Love Mercy

A SYMBOL OF FORGIVENESS My friend Julius has every right to be angry and bitter. Julius was stolen at age 13 by Kony’s rebels, forced to be a child soldier, he walked 100miles to a rebel camp in Soroti in Uganda’s North East, he was subjected to watching innocent victims maImed right in front of him as a “desensitizer” to evil, as he ran for his life with 15 other boys from the rebel camp he looked back to see that 9 of them hadn’t made it- they were hit by bullets from a government plane flying overhead that mistook them for being rebels, returning home he listened to the stories of orphans who had fled their village after their parents had been killed, he watched in horror one day as a bus just ahead of the bus he was on was bombed by rebels- all 75 people were killed. And then the heart wrencher, his mother, walking innocently along the road during the height of the war, trying to find food for her family, was shot by rebels of Joseph Kony’s army. She lay bleeding for thre

We have your Christmas gifts sorted this year, with so many options to choose from you are sure to be able to find the perfect gift for someone special this Christmas! 1. The Horse Market Bags Market bag, $40.00  These beautiful leather and jute bag make the perfect gift for that trendy person in your life... They are MASSIVE and so handy to throw all kinds of junk in and get you through the day. Not only that, but they will set you back a cool $40, with $25 going straight to Love Mercy to our Cents for Seeds program, buying a woman in Uganda 15kgs of seeds. You can buy them online here. 2. Gift Cards These glossy cards make the perfect gift for someone who already has it all, and has a heart for others! You can purchase them on our website here , and select to print them at home or have them posted to you. A Cents for Seeds card is $25, and a Goat gift card is $50 or $100. If you opt to have your cards posted to you, you will also receive a cute little packet

Caitlin's personal thoughts   With just over one week under my belt after Uganda, I have finally had a chance to process and put into words some of my personal feelings on the trip.    These are just my own quiet thoughts, and do not necessarily reflect the views of LMF.   This trip I had the absolute privelage of leading a team of people, most of whom  had never been to Africa before. Even though it was my third trip, many times I felt as though I was experiencing things for the first time right there with them. The age old issues of  Africa came up once again for me. The main theme I found I wrestled with was the tension of helping one or helping many.    At the clinic dedication, a lady grabbed me and led me through crowds of people to her sick grandson.  I couldn't understand what she was saying, and no one was around to translate, but I could make out  the word "malaria" and he didn't look healthy. I had actually seen them when they arrived.

Visiting the women's beans crops in Barr village A highlight of our trip was visiting the village of Barr, where the women have picked up our Cents for Seeds program and done amazing things. Through their own direction, the 350 women split themselves into geographic groups, and elected 3 leaders to represent them and to guide them through the program. We met with these leaders and encouraged them to continue their great work. We saw the crops of the woman on the right, an elederly lady with many grandchildren. Eunice, in the white top, is a leader of her group, and is an inspiration to many of the women. The latest report from the program suggests that it is very successful indeed. Florence, our agriculturalist reports: "One of the women we talked to is growing rice. We visited her garden and found that her rice is doing very well However, floods were reported at the beginning of the growing season and this affected the crop. She says that these floods were almost de

Karen entertaining the nursery age kids Our program that we ran with our 18 kids in Lira Town was so successful, (you can read about it here) we thought that we should run it in Lira town as well. With a slightly modified program in hand, altered to suit 400 kids instead of 18, we drove into the village with ours packed with soda, a bag of rice and a ball and a rope. When we turned the corner into the compound, not one of us could believe our eyes. The 400 kids we had expected turned out to be 2000... Panic swept over our team of 18 as we quickly did the maths and realised we were vastly outnumbered. Miraculously, with the help of a friendly man who came along to check out what we were doing (and turned out to be a retired PE teacher who most of the knews already knew and respected) within 30 mins we had the kids broken up into age groups, split those groups again, and 2 leaders took about 400 kids each to run activities with. I was with Le Tibben, a nurse from Sydney who was

 In August, Love Mercy Foundation had the absolute honor of being selected as 1 of only 9 finalists in Project Inspire's "5 minutes to change the world " contest. This contest is run by the United Nations Women's organisation in Singapore, and to be amongst such incredible company was a dream come true for us... our little ole project, right up there with the world's best... who'd have thought! Anyway, Eloise and myself weren't able to attend the finals in Singapore as we were in Uganda, however we sent our very able representative Rachel in our stead. Rachel did much of the research the contributed to Cents for Seed's success, so who better to send than her! Here are some updates from her on her trip: S ingapore is a beautiful city—basically an Asian Dubai—that is addicted to gargantuan shopping malls, global commerce, and air conditioning. Brrrr! It’s much too sterile for me to ever live there, but it was a nice Western vacation from

