New Blaine in Africa

We are exited to let you know that Daniel Blaine has been in South Africa for the past month. He has just returned home and will be using our Blog to share his experiences and what he has accomplished while on this contenent!

Stay Tuned

Thanks
JESSE AND SARAH

www.MERCYBEADPROJECT.com

A Letter From Simon Ochora

Dear my great brother Jesse,
Iam very much glad and really would like to inform you that i did received the money right away amounting to 102,100 Uganda shillings. i hope it is the same amount you sent. before i go futher in my letter brother, on behalf of the family, i would like to take this time up to really send my sincere thanks and bigger appreciation to you and my sister Sarah (family at large) for all these greatter support and caring heart you have upone us my brother, We pray often that May the Almighty God blesses you, bless the work of your hand and provide for you and your family living brother. you will remain in our prayer. indeed brother, i was having difficulties before in finding food stuff ,clothes and many others for these kids but through your support iam now able to buy food stuff ,colthes and shoes for these children and sum i will keep for medication in case of any sickness or emmergency that may need money to help.i will send for you the picture of these Children in this letter, please download it to view. the picture is for the 18th .december ,2010.

brother believe in God for Sarah, be strong enough, for she will deliver, note that every thing is posible with God. iam very happy that God has plann for a bady between you and Sarah and very soon to have him out on the 2nd of January. it is a great news for me brother. greet Sarah for me very much and tell her that simon love and praying for her every day.
i will keep Sarah in my prayer brother. i hope you are strong enough and confident. have a bigger blessing from your brother,send my greetings to everyone over there. May Good Lord blesses you and protect you and your family, and please send this email along to them that i may thank them as well, and wish them a merry christmas. I wish you and every body over there at home a Happy Merry Christmas and prosperous new year.
NB, we Love you and pray for you every day. Lots of love and greetings from the family in Gulu to you.
Thanks very much again my brother for your wonderful support for us.
In Christ
Simon.

Sponsorship

Hello everyone,
Some of you may know that I receive constant updates from my students and friends in Gulu, Uganda about the state of the village and how sponsorship is always needed in this very poor city. Below is a letter from my friend Simon. Simon's parents died last year and left him with over 6 other children to take care of. He is not yet 19 and he is struggling to feed them all and take care of them. We are helping support him along with Josh Davis (who he mentions in the letter) but because of our other obligations to two other Ugandan families (Mary and Irene) it is very difficult to FULLY provide for him and his families needs. If anyone would like to help, a simple $20 a month will go farther than you could ever imagine.
Thanks
~Jesse


"Wow brother Jesse,
Iam glad to hear from you once more. How are you doing brother and sarah as well? Back to me iam busy doing exams.
Oh brother thanks alot for the money but brother Josh have not yet made it my way but he told me that he will send it this week. Indeed we are lacking food I think it will now help us for buying food and other things needed as well. Thanks alot God bless you brother.

Well brother, pertaing kids did any body has agree to sponsor them in school? Because i received an email from my brother Josh telling me that few have accepted to help me.
When will you and Sarah leave for mexco brother?

Thanks have a lovely day brother. God bless you.
in christ
simon.

Grenada and Mexico Travels

Hi and thanks for checking back with us!
Even though this blog is called "Blaine's in Africa" we have again been blessed with several opportunities to travel abroad and be a blessing to others again! We have decided to continue our Blog past Africa, so people who want to keep up with us in our journeys can still do so.
So as some of you know, Sarah and I were blessed with he opportunity of traveling to Grenada to help with Raise Praise Ministries! We were very blessed ourselves on this trip and we were able to accomplish so many things. From helping a local man and friend of ours named Alvin with digging and building a "Suck Away" for his septic system, to painting part of the Fellowship of Believers church in River Sally, to working with the children of Grenada at this church!

We have now been given another opportunity that I do not think we can pass up. In August we will be traveling to Guadalajara, Mexico to a rural city there to help with Raise Praise and their base they have opened within the last several years. We are in the process of raising money for the trip now and we do not know for sure how long we will be gone for but we thank you all for your prayers for our safe journey coming up in the next several months.
We will keep you posted!
Thanks
~Jesse and Sarah Blaine

Recycled Necklaces

Even more great news!

