DELIVERANCE CHURCH UGANDA

Dairy Goats: Hope for Masaka
David and Jacky Dowdy

It is nearly fourteen years now since Jacky and I left London to come to establish Joy Children Centre here in Masaka. While I am a Research Chemist by training, my wife is a nurse and teacher. My wife and I got saved when we were still at school. I think I was in my fifth year, which is the equivalent of senior four here. Both of us have always been active Christians. The church we started in was led by a super passionate evangelical preacher who believed very strongly that everybody was a minister. And so he trained us right from the start. All the young people in the church, male and female, went through preaching classes. As it turned out, not all of us became preachers, but you see, until you try out something, you can never know if it is what you are called to do or not. I think that attitude stayed with us. We moved to West London so that I could finish my university course. We found ourselves a local community church. While we were there, we visited friends abroad and also had somebody visit us in England. We met Silas Mugabe, who invited us to Kenya where he was studying and later to Uganda.

The following year, our mutual friend Steve, who was with YWAM (Youth with a Mission) encouraged us to join the YWAM team based in Jinja but working on the islands of lake Victoria. They were doing evangelism, and carrying out a survey of the refugees along Lake Kyoga. On the refugee camp on Lake Kyoga, I realised people looked up to me to lead them. I took over conducting the survey. That was our first real visit to Uganda.

We did a lot of evangelism on Lake Victoria. Paul Mutasa, from YWAM was a key member on the team. He eventually persuaded YWAM to release him so that he could pastor the new congregation. It was a congregation of fishermen because fishing is most definitely the major economic activity on the island. Though there were some farmers as well, the majority still remain fishermen. He however found that his congregation couldn’t stay still because of the nature of their occupation. He therefore ended up with a network of churches, some planted and others brought together into a network. We went there and visited him many times during the summer vacations, while we worked. Paul Mutasa is a good preacher and a very solid man. Those fishermen practically scratch for a living. Therefore, for a man like Paul, who comes from a reasonable family and background in Fort Portal but finds himself a missionary on the islands, he needed encouragement. So we used to go there to encourage him, doing some of the preaching and evangelism.