Tug of war with the boys  We began our second session - this time talking about "strength" in the harsh heat of the afternoon on Friday. We started with a brilliant demonstration of strength. We bought 3 yards of rope and  set up a tug-of-war. We started with two strong boys against each other, and then added  more and more people but only on one side. The game made everyone laugh and led to lots  of different teams: kids vs adults, girls vs boys etc. Andy began the session by stating "on our own we may not be strong, but together as a  team, we can be strong." this was a clear way to communicate a strong message of the  importance of unity. Then we explained that being strong is not only about having big muscles. Strength can  be on the inside as well as on the outside, and being strong means making good decisions. Andy used the example of two coke bottles. He took one and shook it very hard, then put another unshaken bottle next to it. He ask Bri

      Here begins our updates from our August 2012 trip. We have 20 aussies here, as well  as 6 Americans who have joined our group. We are here to live as Ugandans, to learn and to soak it all up! Caitlin: Today we had our first session of our specially developed program for our sponsor kids. Our kids here in Uganda are better off than millions of kids here in the North.  They live in a beautiful home with their brothers and sisters, their school fees are  paid, they have adequate medical care and they are given lots to eat. We are grateful  to our sponsors for helping us to provide these material needs, however during this  trip we wanted to address the emotional and spiritual needs of these kids. In the middle of 2011, we watched a video that featured the story of a Ugandan sponsor  child, who grew up to become a politician in her area. Coincidentally, she looked  exactly like one of our very own sponsor kids, Monica, and we thought "well if she  can do it,

We need your help to win $25,000! We have been selected in the shortlist for Project Inspire 's -5 mins to change the world competition. This is such an honor for us and we are so excited to have the change to present our project to the panel of judges in Singapore. To vote, please do the following: Head to www.facebook.com/ProjInspire "Like" their page Follow the link to "View entries" Our video is called " Cents for Seeds " Then click vote, and login with Facebook. You can then share the page with your friends to encourage them to vote too. Thanks so much!

Esther and Naomi who raised almost $4000 between them Luke who finished first from our team, in 39:50 placing 43rd overall! In the aftermath of another successful Sutherland to Surf I can’t help but reflect personally on an event that has been on my mind for the last 6 months. At the beginning of each year, I tend to set myself goals for the coming year in each area of my life, sort of like a personal yard stick, hoping at the end of the year to be satisfied with the progress I have made. At the beginning of 2012, I had hoped and prayed that 2012 would end with for Love Mercy with a community of friends and supporters that was bigger than just our immediate family and friends who decided to jump on board out of love for us rather than out of passion for a cause. Not that there is anything wrong with that of course, but I wanted Love Mercy to stand on its own two feet, not on the feet of its founders, and gain a real family around it that was passionate and supportive

  Written by Eloise Wellings After 12 years of dreaming, I have been officially announced in the Olympic team for the London Olympics!!! I will contest the 10,000m, 25 laps of the Olympic track. It is truly a dream come true. I first ran the qualifying time for an Olympic Games when i was just 16 years old, I have been measured for 3 previous Olympic uniforms and due to injury and simply not being good enough for final selection I never had the honour of wearing one. I imagine it will be difficult to keep my eyes dry when I finally receive the green and gold track suit at the team outfitting in London next month. But, as my coach Nic Bideau loves to quote "I'm not going for the tracksuit"... I'm going to the Olympics to run the race of my life. Since the official announcement of selection, the last week has been spent reflecting on the whole journey up to this point.  My routine running loops have been taking a minute or two longer this passed week...I&

We are so proud to announce that Love Mercy has been made the OFFICIAL CHARITY for the Sutherland to Surf 2012! To celebrate, we have some very exciting news for you. By supporting Love Mercy in the Sutherland to Surf, you can WIN one of two trips for two to Fiji! Here's how: 1. Mark the date in your diary: Sunday 22nd July 2012 2. Register with Love Mercy Create your personal profile in order to fundraise. Raise a minimum of $50 through your profile to go in the draw. 3. Purchase your t-shirt online .  They are $20 postage inc. 4. Register online with the Sutherland to Surf so that you can enter the race 5. Personalise the email that Love Mercy will send to you when you register your profile. Send it to your contacts, share it on your Facebook, and start raising money any way that you can! 6. Meet on the Corner of Flora and Merton Street Sutherland at 7:30am on the 22nd of July, in your green t-shirt. Complete the race in order to be entered in

It is coming up to that time of year again… the time where the pain from last year’s Sutherland to Surf is but a distant memory, meaning that we are silly enough to decide to do it again! Check out the highlights from last year on YouTube:    After raising over $65,000 last year, the Kristina Health Clinic is built, and almost ready to be opened for use! Here  are some photos to see the tangible difference that our efforts made last year. We would love to have you on our fundraising team, as we aim to raise $50,000 to continue to resource and equip the Kristina Health Centre as it works towards being opened in August this year. We are also hoping to provide over 1000 micro-finance agricultural loans to women in 2013, and so will be using some of the funds raised this year to go to our Cents for Seeds project. This year’s challenge is not only to raise $50,000 but to double the size of our team. We really need your help to do that! Can you find a friend to run

