It's Official

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to make the announcement here, cause it's official! We're going to be going to Uganda for 2 years come this September!

First off, if you're reading this and this applies to you, we might need your contact information! We have a nice letter sitting here just waiting to give you more info of what we're doing, just in case you're curious! Drop us a line at seanandjamie@gmail.com.

Anyway, for what little I can tell you here, we'll be leaving September 15th of this year - 2008 - to work in Kibaale with Pacific Academy Outreach Society under Jon Imbeau. Jeff and Shannon Dyck are there right now who some of you may know, and we'll be rooming with them for a short time while our house gets set up. We'll be going in and hitting the ground running as Community Services Coordinator (which is really hard to pluralize actually, but we'll both be doing the job!). Quick summary of what we'll be doing - managing and overseeing the Kibaale Children's Fund which sponsors 750 kids for schooling and health and all that, working with local government and officials to get things set up for the entire centre to run essentially self-sufficient once we leave, getting the water situation sorted out as 18 of 18 deep-water pumps are currently broken, so this will also include training and buying parts, etc., and if that isn't enough, we'll be continuing the search for sustainability by setting up a micro loan program, communicating with local NGOs, integrating the KCF and community services department's together into one unit to best provide care, hiring and training people for vocational skills and self employment, figuring out a way to continue support and sponsorship for post-S4 graduate kids so they can enter the real world with ease, assisting those already there with any kind of backup we can provide.... phew! That's not all of it, but as you can see, there's more work than can be done in two years. And we're just in love with Africa, and can not wait to go back and get started.

That's it for a first update. Excuse the inordinate amount of exclamation marks and hyperactivity (ie. lack of periods) in this post. It won't all be this annoying to read, I promise - but I am excited :)

See yas....
-Sean