April 12, 2013

Meet some kids from the SOH Orphanage…

We have loaded individual photos of many of the kids living at the Stream of Hope Home in Nawantale, Uganda on the Mission Servants website. Click here for photo gallery.

These kids are fully supported with food, housing, medicine, clothing, and education. This is a newly formed orphanage and has many needs to improve conditions of health and welfare. We are praying for provisions to meet this need. Please look to the website, these blog updates, or contact us for more information.

Some of the SOH Kids

Posted in Updates from Uganda
Tagged 2013, New Children, Stream of Hope Home, Ugandan People

March 20, 2013

Stream of Hope Home – Uganda added as a supported ministry of Mission Servants

After prayerful consideration and seeing first hand the need and heart at the Stream of Hope for the African Child (SOHAC) Home in Nawantale, Uganda, we decided to add them as a supported ministry. See previous blog. I am excited that we will be working in partnership with Rev. Kathy Bailey and Friends at Serving the Lord Ministries in Quinebaug, CT to serve SOHAC in Jesus’ name.

We have provided some funding already for weekly food for the 46 children currently at the home, medical assistance, and given direction on a few projects to improve the health conditions at the home. Improvements are being made to the kitchen shelter and an agreement made with the landlord to allow him to improve the latrine and finish the floors in the house. Pastor Isabirye Paulous is a loving and committed man to these children and he has a great team of people focused on them. Some of them are in this photo below…Pastor Isabirye is 2nd from the right in the back row.

Needs exist, beyond regular food and supplies, to help the kids with school uniforms and school fees. They also need better cooking equipment, food storage, water storage, beds, bedding, mosquito nets, pest control, clothes washing supplies, and clothing. They do have faith that God provides.

Being a supported ministry of Mission Servants means that we have the ability to funnel funds and support to them and will be providing direction on improving the safety, health, and quality of the home with a long-term vision for the children to fullfill God’s purpose in their lives. You will see that some web pages and information has been added to the website here. Much more information will be added soon on the website and in blogs.

Thank you for your prayers for God’s direction, guidance, protection, and provisions.

Posted in Updates from Uganda
Tagged 2013, 2013 Trip, Stream of Hope Home, Ugandan People

March 12, 2013

46 Precious Ugandan Children…

We met this brave new mercy ministry…an orphanage that Greg, Moses, and I visited and served in Uganda. Through friendships that God put together over the years, I was introduced to Pastor Isa and the Stream of Hope for the African Child (SOHAC) ministry in a small town about 75 miles north of Jinja, Uganda called Nawantale. It was a brutal trip to get there from Kitale, nearly 10 hours total by vehicle plus a border crossing.

Pastor Isabirye Paulous and his team started a church and children’s home because of the needs in this community for spreading the Gospel and for children to be defended. Traditional worship and belief in the spirit world is common. An undefended child is at risk for exploitation in many ways. The church building is a simple structure with open sides and grass roof but full of joyful worship. It is the only church in the village center. We spent a great Sunday giving messages and in worship with them.

Stream of Hope worship

The kids and few caretakers are existing in a very cramped and basic way. They can get clean water at a community well 1/2 mile away but all the children wake at 3:00am to stand in line at the hand pump so they can get water for the day, before walking over 3 miles to school.

Village hand pump

Cooking and facilities need improving.

Kitchen facility

Sleeping quarters are safe but too cramped and on an unfinished floor with no mosquito nets.

20 boys sleep in this room

SOHAC funding is inadequate and they are just surviving. We brought them medicine to treat the children for intestinal worms and diarrhea, we left some mattresses and mosquito nets, we bought a 2 week supply of food, we performed field dentistry and removed many teeth, and we purchased school books and supplies so the kids could go to school. They were so excited to go to school that they did not sleep.

Administering de-worming medicine

2 weeks of food and supplies

Pray with us for the guidance and provisions for SOHAC Ministry, for the health and well-being of the kids, for God to be honored in all things, for the lost of Nawantale to see Jesus in the flesh through this work and wish to know Him, and for us to know how God wants us to proceed as Mission Servants Ministry to serve this mission.

Posted in Prayers, Updates from Uganda
Tagged 2013, 2013 Trip, mission trip, Ugandan People

March 11, 2013

Unengaged People Group … the Kenyan Teso

This is a neat story of some work for the Gospel made possible by God connecting a lot of different people…….I love seeing how God works.

