By: Kenneth Lukwago and Ariane Shaver
Rock of Ages is dedicated to providing a well-rounded education to less fortunate children in our community, giving them the opportunity to compete with their peers around the world. Our passion is to open doors for lifelong learning and lasting transformation.
This year’s theme focused on identifying individual talents and interests, and empowering students with practical skills that benefit both the child and their family. Through hands-on learning, we aim to help families improve their income while equipping children with lifelong skills that give them a competitive edge in the future.
A note from Betty:
For more than 15 years, the Lord has been faithful through every season. As a school, we continue to be a ray of hope for children in Mbiiko. It has been a privilege to watch boys and girls grow into beacons of hope—future doctors, teachers, accountants, and more—emerging from humble beginnings.
Dreams and visions are being awakened, and you are a part of this journey.
On behalf of Rock of Ages School and Hands4Uganda, along with our students, staff, and parents, we extend our heartfelt thanks for your generous support and commitment to education.
Your sponsorship has made a real and lasting difference. Because of your kindness, students who once faced financial barriers can now attend school, access learning materials, and pursue their dreams with confidence and hope.
Your support goes beyond school fees and supplies—it sends a powerful message to our students that they are valued, capable, and not alone. You are helping shape future leaders, professionals, and responsible citizens.
We deeply appreciate your belief in the power of education and your willingness to invest in young lives. We remain committed to using your support responsibly and ensuring it creates lasting impact.
Thank you for being part of our school family and for changing lives through education.
On Saturday, October 25, six pupils represented ROA at the National Spelling Bee Championship in Kampala. The competition took place at Kampala Serena Hotel, starting at 9:00 a.m. (Uganda time)—one of the country’s five-star venues.
Our students competed with over 170 pupils from 27 districts across Uganda. Only 2 of these 6 students are sponsored at this time. If you are interested in sponsoring one of these outstanding students please reach out to tamera@hands4uganda.org.
The event was televised on National Television Uganda along with a live stream recording so that parents and supporters near and far could cheer on the ROA participants!
While the team was eliminated in the third round, missing participation in the semifinals by one word, we are incredibly proud of these students hard work and bravery in competing on the national stage. Preparations for next year’s championships are already underway. However, the costs for travel and participation in these competitions are often are high, and we are hoping to raise funds to secure at least seven Cambridge dictionaries per class to support early practice and preparation.
A huge thank-you to everyone who made it possible for our team to attend the National Ball Championships. From day one, this has been a dream come true.
After several friendly matches and qualification rounds, the ROA Netball First Team was selected to represent Njeru Municipal District at the National Championships in the West Nile region.
They were placed in what was considered the toughest group, which included two defending champions. Despite being the youngest team in the tournament, their determination stood out—and they quickly became crowd favorites.
The group included teams from Wakiso, Nakaseke, Kakumiro, Mubende, Ntungamo, Karenga, Dokolo, Rubirizi, and Kyegegwa districts.
Our girls won eight matches and lost only one, to Wakiso. They reached the quarterfinals, where they were eliminated by Lwengo, the eventual tournament runners-up.
Today, the ROA Netball Team is ranked 7th nationally. They have received invitations to several major competitions, including the Buganda Ball Games and the Biira Invitational Tournament.
Rebuilding and strengthening the team continues. We hope to support our trainers, Denis and Alex, in attending professional netball coaching courses. We also aim to launch a boys’ team and ensure every age range has a netball team to play and participate in sport.
Seven of our players have been selected for trials at one of Uganda’s most prestigious netball academies during the end of year break (mid-December to mid- February). We invite you to continue supporting the team, as there is still a great need for training gear, uniforms, balls, and other essential equipment.
In line with this year’s theme, we are not only focused on education but also on empowering families toward financial independence.
We are strengthening our backyard gardening program, where students learn to grow vegetables at school and apply those skills at home. The goal is for families to grow their own onions, spring onions, tomatoes, cabbages, carrots, and more—reducing food expenses and increasing savings for families.
Each class is assigned a gardening project that provides year-round training. While we have seen encouraging results, additional funding is needed to fully support the growth of this project at the "in home" level.
We sincerely thank our sponsors for the extra food provided to our families. Your generosity has brought nourishment, relief, and hope during times of great need.
Each month, several families receive food items such as bananas, rice, cooking oil, eggs, soap, and posho. This support has significantly reduced household financial strain and improved daily well-being.