As many of you know, Sarah has taken on the task of heading up the distribution of the recycled newspaper necklaces made by the Child Mothers of Gulu. The head of this orginization has been shipping hundreds of these necklaces to us from Uganda. We have recently gotten them into a store selling items from around the world, called "Tala's Distant Treasures." They have already sold out of the necklaces and have just placed their second order, and we are expecting HUGE things to happen through this new process! If you would like to support this cause, please E mail one of us on this site, or see Sarah to look at the sweet new collection of necklaces and bracelets that have just been shipped to us.

Thanks for your support!
~Jesse
www.Jesseblaine.com

WESTERN UNION

So....great news from Uganda Africa! The city of Gulu where we had been staying this summer, has had their first money sending and receiving establishment move in last month! Western Union. It is so primitive, that before now, there had been no way to get any funds to our friends there in the village in Gulu. They basically have no government, no working post office, and only one Internet café in the whole city that is barely functional, but now they have this Western Union office to send chillings through.

I was able to complete the first transaction successfully, and the money made it to Mary and Irene, and their families. I was amazed. I had to E mail the one person that I knew who had enough money to access the Internet at the café. A young guy named Christopher Oachan who is 22 years old. I told him that if he could manage to find Mary and Irene in their village, I would send money for them all to share. They have no addresses or street names in the city, so he had to use my very poor directions, and actually found them somehow through the maze of chickens and mud huts. He told me he located their the general area in the village of Pece and just started yelling their names until and old man pointed him to the right hut.

I was able to send a grand total of 196,995 Ugandan Chillings! It is enough to feed 3 entire families of 5 for at least 1 month! I will be sending money every month, so if any of my readers would like to contribute, it is nice to know it goes directly to the families and their needs instead of through some of the "Non Profit" organizations that take half the proceeds.

Thanks for your prayers and support!
~Jesse and Sarah Blaine

Back to Gulu

Hey there readers!

Just wanted to let you know how things are going. We are working on getting back to Gulu, Uganda soon, but have no idea when the chance will present itself. It may be next April or May (2008) but we are still working out the best time to go. We may be taking a small team this time to help with the work, so anyone who would like to spend a few weeks with little or no running water, electricity, or American food call us haha! :) (it really is the greatest way to live!)

Til next time...
Wynen!
~Jesse

A day in the life of being married to Jesse...

So my husband had to have FunDip today. We drove around looking at various stores for some FunDip to get his sugar fix and came across a homeless man. He was sitting on the side of the road with a sign that read, "In need of food and clothes." So what did we do... we picked him up, went to McDonald's, picked up some food for him and two of his buddies, went to where there were staying, and hung out. He told Jesse that it was either use the little money he had to eat a meal or do his laundry and now that he had food he could do laundry. Well Jesse couldn't let them spend the last of their money on laundry... so we've been washing their clothes all day : ) I was amazed that someone would hand over everything they owned and completely trust that we were going to wash them and bring them back.

Whenever I call Jesse from work on his days off he has always found a homeless person and is taking them out to lunch. On one hand I get worried that something is going to happen to him, but on the other hand... thats amazing.

-Sarah

Different Cultures...

Thanks for your prayers and support everyone!
Sarah is doing much, much better. They have contacted the infectious disease list here in NKY, (because doctors here are so paranoid) but she is up and about and just a little sluggish because of the antibiotics she is on. She's almost back to her old self though. They still do not know what it was that had made her so sick, but through some blood cultures and X Rays, they have ruled out all the worst stuff like T.B, Malaria, Yellow Fever and so on. Sarah has mentioned that it is much different knowing first hand what it is like to not only be very sick in another country, where aid and medical treatment is so limited, but also what it feels like to be so sick and have no idea what it is that is doing this to your body. The worst part for me (Jesse), was knowing that we had been through the T.B. ward at the hospital with no protection, been playing with many kids that may have had HIV or other sicknesses, played with baby goats and monkeys, bit by mosquitoes and had possibly consumed very polluted water, so really, it could have been anything and we still may never know what had caused it.

Oh yeah...I almost forgot...The little boy in front (in the picture above) is named Simon. He was our favorite little boy in our village and he has Malaria. He got really sick while we were there and we were so worried about him, so keep Simon in your prayers as well if you remember. We are still in the midst of trying to get financial support over to our students in Pece, but it is much harder than it seems. It looks as if we may have to go through Invisible Children to get them support, but it is still in the works.

