Aug. 10th 2009

Hello friends,

My heart is heavy as I write you with a small update and a major prayer request. Witchdoctors are common in the southern part of Uganda and if I understand correctly, they are only recently becoming more common up here in the north as well. These witchdoctors are known for kidnapping children and cutting off their heads to use in their witchcraft. This is a broad problem that obviously needs prayer but it also directly affects the children that we are working with. As I have mentioned before, we are working with children in the Tegotatoo IDP camp, which is named for the hill that it is next to - “Atoo Hill” or “Death Hill.” The LRA used to have a camp there. Now, apparently the witchdoctors have established themselves on the other side of the hill. The government is currently requesting people in the IDP camps to resettle by the end of the year, and for the people in Tegotatoo, they are trying to move them to…the other side of the hill, where the witchdoctors are. Some families have already moved and so for the children to come to school, they have to pass through the area where the witchdoctors are currently working. Many of the children commute to school alone, because their parents or guardians leave early in the morning to dig in the gardens just to provide enough food to keep their families alive. We know of one little girl and her brother who remain at the school by themselves until late in the evening when their grandmother can get them on her way home from the garden. Please pray for God’s protection for these families and their children. This is a very difficult and dangerous place to be a child…if it’s not one thing, it’s another. It breaks my heart to see them and to realize the very real danger that they are in every single day. It’s difficult to understand the helplessness and hopelessness that their parents must feel.

Thanks for your prayers for these children.

Sarah