Happy New Year!
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season full of time with family and friends. Thanks to all of you, our Christmas Celebration in Uganda was a huge success! The Gospel was shared, food was distributed, and a big helping of HOPE was poured out on the entire community. Continue reading for an overview of the events and some precious photographs!
Gifts & Letters
Our V127 children received personalized gifts and letters from each of you. This is such a highlight of the Christmas season for them, as you can clearly see on their faces!
Children’s Service
Our children worked hard to put together the Children’s Christmas service, with so many sharing their gifts and talents through song, dance, speaking and more. There was also a big Christmas lunch celebration after the service for all in attendance.
Care for the Elderly
In a new outreach focus this year, around 70 elderly community members (many who are caring for their grandchildren) were each given a care package made up of bars of soap, 12 lbs of rice, 7 lbs of beef, 6 lbs of sugar, a bag of porridge, and a bottle of soda. (For those who could not travel to the church, our team made special home deliveries!)
Care for Community Police
Our outreach from prior years to the severely overworked/underpaid police officers continued, with over 70 families receiving the same care packages as the elderly! As part of this outreach there was also a special service with extended prayer time for the officers.
Blessings of Food
The members of Victory Covenant Church were once again asked to bring their friends and neighbors who would not have food for Christmas to the church on Christmas Eve. Over 700 families showed up and heard about the love of Jesus! They were each gifted 6 lbs of beef, 5 lbs of rice, 5 lbs of sugar, and enough porridge to last them a week! So many were overwhelmed with gratitude and greatly encouraged.
Care for our Team
All of our teachers, staff and V127 families were also blessed with these gifts of food (another 120 families!)
We were able to purchase 8 large cows for the distribution of beef (the most economical method), and even had to hire some extra help to get it all ready!
All in all, it was a extremely blessed Christmas season for our brothers and sisters in Uganda thanks to the generosity of all of you. In total our team was able to provide gifts of food for around 1000 families! Wow! To God be the glory!
Here are a few updates on other areas of the ministry!
- Letters and school reports are trickling in, so you should be hearing from me individually with those very soon. 🙂
- Our construction team is feverishly working on the 3rd and 4th floors of Victory Primary School. The roof has been completed and they are now working on ceilings, windows, and doors. They are hoping to get as much done as possible before the students return to school on Feb 6th. Continue to pray for God’s provision for our school!
- Finally, I’m excited to tell that we have a team of 6 headed to Uganda Feb 19-March 1st! This will be our first time back in the country since COVID-19 shut everything down, and we are very excited to be there in person to encourage our kids and our team, as well as look for new opportunities to improve and expand the ministry to reach more people in need. I will provide more details about the trip very soon, but in the meantime please pray for Tom, Chris, Carol, Jay, Kris, and Jan as we prepare for this journey!
As we begin this New Year, may we all make our relationship with the Lord the priority of our lives, so that His fruit will permeate everything we do…
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Gal 5:22-23
Much Love,
Jan