As we started off the new school year in Uganda on February 22nd, we couldn’t help but feel blown away by all of the ‘new’. This included many new faces at our school – faces like sweet Doreen’s above, whose family we started partnering with this year. This school year we so far have almost 100 more children attending our school. Currently, the population is around 260 students (children often take extra time to get back to school after the holidays). 93 of those children are from families we partner with to help provide consistent quality schooling, nutrition and access to good healthcare. 24 of these 93 children are from new families we have just started partnering with from our village this school year.

This also means that 75% of the growth of the population of our school is from new paying students. This is a huge step in the right direction for helping our school become more sustainable. Many of these new students come from other districts in Uganda where their families felt there wasn’t any quality schooling. Therefore, they paid for them to come and board at OV. The only reason we were able to do this is because we were able to build 2 new dormitories, doubling the amount of space for children onsite!

Not only do we have the two new dorms but our three school blocks are now completely finished, thanks to our partners at The Mandate. When you combine all of this with the development that has happened at our site in the last two years, it is simply flabbergasting to see how much we have developed! In it all, we often find ourselves digging in our heals to stop and take time to reflect on where we came from and where we are going. At OV, we still believe above all else that we only want to go where God is leading us. We want to find Jesus in these sweet new faces that surround us and we desire to emulate Him to our community.