New Life Academy
Nakazzi, Uganda

Fund Raising Activities

Since the very beginning of my work in Uganda, I have attempted to teach the concept that Christians in Uganda don't have to be dependent on resources donated by people of other nations, that they should look to the Lord for provision, and with His support and guidance, learn to build a better life through their own efforts and resources. To this end, I encourage short-term mission teams from the U.S. to emphasize teaching of skills, rather than providing services directly.

This is not to say that we haven't been richly blessed by support and many donations from overseas. We have, and these are much appreciated and have made a significant difference. However, this philosophy has served us well, as evidenced by the growth of SEVO, which is mainly supported by local resources and volunteers, with EMT training originally provided by mission teams. It is also evidenced in NLA itself, where the support of the orphan students became primarily covered in its last year by the fees of the paying students.

We continue to seek greater self-sufficiency by implementing new programs, such as sales of pineapples and other garden produce from church lands. We hope to establish other income generation projects, which also will provide jobs for our many widows, such as a small restaurant, a guest house, and a maize mill. Any funds donated towards these projects will be applied directly to their establishment, which is an investment in the future of Ugandans.

New Life Drug Store

On January 21, 2008, we opened the New Life Drug Store at Butanza, a rural community about 7 miles south of Luweero. Although rural, the area is quite populous, with several large schools, but people have had to travel several miles to be able to access a quality drug supply shop or medical clinic. Pastor David Kasule’s mother is a government nurse, and she had helped to plan this venture over the past 6 months.

The owner of the building where New Life Drug Store is located is a wealthy man who constructed the building 2 years ago. He’s never rented out any of the rooms until now, since he’s not under any financial pressure to do so, and he’s very particular about who he rents to. We currently are renting 2 rooms in this otherwise unoccupied building, and a nurse midwife is living in the back room, operating the drug store and an unofficial clinic. We have painted the rooms in the lime green shades of the New Life Academy’s students’ uniforms, and one of our plans is to expand the drug store/clinic into another branch at New Life Academy when it reopens in 2009. Then we’ll have ready treatment for sick or injured school children.

Many local people have stopped by, even before the drug store opened, expressing their gratitude for these services to their community. Already we are providing the weekly services of a dental assistant, and as we develop the clinic, we will have a weekly medical student as well. The nurse will be doing deliveries there, and we will eventually be renting at least one or two more rooms in the building for inpatient services, baby deliveries, and so on. Last week, in our first immunization program, we vaccinated 197 kids in 2 days!

We will also be moving the head office for SEVO into this building, and Hannington Sseruga, the eager teacher that he is, will no doubt be putting together SEVO training in Butanza in the very near future. As the north-south highway across Uganda is being rebuilt, road accidents are drastically increasing along this section of road, as people increase speed and drive more recklessly. There is a walled compound behind the building where we can store the SEVO ambulance until it is repaired, and house it once it’s in use again. We intend for both New Life Drug Store and SEVO to be ways of practicing and spreading the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we pray that God will bless us with both lives and souls saved!

God has given New Life Drug Store favor even before it opened officially, and so far, business has been good. Pray for the financial and spiritual success of this venture so that we can meet our goal of making the store a successful business, which will allow us to extend more help to orphans struggling for their education, to expand SEVO training into remote villages in the Luweero area and beyond, and to spread of the Gospel in doing so.

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