Laughter and Love; a Weekend away

This past weekend, May 3rd-5th Cornerstone Veritas had it's first annual weekend away!  We went to the Cornerstone Development ranch, and stayed at the cottages there.  It's a beautiful and secluded spot, and provided exactly the sort of place we needed.

The first night there were 8 of us, and by the next day 10!  It was a truly joyfilled. adventurous, and fun time together.

We filled our days with a long walk together around the ranch, visiting Jovia's home DEEP in the bush, visiting with friends from Cornerstone Leadership Academy Boys, playing lots of games, and having a few times to share together, hear a few talks, and have small group time.

Pretty much, we laughed for 3 days straight!  It was a glorious time of team building, fellowship, and becoming better friends.  Here are some pictures of this glorious event!

The Middle of Nowhere... the roof of our pavilion

Sharing about the 10 Principles of Leadership

 This is one of the teachers from CLA Boys.  He went through Cornerstone Veritas' 10 Principles of Leadership course last December.  Here he was sharing with the group how much his experience on that course impacted his life, and how much he'd like to see any new teach who come into Cornerstone go through it! 

Cornerstone Veritas and CLA Boys Teachers/Student

We decided to invite friends to spend time with us on Saturday afternoon.  We prepared a nice lunch, and were able to eat and have time to visit together!  It was wonderful, and also encouraging for the CLA Boys teachers to see how far their graduates have reached!  They were very proud of who their students have become!

Local milk storage

 We went to visit our intern Jovia's home.  She lives very very deep in the bush!  We were so surprised to see how far she has to walk to even start her journey to Kampala.  It gave me a totally new appreciation for the commitment and dedication of our interns!  Here, Jovia is showing how they store the milk from their cows and make various local drinks and food from it!  It was really interesting!








This is Jovia's mother, Esther.  She greeted us with the warmest of hospitality, despite the language barrier.  She gave all of us fresh milk to drink, and told Jovia she should have told her more specifically when we were coming so she could've had more milk ready. Milk and Cows are the stable of their culture, they are originally from Rwanda. 









Here is the team all visiting Jovia's!  The huts you see behind them are their houses, where 11 people live!  It was a long walk, but very worthwhile.  What a great chance to visit our intern's home! 

View from Perapetua's home

We also got the chance to see where Perapetua is staying currently. She was chosen to work as a Matron for the boarding primary students at the Cornerstone Primary school.  She has a small room next to the dorm where the girls stay.  I am sure she is very good at taking care of all her young ones! 

At the end of the weekend, we each took time to do something artistic about what we were taking away from the weekend. We each got colored paper, markers, and chalk, drew pictures or wrote something, and then shared with the group.  It was a great time to hear the different things that people had learned and gained from the weekend. 

Kizito being adventurous

Birds nests against beautiful blue skies

Almost all the family!  Interns, staff and friends!

This is Edmond, looking very happy!  He's taking over Cornerstone Veritas at the end of the month and I am sure he'll do a great job!  He organized all the logistics for the weekend away, and did a fantastic job! 

Our Friend Robina

This is our friend Robina.  She had wanted to be part of our internship program, but was able to get a job during her school break which will help her pay for university.  She was able to join us for Saturday and Sunday, which was wonderful!  She did some fantastic drawings during the art time.  It was great to have her with us.

All in all the time away was an incredible time of building our lives together.  Everyone played a roll and had a chance to give and receive.  It was such a beautiful time, we're already looking forward to next year!