Drumbeg Uganda 2017
Rev. Willie Nixon and a team from Drumbeg recently spent a week in Nyapeya Northern Uganda where they are partnering with Fields of Life to build a school.
The team includes, from left to right, Mike Barnett (Rector’s Warden), Nigel Quinn (Parishioner), Rev Willie Nixon, Richard Spratt (Chief Executive of Fields of Life), Leo Rossi (Select Vestry) and Rosie Steele (Parishioner).
Rev Willie Nixon tells us more about their trip below.
In June last year the Select Vestry were offered £40000 from a Parish Family to spend on a Mission Project in Africa. The only stipulation was that project would have an educational and gospel element to it.
As a Vestry we began to look at the possibility of partnering with Fields of Life to build a school in Gulu, Northern Uganda at a cost of £80k.
The trip to Uganda was to visit the project in Gulu. We will partner in the project with Bishop Johnson Gakumba and the Diocese of Northern Ugandan. We spent two days with Bishop Johnson and his clergy during the trip.
We hope to see a 7 classroom school built plus a borehole well sunk at the school which is in Nyapeya Parish. It was good to discover that the beginnings of a church building structure and a ‘Rectory’ have already been built at the proposed site of the school. Nyepeya is one of 17 new Parishes which have been established in the Diocese of Northern Uganda since Bishop Johnson was consecrated as Bishop in 2009. He has an evangelical missional heart making him a perfect partner for our vision at Drumbeg Parish. We hope he will visit us at Drumbeg Parish in May this year.
Whilst in Uganda we also had the privilege of attending the annual Fields of Life Head–Teachers conference in Mukono, Kampala. Over 100 delegates attended which afforded us a good insight into the good governance etc which Fields of Life demands from their partners both in the local churches and school management.
We are now left with the task of financing the project, entering into child sponsorship for 45 children (20% of the whole school population), and becoming involved in a preacher training project, a school teacher training project and an ongoing sending and receiving in mission.