July 2026 Newsletter

Posted on 26. September 2026 by admin

Carry each other’s burdens,
and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2

Dear Friends of AMUKA!

Another six months have passed since our last newsletter! Last week, we – Orge & Antje – came back from Uganda, and we have a lot to tell you.

A few months ago, we did a survey with the 150 people who regularly come to our Thursday seminar group. 66 women and 6 men between 20 and 90 years old took part. We asked them questions about many parts of their lives. Afterwards, we also visited them at home. This helped us understand better what is important to the people in the villages. We hope that in the future we can help them even better with their most important needs.

Some results:

The people in the “Family Group” come from 24 different villages in the area.
They belong to more than 20 different churches. 33% are Catholics, 15% are Anglicans, and the others go to different Pentecostal, charismatic, or other churches. Some of them did not even know the name of their church.
48 of the people we asked live in traditional marriages, 7 had a church wedding, 4 are single, and 4 live separated from their partners. Separations are more common, but people often find a new partner for a traditional relationship quite quickly. 18 live or have lived in polygamous relationships, and 9 are widows.
Their sources of income are: farming (61), day labor (9), keeping chickens (15), making alcohol (6), and small businesses (10).

13 women said that they experience physical violence, and 12 said they experience verbal abuse.
Six women make alcohol themselves, 13 drink alcohol, and 29 said that their husbands drink. The real numbers for alcohol problems and violence are probably much higher.
When we asked what the biggest problems in our district are, 29 said alcohol addiction, 14 said violence, 15 said jealousy, and 6 said poverty.

When we asked what is best in the district, 37 people said AMUKA and 10 said the schools. Only one person said the churches. This is quite sad, because it seems that many churches do not offer people much help. It may also explain why so many people said AMUKA is “the best” – although maybe some also said this just to be kind. At AMUKA, they receive Christian teaching, medical information, counseling, and practical help. Especially people who are often rejected by others find someone here who listens to them and helps them.

Ruth and her children are happy about their
clean floor

Some questions were about the houses where people live. As expected, most people live in simple mud houses with floors made of mud and cow dung. These floors contain many germs and parasites. They are not hygienic and are also very difficult to clean, for example when chickens make the floor dirty. Because of this, especially young children can suffer from diarrhea and worms.

Through the survey, we found 22 families with children under six years old where we would like to make a cement floor. There are about the same number of grandparents who live with small children, but at the moment we could not include them because of the cost.

So far, 15 families have already received cement floors. The other 7 should receive theirs in July. This takes a lot of organization, because we need sand, stones, cement, wire mesh, and workers for every house. We also asked the families to do small repairs to their homes where needed, to provide helpers for carrying the materials, and to cook food for the workers.

Prossy has now become an expert in buying building materials, and our guard Simon Peter works very carefully at every building site.

Transporting building materials by motorcycle

The mothers are especially happy about their clean floors, and some of the children really enjoy cleaning the floor every day. Newsletter-June_2026

During the hunger season in May, we again gave food to 150 people from the Family Group and Barikiwa (children with disabilities and their mothers and grandmothers). Each person received 10 kg of maize flour, 500 g of peanut paste, and spinach seeds.

We have told you several times about little Monica, who was born with hydrocephalus. She and her mother suffered a lot because relatives and neighbors rejected them and treated them badly. We supported them for more than four years. Sadly, Monica died during the night of May 14 in her mother’s arms. During the funeral, Prossy and Antje had the chance to speak to the many people there about God’s love for every person.

It is always impressive to see how many mothers, and especially grandmothers, care so much for their children with special needs, even when life is very difficult, for example because they often have to go to hospital

Recently, Innocent and Anthony came to visit us and showed us how well they can now walk with their leg prostheses. We were very happy to see this! Other children also received special equipment in the last few months, such as standing frames, braces, and wheelchairs. We hope these things help them in their development. Most importantly, they help the children take part more in everyday life.

Benita’s mother often has to take her
daughter to the
hospital

The new kindergarten year started in February. We now have four teachers, and Agnes and Ritah are also helping as assistants. They especially care for the youngest children and children with special needs. The children are now coming more regularly. The parents are also slowly understanding that it is important for them to talk with their children’s teachers.

