Football is great but....

...there are much more important things in life! As I reflect on my beloved Spurs failing in their attempt to overcome Chelsea in this years League Cup final I have also been thinking about Synergy, and the task ahead. And the truth is that our task goes well beyond what happens on the pitch.

I have often talked about the on-pitch struggles and successes of Synergy, but to focus just on football would be a misrepresentation of what we are really about. At Synergy we love football, but that is just one facet of what we do. Football is the point of contact which gives us an opportunity to get along side young people who, for the most part, have little experience of church, and would normally be unlikely to think about ever going.

Firstly football gives us that opportunity to broaden their horizons and opportunities. That includes 50 Synergy players this year, whose talents have enabled us to find bursaries for their education, from primary right up to university level. For some players this means lightening the financial load on their already overstretched parents and enabling them to attend better schools than they would otherwise be able to afford. But for many others it goes beyond that; for them it’s the difference between educational opportunity and no education at all.

Take John as an example, his single parent is desperately poor to the point that even though he has a bursary, his parent is not even able to provide the other school requirements beyond school fees that his bursary covers, such as a uniform and books. Despite our limited funds, we do our best to provide these requirements where parents have no way to meet them, ensuring that the offer of a bursary doesn’t go to waste for the want of money for a uniform.

Secondly football gives us a chance to speak into their lives, not just on matters of a sporting nature, but through lessons for their wider lives. Take 2 of our senior first team players, David and Paul, who have recently become fathers. The small match day allowance they receive from Synergy for being Big League players certainly helps in some small way, but perhaps more valuable than that is the continued life skills and mentoring they receive that is challenging them to be the good fathers that this nation so dearly needs.

Or then there is Tony whose poor decision-making led to problems with alcohol resulting in him being thrown out by his parents. The mentoring and discipleship that Synergy provides has helped Tony get his life back on track, sobering up, changing his behaviour and bringing reconciliation with his parents. Time and again, we have been thanked by grateful parents and teachers who have seen the work of Synergy bring about real change in our players attitudes and behaviour.

Whilst trophies and titles are great, they are not the measure of our success. It is the stories and testimonies such as those above that is what really matters, and what Synergy is all about.

If you would like to support us in what we are doing, we are in real need of monthly sponsors, so please do get in touch!

And on another note, some new staff for the Baby Unit…

Good things come to those that wait – after months (really, about five to six months) of waiting, frustration, and yes tears (on Sarah’s part – God (and most other people) knows she’s a cry-baby!), we are now (whisper it) fully staffed on the baby unit.  Yes, we can’t believe it either!

OH… No…. wait for it…. Now we’re not fully staffed anymore…. The new member of staff has had to go back to school to retake an exam.  Frustrating?  You think?????  It’s like a roller coaster!

Anyway, now once again we’ve been provided with another staff member, so now once again, we’re fully staffed, and Sarah is doing training *again* today – not a thing that she greatly relishes, in view of her ever-increasing girth and general discomfort.

Assisting her in training will be head nurse Cathy, so that, should any staff leave during Sarah’s absence, it will be no challenge for Cathy to whip out her new baby unit computer (kindly donated by one of you!) and train up any new staff!

Of course no story about the Baby Unit would be complete without a cute picture of a ex-tiny baby, now chubby and healthy.  Here’s Baby Wasswa (who featured in our mid-November blog).  His little sis died very soon after birth, but Wasswa did well, despite his tiny size.  And now look at him – not so tiny anymore!  Time for some exercise, m’boy!

Waswa as he left the Unit

Waswa Today!

Salt & Light!

Here at Synergy, after the joys of Christmas, we are focussed on the start of the second half of our Big League campaign which will kick off again next month.

As I reflect on 2014, and in particular on the first half of our season there are many things that spring to mind.

Perhaps the main one is a question that troubles me: In a football system so lacking in integrity, how can we begin to make changes that will really make a difference?

I have been involved in football in Uganda long enough to have experienced first hand the corruption that is a cancer destroying the ‘beautiful game.’ There is a very good reason that Uganda has failed to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations since 1978, and it’s not because of lack of talent! Whilst there may be a number of contributing factors, lack of integrity, in my view, stands atop the list.

I have more than once reflected on the poor example that comes from above (just see the scandals surrounding FIFA – the world governing body) and how this no doubt fuels the lack of interest in change here in African nations like Uganda when it comes to finding a better, more honest way forward. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, there are too many people who are far more interested in lining their own pockets than in developing the young talented youngsters of this nation.

On the pitch our season so far has been one of missed opportunities, tough lessons, learning to cope with failure, and allowing it to shape our character as a team and as individuals. However, it is also a story of deep frustration as we see inconsistent rule application, poor organisation, and at times, ludicrous refereeing that stinks of bribery.

Some might say that this is the rant of a coach who looks at his team’s lowly position in the table (we currently stand 3rd from bottom) and is trying to find excuses. But the truth is that I am much less concerned with our position in any table than I am about the example being set for our young sportsmen and women and the lessons they are learning.

At Synergy we are trying to help young people reach their potential, not only on the sports field but in their wider lives. A massive part of that is helping build the right attitude and conduct of which integrity is key. But in a system where honesty gains little reward, and instead bribery, back scratching and political manoeuvrings are the recipe for ‘success’ where do we start?