Thanks for all the love and support!
It has meant the world.....

~Jesse

parasite

Hi everyone,
if you are reading this, please keep Sarah in your prayers. She is still ill.
we have weeded out the possibility of Malaria, but she may have just brought back a parasite from Gulu. The doctors are still not quite sure, so just keep her in your prayers.
Thanks so much
~Jesse

Last few days in Gulu

Our last few days in Gulu were sad. We did not want to leave our village as we had made so many great friends, and had such great community with people we never thought we would meet. We bought necklaces for all of our students and flip flops for Mercy. At this point she would actually look at us and smile without being terrified. We said our goodbyes and they told us that we had to come back soon. (Next time they wanted us to bring them sugar and soap) :)

We spent some of the day going to several of the Japotti (food stands and food dealers on the street) telling them about the students new refrigerator pots. Most of the people we told along the trip did not believe us at first, that there could be refrigerator that did not need electricity. After some convincing, most of them told us that they would soon hunt down our students to be among the first to buy one, to keep their fruits and vegetables fresh. It was so encouraging to know they would start selling them right away!

Later in the day, we visited Gulu's one and only hospital. It was highly run down, with no water or electricity. We could not believe our eyes as we walked by the T.B. ward to see that it was separated by only a small cloth sheet. We could only imagine that someone might go to the hospital not feeling well, and end up catching TB and dying from it. The birthing center only allowed their mothers to stay for 24 hours, and did not have enough beds so the waiting mothers would often have to sleep and stay on the hard concrete floor. Nothing was sterilized and the birthing chair was just a hard steel chair that looked as if it had not been cleaned from the last 100 births. It was sad to see it in this shape, but we just keep walking through in amazement. We visited the "Placenta Pit" which was a hole in the ground they would dump the mothers placenta after a birth. It was estimated that there were over 200,000 placentas in the pit. The smell made us want to vomit, but we just kept it in. We saw I.V. bags just taped to the walls, and they were feeding the malnourished patients formula to keep them alive. It was sad, but we had hope that R.E.N.U.H would be able to make some much needed changes.

We said our goodbyes to the other people of the R.E.N.U.H and KK Organizations and all of our good friends that we had met, and told them we would most likely be back to Uganda next summer. Only God knows for sure if we will return, but we can only pray that our students continue with the program and that the money they earn can become a constant means of income for Mary, Irene, Samuel and Martins families.
Sarah and I have decided to continue to support our students families while in the states. They have set up a bank account in the city, where we can wire transfer money when they fall short and continue with the community that we have started with these amazing people of Gulu.

Random Thoughts

Today, I (Jesse) got bit by a monkey, hit on the street by a passing Boda, and ate a live "White Ant". It was a weird day.

Wood Shavings

Today we walked our two female students (Mary and Irene) to the wood shop where the men there told us that they could have all the shavings they wanted to fire their kilns. This was great because now they can save money on fire wood and will soon be able to use the shavings to fire all their pots. They just have to practice packing the shavings in a way, so they do not burn too fast or two slow. We experimented with some pots in the kiln. Some of the pots were not dry enough to be fired and they exploded, but we were successful with two of the four pots we placed into the kiln.
Our favorite little boy in the village, (Simon) had Malaria today. We could tell he was really sick and they took him to the hospital. So we were praying that would get better. He eventually did, and was back to his old self in the next few days.

So sick

Today I (Jesse) woke up sick again. This time it was sick X4. I could hardly lift my head off of the pillow. (This was odd for me seeing I have not been really sick since I was 10 years old.) I used this day to stay in bed while the others traveled into the men's village. The men's village was in the middle of the bush about 40 kilometers out into the middle of nowhere. They had to stop the Bodas and get off to push them across creeks and up hills. When they got there, they rounded up our students and explained the refrigerator pot concept to them. The students liked the idea and decided that it was a project they were willing to start, so all was well.
I used my day off (when I felt like I could get up) to update all the bunk beds. I cut and made posts out of bamboo and strapped mosquito nets to them, so all the top bunks for all the aid workers in the house all had nets now, which was much needed. Some of the girls had decided the night before, to just drape the nets over their bodies. They were unaware that the nets were chemically treated, and they all woke up with chemical burns on their arms and faces. Ouch!. I also used this time to help some of the other guys in the Krochet Kids organization strap papyrus mats to our chain link fence to create a cool effect for our house. We went to the village and bought some goats for the yard too. We bought two little baby goats we named Falcore and Sue. They are our garbage disposals and lawn mowers now too :)

