Dear Friends,
It hardly seems real that Christmas is just a few weeks away! In the midst of ongoing uncertainty in life,
the one thing we can be sure of is that our God is sovereign and He is unchanging. Just as He has been faithful
to us in the past, He is faithful today, and He WILL be faithful in the future. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus
over 2000 years ago, we pray He will also be born in your hearts as your Saviour and Lord
if you don’t know Him already.
Looking forward to 2022, our Ministry travel plans are as yet uncertain in terms of when we will be able
to take the next Mission Uganda team. We need the restrictions that are currently in place in Uganda
to be removed, so that we will be able to hold the daily teaching sessions and evening crusades.
Whatever you are praying to God for and trusting Him for in 2022, we stand with you and ask Him to hear your heartfelt prayers!
What is your dream?
I’m sure most of us can remember being asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. However, such a simple question is not one that can be asked in many places in the world. When your parents cultivate a small piece of land to grow food to survive – year in, year out – dreaming seems irrelevant to daily life. Instead, you grow up to do what you must do in order to eat, and young children are raised knowing this.
The need
One way out of this scenario is education - quality and affordable education. Whilst this is available in much of southern Uganda, in rural northern Uganda it is not. No significant infrastructure development has taken place especially around Kamdini in the last 50 years and more. Global Christian Academy will fill both this urgent and critical need. With 50% of the local population under the age of 16, the school is long overdue and very necessary.
Global Christian Academy (GCA)
Great news! Schools are scheduled to re-open in Uganda at the end of January 2022. The team on the ground will therefore be working hard to contact all the children who had been attending GCA up to the time it had to close in March 2020 because of Covid.
The children have lost a lot of ground academically, so we shall start with three Kindergarten streams and hopefully the older ones will quickly progress to Grade 1. The school will use the church building that was completed by the 2018 Mission Uganda team until some of the new school buildings are completed. In the meantime, the Global Family Church team are finalizing the school’s registration with Uganda’s Ministry of Education.
The church building GCA currently uses.
Grading the land
Fencing the land
Ready for the next stage
Posts being installed
Design and construction partnership
Our partner in Uganda, Global Family Church, has been hard at work sourcing the right architect for the school project. This has proved difficult, with two options both letting them down at the last minute. We therefore decided to work together with Engineering Ministries International (EMI - www.emiworld.org), who have a program in Uganda.
Their surveying team were able to visit the school site from 16th—19th November 2021 and undertook a survey of the land in order to produce a topographical survey. Early next year, their expert volunteers from around the world will form a team of different disciplines that will lay out and design the entire site and produce detailed architectural drawings of the buildings.
Progress in the meantime…and preparation for construction
Multi-purpose uses for the school buildings
The school site will have classrooms, including a top quality IT facility and library; administration rooms; simple but practical teachers’ accommodation; an outdoor kitchen and dining area; an assembly hall and music rooms. In future, there will be dormitory facilities for the middle and high school students.
During school holidays, the facilities will be used for holding conferences for local pastors. The first pastors conference was held in January 2020 just prior to the crusade, and was hugely successful. These hard working men of God have no formal training and the teaching they are given is life-transforming and really helps them in their ministries. We are partnering with Pastor Ken Matthews from the UK in this work. The school facilities will enable us to train greater numbers, thus reaching a wider area in northern Uganda.
An annual Youth Summit will also have great impact as youth in northern Uganda will be invited for a week of worship and challenging teaching of the word of God.
Finally, the assembly hall will be used for church services each week for the school family and as well as the general public in the surrounding areas.
Will you partner with us to build the school and multi-purpose buildings?
Brian (age 6) with his sister (age 12) and his mother. They are standing in front of their house with mud brick walls and grass thatched roof
Will you help Brian and many
other children like him fulfill their God-given purpose and destiny?
Our hearts’ desire is to see children back in school growing in their education
Brian was a pupil of Global Christian Academy in 2019—2020, and had graduated to Kindergarten Middle Class. He has been at home since March 2020, helping his mum and sister with household chores and helping his dad by taking the goats to a grazing area and tying them up there, bringing them back in the evening. As we can see, he has learned how to wash his own clothes as well as the importance of being clean and tidy, even as a young boy.
Brian loves playing soccer, and proudly wears his best Uganda soccer team T-shirt in the lower picture!
The most amazing thing about Brian is his dream for his future: Brian was asked what he wants to do in life, and he replied, “I want to be the President of Uganda”. Outside of Global Christian Academy, he has no possibility of fulfilling his dream, but as we all partner together, his dream can become a reality. How excellent it would be to have a God-fearing leader who would lead the nation with integrity and righteousness!
Heartbreaking statistics
Uganda has had the longest school lockdown anywhere in the world…
Uganda has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the world as a result...
Cost of Education
With the new facilities and infrastructure, we anticipate being able attract quality teachers for the school. However, quality teachers also come at a cost - as well we have to be prepared to support the school by providing scholarships for the children who come from the poor communities that will be the catchment area for the school.
The school has to provide a quality of education that will enable the children to achieve their dreams, qualify to attend tertiary universities and colleges and have a future that they can look forward to. The Christian foundation to the education will give the children morals and values that will enable them to succeed—both in their studies and throughout their lives.
Statistics show that only 25% of girls who start school in Uganda actually complete Primary school. This is usually because when the girls reach puberty, they have to miss classes once every month due to lack of sanitary supplies. This is another challenge we will address in order to overcome this obstacle therefore enabling the girls to have the same opportunities as the boys.
Raising the educational level within a Christian moral framework of any community will ensure its future economic empowerment, stability and security.
Fundraising target: Phase 1 $500,000
: 6 classrooms
: 4 teacher’s houses
: Kitchen and dining shade
: Infrastructure—sinking a bore hole, constructing the septic system, roads, security guard hut, outside latrine
These are the minimum requirements for the school to open by the end of 2022.
Will you help Watume in this great cause of raising transformational leaders?
We would be delighted to have you partner with us in any of the following ways:
· Build the school—or any part thereof
· Provide an educational scholarship for a child / children at $40 per month, per child
· Donate monthly or a one-time gift towards the greatest need
· Join with us to pray for all of these plans to be fulfilled
Ways to Donate:
Through the website www.watume.com
both for one-time and recurring gifts
By cheque, made payable to Watume Global Ministries. (Please indicate how the funds are to be designated)
E-transfer to info@watume.com (Please indicate how the funds are to be designated)
Thank you so much for your interest and partnership in Watume, for your generosity
and prayer support.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government
will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6
Peace, Joy and Love to you and yours this Christmas
Chris & Heather Komagum
Founders