********AFRICA 2017******

                 

                            Some of our Ugandan Kids                        Our Kenyan Grandkids                                 Some of our Kenyan Kids

Dear friends & family,

Our 4th mission trip to Africa was amazing! It was the first time that none of us got sick; thank you so much for your prayers!  We sincerely appreciate every single one of you who helped us get there! Whether you donated $10 or $1000, whether you mowed our lawn while we were gone, stocked our fridge when we returned, shop- vacced our flooded basement, took care of our mail & kept an eye on our house, drove us to/picked us up from the airport, donated supplies for us to take along, donated items for our bowling fundraiser, prayed for us diligently each day, donated to Haywood School, bought basket/jewlery that we sold after we got back, etc, etc…all of you had a hand in the work God is doing in Uganda & Kenya! We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the MANY ways all of you partnered with us!  

The resonating theme that we see over & over again in Africa is “obedience”.  All of the organizations we serve with were started because ONE person/couple stepped out in obedience and answered God’s call, no matter how crazy or difficult it seemed.  And because that ONE person/couple said “yes”, thousands of lives have been changed forever! 

*How many souls will spend Eternity in Heaven because of the church plants, Sunday School classes, Kids Clubs/VBS, Bible Studies, Christian radio station, and numerous other outreaches that have taken place into the surrounding villages & communities.

*How many children have been saved from death because of the feeding programs, medical care and surgeries. 

*How many widowed or abandoned single moms are now able to provide for their children through the sewing, jewelry or basket-making programs that have been started for them to earn money in a respectable God-honoring way.

*How many children have been given a hope & a future by receiving an education!

*How many orphans have been given a “family” and introduced to their Heavenly Father who will never abandon them and loves them more than anyone on earth ever could.

*How many future leaders have been raised up into Godly young men & women who are positively impacting the next generation.

It is such a humbling honor to see how far-reaching and wide-spread these organizations have grown over the years and to just be a small tiny piece of the puzzle.  It is such a tremendous blessing to see first-hand the many ways that God is working in and through these organizations.  One of our greatest joys is to see the multiplying affect of child sponsorship.  Again, how ONE child who has been given an education, and more importantly been given love, can end up helping so many in return…the rippling effect is astounding.  Our older sponsored children who are now successfully employed and supporting themselves, find ways to “pay it forward.”  They pay for their younger siblings or cousins school fees, they buy things to improve their relatives/guardian’s homes and circumstances, one of our older sons even started sponsoring his own little boy while he’s still in med school.  (He doesn’t have a source of income, so he skips meals and sells his artwork to be able to sponsor the boy!)  God uses our sponsorship dollars to stretch so far!!! 

NOTE TO OUR HOME CHURCH:  CCC will be having a Sponsorship Sunday on Nov 4 & 5th. Stay tuned! 

If anyone else is interested in child sponsorship, please email me and we can hook you up!  Change a life forever!!!

It is impossible to sum up everything we experienced during the 8 weeks, but here are a few of the highlights: 

*Loving on all our sponsored kids (young & old), pouring into them, engaging in heart-to-heart discussions, playing games with them, sharing laughs, worshipping & praying with them, etc.

*Meeting our 2 “grandchildren” in Kenya! (Our kids are growing up and starting families of their own!)

*Visiting the Haywood School that one of our older sponsored sons started in our honor! (We put him through college to earn a Social Work & Community Development degree).

*The week of MK Teen Camp (Missionary Kids) at Musana Camp on Lake Victoria—Joey & Anissa were counselors along with a team from our church in WI and Jonas & Alea got to attend as campers!

*Reading bedtime stories every night and cuddling with our youngest sponsored daughter (in Kenya) who would smother me with butterfly kisses while I read to her, tucking her in for the night, and praying over her. (Cue the song “Butterfly kisses and bedtime prayers….”). 

*Worshiping with our Ugandan & Kenyan brothers & sisters in Christ!