The only place we can really start is with ourselves; to be the change we want to see. Jesus calls us to be salt and light, to be living examples in order to bring change from the ground up. And so as we begin 2015 the main message I will be communicating to all our players is to be a beacon of light in a system that is shrouded in darkness. It may not bring the worldly success that so many others are happy to sacrifice their integrity for, but it will bring the kind of success that matters most!

The reality come season’s end may well be relegation, but at least we will face that with a clear conscience, whilst others will know that their success has been bought, not earned. 

If and when that time comes, we will stand upon Proverbs 10:9 which says, ‘whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.’

A Light Christmas after all!

As you may know from our last blog, Christmas Eve was spent enjoying the peaceful serenity of a power cut – and it made us feel all the more special in that it was only affecting our house and one other.  So Christmas morning dawned… a dark and rainy morning, so much so that lights would have been necessary even in daytime.  

That morning we headed off with some meat to put in the freezer, and a bucket of stinking nappies to wash at some friends’ house, plus our LED “emergency” lights to charge (which in fact Sarah forgot to bring!). 

On arriving, we discovered a totally flat rear tyre, with a nail deeply embedded (so our Christmas Day was so Christmassy, we even missed church – although Noah had great fun playing with a raft of toys at our friends’ house).  Not a good start.  Moreover, when Tim tried to take the spare tyre off, he discovered that one of the securing nuts wasn’t compatible with the wrench he had, prompting a few choice words, and a trip to another friend who obliged with a tool kit. 

However, despite this, we had a brilliant Christmas!  The cooking was mastered with the help of a BBQ, gas hobs, and a 30m extension cable routed from a neighbour’s house so that we could at least have roast potatoes, stuffing and broccoli cheese.  And just as we sat down to eat, BAM….. the power returned!!!!!  This HAS to be a miracle, so we thank the many people who told us they were praying.  We didn’t even think to pray such a preposterous thing…. But it turns out that for a God who can inhabit the earth as a human, turn water into wine, heal the blind, and walk on water, fixing the power in Bwala on a public holiday is also not beyond Him! Hallelujah! 

We had cunningly decided to put Noah down for his nap a bit late, to afford our guests some baby-free time, but NO, he had other ideas, and woke after 15 minutes with a stinky nappy, and angling for an escape from his cot.  In fact, he was quite a delight, and enjoyed impressing our guests with his expanding vocabulary, as well as his less-adorable trick of spitting water out of his mouth (funny the first time, and unfortunately the laughter given to him served to reinforce the behaviour which we are now struggling to eradicate!).

Cow's about that!

Noah's vocabulary is steadily increasing and one of his favourite words is cow, often shortly followed by "moooooooo!" How fitting therefore that the Kitovu Nutrition Unit also enjoyed a good Christmas in the form of this little (or rather fairly sizeable) beauty (see picture below)! She is ready to bless the unit with milk to feed undernourished babies and all thanks to a generous donation from the company of one of our readers! 

Anyway, we hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and are enjoying a great start to 2015! Lets hope there are good things in store for the year ahead!

I'm Dreaming of a Light Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve as we write this, and we’re busy preparing for Christmas…. Or rather we were…. Until JOY oh JOY (you guessed it), a power cut!  It’s an (undoubtedly unwritten) rule that we ALWAYS have power on public holidays.  ALWAYS.  That is unless it is a fault rather than a scheduled case of 'load sharing.' So our initial upbeat analysis that UMEME were simply conserving power in order to make sure we have it all day on Christmas soon turned to woe when a quick recce revealed that it was just us and 2 neighbours that were affected. The fact that the 2 neighbours affected are the 2 electricity stealing grasshopper catching muppets hailed in our previous blog may well point to the reason we now sit in darkness. But no need to worry – even on Christmas eve at half past nine at night, you can be sure that the electricity guys at UMEME will be out in the next half hour to fix the problem.  Ha ha.  Our little joke!  Needless to say, we will most likely be enjoying the start of 2015 before we enjoy the return of the power. 

There’s lots of stuff to say about Synergy but Tim is too cross about the power to write anything right now, so you’ll need to wait until next time!

On the Baby Unit, it’s not been terribly busy, but we’ve had some great moments, one of which was seeing our sweet little baby Babirye Josephine the other day.  You may remember that she was our tiniest ever surviving baby (scroll back a few blogs if you want to see her tiny little self), weighing in at 820g at birth (and dropping to far below that initially when she was unwell).  Well, what a beauty she is now, though you may note that good genes are playing a real role in this one!

We love it when babies are cherished right from the start.  But let’s face it – it’s not always like that.  That’s why the people-skills that our head nurse Cathy possesses are such a blessing.  A recent baby caused us considerable consternation, as despite initially doing well and being discharged, she failed to gain weight well, and finally started to lose weight.  The father reported the mother was “sick of coming to the hospital for review, and sick of the baby” which made our hearts sink, but Cathy proposed she come and see them, and a couple of home visits later, this little beauty is now thriving (and even attending reviews at the hospital again), with a devoted clan of siblings helping mama out.

Finally, well, you know what’s coming.  It is with no small portion of embarrassment and shame/pride and delight (depending on whether you're Sarah or Tim!) that we share our Christmas 2014 song with you…. Ready for it?  Then click the link for: AN AFRICAN HIP HOP CHRISTMAS.   Brappppppppppppppppp!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4lOS-AVLzY