Dear Friends, Partners, and Everyone Walking This Journey With Us,

Last month we told you plainly that the rains had slowed us down, and that a village grows wider before it grows faster. October is the month we return to that promise. The work that began as planning is taking root.

Some of what we share this month is finished. Some is waiting on funding, on a season, or on a date still ahead of us. We will tell you which is which, because that is part of what we owe you.

Solar Initiative | Uganda

Toward Forty Homes

Twenty-four homes were lit through August. Our partners at BrightLife Uganda are completing the fourth and fifth groups of eight families each, sixteen homes in all, bringing solar home systems to households across Uganda. The October 31 target still holds. When those installations are complete, forty homes will be lit since the initiative began.

Behind every number is a household with its own rhythm: a child who can study past sundown, a caregiver who can see in the night, a family whose evenings are no longer defined by what they cannot do in the dark.

Food Sovereignty | Uganda

Fifty Families, Waiting on the Season

Our plan to start seedlings in gallon cloth bags of soil for fifty partner families is ready to move, and it is waiting on funding for the next planting season. Distribution has not yet begun, and we will not tell you it has. The crops, amaranth (dodo), nakati, and African spider plant (enswiga), are indigenous to Uganda and have been grown and eaten there for generations. Each family will also receive staples such as rice, beans, maize flour, and cooking oil, the foods already familiar in their kitchens.

We are looking for partner funders, whether individuals, faith communities, civic organizations, or foundations, who understand that food security is the foundation everything else is built on. If that is you, we want to hear from you, or you can give toward the seedling and food program today.

New Initiative | Kenya

A Second Table, Set for February

The supplemental food basket program we named in September has a date: the first distribution in Kenya is planned for February 1, 2027. Between now and then, the work is quiet and necessary: the relationships, the planning, and the listening that keep a program rooted in what a community asks for.

We will share who we are partnering with, how many families will be served, and what the baskets will hold as those details are confirmed. We would rather tell you late and truthfully than early and unsure.

Community Care | Nigeria

Dignity, Delivered in Person, Beginning in December

In September we told you about the barber in Nigeria who received a solar home system and is offering his skill to elderly and homebound neighbors who can no longer leave their homes. This elder outreach in Nigeria is set to begin in December. We will share what unfolds once it has begun and once the people at the center of it are ready for it to be told.

Education | Uganda

Isaac, Owen, and Steady Support

Ubuntu Village continues to provide school supplies and meals so Isaac and Owen can stay in the classroom. Consistency is the quiet part of this work: showing up the same way, term after term, so that no child has to wonder whether the support will come.

For $50 a month, a sponsor can support a child’s school fees, supplies, and meals. If you would like to learn more about sponsorship, reach out to us.

Preventive Health | Uganda & Nigeria

Groundwork for Colon Health Screenings

Conversations with healthcare workers in Uganda and Nigeria continue as we plan colon health screening programs targeted for 2027. Our next steps and progress on this work will be shared beginning in March 2027. Health is not separate from justice, and good preventive care is built slowly, with the people who will carry it.

Honest Reflection

What Rooting Asks of Us

We will not pretend the math works when it does not. Growing into programs across three countries asks more of us than any single month can hold. The food sovereignty work in Uganda is waiting on funding for the next planting season. Kenya’s first distribution is months away. Nigeria’s outreach begins in December. We know the families, the partners, and the costs. What we are still gathering is the funding to meet them.

Looking Ahead

What November Holds

Your Impact

You Are Part of the Root System

You are not watching this work from a distance. Every gift, share, and conversation extends what these communities are building for themselves. We are not here to rescue anyone. We are here to make sure resources reach the people who already know what to do with them.

Our Foundation

The Spirit of Ubuntu

A tree does not rise without its roots, and roots do not hold without the soil around them. What we are building, from a rooftop in Uganda to a market basket in Kenya to a barber’s chair in Nigeria, is held by many hands and by ancestors who understood that the earth remembers everything planted in it. Thank you for being the soil. We will see you in November.