Care For The Orphan: ORU Missions Team Serves In Uganda
by Deborah Laker
Widows, children, and broken families living in extreme poverty in Uganda were shown
the love of Christ this summer by an ORU missions team for orphans.
For one month, the college students-turned-missionaries partnered with Project Orphans, a non-governmental organization that serves abandoned children in the tropical East African country. ORU alumni Brittany Stokes and Christina Yarid co-founded the program in October 2012 and have successfully built homes for orphans in Uganda as well as Haiti, Brazil, and Guatemala.
The team aided the local community through humanitarian projects and educational workshops at Pearl Village, a settlement two hours from the capital city Kampala.
Abby Wayman, a team leader, smiles when she recalls the memorable moments she and her team spent going door-to-door sharing the gospel with families.
During one of the evangelism outreaches, she met Jennifer, a young lady tormented by ulcers. Together with two girls from her team, Wayman laid hands on Jennifer’s head and stomach. As they prayed, the Ugandan woman began to speak in tongues and proclaim, “I’m healed! I’m healed!”
With vigor, Jennifer bent over and leaped in the air, then explained she had been unable to do these movements previously because they caused her tremendous pain.
“I had never been a part of something so impactful such as seeing a healing right before my eyes,” Wayman, an incoming junior, said joyfully. “She is going to be a testimony to the people around her.”
Over the four weeks of the missions trip, Team Uganda mentored more than 40 orphans during their regular visits.
Wayman formed a strong relationship with a fifteen-year-old girl named Winnie. The team visited Winnie’s village once each week where Wayman engaged in conversations with the teenager through a translator. On her last day with Winnie, Wayman decided to share her testimony of growing up without an involved father.
“My mom actually had me planned for an abortion, because she already had four kids and was going through a divorce,” recalled Wayman.
The story Winnie shared next left Wayman stunned and speechless.
"Winnie was able to tell me that her mom attempted to have an abortion with her and she was born with birth defects," Wayman disclosed. “But then they took her to a church, prayed over her, and she was restored. Now she is a tall, beautiful girl who praises God every day for what He did for her.”
As the discussion progressed, Wayman also learned that Winnie’s father died of HIV before her first birthday.
“I knew my testimony will help many women around the world because fatherlessness is a huge problem everywhere, but I was just in awe of how the Lord connects people in their testimonies or the things they have experienced,” Wayman reminisced with passion in her voice and tears in her eyes. “Winnie is one person who will be in my heart forever.”