EDITOR’S NOTE: Edmond Sun columnist Mike Hinkle is on a two-week trip to Gulu, Uganda, with the Pros for Africa and The Whitten Newman Foundation. He is writing dispatches for Sun readers while in Africa.

The motto of the Cornerstone Leadership Academy for Girls is printed in blue letters on their clean white blouses: “Women of Virtue.” To welcome us they sing the school anthem, which we see written in old fashioned white chalk on a simple blackboard. “We thank God for provisions and education; our eyes open to know that sunshine follows after rain.”

We Americans are accustomed to being greeted with courteous smiles and handshakes — sometimes a discrete nod. But these young women dance out to meet us with their beautiful voices uplifted in song. This singing is almost overpowering in its simplicity and sincerity and each girl hurries to embrace us in the traditional Ugandan gesture of heartfelt welcome.

We are swept into the school where we learn the remarkable story of Cornerstone. There are 25 girls here selected from a pool of 500 applicants. All of them come from Uganda’s poorest families. Without the opportunity offered by this school, these students have no hope of acquiring a college education.

Uganda provides free schooling through the 11th grade. But admission to college requires two more years of preparatory work. This final step costs money which the impoverished families of these girls don’t have.

One by one, several of these “Women of Virtue” go to the head of the school room where we’re all assembled. Their testimonials are remarkably powerful. One shy young woman struggles with her emotions as she tells us, “I count myself among the blessed. With God’s help, I’ll be someone in the future.  Before Cornerstone, I did not have that hope.”

Cornerstone is the inspiring reality that springs from the dreams of Tim and Kathy Kreutter. This is a couple with a passionate love for the African people. In Uganda they saw a land inhabited by 45 tribes with ancestral jealousies and hatreds that kept the nation ever standing on the verge of new outbreaks of violence, new causes for distrust.

Tim and Kathy realized that the way past these age-old hatreds could be found in education. So they, along with likeminded visionaries, sought out deserving students who distinguished themselves in their studies and in lives of service to their families, churches and communities. This search crossed all tribal boundaries and brought these eager students together under one roof. At Cornerstone, they joined together in a common determination to form “a lifelong sisterhood of friends.”

Since the school came into existence, more than 90 percent of these girls have gone on to college; and wherever they go, they uphold the values Cornerstone stresses. These are the values that will lead these young women to be future leaders of Uganda, Africa — and who knows?

As I’m leaving Cornerstone deep in thought, there’s a gentle tug on my shirt tail. I turn to see two young women standing together. They ask me to “Take our love with you to America.” So I’m passing it along.

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.