Uganda mission shares successes with congregation

    Missionaries from Holyoke’s First Baptist Church presented on the medical assistance and spiritual support given to the Ugandan village of Wera during the church’s Sept. 16 Sunday service.
    The six team members — Savannah Burris, Mark and Sheryl Farnsworth, Ron Koch, and Lisa and Mark Werts — returned to the U.S. on Sept. 2, after spending a week in the East African country.
    The trip was facilitated by the Children’s Hope Chest and Hope Uganda charities. Group members described the trip as the experience of a lifetime and an opportunity for spiritual growth.
    “I had never planned to go to Africa,” Koch said. “It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
    While the mission was made up of three families — Koch and his granddaughter Burris, and the husband-and-wife teams of Werts and Farnsworth — all members said that they had grown closer as a group in particular over the course of the trip.
    Mark Werts said he and Lisa left for Uganda on Aug. 25. After a 30-hour journey, the team made it to their destination of Wera, where they were met by villagers celebrating and hoisting a homemade banner, which read, “Our dear visitors, you are most welcome to Wera Care Point.”
    Once in Wera, the team helped care for local orphaned children. Lisa Werts recalled how their sponsored child, Reuben, slept on the floor in a concrete storage room.
    Mark added that, after the death of Reuben’s family, the village convened a council to determine his future caregivers. When no one offered to take him in, he was turned loose and told to fend for himself.
    “Seeing the depth of poverty there was really hard,” Lisa said. She said that letter-writing programs are extremely helpful in building self-esteem for children who have fallen through the cracks.
    “I can’t tell you what it’s like for those kids — when they get the letters it makes them feel like they have value,” she said.
    The team took various pieces of medical equipment to the village, including stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. They also offered training in the Heimlich maneuver, first aid and CPR, which they practiced on plastic dummies.
    Knowledge of these techniques is especially important in Uganda, where ambulances are unreliable and must be paid for ahead of time. Mark Werts said about 105 locals were taught during the course.
    The team saw the fruits of their efforts before they left, when a local treated a child who had a seizure. Although Mark Werts said he did not witness any conversions in Wera, he remains in contact with local police, who are interested in starting a ministry.
    Mark Farnsworth also started a youth soccer group, which he found to be a helpful vehicle for the group’s ministry work. The church also helped fund a tailoring building and program, to help local women earn money.
    First Baptist Church pastor Jeremiah Krieger said the mission was proof that the church’s efforts to give sacrificially and share the Gospel are working.
    “We’re changing the narrative of people’s lives, even though many of us might never meet them,” he said.