Ken and Susan Landry partner with Gerald Tugume

The Batwa communities in western Uganda are among the poorest of the poor. As ecological refugees, evicted from their ancestral rainforest homelands, the Batwa suffer food insecurity and destitution.

Your tax-exempt donations will help provide urgently needed:

-food and clean water for Batwa children and communities

-goats and farm animals

-completion of a medical clinic

-seeds, seedlings and fruit trees

Ken and Susan Landry live in the San Francisco Bay Area where Susan worked for 35 years as an RN, and Ken served as a part-time pastor. Ken worked in the computer industry and as a probation officer for delinquent youth. Together they cared for over 20 foster children during a 20 year period along with raising their own children. After sponsoring Ugandan AIDS orphans for over 15 years, the Landry's met Ugandan Pastor Gerald Tugume and wanted to do more.

Ken and Susan partner with Pastor Gerald Tugume to support projects to help the poor of Uganda. Pastor Gerald, as a church planter, oversees a network of 180 churches in six districts of western Uganda near the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of these churches are among the Batwa refugees.

In 2007, Gerald heard God say, "Go to the people whom no one wants, and change them into the people everyone is looking for." Two years later Gerald met the Batwa. Seeing their terrible plight, he knew these were the people he was to help.

Gerald started the Hope for Batwa Ministries and the Seeds of Hope boarding school that cares for 300 children, mostly neglected and orphaned Batwa.

"He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done." Proverbs 19:17

Pastor Gerald Tugume's Story -

When I was 7 years old, my dad died of AIDS, so we went to live with our relatives. There we were made to work hard and were discriminated against as the village thought we also had AIDS from our parents and could make them sick.

Because of suffering and discrimination, I ran away from home. I soon regretted leaving, but now I was a lost 7 year old who couldn't find the way back. I ended up in Kabale City walking 90 km. I became a street kid sleeping in trenches and unfinished houses.

Kabale had over 300 street children; when I was 8 years old the other street children selected me as their president. This was because I had ideas and gave good counsel like asking hotel managers for left-over food. The hotel managers agreed, and we fed 300 children!

Eventually, one hotel owner took me under his wing and gave me a cleaning job. As a nine year old employee I continued to care for the street children. By the grace of God, I received Jesus as my Savior when I was ten, and I started reaching out to other children with the good news of Jesus Christ. I praise God that during that period, God re-united many children with their families and relatives.

Working night shifts at the hotel, I earned enough to pay for school. God was so good to me; at school I asked students from more affluent families to give to the poor, and I collected books, pens and pencils. Each Sunday I would go to a different local church and distribute books and pencils to orphaned children. God kept touching my heart for orphans.

After my schooling a research organization hired me, and with a good salary I was able to send many children to school.

In 2009, this organization arranged a trip to see the Mountain Gorillas at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, a World Heritage Site. There I met the Batwa refugees and my heart was broken. God told me these are the people whom no one wants. My heart cried because the community smelled of death, children dying without food and sleeping in the bush, naked. I said yes to God, and He used me to reach out to more than 2,000 Batwa people.

Currently we help 300 children at Seeds of Hope boarding school/orphanage. We support children who lost parents with a safe home, food, medical care, education and all other basic needs as we are able...our current source of income is selling crafts made by the children and contributions from well-wishers.

This is my story,

Gerald Tugume,

P.O. Box 548

Kabale, Uganda

Watch CBN Video (6 min) about the Batwa and Gerald Tugume's involvement:

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2016/october/revival-touches-ugandas-oldest-living-tribe