Recently I spent 8 days in Kapchorwa, Uganda,  reviewing the work of Development Companions International.  Over the last 30 years I have had the opportunity to visit many overseas Christian ministries.  No other ministry has impressed me more than the work DCI is conducting in Uganda.  As an old commercial says, "It's the real thing." 

It's the "real thing," first because Jesus is lifted up in all they do.  It is not about DCI, the in-country director or the indigenous Christian workers.  It is about Christ.  It is about reaching out to people with little or no hope and giving them the hope that lies in Jesus.  It is about teaching illiterate, downtrodden women in remote villages how to read and write.  It is about teaching health care to people who never heard of the need to wash hands.  And it is teaching, aiding and encouraging local pastors in these villages in the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus.

Naturally there is resistance.  After a two hour drive on the worst roads I have ever seen, we came to a village where there is a small church and soon to be literacy center.  This village is a rather new resettlement of refugees.  While having tea with an elder of the church, I learned that his kitchen was recently burned down.  This was not going to scare him or the others of the church away.  Nor does the fact that two different neighboring tribes often come with AK 47s and steal their cattle stop them from going to those very same tribes and starting a church there.

One pastor told me resistance has diminished much since they started about 20 years ago.  Back then he and his wife were caught by a mob and both forcibly circumcised.  Though emotionally and physically painful, they continued to reach out with love and the gospel to the ones who did the heinous deed.  

All the pastors in this region support themselves by farming; they receive no monetary aid from DCI.  What they all passionately asked was for support in starting more learning centers, in more health clinics, and in more church leadership training.  Please stand beside these brothers in Christ with your prayers and then, if led, with your financial support.
                                                                  Alan Schell
                                                                   DCI Board Member