Newsroom Archive

Missionary to Uganda To Speak at Church of the Redeemer

Sarasota, FL / 20 December, 2005 – Betty Gentry, co-founder of the Orphans Hope Project/Uganda, will speak about her experiences helping orphans and widows in poverty-stricken Uganda at the Church of the Redeemer on Wednesday, 11 January, 2006. Gentry is a life-long Episcopalian who has worked as a missionary in Uganda for over 22 years. She spends several months each year in Uganda working alongside her Orphans Hope Project co-founder and Ugandan native, Edward Gitta Mussisi.

In Uganda, where the society is severely patriarchal, children are considered orphans if they have lost their father. They may still live with and be under the care of their mothers, but they are classified as orphans because their father is either dead or absent. In the early days of their collaboration, Gentry and Mussisi found that more than food or clothing, the mothers of these “orphans” wanted their children to be able to go to the state-controlled schools, which cost much more than they could afford. Gentry and Mussisi founded Orphans Hope in 1997 as a way to meet this most critical need of Ugandan orphans – education.

The Orphans Hope Project provides funding for young children to go to the local schools in their villages. The cost per student is $30 per year for pre-schoolers and $60 per year for students through 7th grade. For exceptionally gifted students, Gentry and Mussisi even work to obtain scholarships for advanced schooling past 7th grade. One of the long term goals of the Orphans Hope Project is to establish a technical school where children can obtain training to enter the work force.

According to Gentry, an educated population will help avoid the terrible prospect of genocide in the African country. “When children are not provided with stimulation and an opportunity to learn, they become frustrated,” Gentry said. “Once they become teenagers, that frustration leads to anger,” she continued, “and anger leads to violence.” Through education, she and Mussisi hope the Orphans Hope Project will plant the seeds for work opportunities, financial independence, and peace in Uganda.

But the two missionaries don’t just help children. They also devote their time and resources to helping the widows of the villages become financially independent and able to care for their children. With what Gentry terms “micro-finance projects,” a needy widow is given a sow, chicken, or heifer, with the condition that she shares at least 1 or 2 of any offspring with another widow; she is then free to sell the remaining offspring to earn money for her own household. By sharing the offspring of farm animals, the widows are helping each other to become independent and spreading resources throughout the community.

All of the funds donated to the Orphans Hope Project/Uganda go directly to program initiatives and to the children and widows in Uganda. Gentry and Missusi are completely self-supporting – they pay for all their own expenses, including travel, out of their own pockets. For Gentry, the expense is secondary to the rewards of the work she’s been called to do. “I’ve been so blessed in my life,” Gentry says, “I love this work.”

Gentry lives in Largo, Florida most of the year, and is coming to the Church of the Redeemer to speak as part of the January Episcopal Church Women luncheon meeting. Gentry, whose late husband was ordained as a priest at Redeemer, attended the Sarasota church for several years in the 1970s. She hopes her talk will not only raise awareness about the needs of Ugandan children and widows, but will inspire people to donate to the Project so that more children can attend school within the coming year, and more widows can reach a modicum of financial independence.

Mussisi is a native Ugandan, who lives there with his wife and three children. He was educated in the UK and works in the computer science field.

If you would like to hear learn more about the Orphans Hope Project/Uganda, you are cordially invited to attend the ECW luncheon meeting to hear Gentry speak. Guests may attend either the talk only (beginning at 11 a.m.) or the luncheon as well, by registering through the parish office at 955-4263 by 9 January. The cost of the lunch will be $6.00.

To make a donation to Orphans Hope, please make your check payable to “Church of the Redeemer,” making a special notation on the front of the check “ for Orphans Hope Project/Uganda,” and mail to Church of the Redeemer at 222 South Palm Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34236.

For more information about ECW and its support of various ministries in Sarasota and throughout the world, please visit RedeemerSarasota.org or call 955.4263 for more information.