Women Together is committed to work with an amazing group of women in Nairobi. This trip was our fifth! We conducted a Women’s Conference in the Kabare section of Nairobi which included Biblical instruction, spiritual encouragement and medical training. Our team consisted of: Ellen Krahn, Evelyn Franklin, Sherry Leyte and Margaret Gibb. We did a medical clinic in the Overcomers Caring Ministry Day-School and Orphanage. Our new appointed Women Together Coordinator, Eunice Monda, along with her husband, our Founders and Directors of this ministry.

We had the privilege to serve the needy Mom’s whose children are part of the “Overcomers Caring Ministry.” A bag of flour to these Moms, was a great gift! They could feed their families for almost a week. For our team, we experienced the joy of serving. We did not need to serve, we got to serve!

Another high-lite was taking 8 key women in leadership leaders on an overnighter – a Peer Care Retreat! Hearing their stories of their early childhoods and the unfolding of where they are today, was inspiring to us from Canada and an encouragement to all who were part of this first-ever overseas Peer Care Retreat!

We will do this again in 2017.

Within an hour’s drive from the Entebee Airport, the Women Together team arrived, very late on March 7th, 2016 to what looked like a well-kept compound and home to the ROTOM Ministry. Staff en route shared briefly why ROTOM started and what we would find on our week of orientation. A friendly barking dog along with the Founder Kenneth Mugayehwenkyi welcomed us to ROTOM and directed us to the guest house. In stark contrast to the blackness of the night, the guest house, all lit up, was immediately settling after our 18 hour flight from Canada. This would be home for a week.

ROTOM stands for: Reach One Touch One Ministries. Kenneth started ROTOM in October 2003 as an answer to the devastation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which took the lives of thousands of adult children, leaving grandmothers to raise their grand children. In African culture, it is the adult children who look after their parents in their senior years. With the HIV/AIDS taking so many adults, something had to be done to help the grandmothers who were living in severe poverty themselves and had the added responsibility of raising their grandchildren. Most raise 2 -5 grandchildren. We met one grandmother raising 13 grandchildren. What we saw and learned was amazing!

Our week consisted of visiting villages were we met the seniors in the small homes provided by ROTOM. We met their grandchildren, listened to their stories and understood how ROTOM has brought them the seniors and their grandchildren, dignity, hope and life. “My life has purpose again” was a common statement we heard from the grandmothers!

Home-based care and medical attention are all part of the ROTOM program to ensure that the needs of seniors and their grandchildren are being met. The grandmothers we met are happy women! Thanks to ROTOM!

We have been asked to provide leadership training to the ROTOM staff of 26 and will be doing much more with home based care with this needed ministry in Uganda in the near future.

In October 2015, the Women Together team – Ruth Coghill, Tricia Gibb and Margaret Gibb, had the privilege of working with an amazing group of women who call themselves: “Women of Blessing.’ Besides seminars and an annual conference, they direct a program to help single moms and families with little income. We had the privilege to speak to 2,100 of these women. The request of the leader to us was: “Bring us doctors, dentists, optometrists. We need help!” We will be back.