Bweyogerere, nr Kampala

"The Lord God Most High - His is God. He has raised us from the dust and ashes. He is able to keep us from falling and to present us before his glorious presence without fault and with great Joy". Jude 1.24

When Emmanuel and Florence first started their church in Bweyogerere, this is the building they built. Florence now has it framed in here office with this encouraging verse to remind her of how much God has given them. Many of the village churches are still papyrus constructions, and are often destroyed by wind and rain. Part of Community Church Sheppey's role in this partnership has been to finance the construction of brick buildings in five of these villages.

This is Bweyogerere church as it stands now. The building on the right is one of the classroom blocks of the church primary school. This school caters for 200 children including 50 orphans who also live here during term time. Member and friends of Community Church Sheppey are sponsoring some of these individual children and are able to write to each other. However there are others who are still without sponsors and cannot afford to go to school.

This is the mission statement of Bweyogerere school. Although the church runs the school it is open to any members of the local community, and many children come from non-Christian or other religious families including those with Muslim or 'Traditional Healer' (witchdoctor)parents. If children are educated in Uganda, their chances for employment and ability to provide for themselves as adults are massively improved.

The beginning of the blog...

Since 2001 Community Church Sheppey has had the privilege of being partners with a network of Pentecostal churches in Uganda, which is headed up by Pastor Emmanuel Sunday and his wife Florence. Their churches run an orphanage and a number of primary schools and do incredible work with widows and needy people in their communities, including food programmes and youth work.

Each year a team from Sheppey visits Emmanuel and his projects to encourage them and see where we can help. Our friendship with the Ugandan churches has really changed us and helped us to put our lives in perspective. Many Sheppey businesses, schools and individuals have also got involved and generous donations have enabled us to fund new church and school buildings, as well as providing water supplies, supporting church leaders and sponsoring orphans and teachers.

This blog is being started to put all the information, photos and stories about our church's partnership with Uganda in one place. We are passionate about making sure you know exactly where your donations have been spent, and would especially like to give you the chance to get to know some of the many people you have been helping.

We are excited to see what more God has planned for us all as this partnership develops, and as five of us set off again this August we will soon have new stories, photos and ideas to share with you. So keep an eye on this blog as we hope to upload plenty more information in the coming weeks!