Uganda Water Mission

Spring 2008

On March 22, 2008 a group of four eager, young Christ-followers set out from Cleveland Hopkins Airport en route to Kitgum, Uganda. This marked the first step of Gateway’s journey into the foreign mission field and the beginning of what we hope to be a long tradition of serving God’s people all over the world.

The team embarked on a 2 week trip to the northernmost district in Uganda to demonstrate simple and effective water filtration methods to the people living in the remote camps and villages. With a heart of ministry and love for these people we adapted a filtration system using materials that could be acquired from the market in Kitgum. In the end we accomplished 20 set ups and did 18 demonstrations around the district, showing people how to build the filter and explaining the process that occurred within that actually filters the water. Our mission was not only to set these water filters up, but to transfer the knowledge to our Ugandan brothers and sisters so that they could continue to build these for themselves and improve their health by making clean water available.

Using the water filtration as a metaphor, we were blessed with the opportunity to share the Gospel and the hope and love of Christ with over 1000 people; explaining that Christ’s love and redemption is the reason we traveled so far from home to come to them. The people were very warm and receptive to our message.

We were also blessed in being able to forge some great friendships and partnerships with the missionary and churches we worked with. Our Ugandan friends are some of the greatest, faith-filled people we’ve ever met and they encouraged us and affected us as much as we encouraged them. We’re very excited that we recently were able to further our support by partnering with them to host a conference to encourage and build The Church in northern Uganda. We look forward to continuing to grow with them and are especially anxious to return to Kitgum to continue our work with them soon!

Upon returning from the trip the team spoke to Gateway about the trip and missions. You can listen to the mp3 of the April 13 talk here or on iTunes. You can also view more pictures from the trip here.

Missions is a very developing part of Gateway and we will soon begin the planning stages of our next trips. We’re excited about what God has in store and so grateful that we get to serve our King in such exciting ways!