What are we Doing?
I recently had a discussion with some people who were confused about all the various things we are doing. I get it! It can seem very confusing when you see that we are doing some farming things, teaching some job classes, helping businesses, doing Bible studies, selling coffee, etc. I understand the confusion, so I wanted to write this blog post to try to clarify the ministry you have enabled us to undertake in Uganda.
Our primary ministry in Uganda is to share the Gospel and then disciple believers. We’ve found that people really don’t care what you know until they know that you care. We show we care by helping them to improve their lives in some way. Our primary means for helping improve their lives is by helping them to earn money in some way so they can provide for their family and their future.
Simply stated, we help them make money by helping them get a job, start a business or improve their farming practices. We help them find a job by taking them through a two week job readiness class at our center called the Jinja Work Training Center.
We start out each day of training by taking them through the Alpha Course. The Alpha Film Series is designed to take people on a journey of faith. Each session covers a key element of the gospel in a way that is easy-to-follow and leaves space for people to explore their questions about life, faith, and God. The curriculum we use for our course is also based on biblical principles. The whole program is built to lead up to sharing the Gospel at the end of the course. Those accepting Christ are invited to Discovery Bible Study groups so that we can disciple them and help them grow in their faith.
After the job readiness course, we help our graduates to find a job or get additional training to get marketable job skills. We are currently teaching service and hospitality, barista and business courses. These courses give us more opportunities to share the Gospel, disciple and mentor. We have also started up a coffee van to give our baristas an opportunity to gain practical experience.
The graduates of the business course who start businesses are assisted by the Jinja Business Development Center. The aim of this center is to assist small businesses by providing training, mentoring and resources to help them be successful. Again, this gives us more opportunities to share the Gospel, disciple and mentor.
Another major way that people in Uganda earn money is through farming. The problem is that the farming practices they employ are largely ineffective. This has led to many major issues including soil erosion, famine, deforestation, starvation and poverty. We teach a program called Farming God’s Way that provides 7-10 times more yield than traditional farming practices. This program is based on biblical principles and is designed to share the Gospel and disciple believers. We work with many farmers in Mayuge District and conduct farm visits throughout the season. This gives us an opportunity to mentor them by helping improve their farming practices, but also gives us an opportunity to share biblical principles and do discipleship.
I hope this post helps to give some clarity to any confusion that may have occurred. We are very blessed to be doing this ministry in Uganda. Because of you, we are able to help people come out of poverty, share the Gospel and disciple believers. We are very thankful to have wonderful partners who make this ministry possible!
We still need more partners to help us to train and mentor unemployed youth in Uganda! You can help by supporting us financially by going here. You can pray for our ministry by learning about our prayer requests here. You can follow our ministry by going here. We can’t do this without you! Thank you!
The post What are we Doing? appeared first on Heart For Uganda.
