Dear brethren,
We do thank you very much for the wonderful work you are doing in supporting God’s work here in Uganda, especially in Busia and Namayingo Districts of Uganda. The churches of Christ in East Africa are being blessed through your support. The gospel is reaching many people through the students who have passed through the Uganda School of Evangelism. In 2013, many churches of Christ in East Africa, together with several members of the Nandwa church of Christ, including our students, gathered in Nyahururu for the East Africa Gospel meeting. During that time, one man from Ndathi, which is on the slopes Mt. Kenya, who was invited by some members of the Dhathi church of Christ, was baptized. This church was planted by brothers Simon Thuku and Joseph Warui one year before the East Africa gospel meeting. When this man went back home he did what the Samaritan woman did after meeting with Jesus at the well. After this man’s announcement to his neighbors many people were ready to become members of the church which Jesus died for. Brothers Thuku and Warui were called to go tell the people of Dhathi, in detail, what the man had been telling them. When they went, 20 people were baptized. That man remained there as the person who could read the Bible to that group, but unfortunately this man went to his maker last month. That group is now in need of someone who can help them for at least two years. They are planning to send one man to school this year. We cannot know what other people are doing, as this is being done on an individual basis and we do not get reports from them officially, but from what we hear happening in different places, tells us that your support is reaching many souls. This quarter in our long course we are teaching I & II Kings, Chronicles, Romans and Galatians, I & II Corinthians, English Grammar III, and Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. Our short course will start on the 23rd of March 2015. The ladies class is scheduled to begin on the 6th of April 2015, for one week.
The Nandwa Church of Christ sent two of our students to work with the Junge church of Christ whose preacher left the church and joined a denomination. Nandwa also sent one of our graduates to the Bulukuyi church of Christ. On the 12th of March 2015, churches of Christ in Busia and the Namayingo Districts are starting a gospel campaign in Bulukuyi. Pray for this meeting. Bulukuyi, as the host church, does not have a latrine on their plot, they have been using the neighbors. They want to build one before the campaign starts. The grass on their building was also blown off. They need funds to have some grass on their roof. Grass houses are becoming expensive, as grass is becoming scarce because most land is used for cultivation.
The Nandwa brethren helped Bulukuyi congregation to erect their structure. This is very temporary. They need a more permanent structure built by bricks and cement with an iron sheet and timber roof. The Nandwa brethren and Bulukuyi can work together to make bricks. We need about $5,000 dollars to complete such a building. We would appreciate it if there would be a church or an individual who can support Bulukuyi in getting such a building.
Agriculture Projects:
Our fish ponds did not do well this year. The flood which came last year in May came and washed away all the fish we had stocked in our ponds. The few fish which remained were eaten by some predators. When the water was drying up, we were forced to remove whatever was left in the ponds. The area is now dry and we are now planning to fence the whole area to avoid some predators.
These are the only fish we have, but we would have harvested more than these. We have known where the mistake was and this time we expect more harvest, as we will also stock more fish.
We are completing the second pond of 40m x 20m at a cost of UGX 1,538,461/= $550 dollars. We need to finish this pond and repair other ponds before the rains starts. The repair will cost us UGX 540,000/= $200 dollars. We plan to stock 2 ponds sized 20m x 40m and 2 ponds sized 10m x 22m, with a total of 4080 fish. These will be 400 fingerlings of cat fish and 3,672 tilapia fingerlings. Each fingerling will cost us UGX 250/= which will total to UGX 1,020,000/= $364 dollars.
Brothers Douglas Fair, Ebenezer Udofia and Chris Gingles from Healing Hands International visited the school on the 24th of February 2015. After seeing our needs they asked us to write a proposal for the completion of the pig house and a chicken house. I will soon give them our needs.
We lost our two bee hives by fire. From here we managed to save three, which we moved to another site. Likely enough I had purchased bee gadgets, which I put on and ran with water to save those two hives and we later transferred them to another site.
We are now clearing the new site to avoid fire.
Yours In Christ
Francis and Margaret Wechesa
To see Francis’ report with pictures, please click here.