Your Ruth House

Ruth House girls in their blue S1 shirts working on a jigsaw puzzle

It has been one month since classes began and Ruth House is in the full swing of things. This year our personal theme is empowerment. We are trying to find as many ways as possible to empower the Ruth House girls to give them opportunities to take on leadership roles. The goal is to delegate responsibilities to the quieter, yet very capable, girls in order to put them in leadership spots for which they would not ordinarily be chosen or volunteer. Here are a few examples of what is happening:

Rose with her Ekisa buddy

Rose is one of Ruth House’s quieter girls, but has very strong leadership qualities. In order to promote her abilities, Biti suggested Rose be put in charge of organizing the girls to do their Saturday morning chores. Rose is now in charge of communicating with the house members, assigning girls to take on specific tasks, and generally seeing that the house and campus chores are completed in an efficient and timely fashion. She has done a great job of stepping into the position. One Saturday (when we are required to complete not only a full slate of household chores, but also perform campus chores), half of the Ruth House was scheduled to go to a Tim Tebow-sponsored ministry for handicapped children called Ekisa at 9:00 in the morning, leaving only 13 girls to do all of the work. The house chores included the very large task of sweeping, scrubbing, and squeezing the veranda. Sandra and Denny were ready to bail on the chore altogether and pick it up again the next Saturday because there were not enough girls to do everything. However, Rose jumped in and solved the problem on her own. She directed the entire house to assemble at 7:30, before anyone left for Ekisa, and complete all the household chores, not just cleaning the veranda, before breakfast. The girls, as a unit, attacked the veranda and everything else that needed to be done, and were able to send off our team to their Ekisa buddies in a timely manner. 

Kagoya  Sharon (right),
not to be confused with  Namutovu  Sharon (left)

Kagoya Sharon (to be differentiated from Namutovu Sharon) is our uniform captain. One Wednesday night she led a house meeting that explained new requirements and costs to purchase clothing that has been lost or damaged. The house, as a whole, did not receive the news about the cost of clothing items well (the uniforms are expensive). The meeting could easily have taken a wrong turn and become very difficult. However, Sharon remained very calm, clear, and direct throughout. She did not respond to the drama of the girls’ initial reactions. Sharon is one who has recently said she wants to improve her self-confidence and leadership. That night Sharon showed great leadership, communicated the clothing replacement rules effectively, and exhibited the kind of confidence for which she is striving.
   

Noel dressed for school

Noel is our water captain. She is responsible for monitoring the drinking water, which includes making sure the drinking water jug is full, treating new water in the jerry cans before putting it in the drinking water jug, and keeping the drinking water jug clean. She has tackled the responsibility without a hitch and improved upon Denny's prior work. Without any suggestions or promptings from any mentors, one day Noel decided that the inside of the jerry cans also needed to be scrubbed. Denny sheepishly acknowledged that he had never cleaned the inside of any jerry cans at all during the past year. A very good thing that Noel, and not Denny, is now looking out to make sure the house has clean water and clean water containers. 

Not all life at the Ruth House is work. In raising our children, we always tried to throw them curve balls, doing something or saying something out of the ordinary just to keep them honest. Denny is big on humor and tries to throw that around Ruth House, but the cultural differences are tricky and it has taken him a little while to figure out what the girls think is funny. Over time, Denny has learned he can make a wry comment to a girl to see how she will react. The girls have learned that they are free to respond to Denny with their own quick retort. This has led to quite a few laughs. Here is a small example from the past month:

Leticia, on the right, with her older sister

Denny (intentionally speaking in French, knowing that the girl will not understand or know what to say in return) to Leticia as she is heading to her room just before lights off: “Bonne nuit, Leticia.” (“Good night.”) Leticia stops. She cocks her head knowing she has no clue what Denny has just said. You can see the wheels turning as she tries to figure out how to respond. A smile emerges on her face. “Likewise,” she says and immediately closes the door to her room. Denny laughed with delight at her quick wit.

In a fit of self-delusion, Denny decided he can somehow still play basketball with 20- and 30-somethings. In the first two weeks of playing, he suffered a couple of minor bruises that he claimed "are just part of the game." Sandra, however, mindful of Denny’s frail age, and fearful that a minor bruise is only a small misstep away from a major accident, informed him that if he intends to continue to play basketball he must wear kneepads and a helmet. Denny also suffered a "boo-boo" when we were assigned to pick weeds as our campus chore. When pulling a weed, Denny did not see the bumblebee partaking of the weed’s sweet nectar. When he grabbed the weed, the bee struck, stinging the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Denny claimed the “owie” did not hurt, but by Sunday morning his hand had swollen to the size of a Ugandan avocado. The swelling is gone now, but for an entire week Sandra found numerous opportunities to make jokes about the “heavy hand” of Denny.

We purchased a car. Previously we shared a van with a couple that went back to the States last December. We tried sharing with a new couple this year, but they need the use of a vehicle full time so they bought us out of our half. While we feel a little spoiled having our own vehicle to use, we gratefully realize how convenient it is. Thank you so much to everyone who made the purchase possible!