In February 2007 New Horizons Church joined with Northlake Baptist Church in Longview and Princeton Baptist Church in Princeton, Illinois to send a Missions Team to Uganda. This team visited the Dove Uganda Churches and Schools Steve Maldonado was the first member of New Horizons Church to travel on a missions trip to Africa. The team focused on health seminars, the building of a new church in Kampala and evangelistic crusades in the Eastern region of Uganda.
This year, three members of New Horizons Church will join eight other team members from three different churches in Longview and Kelso.This team will spend the first week in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda and the headquarters for Dove Uganda Churches. While there the team will work on a new Ministry Training Center and will conduct health clinics, as well as door-to-door visitations and evangelism.
The following week the team will travel northwest to Arua, near the Sudan border. Arua is where Martin and Elizabeth Tumusiime minister and have opened a school. The Arua area is a heavily-Muslim populated area and evangelism is very difficult and can be dangerous.
The team will focus on community efforts, including visitations to the local hospital and school.
Partnering with the Kelso and Longview Rotary Clubs, we will be conducting site planning for the installation of water purification systems for the schools and the community.
These water purification systems are designed to help the community reduce disease rates, transmission of disease and improve the standard of living.
Currently most of the residents must walk long distances to centralized water stations and then carry their water back to their homes. This water comes straight from the wells and is not always purified. In addition, most homes do not have proper storage containers to keep the water clean and fresh.
The water is used for cooking, bathing and drinking.
The water purification systems are installed in schools and community centers. Besides purifying the water, an education program is implemented. The education consists of basic hygiene, such as washing hands before eating (the Ugandans do not use utensils, but instead use their fingers to eat). In the schools, the children are taught to wash their hands before eating and after using the pit latrine (bathroom).
The mission team in October will be conducting some preliminary site selection and planning so that future teams can install the water systems.
By providing basic over-the-counter medications we can help the Ugandans treat community members for illnesses such as malaria, ringworm and the common cold. Some of the churches also have medical clinics and our medications help re-stock supplies which are difficult to acquire in-country.
New Horizons Church is collecting over-the-counter medications that can be taken and distributed to the churches and the medical clinics in Uganda.
Medications that are needed include:
Orajel
Triaminic
Puralube eye ointment
Bacitracin
Pepto-Bismol tablets
Topical Antibiotics
Antibiotic ointments
Baby ointments
Anti-fungal creams
Aspirin
Children's Tylenol
Children's pain reliever (non liquid)
Burn creams
Anbesol
You can help by bringing new medications to the church and depositing them in the Medicines For Uganda box.
