Psalm 121! He is always watching you. Our God never sleeps. How amazing! Have Courage:-)

James Nathan Nuwagaba Barugahare 

Emmanuel Benjamin Ashaba Barugahare

Khloe'Laura Owembabazi Barugahare

My mum took in a little boy in 2010 and she named him James

James was abandoned somewhere in Mbarara when he was 6 months old. Mbarara is located in the western part of Uganda. All attempts to trace the family by the probation officer were in vain. He was then placed under my mums care until they traced his family members who were willing to look after him but no one was ever traced.

We met little James every time we went to visit mummy. Little James was very happy with mummy. He was very malnourished when he was first placed with my mum. My mum did her best to take care of him and he became healthy and was a happy little boy.

Later in 2012 my mum took in another little boy and she names him Emmanuel.

Emmanuel’s biological mother got pregnant with him when she was 17 years old by a casual laborer in their village who disappeared when he found out about the pregnancy.

Emmanuel’s biological mother was sent to crisis center for pregnant girls. Her parents were very angry at her being pregnant.

After she gave birth, she went back to her parents who rejected the child and did not want their grandchild at home with their daughter. Emmanuel was then handed over to my mum as alternative care for the little baby.

Mummy did not have any income coming in apart from what my sisters and I gave her.

We were very mad at her decision to take on more children yet she really didn’t have enough money to take care of the kids.

               My late mum (Laura ) with the 3 children. I miss her so much

We felt the financial pressure to take care of her and the children. My sisters and I agreed to pressure her to take the kids back to the system. We really did pressure her and stressed her to take the children back to the probation officer. We wanted her to rest and grow old quietly and not take on extra pressure of the expense of taking care of the kids.

She actually listened to us and started looking for alternative options but nothing was available. Nobody wanted the kids and so she really didn’t have an option but to keep them. In the meantime, my 2 sisters Judith and Joy plus my income was reducing. My oldest sister Judith who was pretty consistent with her monthly income to mummy had to change jobs but her new job would not pay on time. My other little sister Joy did not have a lot coming in and she had her own world requiring rent, a new baby and upkeep that took most her income.

I started volunteering for a church that my husband and I were leading. I did not have any income coming in. My husband and i had four kids to pay school fees for and the whole upkeep was ridiculously expensive and the two of us were not consistent with helping mummy for about a year.

It was very difficult time for all us as a family. This lasted about 2 years. We never stopped trusting God. We kept praying and committing everything to him.

I kept telling myself “do not be anxious, just take everything to God in prayer”!

Meantime, when my mum took on Khloe’ (her name then was Dora) she didn’t even tell me. I suspect, when she was asked to take on Khloe for some time, she could not say no!

My mum never mentioned anything regarding Khloe’ when she was alive but I overheard her friends mentioning that she had taken on a little girl and I just didn’t want to fight with her, so I just let her be.

I later found out that Khloe was in an orphanage and the orphanage thought she was HIV positive and could not keep her in the orphanage. Mummy took her on because she had nowhere else to go.  She is not HIV positive. She had a rash on her skin that is still clearing as she grows.

My mum died very suddenly on the 23rd of June 2017. Her blood pressure shot up high and she got cardiac arrest.

Her death shook us so hard. She should not have died. She still had a lot to live for. She was 70 years old. She was full of life and we still needed her. She had a special bond with Danielle my oldest and I loved how excited she got when she was going to see her grandmother.

It is almost a year since she died, I have been back to Uganda to see her grave but I still don’t believe that she is gone.

She died very suddenly and left behind the 3 children without a plan.

Nitah, one of my older sisters works with Watoto an institution that was set up to help abandoned and orphaned children. She assured us that the institution would take the kids on and we didn’t have to worry.

I flew back to Zambia to let my older sister handle the transfer of the kids. My sister provided all the paper work as requested by Watoto but they were just not interested in the kids. 3 months after mummy’s death, the kids were still staying in my mums rented house with an old friend of my mum called Annet. We had asked her to look after them for only 2 weeks after mum’s death and she agreed to do it because she loved my mum and she knew how much the 3 of them meant to my mum. We all live far away from Mbarara and none of my siblings would take on the kids.

3 months later, the kids were still without a solution. My sister was out of options. On our group chat, we started to fight because we were all frustrated with the situation.

Then I started praying in the night asking God to help us find a solution. I failed to sleep for days and days. I was so frustrated by the situation. I cried a lot. I started getting depressed by the hopelessness of the situation.

I was not about to ask my husband to adopt more kids. We had just come out of a season of being so broke where my husband had given up hope to care for us.

God had miraculously provided a fantastic source of income and moved us to Zambia. We had started being regular with mummy’s upkeep before she died.

The four kids had joined a good school and we were starting to breath and suddenly mummy dies.

My husband was also frustrated by the situation but said very little.

One evening in August, George just said to me, we are going to be responsible for the kids. He paid for me to fly to Uganda, drive to Mbarara and get the kids to some of our closest friends Marjorie and Mulungi Sseruwo who had graciously agreed to take care of them as we worked on the paper work to formally adopt them, get their passports and get them to Zambia with us in January 2018.

We couldn’t dare ask God if we were making the right decision. What was He supposed to tell us: yes, that is a mistake? Was he going to tell us that He was not going to provide for them? We know God. We haven’t just heard about Him, we have seen him do only what He does and we know Him and His heart towards the abondoned. We stand daily on His promises. We trust Him completely.

But above all: we want Him to receive the glory for all that He is going to do through our family.

On the 22nd of December 2017, we flew back to Uganda for Christmas with our family but also to finally get together with our other 3 children.

We had had several conversations with our four older children and they were very excited to meet their new siblings.

In Uganda, our friends Mulungi and Marjorie had also had several conversations with the 3 about their family that was coming to pick them.

When we arrived and picked them up the older 4 immediately embraced their little siblings and started fighting on who was best at fixing Khloe’s car seat and who was the coolest bigger sibling. There was so much noise and excitement was we travelled all day by road going to the village.

Our life as a family of 9 had just begun and what the does the bible say “He who begun the good work in you, will bring it to accomplishment”. As daunting as it is to raise 7 children and all that is involved, we know that God will do a good job through us.

Khloe' on her second birthday but her first with us. 

I have now settled in as mum f seven. I literally spend my day loving, hugging, smacking, kissing, instructions and repeating myself. I am a judge, jury and lawyer to the cases that keep piling up in my house. When George comes home after work, he happily takes over from me.

There are days when I watch them being kind to one another, playing, laughing so much, teasing each other and my heart fills with so much emotion, joy, pride  and all sorts of emotions is all over the place. Most times I feel so lucky that I am their mother and I get to put all my energy in them. I get to pray for them, instruct them in the ways of God.

There are days when I see the five adopted and wonder where they would be if we didn’t chose to have them as our own. I also know that we would be without any adventure if we didn’t have them.

Our family would be so boring without Kaylas 24 hour dance moves, Joeys catwheels, James’ pranks, Emmanuel stars from school and his constant putting up his hand to talk about things that he alone understands and Khloes little feet running around the house. Danielle and Gabriel my oldest two who absolutely love their large family would not have tales of adventure of loving and learning to look beyond their own lives.

                                  James and Emmanuel playing with my best friends children

I feel so undeserving of this favor God has bestowed on George and i.