Feeling Better

Today we are both feeling about 95% well. We were both able to walk to the village and work in the sun again. We started to build the kiln for our students to fire their first pots. It was a long process, and we soon learned that a to complete a project that would take 15 minutes in the states, was a full days work in Gulu. We moved a pile of 120 bricks that we had purchased about 100 yards distance and it took us a couple hours to complete. The children all helped us putting the bricks on their heads like they had seen their mothers do. It was amazing to see a 3 year old child work in the sun with a brick on his or hear head until we had finished. Some of the children would fall over with the weight of the bricks on their heads and one got hurt pretty badly as he fell over and the brick landed right on his face. But soon recovered. We had exactly enough bricks to finish half of the kiln, and would need to get more for the next day.

Later in the day we made a tire swing for the kids. We used a rope we had found in the ground and a bike tire that one of the children had been playing with. It was apparent that they had never seen such a thing because of how popular it was. We hung it from a Mango tree and we would sit them on the tire, and spin it around until the rope was at its tightest. When we would let it go it would spin and spin until the kids were dizzy and could not stand. We were forced to start a line (which was a foreign concept to them) because they began to fight and punch to get on next. We soon had to take the swing down because it was causing so many problems, but it was fun while it lasted. It was fun when I pulled my video Ipod out of my bag and showed the children a music video. I felt like I was from the future, because many of the kids had never seen a TV and they watch the images on the screen in amazement. It was a great experience.

Toys for Acholi Tots.

Today we bought the kids in our village some toys. We baught dolls for most of the girls, and jump ropes for the girls as well. For the boys we bought some soccer balls and as we brought them into the village I felt like Santa. I have never seen kids so exited to see such small gifts. The mothers all thanked us and said this was a gift from God, which made us all feel great. Mercy (the little girl who is so afraid of us) received a doll which she tied to her back for the rest of the day. We could tell that she loved the doll so much and was so exited to have it. I bought a can of Pringles chips, which was the most expensive food item I had found at this point,
(6,500 Chillings) and I shared the can with the entire village. Who would have thought that one little can of chips could mean so much to everyone. They all crowded around to get their little stack and some of them would take the smallest bites I have ever seen to savor them as long as possible. It was amazing to watch, and this was the only point of the trip thus far that Mercy would actually look me in the eye as she held out her little hand to receive her small stack. The mothers all got the biggest stacks and I could tell they just loved every bite too. Sarah and I were given our Acholi names today as well. I was given the name "Olara", which means "He has saved". Sarah was given "Agenu Wot" which means "I trust God".

Parasites!

Last night was miserable for us, seeing that we both caught a parasite. We woke up hardly being able to lift our heads off of the pillow. We had been sharing water from the same water bottles and we were buying it from the local market. We were soon informed that many of the water bottles that we had bought had possibly been recycled and filled with either tap wate, or water from other tainted sources. (The Nile maybe?) ha ha. No wonder we had gotten ill...rumor had it in Gulu that they would refill the bottles from the bottom and seal them back up melting the bottoms back. From this point on, we would start to check the bottoms before we bought them. We found a surprising amount of bottles the next few days that looked exactly as this were the case. It is really tough being the sickest you have ever been, and not having running water or electricity. No bathroom to get sick in. Just a hole in the ground and a little bit of hand sanitizer. I felt that I had enough energy to take the day on, but Sarah could not get out of bed, so she rested all day while we went to the village to continue our work.

That day we were contacted by Invisible Children, and told that there was a new organization in town called R.E.N.U.H. (Restoring Northern Uganda's Hospitals.) and they were renting a house with another organization called the Kroche Kids. Both organizations were made up with college students passionate about helping the Acholi people. We were told that the house that they had rented would be opened up as a hostel so we could stay there as long as we would like, but it was just purchased that day and we would need to help them set it up. This was a blast. We met all the other students from the organizations and we all got along so well. They made us feel welcome and we all chipped in to put together bunk beds, get furniture from the market, cook our meals and get the house into working order. It was a rough process, (seeing that we had little to work with) but it came together well. The house actually had running water and a nice latrine out back that was far nicer than our previous hotel. We were able to take our first (cold) showers, and it felt great. We had electricity about half the time but it would go out just about every night. They asked me to paint a Muriel on one of the walls so I started the project with one pencil, and a packet of permanent markers. 7 and 1/2 hours later I had finished
(in the dark with a head lamp) the Mureil. It was such a long process with no paint, but I feel it worked out well for them. It read "welcome to the Adservio and KK House!"