*Jonas—being a Veterinary assistant for one of our older sponsored sons (who we put thru college to become a Vet)…for 3 weeks they did house calls on bicycles every evening to the surrounding village. He got to help casterate a calf & 2 pigs, neutered 2 cats, tagged a bull, dewormed lots of rabbits, gave injections to lots of goats, and shoved pills down chickens throats. What an amazing hands-on experience in rural Uganda!

*Alea—holding, feeding, bathing & changing babies at the 3 baby houses we visited. [She gathered info about serving there full time after graduation]

*Anissa—Worshipping with Deaf Kenyans in Kenyan sign language and making new Deaf friends!

*Joey—Home Visits.  We experience such sweet fellowship and hospitality when visiting our sponsored kids’ families, our missionary friends, our grown up sponsored kids, and other precious friends we’ve made along the way.  Enjoying a meal with them (or some fresh fruit, tea, ground nuts or freshly squeezed fruit juice), laughing & sharing around the table, worshipping in song together, extended prayer time with them, walking through their garden or compound, and connecting on a deep personal level.  At one of the homes, we even had a dance party out in the yard! :) 

Our theme this year for all our children outreaches was “Walk With the Wise: Lessons from Proverbs”.  We enjoyed the teaching time, crafts, songs, skits & games with so many schools & groups of kids throughout Uganda & Kenya! Joey had fun playing the role of King Solomon all summer long!  The African kids would all giggle right on cue when he would call Jonas up and start off a Bible verse with “Listen my son….”  ;)  All the children received a brand new pair of socks to remember to make wise choices to keep their feet on the right path.  We also love passing out school supplies to all the schools we visit.  We have never seen the depth of gratitude anywhere in America compared to what we witness in Africa!  You never saw kids more excited about a new pair of socks!  And handing a gallon-sized ziplock bag of used crayons to a teacher, well you might as well be handing her a million dollars!  Our biggest hit this year was colored chalk…some teachers never even knew it existed! (Chalkboards are their primary teaching tool).  We feel soo blessed to be able to distribute these small gifts and materials/supplies to all the schools and missionary organizations we partner with.  Jonas once again used his birthday money to buy sports equipment for Musana Camps.  Thanks again to all of you who sent donations over with us and our team!!

It gets harder & harder to leave Africa each time we go.  It was completely heart-wrenching to say goodbye this trip…all four of us sobbed the whole way to the airport and Anissa started sobbing again as we touched down at OHare airport in Chicago.  There’s just so many loved ones we left behind. And it’s not just the kids we sponsor…it’s ALL of the kids. And the missionaries that live there full time.  And our new friends from the teams we we got to serve with.  And the amazing staff that serve the kids (and us while we are there)…the cooks, the drivers, the gardeners, the social workers, the teachers, the nurse, the aunties/uncles & nannies that love & care for the kids year round.  The love runs deep. The relationships are real. Everyone there has a story…and we are all connected by being a part of HIS story. . Thank you for playing a part in what God is doing in Kenya & Uganda. THANK YOU for standing with our family.  

From the bottom of our hearts….Webale Nyu (Lugandan) & Asante Sana (Swahili) “thank you very much!” 

For His Glory,

Joey, Anissa, Alea & Jonas

P.S. Sorry we did not get our blog up and running this trip (we had technical difficulties & limited wifi).

     *****ATT LOCALS:  Our Uganda sharing night is THIS SUN, 9/17 6-8pm at Calvary Community Church***** 

Sorry for no posts! :(

I'm sooo sorry for all of you not on Facebook, who have been patiently waiting for updates solely from this blog.  We sincerely apologize for not being able to get it up and running this time around.  Unfortunately they discontinued the Blogger app that we used to blog on our iPad the last 3 trips.  With the app, we were able to select pictures and compose posts w/o internet and save them as a draft. Then when we got to a place with internet, we could simply push the "publish" button for each draft and they would slowly one by one upload.  This time around, I have made several attempts but everything has to go through the website now on our laptop and we have to upload each photo individually which takes forever.  I had a post composed and 8 photos selected, but after 1 full hour only 3 of the 8 photos were halfway loaded.  We just have not had consistent or reliable (if any) internet nor the time to upload the photos as such a snail pace.  I feel so bad for all of you hungry for some news. We are now in Kenya with reliable high speed internet, so I can at least try to type some updates (but can't promise any pictures, which I know is what you all love the most).

