Giving is complicated. I know.

You hear about the abuse of funds, the bureaucracy, the way that charity sometimes does more harm than good (more on that tomorrow).

Its complicated.

Except when it’s not.

Pat and Kara made a friend here. M was living in Northern Uganda when the LRA was running rampant and full of terror.

She was a child bride at 13 married to an abusive man.

She was a mom at 14 and soon after that she was left single as well.

Somewhere a long the way, M came to work at the eMi office part-time where the Aylards came to love her. M had a dream to open a shop to sell peanut butter.

M had taken the initiative to rent a shop space and was getting her peanuts that she roasted ground by someone else. Pat thought he could find a better design for a grinder so he found something online and commissioned a local shop to make the machine.

Pat contacted Joel to see if our youth ministry would partner on this to help fundraise to buy it.

We played a short video for the kids at our Christmas banquet. The kids came through with twice the amount needed to buy the machine. So yesterday we headed to Ms house for tea and roasted peanuts.

The children ran down the street to greet us and were intrigued by the mzungu who had come to visit. M showed us traditional dances from her tribe and we watched music videos.

Joel played soccer with the boys while I took pictures of the children who kept running by the door longing for me to ‘take a snap’ of them (they loved to look at themselves on my camera).

After our visit we headed up to Ms shop to have a look and unload the grinder. She was thrilled.

Giving doesn’t have to be complicated. It is about loving the people around you and using the assets you’ve been blessed with the compliment those of another. It is about coming together in partnership to reach goals. None of us can go it alone.

Through Pat and Karas mentorship and research.

Through some awesome Canadian youth who will go without a trip to the movies.

Through Ms determination and courage, progress towards a dream was made.

Sometimes giving is as simple as peanut butter on toast.

 

Learn about the communities we are visiting here. We will visit Garba Tulla (a new project just a year into development) as well as Masharu (a village that is 12 years into its World Vision development cycle).

You can follow our Flickr photo stream here.

Or sponsor a child from Garba Tulla here!

We will do our best to update this blog frequently as well! See all World Vision related posts here.