The Bible Club still meets every Saturday afternoon at AMUKA. Many motivated “teachers” help there, and more than 200 children and young people come. At the beginning of the new school term at the end of May, 230 children received school materials. This helps them a lot, because their parents often cannot give them the notebooks and pens they need. Many children also do not have a close relationship with their parents. Some do not live with their parents at all and move between different relatives in the extended family. This makes the Bible Club even more important. There they learn that they are important, that God is their Father, and they learn Christian values.

Harriet and Rosie are doing well. In January, they really enjoyed all the snow in Wedel! They are now in 5th grade. During the holidays, they also took part in a hair-braiding course at Bethel Baptist Church.

So this is another small look into life in Kimaluli, Uganda. Thank you very much for bringing so much joy to so many people there. It is wonderful that through your support they can experience God’s love in a very practical way!!!

Warm greetings from Orge & Antje

Finally, here is a greeting from our local team:

Dear Friends!
Warm greetings from the AMUKA team. We want to thank you very much for always standing with us. You help us in many different ways: with food during the hunger season, school fees for our children, and medical care. We say thank you, thank you, thank you. May God bless you richly!

Newsletter December 2025

Posted on 22. December 2025 by admin

Dear friends, prayer partners, and supporters!

At the end of this year, our staff member Prossy Akao is writing the newsletter. As a teenager, she was supported through a sponsorship by Amuka and received medical assistance because of her physical disability. Today, she herself works as a psychologist and coordinator in various programs at Amuka. We wish you much joy while reading and extend our heartfelt thanks for all your faithful support throughout 2025!
We wish you all a blessed Christmas season, Orge & Antje

Dear friends!
Warm greetings from the AMUKA team in Uganda! We are very grateful for your support for all the activities here on the ground. The work is going well, and we see many positive changes.

Our “Family Group” (adult education) is developing wonderfully, with growing numbers of participants in our weekly meetings. A key focus of our teaching is on health, marriage, and our relationship with God, as these are areas of life where there is much suffering in the villages here. God bless all supporters of the food aid, which was such a great help during the hunger season. The recipients were so happy and are praying blessings upon you.

The Bible Club is also doing well, with new children joining every week. Many of these children come from broken families and live in harmful environments. For example, they experience domestic violence, or their parents or neighbors run a bar and they are exposed to alcohol consumption day and night. Many experience rejection or neglect or live in constant fear of witchcraft and curses. Too many grow up in the complicated environment of polygamous relationships. Therefore, we make a special effort to create a friendly atmosphere where they can share, make friends, discover their talents, and above all get to know God as their most important friend. Every Saturday we have Bible lessons, skits, dance, counseling, and also train life skills. In addition, we distribute school supplies three times a year at the beginning of each new term. Every Saturday after the Bible Club, there is always football training, which many truly love.
We are constantly planning new activities to make the children and youth as happy as possible.

Children and youth aged 3–18 in the Bible Club

Our kindergarten children attended classes more regularly this year than before. In addition, thanks to the help of our new assistant Ritah, we were able for the first time to enroll children with disabilities. On November 28, we held the parents’ visiting day. Parents came to watch performances by their children, get to know the facility better, and be informed about new developments. The children did an excellent job and presented poems, plays, songs, and dances. It was truly amazing!

In the case of one child in particular, neither the parents (who had separated shortly beforehand) nor other relatives came. The girl was so disappointed, especially since she was even a lead dancer. We all did our best to make her feel seen and valued.

As a team, we worked this year on improving ourselves so that we can serve the people here better. For example, our teachers and I attended a “Stoplight” training in central Uganda the week before last. It focused on emotional intelligence, especially on how we can help the people around us (e.g., the kindergarten children) feel seen, heard, and valued. The other event took place in Jinja on the Nile and focused on our relationship with God, our Father. All of this is so beneficial for our growth as a team and as servants of God, and we do not take it for granted that we had these opportunities for further training.

Many positive changes can also be seen among our Barikiwa children (children with disabilities). Our physiotherapy, hospital visits, and counseling have greatly impacted the lives of the children and their caregivers. There are still children who are hidden in houses because their relatives are ashamed of them, but we hope that through our program these children will also come to be valued.

Furthermore, we were able to help many sick people this year. Some suffer from epileptic seizures and require continuous medication and monitoring. Our cancer patients are still undergoing treatment. And our two children who had heart surgery are attending follow-up checkups. In addition, we treated some children with bone fractures and two boys who received leg prostheses. We trust God to bring healing to all of them!

