Football champions!
April 30th, 2011. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
We recently had the district football (soccer) tournament for secondary schools. The winners of each district normally go on to the national championships. Last year both our boys and girls teams won the district tournament and represented Amuru district in the national championships. They both did extremely well, the girls placing in the top 6 of the entire country! The boys, among the top 50 in terms of on the field talent (out of well over a thousand) were also selected as one of the most disciplined teams!
This year as the defending champs, they had targets on their backs and every team was gunning for them. We’ve always stressed character and discipline among our students and players, and this year was no exception. Knowing they had targets on their backs, the student athletes were worried because we don’t allow “mercenaries” (defined on my computer as: a person primarily concerned with material reward at the expense of ethics) to play with us. The norm here is for schools to hire well known football players to join their school team, forge documents and act as a student during the tournament. Virtually every school we play have grown men playing against teenagers. This picture is just an example of what we faced.
We're in blue... Goliath looks like he's 30
But we as a school decided we care more about honesty and integrity than winning. We stressed that to our boys and girls and they understood and accepted and I think really believe that its more about how you play than if you win or lose. To emphasize our commitment to character I promised each team that if they went through the district tournament without a red card I’d buy the team a goat for them to eat! This actually really excited them and after each game they reminded me of my promise.
The girls went through the district tournament (only 3 games) outscoring their opponents something like 7-1! They won as a team, playing with class and with the support of the entire school behind them. So they have been preparing for the nationals and are excited to try and improve their standings in the nation. They leave today for the national tournament.
The boys had a little more difficult time, drawing their first game 1-1, but then cruising through the next 3 games. Overall they outscored their opponents 12-1!!! For the boys this year, the national organizing committee decided to have regional games instead of going straight to nationals. There are over 120 districts and one school hosting 120 teams is almost impossible. Not every district has girls teams, so it was only the boys that needed to have regionals.
Our boys played in the Acholi regionals, represented by the 7 or so districts around us, including the powerhouse of Gulu district. It was a round robin tournament (only 5 of the 7 districts participated) and our boys sailed through, beating each of the other four teams by a combined score of 15-1!!!!!
These were not kid teams, they were other district champions they were playing… and district champions that were playing with grown men on their teams no less! Our boys played with class and as a team… something we stressed all throughout. They are friends, they know each other, they’ve played with each other all year, some of them for several years. They know their own strengths and weaknesses, and thats what made them win the tournament. As a team. The greatest compliment to myself and the other teachers was when other schools and crowd members commented on the discipline and how well behaved our guys were. I felt like a proud parent watching each game (and sometimes saying (yelling) a thing or two to the ref.. whoops!) and these kids make it really easy to be proud of them. They showed integrity by facing men over half their age without complaining, allowing their play on the field to stand for itself. The boys have already traveled and are playing at the national tournament right now.
We are extremely proud of the two teams. Little, tiny Restore Leadership Academy has defeated the giants of northern Uganda and is off to represent the Acholi region at the national tournament.
Oh.. and I had to buy those goats 
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- We’re in blue… Goliath looks like he’s 30
Construction!!!
March 31st, 2011. Published under Construction, Fun Stuff. 1 Comment.
On January 24th we finally got the land title. Exactly one month later on February 24th we began construction to build the Restore Leadership Academy. We started with just Blake and myself going out on the land with a group of students to remove brush and to measure and stake out a few key developments.
First day of construction with students
It has been a pretty exciting few months of dreaming and realizing that we’re actually building a school. Blake’s cousin Shane has come out to join us and he’s an experienced builder so he and Blake are out on the land most of each day building! The students and staff are champing at the bit to move out to the site, even requesting to hold classes under trees while the construction continues! We call it our Promise Land and from the pictures below, you’ll see it is incredibly beautiful. Click each picture for a better view.
Blake, Shane and John
Digging the foundation for the first two classrooms
Foundation for the first two classrooms
With Bob and two of our teachers
Sunset on the land
View to the east
Before and after from the northwest corner of the land
Before and after from where the gate will be
After approximately…
January 24th, 2011. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda, TIA. 1 Comment.
600 hours waiting in offices…
800 hours in the car….
5,000 potholes hit….
20,000 potholes missed…
and almost three years in total…
WE HAVE A LAND TITLE!!!!
3 years in the making...