A friend of mine, Randy, was investigating the ethnicity and language data available on the people in western Kenya, near the LSH orphanage and he noticed a people group named that Teso that existed along the Ugandan / Kenyan border, southwest of Kitale, the region where the LSH orphanage is. On the Ugandan side, they are well engaged with the gospel, have a complete Bible and many churches. The data shows that the Tesos of Kenya are only marginally engaged with the gospel. It seemed ideal that the Ugandan Teso could be helped and encouraged to evangelize their Kenyan relatives.

Questions were asked of Pastor Moses and The Lord’s Ministries (TLM) group that we work with in Kenya about this apparent opening for the Gospel and it was investigated. Pastor Moses’ associate Pastor Ben visited the border town of Malaba and he met Pastor Godfrey of the Portable Bible Center (PBC). Pastor Godfrey is a Ugandan Teso who moved across the border to Malaba and established the PBC in Malaba with a mission to train Pastors to reach the Kenyan Teso people.

We met Pastor Godfrey and several students of the PBC during our recent mission trip as we were traveling from Kenya to Uganda. There are fledgling churches among them established in the past few years of effort. They are a determined and passionate group. Pastor Ben, from Kitale, Kenya has been led to adopt the Teso as his mission. He will work to encourage and help them. I hope that we can help in some way, possibly providing digital audio media and printed tools through Pastor Ben to help the PBC reach the unreached Kenyan Teso.

“…….I established there are many people who have a zeal for the gospel. This was from the way I was received and found out from a number of Pastors around. In conclusion brother, there is a great task ahead. God bless you, Brother Ben – Kenya TESO MISSIONARY”

From Wikipedia….In Uganda, the Teso live mainly in Teso sub-region, i.e., the districts of Amuria, Soroti, Kumi, Katakwi, Ngora District, Serere District, Pallisa, Bukedea and Kaberamaido, as well as Tororo District and Busia District. They number about 3.2 million (9.6% of Uganda’s population). Until 1959, they were the second largest ethnic group in Uganda. As of 2002 they were the fifth largest.^[2]The Teso in Kenya, numbering about 279,000, live mainly in Busia District, Teso District.^[3]Teso traditions relate that they originated somewhere in what is now Ethiopia and migrated south West over a period of centuries.^[4] They were part of a larger group of Nilotic peoples who migrated from Sudan in several waves. A splinter of this group later formed a branch called the “Karamojong Cluster” or Ateker. The Ateker further split into several groups, including Jie, Turkana, Karamojong and Teso.^[5]The Teso established themselves in present-day north-eastern Uganda, and in the mid-18th century some began to move farther south. During the course of this latter migration, conflicts ensued with other ethnic groups in the region, leading to the split of Teso territory into a northern and southern part. In 1902, part of eastern Uganda was transferred to western Kenya – leading to further separation of Teso.^[4]

Please pray with us for Pastor Godfrey, Pastor Ben, and the Teso people.

Men from the Teso at the PBC

Showing the Jesus film as an example of media technology available in Ateso language.

Greg and Pastor Moses giving a message to the Teso Pastor Trainees

Posted in Prayers, Updates From Kenya
Tagged 2013, 2013 Trip, Kenyan People, mission trip, Teso, Ugandan People

February 19, 2013

We’re Home! Incredible Trip!!! ….Post #11

We arrived home on Saturday afternoon and share the view that we had much more than a great trip. We were blessed to be exactly where and do exactly what we were supposed to. It is hard to explain in a few words just how we know that things could never have happened like they did under our control so all I’ll add to this brief summary and few photos for now is PRAISE GOD!

We did witness God’s will in making a new well come into completed existence despite our belief that it was not possible to even start it.

We did witness God’s provision by making it possible that all the right people, organizations, equipment, supplies, skills, time, funds, weather, and timing was just right to make this large project get completed in less than 2 weeks.

We saw several other projects come to fruition to support the home and even harvested honey from the hives started last year. Terri was the right person at the right time to fill in for an absent Nursery School teacher and Dorothy who just had a baby.

We witnessed the power of Jesus’ name in seeing people …. praise Him in faith and joy while in desperate situations we couldn’t imagine before, love one another in a selfless way, dedicate themselves to spreading the Good News of Salvation, give their lives to Him and be baptised, and see a demon cast out of a young teenaged girl.

We witnessed God’s compassion by placing us in the right place to provide help with food, medicine, emergency dental service, love, and encouragement. We received His joy by being His hands and feet!!!!! God brought Dorothy’s daughter, baby Stephanie into the world while we were there.

Thank you for your prayers, support, and encouragement. More to come……