Saturday evening update

I received a call from Judy (my mom) this morning at around 11:00am. It seems that they are still having email issues, so she talked about as fast as she could to update me on all they have been doing. Trying my best to remember them, so let's see how fast I can write this down before I forget anything.

• The ladies visited Thread of Life's new facility and are so impressed at how professional everything has become. Each lady sews about 20 aprons a day, so they should have lots to bring home again to sell! The bead making is amazing to watch, Judy says. She is really impressed at the progress and momentum they have made for themselves in the last year.
• The men have been visiting prisons each day, bringing soap and sugar in with them as they minister. Reg, who works regularly in prisons in South Africa says that the prisons there look like "palaces" compared to the prisons in Uganda.
  
• Each guy on the team has also spoke a night at a nightly crusade. Each night the guys go out with local churches and help with crusades on the streets on Kampala.
  
• The women's conference was a huge success. Generation Church ladies will remember the prayer cards that they signed for the previous couple weeks, right? Well, they had exactly the perfect amount of cards to give to each woman present at the women's conference. There was lots of tears, but according to workers in the slums, they've received word that each woman that attended felt extremely special and loved. Shane's team from Come Let's Dance did a tremendous job on the conference; Judy saying, "It was as professional and smooth and well planned as any conference I've been to."
• There is some sadness and anger about the treatment of people in the slums: Judy says that the women who live there drink a minimal amount of water, living in constant dehydration, since using the restroom costs 200 shillings and no one can afford to pay that.
• Some ladies also visited a new salon that Global Partners in Development has extended a loan to. Judy was especially happy to see Huntington, one of the young male leaders in the community, taking charge of the salon, overseeing the planning and remodeling himself. It should be ready to open in a couple of weeks!

Tonight is a night of rest, it's about 10pm over there I think, and then the group is going to head over to Pastor Bernard's church for a morning service. The group is tired, emotionally drained, but excited. They appreciate everyone's words and prayers!