Soul Safari
January 23rd, 2011. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda, New Countries. No Comments.
As most people who know me know… last Christmas I took a motorcycle trip with 3 buddies around East Africa. Words can’t adequately describe the trip and what it meant to me and the other guys. So I won’t really try to describe it using words. Watch the videos below and see for yourself what the trip was for us. One of these days we will all get together and write out something about the trip. Maybe a book, maybe a little magazine article… but for now this is what we got.
Soul Safari Introduction from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode One from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode Two from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode Three from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode Four from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode Five from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
Soul Safari Episode Six: Finale! from Soul Safarians on Vimeo.
ENGAGE
January 4th, 2011. Published under Fun Stuff, Students. No Comments.
We at Restore want to invite you to join us in the ENGAGE Campaign. One of the things we feel strongly about is being involved dynamically with the students at Restore Leadership Academy. When someone is truly engaged in an effort, the results can be astounding.
ENGAGE represents the wholehearted involvement into the lives of these great kids in Uganda. It is a dedicated effort to restoring hope, investing in the future leaders, and helping to guide a generation. More than just a sponsorship program, we’d like to invite you to ENGAGE yourself as a mentor, friend, and co-conspirator for good.
When you commit to sharing your life and resources with one of these students, you become part of a international plan to raise up a generation of hopeful, ambitious leaders, dedicated to creating peace. It’s an exciting prospect and we hope you’ll join us!
For a dollar a day, you can pay for all the needs of one of our students. But more than just sponsoring the student, we ask you to be a friend, get to know them, and invest in their lives. Sharing your story and learning theirs helps promote international understanding and peaceful relations. This child will never forget your generosity, and you will be forever blessed from helping them grow.
Just last week I set a student up with an email account and he immediately emailed Blake and me just to say hi and thanks. I emailed him back a few days later and realized this may be the first letter he’s ever received from an adult. I only wrote a few sentences, but a few sentences of encouraging words and words of love and life. As I finished I couldn’t help but think how powerful ENGAGE can be for our students, if each of them have someone writing words of encouragement to them on a regular basis. So please join us and speak into these students lives.
If you are interested in getting involved, click here!
Water…
December 29th, 2010. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda. No Comments.
We’re drilling wells. Lots of em.
Through Pros for Africa and Water4, two incredible organizations, we’ve been given and empowered with the tools to drill wells for local communities that desperately need clean water. The two organizations came out last spring (with the likes of Adrian Peterson, Roy Williams, Tommie Harris and Mark Clayton) and trained a group of our students from Restore Leadership Academy on how to drill and install the wells. They trained us on the first well, and then set us up to succeed in drilling many more.
Blake has headed back to oversee the construction of the school once we get a land title, but in the meantime is building up the drill team. They drilled two wells for Sister Rosemary before Christmas and plan to drill two more next week. He’s accompanied the next few weeks by one of my great childhood friends Kaben and his wife Jenn. Blake’s written in more detail about it here
We can’t thank Water4 and Pros for Africa enough. Not only is this providing much needed income for several of our students during their school holidays, but its providing clean water to thousands of people all over northern Uganda. Check out the video below to see more!
Pros for Africa Water from Derek Watson on Vimeo.
Today…
December 21st, 2010. Published under Life in Uganda, TIA. 2 Comments.
I literally spent 8 hours at the land office in Gulu today. All morning long I was there or all over Gulu tracking people down to get a few changes made to our land title application. Amazingly by the grace of God everyone happened to be in Gulu AND had their phones on that I was able to get everything done in the morning. Or so I thought.
At lunch I left with the “final” file and realized the cover letter from the big guy in the Gulu office was missing. I was there when it was typed and printed, but somehow it wasn’t in the file. Crap. The big guy has already gone out for a few hours. So I went to the assistant and we looked around, couldn’t find it and decided to retype the cover letter and have it resigned later in the afternoon.
Well the power had just gone out. So I went and got my laptop and we type the thing. Then we needed to print it on headed paper. All the land office computers are off, and the only flash drive is with the big guy. We head to a local print shop and create the “official” district logo (which apparently takes about 3 minutes to make from scratch in Microsoft Word. Very common clipart and a few words in Times New Roman make things pretty official here). Print it out, get it stamped (amazingly the guy who is qualified to stamp documents decided earlier in the day that it doesn’t take much to stamp documents… so he left it with the assistant who was helping me all day).
