Meet Nelson

Sorry about the flash.

Don't you love that smile? Nelson is eight years old and lives in Uganda. I'm sponsoring him through Compassion International and I'm sooooo excited about getting to know him. I've been learning a lot about Uganda lately and I really want to get involved.

Uganda is estimated to have a population of about 25-30 million. The extreme mortality of AIDS has had an effect on this figure, which would otherwise be higher. As another consequence of AIDS, healthy life expectancy in Uganda is only around 50 years. 25,000 CHILDREN tested positive for HIV in 2006 alone.

Another major problem is the war. Tens of thousands of civilians have been mutilated or killed by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda for 20 years. Since 1986, the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, has abducted and brainwashed more than 20,000 boys and girls to fight as child soldiers in his militia, with roughly 12,000 abductions occurring since 2002. If you'd like to learn more about what's going on, visit Invisible Children. You can also watch the documentary that started the IC movement here.

Please continue to be in prayer for Nelson and the entire situation in Uganda.