THANK YOU for your prayers!  We have had the smoothest trip out of all 4 so far! None of us have been sick once and very little diarrhea! (there's a juicy detail for ya! ;)
We feel sooo extremely blessed to be here, have enjoyed every bit of our time, have had a wonderful time serving and have seen God move in amazing ways.  The most exciting part for us is seeing first-hand the multiplying effect of child sponsorship. Time & time again, God has shown us how He uses our dollars to cause a rippling affect that reaches far & wide.  We are humbled & awed & overwhelmed to be a small part of what He is doing in Africa!

Stay tuned and I promise to at least post a few updates to give a general summary of what we've been up to!  Again, we appreciate your support sooo much!
Love,
Anissa for the Haywoods

Full Hearts!

NOTE: Thank you for your patience! We are soo sorry about the delay in posting. The internet was down for 3 days and when it is up, it's been super slow.  Every time I've tried to upload pictures to this blog, the pictures take forever to upload or often "fail" to upload, so I had temporarily given up. Plus we are sooo busy that it's hard to stay awake at night to blog.  Our days are completely full from sun-up to sun-down.  We are exhausted but our hearts are overflowing.  The work we are doing is soo fulfilling! We fall asleep with a huge smile on our face every night! THANK YOU for your prayers! They have been sustaining us!  And thank you to those of you who financially helped us to get here! We are beyond grateful for the opportunity to be here again serving and spending time pouring into the people we love! Our hearts are FULL!!!

This is what was hanging on our guest room door when we arrived at New Hope Uganda (made by some of our sponsored kids).  The heart shaped paper perfectly symbolizes the love behind the messages and the love we felt upon seeing it.  2 years is a long time to be separated from our sponsored kids.  The reunion is always sooo sweet!  We feel so incredibly blessed that these kids call us mom & dad! They are each gifted & talented in unique ways, full of personality, and have an amazing heart. I can't even begin to tell you how proud we are of them and all they have overcome in their young lives! It has been a privilege watching them mature & grow into God-fearing young men & women. We are so humbled & honored that God chose them to be part of our family!

Family Time--funny faces!
Missing from photo are 3 that we will visit in Kampala (the capital city) and 1 that is currently living & working in Dubai.

ANOTER NOTE: all the pics are taken with my smart phone, so I apologize if the quality is not the best. It's just sooo much easier than lugging our big camera around everywhere and much faster & efficient for uploading as well.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through Love! (Galatians 5:6)

Dear Family & Friends,                  

          This summer will be our 4th & final mission trip to Africa as a family of four…Alea will be graduating in 2019 and we await to see what God has in store after that.  She is looking into various gap year programs that could land her back in Africa. We can see Jonas possibly working as a vet assistant in the future for one of our older sponsored sons who we put thru veterinary school and now has his own business working on farm animals in the bush villages (pigs, cows, goats & chickens are part of the rural Ugandans livelihood). And Joey & I have always been open to full time missions after retirement here in the USA (as soon as all of our sponsored kids have graduated from college and we no longer need to work to support them).  So there is a very real chance of each of us being back in Africa again at some point down the road, just probably not together as a family of four.  While it make us sad to think about this, we also look forward to how God might use our family in various ways in the future.

  Most often with short-term mission trips, everyone wants to hear what you are going to DO while you are there.  Yes, we will be DOING a lot of outreaches:  child evangelism (kids clubs, VBS, etc), tutoring in the orphanges, school feeding programs, visiting a Deaf School, helping out in a special needs program, feeding/holding/bathing/changing diapers for babies at several Baby Houses, some manual labor projects at a transitional living home for orphaned young adults, teaching Sunday School, etc, etc. We will also once again be leading a small team from our church who will be joining us June 27-July 10.  We will be visiting the 2 Ugandan missionary families that our church sponsors and help run a week-long MK Camp for Missionary Kids in Uganda.