I send you warm greetings with my favorite Bible verse, Matthew 25:40:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these
brothers of mine, you did for me.
Matthew 25:40

For me, this verse means that every person belongs to God and that God has given us the opportunity to treat others with kindness and compassion. Sometimes simply with a smile or a hug, sometimes with our time and money. But we should never forget that we are doing it for Jesus. Warm greetings and a blessed Christmas,

Prossy Akao

Christmas shopping in Uganda – new clothing
for the celebration is very important!

There are so many projects in which
one can invest money, for example
for preserving the Equator line!
That makes us all the more grateful
that you have decided to support
the work of Amuka!

Newsletter December 2024

Posted on 24. December 2024 by admin

You are the light of the world
Matthew 5:14

Dear friends of Amuka,

Another year is almost over and so much has happened in Amuka’s work in Uganda that it is impossible to summarize everything in one newsletter.

Many things were really good, for which we can only thank our father! Other things are still difficult, such as the disputes with our former employee about our house or the urgent need for more volunteers for the work on site. In these things we can only trust in God’s intervention.

Practical exercise for the treatment of fractures

This year, we were able to offer several training courses for different target groups. Since October, our umbrella organization JENGA has been offering weekly training courses for pastors and children’s and youth workers from around 26 surrounding churches.

In November, we offered training sessions for about 30 village health workers on four Fridays. These village health workers are volunteers with no medical training who, for example, take part in vaccination campaigns or educate the population about the use of mosquito nets. Since their position allows them to have a significant influence on their neighbors, we wanted to provide them with knowledge about common diseases.

Dr. Risper covered malaria, diarrhea, urinary tract infections, hygiene, first aid and other relevant topics. Participants’ contributions also highlighted the role of superstition in the treatment of diseases – for example, using coins and milk for snake bites or urine for eye infections. It was great that the participants were open to asking questions on this topic.

The younger children in the Bible Club with their
coloring pictures

As usual, the “Family Group” continues to meet every Thursday, where we discuss various topics that are important to the daily lives of the women and (a few) men who attend. Here, too, there was a medical topic each month, but also the 10 commandments, agriculture and more. It is a great pleasure to teach here, because many visitors make good contributions and we hope to give the participants something that they can implement in their everyday lives.

The Bible Club on Saturdays is very well received by the children and young people. The classes take place in three groups, with the group of younger children now numbering over 100 participants. Prossy has started using committed teenagers as group leaders, which works well.

We had 70 children in four classes in nursery school this year. Our “old” teachers, Marsden and Annet, are excellent with the children. They have learned a lot during their time at Amuka and are loved by the children. Justine is active, but has not yet built up the same relationship with the children as the other two.

Rebecca left her parents’ home and her class in September. She has since re-established contact with her parents.

Then we hired Joyce to concentrate on the children. Now we are hoping for Sylvia, who did an internship with us in November. She could train as a nursery school teacher and complete the practical part with us.

With 21 children at the zoo on Mount Wanale

On November 19, we took 21 kindergarten children on their first trip to the zoo on Mount Wanale near Mbale. This was a significant event for the children, many of whom had never left their village or been in a car before.
They were very excited about everything: the trip, the many different animals – especially the monkeys – and the lunch afterwards. We are grateful that everything went so smoothly and that they had so much fun!

The costs were covered by Amuka, as otherwise hardly any children would have attended. It is already difficult to collect the equally low school fees. As only children whose parents have paid the school fees are allowed to take part in the excursion, this will hopefully serve as motivation for the future.

Our Barikiwa group for children with disabilities continues to give us great pleasure. We are seeing good developments in many of them, albeit in small steps. We support some malnourished children with nutritious porridge powerder prepared by Agnes, and we are grateful when they gain weight.

We also urgently need professional support in this group. Last month, Lucy from Switzerland came to us several times; she has experience in this area and was visiting near our village. She blessed our children, mothers and grandmothers with her warm manner (and her guitar).

Unfortunately, some children stay away if their mothers or grandmothers are under too much pressure or do not understand why they should invest so much time in a disabled child.

In our devotions, songs and conversations, we repeatedly emphasize the value of each individual child in the eyes of God and help the relatives to see the positive things about their children – their strengths and not just what they cannot do.
It is also nice when all mothers and grandmothers share in the development of the individual children.

Medical challenges:

I (Antje) have also spent a lot of time with sick children in various hospitals from Mbale to Jinja to Kampala.
It is often shocking how late (or too late) parents come to us for help. They have usually been seeking help from the local health facilities for years. However, these often try to go about their own business and usually do not tell them that they do not know what to do next. Or the patients are referred to “witch doctores” who then use up the last of the family’s money.

