The Big Day

Anxious, excited, apprehensive, and happy - our entire group of 30 Compassion sponsors finished breakfast (or finished sitting at the breakfast table trying to eat, but much too excited to consume much of anything) and headed over to the Olympic-sized swimming pool area of the resort. Any minute our children were expected to arrive.

We receive an updated photo of Ronald, our sponsored child, every 18 months. Because we just got an update in the mail a few months ago, we very quickly spotted our handsome ten-year-old.

It was a day of visiting, asking and answering questions with the help of one of Ronald’s Compassion project staff members to translate. Henry pushed Ronald to speak in English and answer questions on his own as much as possible, but coming from a small village, Ronald gets little practice with his English other than some time in school and his Saturdays at the Compassion project.

Besides visiting and eating lunch (complete with a birthday cake we ordered just for Ronald since he turns 11 next Wednesday), we walked with Ronald to go see some of the horses at the resort stable, rode on a boat around Lake Victoria (the second largest lake in the world), and (attempted) to play some football (soccer for you Americans). We’d estimate that Ronald is about 28 times more experienced at playing football than we are!

It was probably an overwhelming day of surprises and firsts for Ronald – the huge city of Kampala, staying in a hotel with a flush toilet and shower head, petting a horse, seeing a lake, riding on a boat, taking such a long bus ride, meeting his sponsors from America, receiving a bagful of gifts from us. Hopefully it will also be a day he remembers forever. I know we will!

It was a bit sad to say our goodbyes, but we pray that the letters we write and this visit to see our sponsored child will have a positive effect on Ronald’s future.