Pius

My name is Pius Enyano, I was born and raised in Uganda. I lost both of my parents at a very young age and was taken to be raised in a baby home (Good Shepherds Fold) along with my six brothers. The baby home was run by a missionary couple from the US. They were the best other parents God would provide. I like referring to them as God’s apology for the loss of my parents. They loved, taught, and cared for us like their own. When I turned 16, I left the orphanage and moved in with my older brothers who were already out by then. A cousin sister helped me get a scholarship to a university and I completed a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 2013, during my university years, I met the most beautiful woman in the world, Hilary Taylor. We dated long-distance and ended up getting married in 2020. Our Village Fold dream came about in 2018 when we became serious in our relationship towards marriage. Even before we got married I, Pius, had always been involved in the lives of my people. I was already running an organization and managing several different projects that were helping solve different difficulties in several communities. I moved to the USA and got married but my heart had largely remained with my people. When I arrived in the US and saw the good life people had I wished I could carry everything good and dump it in Africa for them to taste a little of this country. I felt like Moses in the Bible and knew at some point I would have to go back to try and help my people. It was always a dream to learn a skill in the US or Canada, if ever I traveled there, that I could use to help my people. The move to the US was a big shift in my life but an opportunity God was creating for not only my little family of two girls but a much bigger family of friends and professionals. The move also gave me a chance to go to school and study plumbing. I could not carry back everything I had seen in the US but I wanted to take back skills to my people. After a discussion with my wife, I told her I did not intend to stay in America for long but I cannot go back to my people empty-handed. I need a skill I could go back and impact my people. After a few months of planning, I knew plumbing was something I wanted to venture into. Knowing my people struggle with water insecurity I knew by doing a plumbing course I could somehow help solve that problem. Through my time as a student at the trade school here in the USA God placed on my heart a bigger dream to train others in this skill and other skills. So the dream of starting a trade school in Northeastern Uganda came to mind. To me giving back is what drives me. While in the orphanage I realized that the missionary couple that raised us gave up their fancy life here and decided to come to Africa to help. Well, it is my turn now to help impact some other generations or people’s lives. I want to look back twenty years from now and feel the way Mr. Walker would feel knowing the kids he picked from the streets and broken families have been able to help some other people. Every life is a story, it just depends on how you write it or walk it. Find God’s path in this pointless life under the sun. We do not have much time for like beautiful flowers we are here today and gone by tomorrow. Try to be that roadside flower that puts a smile on a hungry, thirsty, and hurting stranger’s face. But if we cannot try to, what more are we here for? – like flowers. Pius Enyano.

Hilary

My name is Hilary Enyano. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, USA. I was raised in a Christian homeschooled family where part of our curriculum was to read missionary biographies such as Amy Carmichael and Gladys Aylward. Because of this, God put in my heart from an early age to be involved in ministry. I was involved in ministry all through my growing up years from being a camp counselor at Bible camps to going on short-term missions trips. I went to several countries such as India, Mexico, Austria, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, and Uganda. All of these helped shape me into who I am today and the dream God has given me combined with my husband. Once graduating high school I was not sure what to do. So I did some practical training I knew would aid me in ministry no matter where or how it looked in the future. I started at Children’s Ministries Institute because I knew I wanted to work with children and teach them the Bible. Then I went to Word of Life Bible Institute because it was all about learning the Bible and ministry-type classes. Through the advice of others, I got a B.S. degree from Cairn University in Bible with a focus in Discipleship Counseling because I knew working with people everyone has problems, so it would help me help people no matter what ministry I would do. As a very young girl my baby dolls were always orphans that I would take care of. This combined with the missionary biographies of Amy Carmichael and Gladys Aylward further stirred my desire to somehow help out at an orphanage in the future. During College in 2012, I read the book Kisses from Katie and I reached out to see if I could volunteer at Amazima in the summer of 2013. They were not doing short-term missions that summer and gave me other organizations to look into. I contacted a few and the first to respond was Sonrise Ministries. I ended up going to volunteer in their babies, children’s, and girls’ homes the summer of 2013 where I met a forward, handsome, and easy-to-talk-to guy named Pius Enyano. By the end of the trip I somehow knew Uganda was where I wanted to live and do ministry long term. Pius expressed his feelings to me that he phrased as “forever feelings” the night before I was to leave for home. Having just come out of a relationship I had thought was forever, I was not ready to enter another serious one. So I had him just add me and my mom (which I thought would deter him- but somehow they became good friends) on Facebook. We would chat occasionally but it didn’t go anywhere until I was able to finally return to Uganda in the summer of 2018. Pius made a point of seeking me out and really sharing his heart about wanting to learn a skill in plumbing to give back to his people there in Uganda. I knew then I wanted to give him a chance and asked God to grow my feelings for him through our long-distance relationship so I would know this was from God. My feelings did grow, and in February 2019 I returned to Uganda knowing I wanted to marry Pius. He proposed and I said yes! We were married March 2020 and have had two little girls with another baby coming soon. Having been to Uganda and seeing the many orphanages there, I knew I was not to start one in Uganda. My dream of working with orphans was fullfilled by my working at Children’s Village for 4 years as a house parent to Foster children here in the USA during my single adult years. God has brought about instead, a Community Center into my heart where I can teach the Bible to kids and women and do other ministry through tea parties and practical skills training. There is a need in Northeastern Uganda during the dry season to have food preserved for when crops are not growing. I hope to learn how to can/preserve food before moving to Uganda so I can then teach the women this skill. This will help their families to not go hungry during the droughts.