However, as excited as we are about all the things we will be DOING, we have learned, what is most important on these trips is to BE….be emotionally available for the kids, be a tangible representation of their Heavenly Father, be Christ’s hands & feet. The most valuable use of our time is BEING in relationship, not only with the children, but with the staff and many adults that are serving in these ministries…encouraging & supporting the many teachers at the schools where we serve, the nannies & staff who live & work sacrificially at the orphanages, Dr. Edith who works tirelessly to keep the Mengo AIDS Clinic under MCC running despite constant cut-backs from the government, those serving in full-time missions, etc.  We can't wait to wrap our arms around all the cooks in the kitchen, the aunties/uncles who care for the children, the drivers, the gardeners, the smiling gatekeeper, in addition to all the hundreds of children  that we will get to interact with and love on! We have built so many precious friendships and bonded deeply with so many people in both Kenya & Uganda, that this will definitely be an emotional trip for us (not knowing when we will be back next)!  

Of course the highlight is always spending time with the amazing kids we sponsor!  We are the proud parents of: a veterinarian (mentioned above), a 4th grade teacher, 2 social workers, a lab technician, and a food-service/hospitality worker.  Graduating this spring is an accountant and we are putting one through medical school who has 2 years left before he becomes a pediatrician!  We have 6 in high school and 5 in elementary school.  And we are so excited this trip to meet for the very first time, our 3 GRANDCHILDREN!!! Yes you read that right!  Two of our older sons in Nairobi, who we put through college to become Social Workers, both have a baby now.  And our Ugandan son in med school, has been using part of the money we give him, to sponsor his own 6 year old little boy for the past 2 years!  He skips meals so that he can afford to do this.  He said he is so grateful for what we are doing for him, that he could not help but pay it forward.  As you know, child sponsorship is our passion and this is just one of the many examples of the far-reaching impact that sponsorship has!  If you feel led to change a child’s life forever, please let us know and we will set you up with the phenomenal organizations we sponsor through: New Hope Uganda and First Love Kenya (there are links at the bottom of this blog for both organizations). There is a waiting list of hundreds of kids who need sponsors before they can afford to start school (there is no free public education in Africa). 

This year’s trip dates are: 

June 5-July 10 New Hope Uganda, Watoto, Musana Camp, UCF....

July 10- July 31 First Love Kenya, DOOR (Deaf Opportunity OutReach)

If you can please mark your calendars to pray for us and our team during the dates listed above, we would so appreciate it! We literally depend on your prayer covering for health & safety. We have never experienced the power of pray more strongly than when we've been in Africa!!  Each trip, one or more of us has gotten sick but recovered quickly, lost luggage has been retrieved, children have accepted Christ as their Savior during our VBS, a young man Joey was mentoring asked to be baptized, our broken-down van was fixed, etc….we count all of that as a direct result of your prayers!  

 We whole-heartedly THANK all of you who prayed for us throughout our past trips and once again ask you to pray us through the whole 8 weeks of this trip!  We trust God in every detail of the trip. We know that He has called us to go back and so we step out in obedience. We know that He has a purpose and a plan for our family. It is our desire to bring Him glory.  

In addition to prayer partners, we are also in need of financial partners. We are soo grateful for all of you who have already donated to one of our trips!  If you have not yet partnered with us in the work God is doing in Kenya & Uganda, we would ask you to prayerful consider making a tax-deducatble donation to:      

Calvary Community Church
PO Box 1200
Williams Bay, WI 53191
NOTE: Please do NOT write on the memo line, rather include a note stating that it is for the Haywood's Mission Trip.

A sincere THANK YOU for all of your support, on so many levels! Thank you for being a part of our journey!!! We would love for you to follow our trip via this blog for stories, photos, praise reports, updates, and immediate prayer requests!

For God's Glory,

Joey, Anissa, Alea & Jonas Haywood

A God Girl in Heaven

This week was the one year anniversary of this sweet African princess departing for glory! I can't believe it has already been a full year since we received the devastating news that she had died from a bacterial infection on her brain.  She was one of the precious girls from the First Love Children's Home in Kenya that we had gotten very close with over our 3 visits. She didn't have an earthly father, but now she is in the loving arms of her Heavenly Father!