Alllmost all done. Last thing before this file is finally (for the 2nd time) out of the district is the signature from the big man. Normally I could wait until the next day, but I have meetings in another town tomorrow morning and need to head to Kampala after that. So I NEED this signature today. Luckily, his car is still at the office, though he’s been gone since lunch. Its 3:30 now… and he said he’d be back after lunch. So I wait. I park right next to his Mercedes (he drives a Benz… the next guy up in his office drives a moped. hmmmm…..) And I wait. And I wait. Thank God for iphone games. About 5:45 he walks up to get his car. I’m there waiting… He smiles, halfheartedly greets me and signs the papers.
And I’m done with Gulu/Amuru for the second time… off to Kampala!
Tarp Surfing
December 6th, 2010. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
The students in Gulu at Restore Leadership Academy have never seen an ocean. They’ve never seen a surfboard. Or a wave. Two weeks ago they had no idea a sport called surfing even existed.
Enter Bob.
Bob brought out a huge blue tarp and skateboard to teach the students how to “tarp surf”. Tarp surfing is a fun way to surf on land, laying the tarp out on a flat surface and making waves by grabbing one end and running towards the opposite end. Then you skate on the tarp as the wave rolls over you, like a tube in surfing.
I showed the students a short surfing clip I found on youtube, showing them what a beach was, a wave, a board, etc. Everything was new to them.
Then we ran out to the dirt patch in front of the school and tried to surf in Uganda. It was incredible. The video below tells the story. Check out Gulu’s first surf team…
2010 Graduation
November 28th, 2010. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda, Students. No Comments.
A few weeks ago we graduated our second group of Senior 4 students at Restore Leadership Academy. Many of these young men and women were our “pioneer” students who formed the original group of students and have been with us for 3 1/2 years. Secondary school here is broken into two sections called Ordinary (‘O’) level and Advanced (‘A’) level. ‘O’ level is four years (think 8th-11th grade) and ‘A’ level is two years (12th and 13th grade). At the end of both ‘O’ and ‘A’ level students take month long, nationally standardized exams. Students study for years to take one set of tests. Normally graduations are not held until completion of ‘A’ level. But statistically, less than 20% of Senior 4 graduates in Uganda go on to Senior 5 and 6, as schools only take the cream of the crop for ‘A’ level. Financially, most cannot afford education after ‘O’ level as well, as ‘A’ level is considerably more expensive. The reality for most of these students is that this is the only chance at a graduation they’ll ever get!
So we’ve decided to begin the tradition of having a full graduation for our ‘O’ level graduates, celebrating the success of completing their exams. Each of the last two years Bob has come out with caps and gowns, valedictorian medals, the whole works. A total of 26 students graduated this year, and though not all of them will continue on to ‘A’ level, the smiles below tell the story of how they felt that day. Their pasts are traumatic. Some are already mothers or fathers, some were abducted by the LRA as kids and not a single one have both of their parents alive to celebrate with them. But they have hope. They have completed their ‘O’ level, something a majority of their peers will never do. They are strong and confident and ready to face the world. So we wanted to celebrate. And we did, in style.
Restore Leadership Academy graduates
** Photos courtesy of Lauranne Boyd
Spiritual journey
October 3rd, 2010. Published under religion, thoughts and questions. No Comments.
Below is an excerpt from a journal I have to keep for one of my classes. The topic I was writing on was how our life with Christ is a journey…
The journey is hard work because it is a journey, it is a path or a trail or something you have to continue pressing on in. It isn’t a room where you can sit and relax and enjoy your company. It is a mountain path where you walk or run with others, supporting each other in the difficult times, when someone sprains an ankle or is getting tired. Being complacent and sitting down, accepting that you’ve come far enough, is when you stop work and “arrive”. I don’t want to ever feel like I’ve arrived.
I think about the motorcycle trip. We kept saying the journey is the destination. We had fun, but we struggled and it was hard. But we did it together. We recognized when someone needed to rest, we carried each others burdens and we did it together.
I want to continue learning, continue struggling to love God and love my neighbor better. Its hard work. Staying in community with others is difficult. I constantly want to carry my burden alone, not sharing it with others. As I think about it, it is being selfish. Not sharing both the successes and the failures of my spiritual life with others is being selfish…
Because we are in this together.