With the official school holidays just coming to a close, we are ending one of the busiest times in our work schedules. While the planning happens mostly during the school terms, a lot of youth ministry happens in the breaks. This break has been no different.
Our first mission this holiday was the Hoima diocese youth conference. It was held on the 4th – 8th of May at Duhaga primary school grounds. YouthWorx came in as part of the support and facilitation team. Ian and I were the representatives and a record attendance of approximately 300 Youth attended 4 day conference. While I was mostly a fixer for the three active teaching days, Ian gave a well received talk on Talents and Gifts as based on the parable of the talents.
The conference and the whole time we spent in Hoima was a useful and successful one on three frontiers. One, we played a part in ensuring the success and smooth running of conference in a region that we’ve worked for a number of years. A clear sign of growth was witnessed with the attendance numbers and especially in the organisational abilities can’t go without mention. The fact that a variety of speakers from around the country were brought down to the conference, the accommodation, feeding and the time keeping were all well handled.
The second frontier of success was the witness of clear fruit of Youthworx East Africa’s efforts. The conference was all prepared and organised by a young team of youth leaders in Hoima. These we have trained, worked with and watched grow over the years, the leader of whom is Nathan Asiimwe, the current acting Diocesan Youth worker of Hoima Diocese. For a first time of organising such a huge youth event, it gave us a huge inner pleasure watching this Mustard seed flower.
The third and probably most important frontier of success was the fact that new relationships were definitely birthed and the old strengthened. Notably, on the last evening of the conference, Ian and I went out for a meal with Nathan, Henry (the Diocesan Youth worker of Masindi- Kitara Diocese) and the wife Sylvia. The two had come over, for three reasons, to support Nathan, a personal and long time friend of Henry, to help with the Facilitation and also to get ideas for their own conference due for August. We jumped to the opportunity of having both of them in one place and used it to discuss our future mode of work. Fortunately, they welcomed the idea of using an Urban-Rural approach of work to reach out to the perfect target group more efficiently. We were blessed with the time we spent together just talking about ministry and finding ways forward for the work.
Nathan was meant to join us in Masindi A week later as we run two back-to-back conferences in Kijunjubwa and Karuma respectively but other commitments came in the way. While the First conference was a miss-hit in many ways, the Karuma conference is one of the best conferences I’ve been at in a while. The group composition, organisation, facilitation and welcome were all nothing less of what we could possibly ask or wish for.
On the border separation between central and northern Uganda, Karuma is a Highway town on the Kampala-Gulu road. It’s blessed with two tourist attractions, Murchison Falls National Park and the Karuma falls on the river Nile. Though we had the Luxury of taking a walk to the falls on one of the evenings while there, most of the time was action packed with a very active and engaging group of about 40 Youth Workers. Though Luo, the predominantly spoken language couldn’t be spoken or understood by anyone on our team, we did well with the help of interpreters. Henry, Isaac, Shadiq, Shida and I comprised of the visiting that run 5 workshop based sessions and climaxed the stay with a much needed and requested for prayer and delivery session.
On the second evening of our stay, one of the women who were taking care of us in the kitchen area requested Rev. Henry and I to go have a separate time of prayer with her family. We talked, prayed and talked about different things. It was a special time seeing this older couple and their kids pouring out their hearts to two complete strangers and trusting that God had brought us in their lives for a reason. They welcomed our prayer and believed a blessing on their lives and family would appear soon with just the element of faith which we exhaustively talked about.
Karuma is in the process of turning into a parish. One of the requirements is having a church and a Reverend both of which they don’t have. They are currently constructing their church and are only led by a Bible student. With all that is waiting to come their way, Karuma is a very active congregation that needs a lot of prayer and support. Without an electric supply, Karuma will however soon develop into a big trading center since a power dam is under way. We should pray that when this happens, Karuma will be in position to handle the spiritual pressures that come with the growth. For all we know, missions and conferences will come and go, but the one thing that we should never let go, is the people we meet on the way. Let’s remember to say a little prayer for them. AMEN
