26 May 2011

By Patrick Butler | Resonate News MBARARA, Uganda — “At first there was no clean water for drinking, no place to wash off and only a few places for children to sleep,” said the Rev. Emmanuel Nnyanzi — known to his friends as "Emmy" — as he gave a tour of the Parental Care Ministries school he founded in 2001.

“Team 10” trip members — those on the 10th Parental Care trip to Uganda — were regaled by hundreds of orphans and Parental Care students upon their arrival in this remote southwestern Uganda town.

But the deprivation the children once endured was before Dr. Mark Barret showed up in 2008, Emmy said, joining the efforts of Parental Care. Since Barret’s arrival, life hasn’t been the same for the estimated 120 children crammed into limited sleeping and schooling arrangements.

“After God brought 'Epa' to us,” said Emmy, referring to Barret by his honorary Ugandan name “the girl’s sleeping quarters was built, a well was put in, the children received uniforms and classrooms were built. All our friends in America have been a big, big help. Now the children are much more happy than before. The impact of (the Parental Care) donations from America have been huge.”

Today Emmy, his wife Sara — known as “Supermom” — and their teaching staff look after nearly 600 children.

Demonstrating just how life-changing a single donation was for the health and safely of the children, Elsam, a muscular 20-something man, took the Parental Care team down a steep embankment to the brown, muddy-looking river where children regularly fetched water.

“The cans of water are quite heavy,” said Elsam, inviting team members to attempt lifting them. Only one team member tried to carry just a single water can up the 15-percent grade to the top of the river bank, and was short of breath at the top. Before Barret found donors for a well, children made up to 50 arduous trips up the hill a day to fetch the unclean and disease-vulnerable water. One child, Emmy’s nephew Robert, fell into the river and was swept away, drowning in 2008.HOW TO HELP
Send payment via check to: Parental Care Ministries
P.O. Box 131166
Tyler, Texas 75713-1166.
Donations can also be made online at www.pcmonline.org/donate.php. Donated funds are distributed at the discretion of the Parental Care Ministries board of directors. If a project is overfunded, the funds will be directed toward a similar project.

“But now children are also not as sick as they used to be,” Emmy said, “because they have clean water to drink.”

The new well is named “Robert’s Well.”

But the best is yet to come. With Barret’s help finding supporters in the United States, the children will soon move from their cramped 4-acre site in a crowded Mbarara neighborhood located on an unfinished dirt road, to 68 spacious and breathtaking acres a few miles from Mbarara accessed by a newly paved highway. The contrast between properties could not be more dramatic.

Located on a largely cleared hillside overlooking the lush, green  Katyazo valley, the new property already under development has a mature banana plantation producing large bunches of bananas, planted bean field acreage, a garden along with cattle, chicken and goat pens.

Showing off about 12 acres of hand-planted beans to the Parental Care group from Texas, Emmy nearly beamed at the sight of the green legumes representing food for his more than 300 children at the Mbarara school.

“Once we have a tractor, we will be able to plant even more,” said Emmy, smiling broadly. “Oh, yes, it is very, very hard to plant the beans by hand,” he replied in answer to a question.

The 68-acres was purchased by and anonymous donor in Texas and is essentially tax-free, said Barret, but the building of the school “is by faith.”

“We have $ 35,000 raised of the $ 250,000 needed to complete phase and become operational," Barret said as bulldozers leveled the land behind him. Architectural plans call for three tilapia fish ponds, a sports field, general playground, upper and lower classrooms enough for 1,000 kids, a laboratory, dining hall, a main church for 2,000-plus congregants, a clinic and dormitories.

Later, in a simple yet meaningful prayer and praise ceremony at the new property, Barret along with Emmy, Pastor Charles and the Parental Care team, drove into the ground a “prayer railroad spike” sent to Parental Care by Kenshire Ministries of Texas, prophetically “claiming” the land for Christ.

“We bless this land and all of God’s purposes here,” said Barret as he started the hammering of the golden-colored spike. Emmy, his wife Sara and the Rev. Charles Ochwo, a Parental Care pastor, took turns completely embedding the prayer marker under the shade of a large cactus tree.

“We need all the prayer and participation we can get,” said a broadly smiling Barret afterwards. “God is just with us, you can feel it. Just a year ago there was nothing here. Nothing,” he said as he surveyed the bulldozers pushing aside mounds of red dirt. “Now Parental Care owns this land and look at all that’s going on here. It’s truly amazing.”

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