Haywoods in Africa

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!