Your kindness goes beyond food—it reflects compassion and a true commitment to our community. May you be blessed, and thank you for standing with our families.
Since its launch in 2017, the Rock of Ages–Hands4Uganda Secondary Program has supported over 160 students who graduated from Rock of Ages Community School through their secondary education.
Thanks to your support, students have progressed through various education levels. Some attended vocational institutions and graduated with skills in motor vehicle repair, tailoring, construction, catering, hairdressing, and more.
The program runs from Senior One to Senior Four, with several students continuing to upper secondary and some to university through their own scholarships. Among the first cohort are Joseph, who is pursuing medicine; Christine, now a land surveyor; and Daniel, a secondary school teacher.
This year alone, we successfully supported over 100 secondary students throughout the full academic year. We are deeply grateful for your continued care and support to continuing the education of these students past the walls of ROA!
We extend our deepest gratitude to our donors and partners. Your support has provided not only financial resources, but also confidence, encouragement, and hope.
Because you believe in our vision, we have been able to train youth, improve livelihoods, and create lasting change. Your support represents true partnership, shared values, and a commitment to building a better future.
We remain fully committed to accountability, transparency, and maximizing the impact of every resource entrusted to us. Together, we are not just funding programs—we are transforming lives.
As we close the year, we will be sharing upcoming plans, projects, and support needs for the year ahead as we continue working to uplift individuals and strengthen our community.
Thank you for walking this journey with us. We look forward to continued collaboration and even greater impact in the years to come.
May God bless you all.
— Rock of Ages & Hands4Uganda Team
First we would like to take a moment to recognize our long time Board Member, Mackenzie Gotham, as she steps away from her Director role with H4U to pursue other life passions. Mackenzie has been a part of the Hands4Uganda leadership since 2016. She has taken various trips to ROA through the years, most recently visiting in 2022. Mackenzie has a big heart for these students and we are so grateful for the time and talents she has dedicated to this team and organization! Thank you Mackenzie- you will be missed!
Throughout the year all grades participate in school gardening and farming projects that coincide with a particular academic focus for their level. Students helped tend to the on-site chickens, dairy cows, and the newly completed fish farm. They also aided in planting, tending to, and harvesting various on-site fruits and vegetables. At the end of each term (or season) the school as a whole would celebrate their hard work and dedication with special meals and snacks prepared with their harvest!
The ROA sports program gained recognition following their National Championship Netball win this summer! In December they received an invitation to a national tournament hosted by Africa’s Talent Project in Kampala and were able to participate! This event provided invaluable exposure for the ROA children! We look forward to further developing the ROA sports teams talents in the new year!
This year brought significant developments for the ROA campus:
As mentioned in our Christmas card the current ROA property is being taken, by imminent domain, for the Eastern Standard Gauge Railway. They will not be taking the entire school property, only the area where the new school currently stands. This means ROA has no other choice but to move to a new location. We do not have many details at this time, but have been notified that the estimated value of the land and any improvements will be reimbursed. Once that estimate is paid out to our ROA partners, we will have 2 years to rebuild and relocate. With this said, our ROA team has already begun the hunt for a new parcel of land to rebuild a new school building for the 350+ students ROA currently serves. While very difficult to process, as we have just completed the current building in 2020, we are choosing to look at this as an opportunity to improve the learning environment for our beloved students even further. The next school building will not only boast a full kitchen, but we pray that it will also provide space for a small, combined library and computer lab. We ask for your prayers and if possible, your financial help to make this new project a reality!
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11
In September the Ugandan President announced that students would not be returning to school until January of 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the US, Google Classroom has provided a platform for virtual communications between teachers and students, allowing for continued learning despite "in-person" limitations. However, in Mbiko Uganda where electricity is unreliable (and often absent in most student homes) online/virtual learning is not an option.
With growing concern for student learning, Rock of Ages Community School faculty and staff devised a plan that would allow for more academic engagement throughout the last trimester of this school year despite limitation on in "in-person" classes.
In September ROA teachers put together progressive learning packets for every single ROA student. These paper packets contained 500 questions and activities and were meant to be completed over a one month timeframe. All ROA teachers then hand delivered these packets to each students home by foot or boda-boda (motorcycle taxi), taking the time needed to explain the homework packets and how the student is expected to pace themselves. Teachers are available to answer questions throughout the month and via phone. Teachers then return to each students home at the end of the month in order to review the packet and provide students with new material.
