REPORT- MITYANA TEAM COMPLETES PHASE II OF THE RURAL HEALTH EVANGELISM TRAINING

We are grateful to God for the support from our friends and partners who make it possible for us to put our mission into action.

As a ministry, we believe that to have a long lasting impact in the community, the local people should be empowered to lead the transformation we desire to see in the future. This approach instills in them a sense of belonging and solves the problem of dependence among the people.

Rural Health Evangelism is one of the ways through which FoHA empowers people to take part in the transformation of their communities and hence enabling us to achieve our vision.

The program engages people selected from different churches into a 2 years course of Health, Evangelism and Leadership after which we believe they will be able to respond to the health needs of the people in the community and also preach the gospel of Christ, winning many souls to Christ by sharing the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

From 23rd- 24th October we were able to train a team of RHE (Rural Health Evangelists) in Mityana district. As you may be knowing, this is a team through which  New Hope Church was planted with the church pastor being now the overseer of the team in this region.

We heard two full days with the team having 3 different facilitators on Evangelism, Health and Leadership. The first session was on Evangelism and was facilitated by Mr Kizza Abbey, The second session was on Leadership with Mr Sengendo Julius and the 3rd session was on Health by Mrs Doreen Segawa. 

All sessions took 2 and a half hours with 10 minutes of breaks and 30 minutes of questions and answers. Question sessions were very interesting especially during the Leadership sessions.

Mr Sengendo (Facilitator) explaining the various categories of leadership.

Mr Sengendo's leadership sessions were focused on the categories of leadership and how the team should get involved in the the various leadership responsibilities in the church and in the community. During his sessions he pointed out four categories of leadership; Political, Church(Spiritual), Opinion and Cultural Leadership. Here he tried to connect all the categories and how Christians should get involved in each category. 

Many questions came during the political and Cultural leadership categories, that team was so keen to know if a Christian should be engaged in Political Leadership and how they should keep and follow Christianity values with out dropping their culture. 

To the question about engaging in politics he responded by saying that if Christians take on political roles and follow biblical principals like not engaging into corruption as political leaders, there will be good service delivery and resources will go towards their right use, leading to the establishment of health centers, provision of clean water and in the end people's lives will be saved and the people will praise our father in heaven, leading to the spreading of the gospel and hence salvation. 

Mr Tusabe (RHE Member) asking a question on leadership categories.

He addressed the point of culture and Christianity by asking people to maintain the right cultural practices like dressing and working together as a community to serve the lord and to keep good morals. Specifically about dressing, he pointed out the Buganda culture which encourages women and men to dress in a non revealing way with the women putting on 'Gomesi' and the Men 'Kanzu'. All these are the right and descent ways of dressing which are cultural but at the same time giving glory to God.

ON LEFT- Pastor's wife putting on a 'Gomesi' (Cultural wear) during the training

During the Health session, Mrs Segawa Doreen focused on Malnutrition and she asked each member to come with any food type to work as food samples to explain the various categories of food to make up a balanced diet. With this she came up with a model plate with the types of food that each person should have on each meal.

It was a really beautiful training and we hard one more member join the team making a team of 16 RHE now.

We are thankful to God for all our friends and partners who have continued to support us as we reach out to the people in the unreached communities. 

It costs us $250 each time we organize a RHE training. This covers meals, stationary, Transportation and allowance for external facilitators. Will you consider investing in these teams to save thousands of lives in the community? visit our website to know more about Rural Health Evangelism and to support the RHE program. 

There are also other programs you can support, Contact us through our website or directly through an email at focusohhealthafrica@gmail.com. We love you and are blessed to have you as part of our ministry.

Thank you for taking the time to know about the great things God is doing through FoHA and may the good Lord bless you. Find more pictures of the training on our facebook page.

  

  

LED TO SALVATION THROUGH HER DAUGHTER'S HEALING, GONE TO BE WITH THE LORD

It was during a Medical Mission in July 2013 when God brought Irene who was 14 years then with a cancerous tumor on her left jaw. This tumor had caused Irene's parents to separate and the father went to live with another wife. Every one in the community including Irene's mother believed that the tumor was caused by witchcraft and that the step mother was responsible. The mother tried all that she could alone to save the life of her daughter but it was all in vein leaving her with nothing as she had sold all her property including hens and cows to pay the witch doctors and traditional healers whom she believed would save the life of her daughter. She had tried various clinics in the villages and they were only giving her pain relievers and had not got any chance to consult a doctor, Traditional healers were more accessible.

When the mother had that a team of Doctors were coming from the city to give free treatment at Kasozi Community church, she brought her daughter believing that we had the right medicine for her daughter and that she would get a chance to explain her daughter's condition to an experienced doctor from the city. We took Irene to the City and supported her through all her treatment including Chemo therapy, radio therapy and surgery. For the time Irene and her mother were in the city, the father did not come to visit and neither did he call to find out how they were doing. Through the whole treatment process that Irene was undergoing, Irene and her mother gave their lives to Christ in request for God to heal Irene.
A thing that every one thought would not be possible, God did it when he healed Irene and the doctors declared Irene Cancer free. The community believed that if Irene found the best witch doctor, she would get healed but when news got to them that what Irene had was cancer, they only waited for her death and the blame was put on the mother.

In May 2014 we took Irene home and she was healed, every one came to see Irene, she was such a beautiful girl.

This is the time God had prepared to save Irene's father and to take him back to his family. It was a celebration day with hugs and the joy seeing Irene mother and father getting back together. God had healed, saved and reconciled. God continued blessing this family, Irene and her sister got sponsored and the family has been leaving happily fellowshiping from Kasozi community Church.

On Sunday 10th October at about 6pm we received a call from the pastor that Irene's father had gone to be with the Lord. He got an accident while on his bicycle going to the maize milling machine to grind maize for food. He was admitted and discharged on Tuesday 6th. He seemed fine until yesterday when he collapsed and died while he was walking in his home compound. It is sad news but we are grateful to God for his life and that he had given his life to Christ.

He had 8 children and 35 grand children. Of the 8 children, two (Irene and Justine) are sponsored through FoHA. We ask you to pray for this family for God to comfort them and to provide for them. Pray for Justine who will be sitting for her Primary Leaving Exams in November. These are National Exams and she is required to score specific marks in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies to anable her to get to the secondary level. Pray for God's wisdom and that this will not affect her perfomace to stop her from scoring the marks required. Pray for their their mother that God will give her the wisdom and guidance to raise her children in the ways of God.