Risper (15) was brought by her mother with an open wound on her leg, which she had had for 13 years! At the Joy Hospice, a small hospital in Mbale, we were able to identify the pathogen through laboratory tests and determine the appropriate antibiotic. The wound has now closed – hopefully permanently!

Bridget (13) has been suffering from swelling in her foot and severe pain in various parts of her body for two years. Her parents had sold land and goats to have their daughter treated locally – but to no avail. Even for the British doctor at Joy Hospice, this illness was a great mystery.

We took Bridget to various hospitals for many examinations. Unfortunately, a tissue sample had to be taken at the state hospital, where the doctors and nurses are highly corrupt, hardly do their job and take the last money out of the mother’s pocket. In the end, I had to send the sample myself to Kampala, where our neighbor Moses works at Mulago Hospital, the largest hospital in Uganda. He took care of everything and then Bridget was diagnosed with bone cancer. Chemotherapy was started this week, but unfortunately the cancer has already spread through her body, so it will take a few more miracles to cure her.

Visiting Bridget in the hospital with Rosie and Harriet

I was at the Mulago Heart Clinic with three patients at the same time: Abraham was there for a follow-up examination after his heart operation in July. Everything looks good and he is doing really well!
Little Grace, who has Down’s syndrome, was initially suspected of having a heart defect, but this was not confirmed. Her mother brought Grace to Amuka when she was one year old and weighed only 5 kg, and no one had previously told her mother that her daughter had trisomy 21. Now we hope that she will gain weight and develop well with the daily breakfast porridge.

With Grace, Abraham, Jemima, and mothers at the heart clinic

Jemima (5) has a congenital heart defect that her parents have known about for a long time. Now it is almost too late for an operation, as the pressure in the heart increases with age. Jemima’s mother works in the district administration, so she should cover at least part of the costs.

The Mulago Hospital in Kampala can be reached from our village after a very strenuous journey of around 9-12 hours by public and unreliable transportation. That alone is a major hurdle that has to be overcome before any treatment. Added to this is the often incredibly arrogant behavior of the doctors. We had to wait around 4 hours before our patients were even seen. Then they said: “We need to do an echocardiogram, but it’s too late today. Come back tomorrow.” With a lot of prayer and persuasion, the examinations were finally carried out on the same day.

For most people from our village, it is impossible to find their way around on their own and even understand what it is all about. In addition, the doctors in Kampala and our patients often speak different languages. (There are over 40 languages in Uganda, and people in rural areas rarely speak sufficient English). They are also often simply dependent on financial support.

In November, Ruth, the wife of our security guard Simon Peter, was expecting her sixth child. It was a difficult pregnancy that ended in a caesarean section.
We are very grateful that little Mercy is doing well, because unfortunately caesarean sections are often performed far too late. As a result, there are many children with brain damage that occurred during birth.

Orge and Shenay were in Uganda in October – an intensive and unfortunately far too short time together. Orge was able to repair some things on and in the project buildings, and Shenay met many friends.

As Rosie and Harriet have been going to school in the next largest town, Mbale, Daphine lives with us in our ‘city apartment’ (sublet from our friend Aaron) so that someone is always with the children when we are in the village in Amuka or in Germany. Daphine has been with us for two years now and we are very, very grateful for her. She started her training as a pre-school teacher in January 2024 and is completing the practical part at the girls’ school.
Harriet and Rosie are developing well. They enjoy going to school and have fun learning. Unfortunately, Harriet struggles a little with reading due to her dyslexia, but she is still motivated.

Daphine distributing lunch to the preschool children

During the two-month Ugandan holidays, we are now together with them in Wedel and are looking forward to Christmas with our parents, children and grandchildren.

We thank you very much for your faithful (or new) support of the work in Kimaluli, through which many people are reached with the love of God in word and deed. Please remember the people there in your prayers. They are often deeply entangled in the traditional religious systems and it is incredibly difficult for most of them to completely break away from them and begin a completely new life in Christ.

We wish you all the peace of our great God for the New Year!

Orge & Antje Balack and the team in Uganda

Amuka e.V.

Wake up with body, spirit and soul

Category Archives: Newsletters

July 2026 Newsletter

Newsletter December 2025

Newsletter December 2024