While these packets could never replace "in-person" learning they have been a success! Students have been brushing up on their academic skills, working towards a smoother transition once schools are able to resume in January!
Meet Christine. Christine is the gardener at Rock of Ages Community School (ROA). When you sponsor a student at ROA, your donation covers the student’s tuition which includes teacher and staff salaries, including Christine’s pay. Read this letter from ROA Founder and Director Betty Wasswa about how working at ROA has changed Christine’s life:
Hello ROA Family,
I hope you are all doing well in this Covid-19 pandemic. Here, we have seen the hand of God protect us.
This is Christine, our gardener, who we employed at the beginning of the school year. She is a single mom with five children who attend ROA.
We decided to hire her because she was so in need (of employment) and very committed to the school. Whenever we have been in need, she always says, “I have no money, but I can provide labor.”
Ever since she has been working for ROA she tells us that she can now pay rent and provide food to her family.
She is so grateful and works very hard from 2:30 am to 2:00 pm. Before, she was digging (gardening) for many people and sometimes they never paid her. She appreciates that since she has joined us at ROA she gets her payments and that has helped her and her family.
Thank you for being part of the story that is happening in Uganda, caring for our students, enabling change for their families and our community.
Betty Wasswa, Founder and Director ROA
A successful educational director ventures on an unexpected life-changing journey, not once but twice.
When Gabe Flicker, now retired director of a Grace Lutheran School in Pocatello, ID attended an informational meeting about a short-term mission trip as a favor for a friend, he never imagined he would walk away saying, “We’re going to Uganda!”
What do I have to offer? What are we going to do? How can I possibly make a difference? As an outstanding principal, he was encouraged to go and teach tuition systems, hiring procedures, curriculums……all helpful skills to share in establishing a successful school program. But, could he really make an impact? Again, and again he questioned whether he had made the right decision to not only join, but to help bring together the team of 24 that would head to Uganda in the summer of 2010.
When he first met Betty, founder of Rock of Ages Community School (ROA), Gabe determined pretty quickly that she was the real deal. Having a lifelong dream to open her own school for poverty-stricken children, Betty had it figured out. “I was very impressed and I determined early on that my school administration stuff was actually a deficit to share with her, because it’s so different there,” said Gabe. “I didn’t understand doing a hot lunch program when you can only have one food item to serve, I didn’t understand how to do a curriculum when the students didn’t even have pencils”. He went on to confirm that in all the trips he’s made to Uganda he has not done a single school administrative task. “God was really messing with me,” he finished.
It’s difficult to have a plan, a plan to travel half way around the world to share skills it took a life time to gain, to think you are really going to make a difference in your area of professional expertise,
and then to find yourself seemingly unwise in all of its aspects. But it’s those who accept this realization, that are able to open their hearts and to create the greatest impact on both those who join the mission and those who are the recipients of the mission’s work. “It was in that difficult moment that I discovered just what it was that God had called me to do,” Gabe announced.
In addition to being an expert administrator, Gabe came to realize that he is also an outstanding influencer. “I am pretty good at getting others to do stuff,” he shared. It was his ability to bring 24 other individuals together for that first trip to Uganda that set the stage for the beginnings of Hands4Uganda. And in 2019 Gabe co-led a men’s mission team of 16 to Uganda stating, “It was really one of the most significant things I have ever done in my life in terms of making a difference for other people and not just for the Ugandans but maybe even for a few of the American men that went along.”
While in Uganda, Gabe discovered another skill that he is a bit more modest in sharing but that is well-worth the mention. He travelled to Uganda armed with all the necessities, a few changes of clothes, some bug spray, toiletries, and of course a camera. Intending to capture a few great memories, Gabe carried the camera with him each day. He snapped a few shots here and there, having no clue that God was using him to produce photographs that would touch others enough to create a significant impact on Hands4Uganda. “The whole idea of using my camera for that purpose is something I had never considered,” Gabe said humbly. “But here I was, once again realizing that no matter the experience or skill level, God has use and plans for you.”
To sum it all up, Gabe stressed that if you have a desire to go on a mission trip, God will get you there. And whether you think you know the reason you are going or not, God will reveal the reason so be open to listening to that and then moving that direction. God’s going to mess with you! Don’t resist it!
“Just keep our students in your prayers because some of them are more safe when they are in school,” pleads Betty Wasswa, Founder and Director of ROA.
