Now he’s hoping people will donate $15 apiece for them. And he has high hopes that every penny will make it back to Uganda.
Keltonic, a composer, is a member of Stony Point Presbyterian Church. Three years ago, a missionary introduced the church’s minister, Frank Crane, and its 250-member congregation to the work of Isaac Wagaba, a Christian pastor in an Ugandan village near the city of Kakira.
Wagaba had built an orphanage from 30,000 bricks he made by hand. The orphanage is home to 80 Ugandan children — Christian and Muslim — whose parents have mostly died from AIDS.
For three years now, the Stony Point church has sent envoys to the orphanage, called Canaan Children’s Home. They’ve taken money, medical supplies and clothes, and they’ve dug a 300-foot deep well. “They may have the only clean water in the region,” Keltonic says.
Children who live there range in age from 2 to 15. Each one has a tragic story. Most have lived in streets. Some have fled from Northern Uganda where rebel fighters forced them to kill their parents, Keltonic says.
If $15 donations are made for all 1,000 CDs, then Keltonic can raise $15,000 for the orphanage. That’s enough to build an addition, buy needed supplies and make improvements, he says. What’s more, the facility could take in 26 more kids.
The children’s choir sings Christian songs on the CD. The kids titled the recording “I Want to Praise You Lord,” says Keltonic. “They sing a beautiful two- and three-part harmony.”
Crane says the relationship that’s developed between his church and the Ugandan orphanage is important. “The net effect has been that our God has gotten a whole lot bigger,” he says. “You can do a whole lot with a real little when you’ve got a big God.”
CDs are available at the church at 2330 Buford Road.
— Brandon Walters