Beryl (2000-2016)

Beryl is a valuable precious stone; a jewel which is mentioned in the Bible eight times.  It was used as one of the 12 gemstones on Aaron’s ephod, which represented the 12 tribes of Israel (Exodus 28:20), and one day a beryl will be used as one of the 12 foundation stones for the wall around the Holy City of Jerusalem (Revelation 21:20).  The website www.minerals.net calls it “a most alluring & popular mineral.”  All who knew Beryl would agree that her name perfectly described her character: a true gem!  In the photo above she is wearing a crown of earthly "gems" but now she is wearing a Heavenly crown of beautiful gems beyond our compare of anything here on earth!

  Beryl was known for her spiritual maturity, her strong sweet voice in leading worship during nightly devotions, being a positive role model for the younger kids with her amazing Chirst-like character,  her stellar academic performance, and last but not least, she was known for her excellent hair braiding skills... ;)

       

(Braiding the hair of Dorothy, who Alea sponsors...and......yours truly! ;)

Beryl wrote a poem that was featured in the Fall 2015 issue of Alea's God Girl Magazine. Please take a moment to read it and be inspired!  When she says, "You have a wonderful mind"...she herself was #1 in her class of 360 students. But most importantly was her kind & loving heart. She was beautiful inside & out!  She loved to worship God and HIS light most definitely shone from her eyes!

Beryl's best friend and "sister" from First Love, Immaculate, who wrote the poem on the right in the magazine, read this beautiful tribute to Beryl at her memorial service last year:

Beryl,  a girl as precious as her name is.  

She was one person you would not forget if you had spent time with her.  Beryl always shone among other people, be it her peers, elders, or even younger than her.  

She always left a good mark wherever she went.

At church Beryl portrayed leadership skills leading other children in praise and worship.  She was well known for her power to preach to others.  Teachers and other children loved Beryl.  

She was kind and would give a hand where she would.

At school, she was very hard working; she has left a clear set of footprints for others to follow.  She hated to see others suffer and was willing to correct other persons.  Beryl did anything she was told with passion.  She did the best of everything.

At  home, Beryl was always helping her brothers and sisters, leading in devotions and preaching.  She loved doing right.  One would really be surprised to find her in any mistake.

Beryl was really gifted and talented.  Her powerful voice had changed many lives;  her ability to dance had given many hope;   her gift to preach had shown many the path to salvation.

 She was one girl who readily forgave and asked for forgiveness.  She never held any grudge towards anyone.  

Beryl was not new to pain and suffering.  What she had gone through in the past was not what you even would like your enemy to go through, but Beryl was a strong and courageous girl. 

She never let her past bring her down.

Beryl had big dreams.  She hoped to either be an architect or a doctor and would change her family’s status.  Only the Almighty knows why she did not live to fulfill her dreams.May her soul rest in perfect peace.  She may be gone with body, but memories spent with her will forever live in our hearts.

Death strikes when least expected.  Only God knows why.  

Had we known she would not live, we would have filed a defense, but since it’s God’s making, we humbly submit to His will.

Bye bye, Beryl.  See you when our time comes.  

Your loving friend,   Immaculate

(Alea is sitting right between Beryl & Immaculate in this Class 8 picture with all the "candidates" who were studying in 2015 for their big state exams, to determine placement for Secondary School)

Alea dedicated her final issue of God Girl Magazine to honor Beryl's memory by making her the cover girl (photo taken by Joey):

We pray that her story continues to inspire other young girls to live passionately for Jesus and to make an impact during your time here on earth by pointing others to Jesus.  

Beryl loved to worship her Maker through singing and dancing...now she is signing with the angels & dancing before the throne for Eternity!!!

NOTE:  After the last issue above (June 2016) Alea passed the magazine on to another younger homeschooled girl to continue creating.  Alea earns "royalties" by the magazine sales continuing to sponsor Dorothy at First Love Kenya, another one of Beryl's dear "sisters".   If you are interested in subscribing, please goto:  www.GodGirlMagazine.com.  If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the issue above, please email us!