It is estimated that over 262.5 million children from pre-primary and secondary school are currently out of school because of COVID-19 closures, which translates to approximately 21.5% of the total population in Africa. For many poor and vulnerable children in Africa, schools are not only a place for learning but also a safe space from violence and exploitation. It is also where they have a nutritious meal (sometimes the only meal for the day). Source: Save the Children. Read more about how the COVID-19 pandemic is jeopardizing Africa’s children.
“Thank you for everything you have done since you came into my life. I am so grateful. May the Lord give you whatever you want in life and may He give you everlasting life. You are like a parent to me. You mean everything. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what I would have done. Thank you so much.” ~ Dorothy, Sponsored Student of Matthew and Danielle Bass
It’s been about four years now since Matthew and his wife, Danielle, learned of the opportunity to provide a faith-based education to a child who might not otherwise know the love of God and decided to sponsor a student at Rock of Ages Community School (ROA) through Hands4Uganda (H4U). At the time Dorothy was just 9 years old. She lived with both of her parents, but like most families in the poverty-stricken village of Mbiko her parents couldn’t afford to send her or her siblings to school. As a sponsored student of ROA, she now attends school free of charge and has a chance to escape the stronghold of poverty.
Matthew had the amazing opportunity to meet Dorothy in person when a door was opened and he faithfully, though nervously, stepped through believing that God would provide. In 2019, Matthew joined a H4U men’s mission trip and headed to Uganda with no idea of what to expect or what he would be doing. Though helping with the construction phase of the new ROA school building was a large part of the mission itinerary, meeting Dorothy was the highlight.
Making the same long walk that Dorothy made each day from home to school and back again, Matthew met Dorothy, her mother and two brothers at their home. “I imagined sever poorness and visiting Dorothy’s home confirmed my thoughts and made me realize just how sheltered we are here in the US. Most of us can’t even imagine the living situation that I witnessed there,” conveyed Matthew. “But what really struck me the most, what really stood out as I surveyed the meager living quarters of Dorothy’s family was that their attitudes were not poor at all – they were sincerely full of joy, a joy that can only be found through the love and hope of Jesus,” Matthew continued.
Joy would be Matthew’s as well. When he presented Dorothy and her family with a few small gifts that he had brought from home she gave him a necklace that she had handmade in return – expressing just how appreciative she was of his sponsorship. “I was delighted when she presented the necklace to me, that moment was really special,” Matthew proclaimed.
At school, Dorothy was studying for her Primary Leaving Exam (PLE). The PLE is a test that is taken by all 7th graders in Uganda to determine if they are eligible to go on to secondary school.
Matthew informed Dorothy that when she passed her exams he would make sure that her sponsorship continued all the way through secondary school. In November, Dorothy passed the PLE in the top division and is now attending ST Joseph Namgunga Secondary School.
“I was really honored to be able to increase my sponsorship of Dorothy ensuring her continued education,” stated Matthew.
Matthew and Danielle also sponsor an 8-year old male student, Absolom. Though Matthew wasn’t able to meet Absalom’s family, he was thankful for the opportunity to meet him in person at ROA. “We may not have our own biological children but we do have kids,” Matthew affirmed. “Their names are Dorothy and Absolom and I am so grateful to have witnessed the hope that they receive through our sponsorship with Hands4uganda. It’s truly life-changing for them.”
Still under stay at home orders, our students and their families await the next announcement from the President about changes to the policy. In the mean time, your donations have made it possible for us to assist with milk and eggs being distributed to students and their families each week. Thank you!
We are asking for your help as we work to grow! Because of you we now sponsor 230 kids and there are at least 147 more who need sponsorship. Our school is growing, our kids are graduating and doing well.
Today we are asking you to help us reach more contacts and tell them about the great things we’ve done. We have a private donor who will give us a $1 for every newsletter sign-up or social media share or tag we make happen on GivingTuesdayNow. $1 may not seem like much, but in Uganda $1 will buy enough corn to feed 5-6 children, enough pencils or pens for a student for a school year, enough chalk for a teacher for a school term, or even a nice pencil sharpener for a classroom.
Here are two ways you can help us today - at no cost to you:
Following the first confirmed positive case, the president put the country on complete shutdown including all public transit. As a result, the entire country - including our students, staff, and their families - are scrambling to adjust.
We launched a campaign to raise funds for food and our donor base generously responded. We will be able to provide eggs and milk to the families of students for the next four weeks and are working on additional plans to help.
Pictured above: Rock of Ages students promote hand washing during the COVID-19 crisis.
