Homes for Widows

Yusta lives in a house with more than 10 orphans. Most widows don’t have a home this nice.

Project cost: $3,000 per house

Total Need: 30+ homes

There are 99 widows connected to Living Spring Church, and these women take orphans into their homes to care for them. Living Spring has identified about one-third of its widow population as in need of vastly improved living conditions. The identified women own land on which a small, two-room home could be built at a cost of $3,000 each, and members of the church are willing to donate all of the labor.

Self-Sustaining Project: Triplex

A structure like this Fort Portal, Uganda, triplex is easily rented. The church hopes to use income to cover the medical costs of its orphan population.

Living Spring Church does not desire to be dependent on Western support. As they survey the resources, opportunities and gifts God has already given them, Living Spring leaders have identified real estate as a pathway to increased self-sustainability. Located in a part of Uganda that has seen huge amounts of foreign investment in recent years, land and housing prices are on an upward trajectory. While the region has long been rich in tourism, the discovery of significant oil resources in Lake Albert is behind the improving infrastructure. A triplex, considered upper-middle class living in Uganda, would net enough income to cover the medical costs of the church’s orphan population, effectively removing reliance on Western support in this area and freeing those funds up for other investment.

Medical Fund for Orphans

Living Spring Church in Fort Portal, Uganda, spends an average of $350 to $600 per month in medical expenses for the orphans in its care. Living Spring is working on plan to make this expense self-supported (see the Triplex project elsewhere on this site). Between 20 and 30 kids per month receive treatment at the medical clinic on the church’s property for diseases like malaria and typhoid. All of the 500-plus orphans in the church also receive a deworming medication every 90 days — even at 60 cents per dose this still costs more than $1,200 annually.

Building project: Living Spring Church

These architectural renderings show plans for a new building for Living Spring Church.

Have you ever pulled up to a restaurant or shopping center, only to drive immediately away for lack of space? This is a common experience on Sundays at Living Spring Church, ABIDE's partner church in Fort Portal, Uganda. After walking to church -- sometimes multiple miles -- to attend services, the church is often full, with overflow out the doors and into the field beyond. Living Spring is actively raising funds among it's people for a building project, and ABIDE is partnering to provide supplemental funds to help make this project a reality. 

"It's a good problem to outgrow our church building, but we have been having issues when it's sunny, people don't come and we lose a lot of people," Living Spring's pastor said. "We have begun putting money aside, and we are encouraging people to give 2 cents, 3 cents. We would like to build a church building in a way we can keep expanding. ... We are hoping, God-willing, people are giving seed money." 

The church has worked with a local architect for designs (renderings from which are pictured), and ABIDE is working to provide funding to lay a foundation for the building to allow Ugandan-raised funds to go to the next phase of costs. 

With questions or for more information about this project, email info@abide.world. 

Fencing for widows’ land

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Widows Property

In July of 2015 we had the opportunity to sit with around 45 widows at a church in Fort Portal, Uganda. They came before us in tears. They all have orphans that they care for and do not have the means to feed them most of the time. They had approached many people within the community asking to plant small gardens on a piece of their land. In exchange, they would share the crops with the landowner. When it came time to harvest though, the landowners would take 90-100% of the food. The women, 83 in total, decided they would start saving money to buy their own piece of property. In a years time, they had saved around 1,200 US dollars. The cost of land around town is quite expensive, so they were looking at a piece that was 20 kilometers away. They were asking if we could help them purchase this piece of land. Just the day before this meeting we were approached by a woman that was wanting to sell eleven and a half acres to pay for a surgery that her daughter needed. This land was only a quarter mile from the church these widows attend. We brought the idea home and presented it to two churches. They each raised half of the funds, and we were able to purchase the land for the widows. They used the money they had been saving to buy the seed for planting. The women divided the land into pieces that they all farm. They visit the property daily and help each other with the massive amount of work. They are able to feed their families and also have some extra to sell in the market. Each season they get a little more of the property cleared and plant a little more than the season before. This is a 100% self-sustaining project that is not needed to oversee.