Uganda (MNN) — The burden for Uganda’s AIDs crisis is largely shouldered by grandmothers. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates families with elderly relatives have worsened poverty rates by up to 29%. In many Ugandan families, the grandmother is raising her grandchildren – often after the parents have died from AIDS.
Marcia Baugh heads up The Way Home, a missionary project of Every Child Ministries. She says, “The children end up coming into their homes, and they have no idea where their own next meal is coming from.”
(Photo courtesy of The Way Home, a missionary project of Every Child Ministries)
Marcia and her late husband, Russ, started The Way Home with ECM in 2010 after living in Uganda and seeing how these widowed ‘grannies’ are the pillars of their families. Yet, they need support!
“We build them a stable brick home and kind of stabilize their family, and then teach them Farming God’s Way which is the Gospel in farming,” says Marcia. “They will get like up to ten times the harvest that they would get with their traditional farming. So that becomes a currency for them to pay for school fees or they can sell it in order to do what they need to do to maintain their household.”
The Way Home gets connected with grannies by way of pastor referral. The ministry works with local pastors in Uganda to identify those grannies raising grandchildren in poverty who need assistance.
Marcia says, “We also started a vocational training school for the grannies’ [grand]children…last year, and that teaches them house building, hair braiding, sewing, and carpentry work. So they’re getting an education that they can use to support their family.”
It’s all within the context of Scriptural principles and biblical discipleship. Even after a widowed granny and her family have completed the program, The Way Home and local pastors stay connected with her and continue to share the Gospel.
(Photo courtesy of The Way Home, a missionary project of Every Child Ministries)
Sometimes, it’s the first opportunity grannies and their families have heard about Jesus Christ.
“We continue to teach the Bible to them, and our ultimate goal is that they come to know the Lord and they find their eternal home in Heaven,” says Marcia.
Giving to support grannies in Uganda with ECM makes an eternal difference!
Click here to donate to The Way Home.
Then, pray. Marcia asks, “My constant prayer for me as I lead this ministry is for wisdom and discernment in directing the ministry without my husband. God has answered that prayer in big ways.
“And I would say for my staff in Uganda, the biggest prayer need is for us to go in the direction that God has for us — that we don’t jump out ahead of Him in going down the trail that we think we should be on, [but] that we would follow the Lord and His desires.”
Header photo courtesy of The Way Home.
