The Mbale Mission Team is ecstatic about the work for 2017. A major area of emphasis is the development of the Soroti Discipleship Center. One challenge that we have is our location in Mbale as compared to the churches we work with throughout Uganda. For most of our churches (about 60%) in Eastern Uganda, we are located within an hour. But for many of our churches the distance is much further, some as far as 9 hours away. So, as we seek to DISCIPLE the pastors and leaders of the churches of Christ in Uganda, distance can become a real hurdle. One such area is north of us. Creating the Soroti Discipleship Center will make an additional 25 churches within 2 hours, making it reasonable to bring people to one central location for discipleship groups.

Soroti is a town of about 50,000 people located about an hour and a half north of Mbale. It is in the heart of Teso land, which is a tribe of about 3.2 million in Uganda. Before we began developing the site last year, the church there in Soroti Town had crumbled. The church had been unfinished for many years and the former pastor had left. There was a small group of people struggling to hang on and several former refugees refusing to relocate. It was an eye-sore, but more importantly, it was harming our ministry in the entire region. So we began.

We first completed the town church. And then, with the help of a few generous supporters, we started on the rest of the compound. We’ve since built a latrine (along with showers) and a guard shed. We are in the proccess of building a fully functioning kitchen, as well. All of this allows us to house a discipleship group at this location one weekend a month.

Our long-term vision for this extension center is that it will have dormitories and classrooms, a pavilion and water source, offices, and maybe one day apartments that will financially support the work done there. And we still need partners to help contribute to this work. So, if you’re interested, please let me know. If you have questions, please ask. And no matter what, please pray that the Lord continues to lead us!