Acholi Children

Today was Saturday, and the Acholi villages do nothing on the weekends, so we used this opportunity to spend all day with the children playing soccer. We met up with another aid organization who was working in Gulu and we played Munos VS. Acholis. We won, however we did steal their star player and their goal keeper for our team because we were short two players. After the game we soon came to find out that the entire team was a team of formally abducted children. They were all in between the ages of 12 and 15 and they had been taken by the LRA at some point and had all either escaped or been set free. Some of them told us horrible stories of what they had been forced to do, and it was very heart breaking. I (Jesse) became good friends with a 21 year old guy named Chris, who was abducted at a very young age and forced to kill many women and children before he was able to escape. He had some battle scars and was very open about his LRA experiences. This was uncommon because saying the words "LRA" rebels or talking of the ongoing war on the street was a sore subject, and still caused so much pain for the Acholi people. We spent hours playing with all the kids who had gathered to see such an amazing site. By the end of the match there were over 50 children and adults on the sidelines just watching our every move. The children just would stand and watch us even when we were just sitting in the shade resting. They would mimic everything we did, and we taught them the game "Tag". Sarah, Kari, and Ashley made a jump rope out a piece of a dress that a little girl voluntarily ripped off and given to them to make the rope. They played with all the girls for a long time and it was great to have such wonderful interaction with these people who were still so amazed at our presence.

New Hotel

Today we moved into a much nicer and safer feeling hotel. The room was a little bigger and there was an actual latrine in the room. There was still no running water or electricity, but it was worlds above our previous spot. This gave us our first chance in around a week to bathe. To bathe, we would retrieve a can of water,
(usually rain water or from the well) drag it into the bathroom, pour half of the can into a small basin, wash off, and then use the other half to rinse off. Not a bad system, but when you are finished we were not much cleaner then when you started. Good thing there were two of us or this would have been difficult,haha. The latrines are just a small hole in the ground, where we would squat. It was a bit uncomfortable but after a week you can get very accustom to this method. It is actually very nice when you are used to it. (Kind of a colon cleanser).

In the village we took a translator in today and he helped us explain our idea to the women of our refrigerator pots, that would keep their food good for weeks without electricity. This system had been created in Nigeria in 1997 and was very successful. They had a hard time understanding the concept at first, but after a couple hours of explanation and trial and error, they started to understand. We thought we might have something going here! :) We later found out that the translator we had used had not been translating accurately what we were saying. He turned out to be very deceptive and told us that our students were asking us for a specific amount of money for all the supplies. He told us to give this money to him and he would give it to the students each week, or something of this sort. So needles to say this was the last time we used this translator.

Our Villaige

Today we went to the main village in Pece, (which is even a smaller sub county of Gulu). This village had two of our four students living in it, and would be our place of work for the next few weeks. It was amazing because so many of the children had never even seen a white person! Their little jaws would drop to the floor as they would just point and say "Muno, Muno". I had heard it compared that white people looked to them as either inside out, or as a pig that had been shaved and was ready to be slaughtered. The children were amazingly receptive however. They would jump on us and want us to play with them day and night. We would put them on our backs and pick them up and spin them around and around. This eventually became the most fun game because many of them had never been dizzy before and would panic as you would set them down. That is, until they realized it was harmless and would want us to to it until the sun went down. Some of the children would take one look at us, scream in fear and run away crying. It was a bit of a sup prise to see this reaction. But for the most part the children just loved us being there. We soon became very accustom to Luwo (the language in Gulu) We would Say Kopango, and they would say Kope in return. We would say Achu mabe. And in return we would say Achu Mabe or Atie Mabe. And then we would both say Wynen. This translates something close to: "Hi, how are you?" "I am fine, hows life?" "Everything is good" "Bye!"
Our village consisted of a few dirt paths that lead into different small groups of mud huts. Each hut had a straw and grass thatched roof and one door. The majority of the people here are Christians, so they would teach us songs in their language and the two that knew English would teach us the translation as well.