God is moving!
SOUTH SUDAN—
The ministry began in South Sudan almost 20 years ago, but in recent years fighting and unrest have pushed us south over the border into Uganda. Northern Uganda hosts many refugee camps with over one million South Sudanese refugees.
Our main focus is a holistic church planting training developed with African partners. The training includes teaching and tips on self-sustainability. God is using the training to impact and change people, their families, and their communities!
In addition, Serving Christ (a ministry of Avant; find more information at servingchristorganization.org) just launched a discipleship program to help new believers and church plants to mature in faith and understanding of the whole Scripture story.
Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless [orphan]; plead the case of the widow.”
Two brothers were living on the street being taught how to kill and do the ‘dirty work’ for a local gang. One day Mama Peace met these boys in town. Mama Peace and her husband run a small local elementary school right on their family compound. They know God’s heart for the orphan and just can’t seem to stop reaching out with his love!
So, they took these two brothers to their compound and put them in school. The problem was these boys didn’t know true love and ran back to what was familiar to them. Did Mama Peace give up on them? No, she did not! She retrieved them from town twice before they understood that love. Now they are comfortable with the family and the school and are very grateful for a safe place with the opportunity to go to school and to learn about Jesus.
On a recent visit to the school, the youngest brother, with much emotion told us that if it wasn’t for Mama Peace and her husband, he would be a murderer! This is a boy of about nine years old.
Through Serving Christ there are about 10 orphans being cared for and educated at Mama Peace’s school. In addition, about 16 orphans in regions across Uganda, most of them refugees, are being supported with education.
This is a big feat for a small ministry like Serving Christ. What you may not know is that parents have to pay for their children to go to school in Uganda—right from kindergarten to university! Averaging all the orphan tuition fees under the care of Serving Christ, the cost to support one orphan for one year of education is $1,200.
Serving Christ also supports widows toward sustainability, but that will have to be a story for another time.
Thank you to all our EMC partners who help make this ministry possible—and especially the prayer warriors!
Ride Walk Run is a fall fundraiser for Serving Christ. Interested? Ask us for more details.
Mama Peace (far right) and her husband (far left) run a school and reach out to orphans with the love of Christ.
