Beauty and poverty, opportunities and challenges, dreams and needs…Uganda. It is for her children that we work to build a school…and thus to Build Hope in Kids.

Greetings from Uganda, from our school St. Patrick and from me to all of you our community of supporters.

Allow me in this column to express my very sincere gratitude for the excellent reception I received from you when I visited USA in August through September 2024.

Thank you, Board members, and thank you, Pastors, for the parishes where I visited and preached the missions. I visited a couple of states (Iowa, North Carolina, Texas and of course Illinois). To some of these places like North Carolina I went to visit old friends, others to visit new places (like Texas) and preach missions in others (Iowa). For the old friends and the new friends I was able to meet, THANK YOU for your warm receptions and generous support.

There were lots of individual invitations to your homes, lunch and dinner invites, lots of Meet and Greets that you organized as groups as well. I can’t forget to mention the fun sport activities we enjoyed, particularly THE CHIEFS game and the GOLF OUTING. In addition to raising funds for BHIKU it was fun time as well. Thank you, Board members for organizing all of these activities well.

In addition to what we have been doing at our school, the latest additions are the acquisition of sewing machines and brass band. We thank our generous donors for these two projects. In the next academic year we will start these two projects in our school.

The 2024 school year is ending on December 6 and all has been great. Our 7th grade students completed their national assessment tests on Nov. 7 and went home on November 8. They were all excited that the exams were fair, and expected good results. However, some were emotional that they were leaving for good the school they love so much. We expect their results to be out in January 2025.

I am happy to welcome Fr. Justus to our Board of Directors as a member. I have known him since 1984. He is smart, focused and dependable. He will be a great addition and a great resource person to BHIKU.

As we come to the end of the year, allow me once again to thank you for your incredible support. We are forever grateful and can only commend you to God in our prayers.

I wish you very happy holidays and God’s blessings.

You can now find all of the BHIK-U quilts at our new ETSY shop! That’s right - - we’re in the big time! The official name for our shop is “QuiltsofHopeBHIKU”. Browsing the large inventory of gorgeous quilts and ordering your favorite(s) is super easy and secure, thanks to all of the wonderful folks who’ve lovingly sewn and donated quilts to BHIK-U, and to the Board members who have spent hours getting our ETSY shop ready! You can click on the “Quilt Sale” link at the bottom of our website home page to visit our shop.

Dear friends, sponsors and benefactors of St. Patrick.

Love and sincere greetings from Uganda in general and from St. Patrick in particular.

I am happy to update you on our school as follows.

We are now remaining with several days to end the second term. It ends on August 21st. It has been a very successful term with lots of events including sports competitions according to the different houses. On August 22, our P.7 candidates (70 in number) will go for a study tour to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Western Uganda. They will visit a number of sites and the same class will remain at school for holiday tutoring when others go home for holidays. This is to enable them to complete their curriculum and embark on revision in third term to prepare themselves for the upcoming Uganda National Examinations (Primary Leaving Examinations - PLE). The tentative dates for the PLE exams are 4th and 5th November. We keep our candidates in prayers.

Third term will begin on the 16th of September but our boarding students will report on September 14.

As we wind up the second term we have 30 children being prepared to receive their first Holy Communion on 15th August (the feast day of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

I am so looking forward to being in central Illinois from August 7 to the end of September. I have a number of fundraising events (Mission appeals) aligned and am so looking forward to meeting and seeing some of you physically.

Among these fundraiser events I am eager to throw out the first pitch at the Chiefs game on Aug. 23. Please kindly come out there and we’ll chill out together. I have lots of stories for you about our school and our children. I am coming along with letters from children to their sponsors.

You have supported our cause for several years now and I want to assure you that the growth has been tremendous. We are ranked among the best schools in the country. We cannot thank you enough but only can commend you to God. Always be assured of our prayers.

Building Hope in Kids - Uganda

Latest News

BHIK Newsletter - December 2024

QuiltsofHopeBHIKU

BHIK Newsletter - September 2024