Christmas Goats

Right around Christmas, I was reading the Myhre's blog (http://www.paradoxuganda.blogspot.com/) and noticed that Jennifer had offered a non-traditional Christmas gift idea that would benefit World Harvest Mission.

A goat.

As WHM strives to live out their call to spreading the Gospel as well as making "life to the full" possible, they are thinking forward for the district of Bundibugyo. The Matiti goat project is taking mid-grade dairy goats (87%) and breeding them with the local (and useless) goats of Bundibugyo. The idea is that in a decade or so there will be a sustainable and extremely useful resource for the district. The goats that have been donated are being given to HIV positive mothers who wean their children from breastfeeding after 6 months to prevent the risk of HIV transmission. They are also being bred by the townspeople! We visited several villages where goats are being kept and saw how proud the Ugandans are to be entrusted with such a task!

Both of these are "goat owners." The man is holding a record of all the times his goat has been "serviced" by female goats! The woman on the right was so proud to show us her two female goats that she is entrusted with.

After a full day, I was really tired and not terribly excited about seeing one more goat (my true American self coming out in full force at this point in the trip)... but the last village we tromped through turned out to be such a blessing to me. We joked that there was an 18:1 ratio of children to adults in this village, and the children flocked around me, probably because I was their height!! While the others attended to the goats (again Wade's hand made its way into their mouths) and listened to the presentation, I was busy distracting the children and occasionally causing problems! They were afraid of my lily-white skin, and when I would reach out my hand to them they ran back a few feet squeeling!! Finally, one brave boy pushed his way through the inner ring of children and walked up to grasp my hand. Apparently that was all they needed to be encouraged to get close... for the rest of the visit they were like a small, moving skirt around me and Lisa! And their presence, laughter, and curiosity was so uplifting...

The Christmas goat donations were amazing generous, and just the other day at 3am about 50 goats were delivered to the Masso's door! They are being distrubuted to new homes across the disctrict (a big job!) and with eat goat comes hope for milk and food, determination for change, and a restoration of community pride. The project is ongoing, and you can learn more here: http://www.whm.org/project?ID=12371 as well as on the Bundinutrition blog: http://bundinutrition.blogspot.com/.