Reflection of 2023

For the farming work, we started with a completely new group at the beginning of the year 2023. By the end of the year, we had built great relationship, had good training sessions and learnt with all the five groups. A number of families were able to reap big from the good rain in the second season. First season was not good though, but God compensated with the second season rain. Many farmers had good testimonies of good harvest among them was Pastor Olyel of Alelelele Baptist Church who recorded 30 bags of groundnut from 2.5 acres of land. With each bag being sold at 120,000 UGX, he will be able to get good income from his crop.

All the five groups are very hopeful of year two of the project which we called it the specialization or the expansion phase whereby we expect the farmers to increase their production since they learnt a lot in year one. The skills should then be put to use in second year to make sure that the families are food secured and that they have increased income for better livelihoods.

The year 2023 for us here in Gulu was blessed with visitors coming from the UK and even internally to see, interact and meeting with the different communities. We had colleagues from BMS who visited us here, an intern also sent through BMS was here for 3 months, old friends visited us during the year and many others. The visitors gave us a lot of encouragement and advice which greatly blessed us.

The last group of visitors were friends from Moroto Baptist Church who came for a learning visit. We were able to visit a number of farmers and one church. They are coming from the region that suffers from severe famine every year and they intend to start farming activities in 2024 starting with the church members in two communities. I personally was blessed and pray that what they have learned will be put to use to help built food security for the participating households and later the whole community and the region.

We are hopeful that the work being done in Gulu may be a blessing to other friends in different parts of Uganda and that the church will spearhead such development.

Pastor Francis who led the team from Moroto said he intern to introduce training in farming and tree growing to help build resilience of the families in his area.

All our planned activities in 2023 were completed successfully and we thank the lord for guiding us and granting us the journey mercies will travelling and executing these activities.

When given the opportunity, we have notice that a number of farmers can be motivated to learn, work hard and achieve their goals in the families. We want to encourage the families to set their own goals and work towards it especially the church community mobilization training that started at the end of this year.

Some days to Christmas, God blessed us with a son on the same day and date we got wedded in 2016. We said to God, thank you for the far you have brought us. So, we decided that the boy be called Pwoch Eben Omega (Pwoch means thank you in Acoli language, Eben is short form of Ebenezer and Omega is because we said God, you have given us what we prayed for and let this one be the Omega).

Stand with us in prayer.

-pray for 2024 that the farming project will be a blessing to many families

-We intend to carry out tree growing with the current 5 farmers groups, but the fund is not yet secured

-Pray for Church Community mobilization that will take place for the first time in Gulu in February 2024.

-Pray for health in the family, malaria is very challenging especially with the children.

May the Lord bless you, walk with you in the year 2024, may his face shine upon you and give you peace, joy and happiness, may he grant you good health and encouragement in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Catch up soon,

Genesis