Excerpts from New Peninsula Uganda Partnership Prayer Newsletter

MAY  2013

Please join us for the next Uganda Prayer Night, on the first Thursday of each month, from 8.00 – 9.00 pm at the home of Mick and Dorrie Terrington (phone 5977 2418).  If you would like to be part of our dynamic Uganda Partnership Group (UPG), please call Jamie on 5978 8021.

Grace & Pastor Vinnie

Andrew Mukhwana & family

Greetings all,

Graeme and Bette Pearson have recently visited Uganda, below is a brief account of their visit and also some photos.  Thank you for sharing this with us Graeme and Bette.

“We visited Bethel Church Mbale in late March, and met with Vinnie and Grace, Andrew and Sarah and their children.

We were impressed with the work at Bethel, including the ministry of Grace and Sarah with the ladies.

The new Bethel Church/ Community centre is larger than expected, and is an excellent building which is being used for community meetings, training, health, young single mums groups etc.  The old church building is used for kids activities on Saturdays, and another for food storage and distribution.

The Community Centre needs finishing off with ceiling fans, completion of baptistry, and office furniture.  The area for the health centre is empty.

We visited a number of the new churches, and Vinnie and the team are on schedule with their growth plans, with 6 already established.

Vinnie is building relationships with people by helping them to establish sustainable lifestyles, and then inviting them to church – holistic ministry.  We travelled with 2 leaders from the Samaritan’s Purse Uganda office, and when asked for suggestions for improving the Bethel ministry, they said ‘Vinnie is already implementing the right methods for building Christian communities’.”

Church

Baptistry

VINNIE’s PRAISE POINTS:

• Thank and praise God for the transformation Bethel is bringing into the community.  We have seen the community  being transformed in all aspects of life, not only are people getting saved, but people are using their God given resources from within and around them and are making changes in their lives.

• Praise God for Salvation.  A community that didn’t know God before is now on fire for God.  Not only are people getting saved in Bethel church and its new plants, but there are also new church plants not related to Bethel.  There has been a revival in the mountain area with many Witchdoctors who were deceiving people about life have fled away from the community because people now know the truth.  Some Witchdoctors have surrendered to Jesus Christ.

Community Centre

VINNIE’S PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. Pray for the weather.  We seem to be having much more rain than needed.  As a result the crops are not doing well because of too much rain.  There are also threats for the land and mudslides in some areas in the Mountain.  Pray that God will intervene in the situation. 
2. Continue praying for the growing church in the community.  There are some churches like the Anglican, Pentecost and others which we think are good, but there are some others that we doubt.  We have seen the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons and some indigenous churches with the belief in Jesus as well as some sacrifices like animals and children.  They also don’t believe in taking children to school and they see the Number 666 in almost everything.  Pray that God will keep the harvest for only the good churches. 
3. Pray for Brian.  Brian is one of the converts who has been saved from the Islamic faith, he is now leading Bethany Church in the Mountains.  Recently he has found himself a good lady and they are intending to marry.  Pray that God will provide as he has no other family other than Bethel. 
4. Pray for Bethel.  We had a leadership meeting on Saturday where many things were discussed, with two of them being crucial.  We want to elect the new church council in August. Pray that this will go well.  We also think it is officially time to form a New Zone, meaning we will still be under the Baptist Union of Uganda as well as the Eastern Baptist Association.  We shall be doing things more independently from the First Baptist as we don’t share the same specific vision and on a few occasions we get diverted from what we think is the calling of Bethel. 
5. Pray for Grace and Vinnie and the leadership.  There is a lot of pressure in making sure the church keeps growing and they also have to run and look after their own families.  Pray for wisdom.

God’s blessing to all from Vinnie

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This prayer newsletter has been compiled by the Uganda Partnership Group as a way to keep the wider “Uganda Support Community” within New Peninsula Church engaged and updated on our mission partnership with Bethel Church in Mooni community, near Mbale, Uganda. Thanks to Lyn Carr for preparing it. Quotations from correspondence have been edited. Please feel free to distribute this prayer newsletter to others. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, or wish to be placed on the distribution list, please contact Jamie Edgerton on 5978 8021 or jedgertonoz@gmail.com.