New Empire We are honored and excited to share this video with you, documenting the story of Eloise and Julius our founders. Eloise began her athletics career at a young age, starting out in the under 6's at her local little athletics club. After realizing at the age of 15 that she wanted to make running her career, she committed to training and qualified for the Olympics at the age of 16. Unfortunately soon after qualifying, Eloise suffered a stress fracture which continued to plague her career for the following decade. She has continued to follow her dreams despite facing much adversity, and is now on track to qualify for the London 2012 games. Julius Achon has an inspiring story of hope which continues to unfold.One morning on a routine training run in Uganda, Julius Achon literally stumbled upon 11 orphaned children living at a bus shelter. These children, who had been effected by Africa's longest running war, were without food, clothing, housing or educ

After the dust has seemingly settled on the overnight media frenzy that was "Kony 2012" we thought it a good moment to contribute to the mass of online information on the subject. Our aim in this post is to simply inform and empower those who have been moved by what they have seen in recent weeks, to be able to make wise choices about their response. Hopefully we can contribute to the conversation in a way that does not further dilute the real issues. There have been many criticisms of the Invisible Children campaign and video, from those who have chosen to unpick IC's financials, to those who have personally attacked the maker of the film Jason Russell. After the sad events of the weekend concerning Jason, we offer our best wishes and support as he recovers from what has clearly been an extremely draining and difficult period. I personally felt so overwhelmed and stressed by the huge media response that Love Mercy experienced two weeks ago, yet this was compara

This morning with International Women's day coming up in a month, I am reminded of a story from just a few weeks ago. One afternoon as we were walking through Lira town, going to check on some seed suppliers for our Cents for Seeds project, two young girls approached us in the street. We were with Julius, who is definitely a celebrity in his village given his Olympic status, but also because of the incredible hard work that he puts in to bringing development to his people. These two girls, both called Grace, looked no older than 16 to me. They approached us and told Julius that they knew him, and that they lived in his village, Awake. It was almost 5pm, and the sun was beginning to set. Julius knew that they had a long journey ahead of them. He offered for them to stay the night in his home in Lira, so that they could rest and commence their journey the next morning. They followed us around the market place, where we noticed that one of the girls was pregnant. Julius told us t

Caitlin Barrett Walter and Myself - my sponsor child. There is always a lesson to be learned in Africa… not that that is the reason that we go, but each time I have been to Uganda I have come away with a clear and distinct lesson that I have learned, and that has changed me in some way. On the plane trip home from our January trip, Eloise and I wrote each other 15 questions and asked for answers then and there. Reading through them on this side of a 30-hour plane trip having overcome severe jetlag, I I have found a few coherent themes. 1.Highlights. (in no particular order) Family The first time we went to Africa, we went with a group of about 13 Aussies. This time, it was just Eloise and myself. The highlight for me of this trip was being part of an African family. We had two babies in our group, and Eloise and I were expected, like everyone else in the family, to play our role and help out with the kids. Luckily we were more than happy (desperate in fact) to cuddle the ki

Monday 16/1/21-Elzy   It's been a busy week here in Lira town and every night I've tried to write but have ended up nodding off onto the keyboard. I have a few spare moments this morning before we set off for another busy day running errands around town. After last Saturday's long day in the village of Barr we had a rest day on Sunday and went to the local pentecostal church with Julius, Grace, Jayden and Samuel, we were running a little late but as we walked into this huge church with around 1,000 people present they started singing "God is able" which was so great as I didn't feel so far from home! We hid right up the back, but sure enough, when the pastor got up to preach, he called on his "white sisters hiding up the back to come up and greet us". Which we did... and everyone enjoyed. Julius also bid on and won the bag of sesame that they auctioned off to raise money for the church youth. We spent the rest of Sunday catching

Eloise and Caitlin are spending 2 weeks in Lira, Uganda, to monitor and evaluate the Cents for Seeds project. Here is their first travel journal entry: 8/01/2012 - Elzy It's about 5am here in Uganda and I'm wide awake. I'm trying to tap softy so as to not  to disturb Caity or to rouse the mozzie's lingering outside my mosquito net.  We had a long but safe flight here and we arrived in Enbebbe on Thursday to Julius's welcoming beaming smile at the airport. We had one night in Kampala and we had a nice dinner at the hotel catching up with Julius and Grace and playing with 6 month old Jayden. On Friday Julius and I went for an early training run in Kampala before starting the 7 hour drive North to Lira on a bumpy, dusty road. We had a full car, with Julius, Grace, Jayden, Florence and her 1 year old baby Grace and Caity and I. About 5 hours into the drive, all the warning lights lit up in Julius's car, we were in the the middle of no where so we