African children's choir entertains audiences in Blackfoot - East Idaho News
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African children’s choir entertains audiences in Blackfoot

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BLACKFOOT — Eastern Idaho received some very distant — and very musical — guests this week.

On Wednesday, the Watoto Children’s Choir from Uganda visited Blackfoot to sing and entertain local families. The choir, made up of 17 children and 10 adults, electrified the sanctuary at Blackfoot Christian Fellowship Church, with their singing and dancing.

All of the children and adults in the choir have suffered the loss of one or both parents and have been taken in and raised in a Watoto Village. Members of the choir told stories about their lives growing up in the villages. One member, Edith, came to Watoto at the age of 10 after the death of both of her parents.

“I lived with my grandparents after my parents died,” Edith said. “They had too many children. I came to Watoto I didn’t have to worry about food, and I had the chance to go to school. That is when I learned about Jesus.”

Edith, now grown, graduated from Makerere University in Uganda with a degree in Human Rights and Ethics. She explained that there are several foster homes in the Watoto villages. Each of these homes has a foster mom with eight children living in the home.

Watoto Children
Leslie Sieger, EastIdahoNews.com

“She is just like a mom to us,” she said.

The Watoto Children’s Choir is the brain child of the Watoto (child) Ministries in Uganda. Since 1994, the ministry has been building villages and providing homes for the orphaned children. According to UNICEF, there are more than 2 million orphans in the small African country of Uganda, and 1.2 million of them have been orphaned by AIDS.

The choir is currently touring the United States. To date, the choir has toured six continents and performed to enthralled audiences in schools, retirement homes, churches, parliaments, state houses and royal palaces. The Watoto Children’s Choir concert acts as a fundraising event for Watoto ministries.

The group brought CD’s, T-shirts handmade jewelry and purses, created by the people in the villages, to help raise funds to build more villages.

For more information about the Watoto ministries visit watoto.com.

Watoto Children2
Leslie Sieger, EastIdahoNews.com

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