Serving with goodness and generosity
Cindy and Jim Waits in 2014 at the Nina Waits Mukongoro School which was named after Jim’s mother.
Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 1 Timothy 6:18
Cindy and Jim Waits are 1 Timothy 6:18 people. They have been involved with the Kellermann Foundation for over seventeen years, and throughout these years they have done good things, been generous, and willing to share.
If you talk to either of them, you cannot help but notice that they exude the kind of energy and excitement that comes from the blessings they have received from their work in Uganda. All it took was an initial trip in 2008 to visit a rudimentary settlement called Mukongoro. It was clear that the Batwa children living there needed a school. The children were malnourished, and some walked long distances just to get there. God laid it on Cindy and Jim’s hearts to fund the building of a new school. The Nina Waits Mukongoro School is named after Jim’s mother, who had been a beloved school teacher.
In 2011, the school was completed and dedicated by Cindy and Jim. Eventually, the school would expand to include an office, kitchen, and a school garden that benefits its students and teachers with nutritious lunches. Today, the school is thriving with the soon-to-be addition of Primary 4 and over 180 students.
Jim reflects, “You jump on a plane headed to Uganda thinking, ‘I’m going to help someone, to change them, to make their lives better. While true in most cases, you soon find out that the one who is changed, who is a better person, who is helped, is you.”
Cindy and Jim have been generous with their time and energy, as well. Cindy served six years on the Kellermann Foundation board, where she coordinated fundraising events, produced publications, and encouraged others to travel to Uganda and support the work of the foundation.
Perhaps most importantly, Cindy and Jim are willing to share what they have observed and learned over seventeen years of service. They recognize that the Batwa pointed them to God. Cindy shares, “The Batwa are beautiful people in so many ways. They are generous even though they have very little, yet share what they do have. They are appreciative for what they have, are truly welcoming, and exceedingly joyful. They are hard workers and industrious. In fact, they are survivors, but we rarely hear them complain. What you hear coming out of their mouths the most is singing—and dancing, they are always dancing! Could it be that they know better than most people how rich they are in the Lord?”
Thank you, Cindy and Jim, for your continued faithfulness to serve the Batwa, especially at Nina Waits Mukongoro School. We know the future is bright for this community because of you!
Excerpts from the Waits’ trip memoirs:
“The Batwa are joyful, generous, appreciative, welcoming. They are industrious, they are survivors.”
“I have heard many times how school-age children would walk for an hour or more to get to school, and then an hour back home. And this is not along a sidewalk, it’s through wooded, forested jungle-type terrain. Even for an uneducated populace, education is a vitally important thing.”
“After our first trip to Bwindi in 2008, it was easy to see the changes in the style of home construction, from banana-leaf hut, to stick and mud, to fired adobe brick. The most recent iteration featured a more stable construction using compressed interlocking bricks that did not require firing, and with framed doors and windows. It was obvious that substantial change was coming to the Batwa, and they were adapting pretty quickly to this different style of living.”