preaching to fellow youths from within our church, schools, and camps. As the Lord gave me the opportunity, I’ve had the opportunity to go on evangelical missions with several groups in villages and some countries in East Africa, where I was exposed to a great need of reaching salvation, giving love and support to people and communities that are in lack of all these.

It is clear that God moves on the hearts of people to care for his children who are orphaned or in desperate situations. There are many sponsors and donors who have been with Buyamba for years and who are very passionate about sharing the love of Christ with these children. If you fit this profile, the “Share Buyamba” invitation is for you. We are looking for ambassadors that will carry the call to others who do not know of this opportunity to journey alongside a child in the education and discipleship process at God Cares Schools…transforming lives and taking more children off the streets who are hungry for love, hope and a future in their desperate circumstances. YOU can take the next step in spreading the word by hosting a small get together at your house or a given location and invite a couple of friends to get to know Buyamba.

Buyamba's mission is to offer love, hope, and a future through education and discipleship...one child at a time. This is not an easy task when the amount of children in need grows. One of the biggest challenges with this mandate of one child at a time is dealing with a child who has special needs or a medical condition. It is very difficult to give that extra help and time on a continual basis to one child when we have so many...BUT GOD always finds a way. Never has an example of this kind of divine intervention been so evident as with a student named Buruhan. Also known as Buru.

Burhuan was born with a physical limitation that comes with dwarfism. As he has grown, it has become more and more challenging walking up the many stairs at school and maneuvering quickly through the crowd of kids in the hall. Meanwhile, as his condition grew more physically challenging throughout the years, God was raising up advocates to help Buru with his individual journey at the same time. Like the Shepherd of the Bible who goes after the one sheep who was separated from the fold (Matthew 18:12) God moved on the hearts of a group of Buyamba sponsors to try and find medical help in the United States. After much planning and investigating, it was set for Buru to fly out to Texas and have surgery with a specialized doctor in the U.S. Unfortunately, Buruhan's VISA was denied. We feared that again, we were helpless to come alongside this little one and his individual

God Cares...and he cares about each of the students, wanting them to know that even if they don't have an earthly father, like Buruhan, God himself is their father, and he has the most creative ideas of how to meet the needs of each and every one of his children.