Hi!

My name is Makena, and I have been blessed with the opportunity to work alongside some truly phenomenal people doing some great work. I’ve been working with Buyamba Uganda for around 3 years, since my freshman year. Currently, I am a junior at Oaks Christian High School. Volunteering at Buyamba gives me the most joy of my day. There is a type of warm feeling I get every time I walk into the building. The work being done here at Buyamba is unmatched. Knowing that we are helping kids have a better life and helping them get to know our Lord is a feeling I cannot describe. The environment at the office is so inviting, we are like a big family. I serve by doing some routine things such as making sure everything in the office is up to par, but I also get to talk with sponsors and go through the kid’s photos, letters, and report cards. It brings me so much happiness seeing their smiling faces. Working with Julie, Melissa, and the rest of the staff has been one of the most valuable experiences in my life.

Plenty!

In 2015, Brent Flynn, a Taco Bell franchisee that operates restaurants throughout California, decided to sponsor 26 children for each of his 26 Taco Bell stores. He did this in honor of his good friend Mike Benson who passed away. Buyamba sent each of the restaurants a picture and short bio of a God Cares School student, and each store manager put it up on their employee wall so the staff would have the chance to be involved in helping orphaned and needy children in the Buyamba program.

Each store also receives the monthly newsletter, student letters, and annual photo that is shared by all. Brent reported, "Some of the store managers get really into it, and the staff reads the letters and have actually written back to their child."

This giving model has been so successful that Brent and his team have continued to sponsor all the kids every year since then! Not only that, they have increased their sponsorship numbers as they have acquired new restaurants. Today, they sponsor 33 children in the Buyamba program, and two of their sponsored children have graduated high school and gone into universities. Tracy has now entered Makere University Business School, and Enoch has almost completed a three-year program at Kabale School of Nursing and Midwifery. Brent and his team continue to support part of their tuition through the Buyamba program. They have decided to keep sponsoring these past few years together for they believe they are called to children in desperate situations wherever they are and as Brent said, "To be a father to the fatherless."

Yes, it is true, there is a delicious chili named after Buyamba, and it was released this fall at Oaks Christian School’s Chili cook-off by one of our faithful donors, Leslie Matthews. Leslie is an amazing cook and great friend of Buyamba, and the two elements together made an excellent chili!

Leslie invited Buyamba to host an information table, along with sponsorship opportunity, at her chili booth at the Oaks back to school event, and many came by to taste the chili and find out more about Buyamba. The Mathews family have been involved with Buyamba for a long time, with their oldest daughter Rachel going on a trip with Oaks Christian School in 2008, which led to her son, Joe Matthews, going on a Buyamba trip two summers ago. Joe shot a documentary of a former God Cares student, his best friend Ivan Jepsen, who was going back to God Cares School for the first time since he was adopted five years earlier.

The documentary, From the Land In-Between, not only highlights his story, but it also shows the work being done at God Cares School and brings awareness to the work of Buyamba in the lives of orphaned and needy children.

The Mathews family are a great example of using their talents to help introduce others to Buyamba…this time while having a delicious bowl of Buyamba Chili!

While things continued to grow in Kingston, New York and Texas, God was igniting another Buyamba flame in California that started with a Ugandan woman named Samalie Malindwa. Samalie had been in ministry for years with Pastor Dongo and Florence in Uganda, growing Kabalagala Pentecostal Church. Samalie remembers the day that there was no church building and

As Pastor Larry walked up to the platform, he introduced Bethuel Dongo as his Ugandan brother and shared Dongo’s mission to care for orphans. He asked the church to join him in prayer over Dongo. The next week, Pastor Larry invited him to meet the whole staff, and Dongo captivated their hearts as he told the story of his many children. Then Dongo prayed over them. Those two prayers that week, united their hearts and thus the 16-year partnership with Calvary Community Church began. Pastor Kirk DeWitt ran the Missions Department at that time and he and his father Larry began to strategize on how to help. Pastor Larry felt that there

God was also moving in individual hearts. Degna Horton was walking in the mall one day when she saw Pastor Dongo and the DaSilvas walking the other way. She felt the Lord’s connection to the three and felt that one of them was a pastor, but she didn’t know them. She prayed that if the Lord wanted them to meet, He would allow their paths to cross again.