October 2026October 2026 NewsletterFour new classrooms to build, Daniel Mubiru joins the school, the fence is finished, BYX, and our new website.Sent October 15, 2026Open ↓Close ↑
We need more classrooms
Great Love Junior Academy has 494 children attending school this term. We have seven classrooms in two buildings. One building has four classrooms; the other has the offices and three classrooms. We also have one dormitory that currently houses the (85) girls. The (55) boys sleep in one of the seven classrooms, leaving us only six classrooms. We need ten classrooms. Some classes have to split a room behind a temporary wall open at the top. The baby class meets in a tin building.
That is why the next step in our building plan is a new four-classroom block, pictured above. It will cost about $35,000. We already have $17,000, and we are taking bids now. Would you pray about helping us raise the last $18,000 by the end of this year?
Daniel Mubiru joins the school
In July this year, God opened a door for us to sponsor a mission team that was comprised of Dr. Amanda Brendal Whitlock and her husband’s aunt Robin Jan White both from Georgia. Their initial team had backed out due to concerns about the Ebola outbreak in Africa. They were joined in Uganda by our friend Enock Nkulanga and Daniel Mubiru, a friend of Amanda’s and also a Ugandan teacher. These four, along with our staff, held a one-day Vacation Bible School at Great Love Junior Academy and 50 kids accepted Christ that day. Daniel played Daniel in the lions’ den for the children in a skit called Stand Strong Like Daniel!
Amanda wrote her doctoral dissertation on better teaching methods for Uganda’s schools. She observed our teachers and worked with them while she was there to teach more interactively like we do here in our schools. Daniel Mubiru helped her and has been successfully using her methods for several years already.
After she left, Amanda helped us set up teacher training in phonics with a Ugandan company called “Read For Life”. We are using that training this term.
Fortunately, we were able to hire Daniel to come to our school part-time (3 days per week) this term and full-time next year. His title is Assistant Principal and Director of Studies.
Daniel and Albert, our principal, are doing a written assessment (test) on each subject for each child to find out why their grades are not improving at the rate we had hoped. They believe that, for multiple reasons, many have missed some basic skills.
I sent them a copy of Dr. Phil talking about the Mississippi Miracle and how important reading is to everything else. Did you know Mississippi passed a law requiring a certain level of reading by the end of third grade before children can move on?
Dr. Phil on the Mississippi Miracle
The fence is finished — here’s what’s next
Our building plan for Great Love Junior Academy has ten steps.
1) Purchase School and 4.2 Acres – $77,800 May 2026
2) We repaired & installed new Lightning arrestors – $1,100
3) We brought city water onto the site – $500
4) Installed a fence around the 1,974-foot perimeter – $12,253
5) Next is a 4 classroom block – $35,000
Most of the above projects were paid for by generous donors.
6–10) Still to come: a girls’ dormitory, girls’ toilets and showers, boys’ toilets and showers, a boys’ dormitory, and a remodel of the old dormitory.
Walk along the finished fence Watch the fence go up
BYX chooses He Is Worthy
We feel honored that Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX), a Christian fraternity at Mississippi State, voted to support He Is Worthy as their philanthropic charity. We were given a warm and loud welcome to shouts of “He Is Worthy!” as we entered McCool Hall to share with them how we got started and what God is doing in Mayuge.
They are sponsoring several of the 50 new kids on scholarship at our school. They are also planning to share our charity with their parents. We still have 27 that need sponsors. Plans are for a fundraising soccer match on April 9, 2027. We will send details as the day gets closer.
Our new website
Our programmers called me about two months ago and told me they could no longer support our website. They did a great job with the first site and they gave me the names of some other companies to call. I made a couple of calls, then decided to try it myself.
I hired an assistant to help! A guy named Claude from a company called Anthropic. I am just kidding of course. I am doing it with help from AI.
I had been thinking of using AI anyway to help identify and match our organization, He Is Worthy, with different philanthropic organizations to apply for grants. I discovered all types of requirements and policies that we had to meet before we could even begin asking for grants. We now think we have all of those in place.
Anyway, I reworked the website and made it more personal and functional. I reworked almost every section and added more links, videos and pictures.
The area where you write to your child is completely reworked. We track all the letters and replies now right on the site. It saves all of your communications, where you can review them before writing again.
We also made it easier to give with Stripe by simplifying things and adding a way to do an ACH draft. Our monthly giving is up and taking off. Thank you to all those who give monthly through our subscriber program; it really helps our budgeting process.
If you haven’t visited heisworthy.net lately, please take a look and play around. You can’t hurt it, I promise. It is easier to read, and everything is in one place now: our story, the school, the building plan, our videos, past newsletters, and every child who still needs a sponsor.
Notice that your child no longer has their last name on the website. That was part of what we had to change to comply with our media policy.
Hear our children sing
If you only have two minutes today, spend them with the Great Love Junior Academy choir. Tap the picture or the button below to watch and listen. My friend and new board member Anne McCarty helped George Musoke (in the video) with the music and audio equipment. By the end of the video Ruth on the front row is almost dancing. Remember, they are orphans singing about being adopted!
When a child is seen
Enock Nkulanga was once a sponsored child. When he visited us here in Starkville, he spoke to the Empty Nesters Sunday School class and told us what sponsorship did for him. If you have ever wondered whether your letters and gifts make a difference, read his talk.
Thank you for loving these children with us. If you know someone who would like to sponsor a child, please forward this email to them. We have need of 27 more sponsors.
Read Enock’s talk Sponsor a child
With gratitude,
Max and Vicki Alston
He Is Worthy
