1st Team mission trip to Levites Academy Uganda Campus

15 ADULTS AND 7 KIDS CAME TO UGANDA TO SERVE AT LEVITES FOR A WEEK

This February I got to travel to Uganda with a group of 21 people. My wife Emily and two of our eldest kids were able to travel with us. It was such a neat opportunity for me to travel with people to Uganda and tell the story of the origin and vision of the Levites Academy. I had the team visit my childhood home and village, the elementary schools I attended, and the church I fellowshipped at as a kid. We got to meet some of my primary school teachers.

For our kids and the kids who were part of the team, I had the privilege of showing them how I lived my life as a child by taking them to the well where I would walk to fetch water for home consumption. What I found extremely special was showing the team where I used to meet the children in the community and do a VBS-like study. This is where the Lord impressed my heart to start a Christian school.

OPEN HEARTS TO HEAR ABOUT JESUS

Even though we’ve made it known we are a Christ centered school, we noticed this year that our Muslim population in the school increased. I saw kids who proudly wore hijabs each day to school. Despite that, we had such Spirit filled worship times that could be heard from miles away. Seeing our Muslim students ask for more and more time to worship the Lord and request books about Jesus was a testimony to what the Lord is doing in the community. I pray that more Muslim students will join us.

I pray that God will continue to invade their hearts as they attend school at Levites. Through the discipleship classes, many students confessed Christ as their Lord and Savior and we pray that the seeds that were planted would continue to grow.

NEWLY COMPLETED VOCATIONAL BUILDING.

Our recently completed vocational building needed a few more things to be fully functional and the team stepped up! They provided both their expertise and resources to make sure that the technical building was fully functional. We were able to launch a small carpentry operation. We now have room for tailoring, hairdressing, welding, and computers. Although we still need tutors and equipment for many of these, we have space and enough equipment to start/continue with these vocations and reduce the pressure on the classrooms.

A Carpentry class under way in the newly completed vocational building

One of the visitors worked specifically with the agriculture department to make sure that we increased our yields and moved toward self-sustainability. We will look forward to the reports of the new best practices adopted by the Levites Agriculture team, while some of us specifically worked with the staff on professional development. While Victor spent time training on backward design and understanding by design, I worked with them on the vision of our global practices, and why we do what we do. Emily, on the other hand, worked with them on how to teach different kinds of learners and increase rigor. She also created a library system for the school and taught students how to use and maintain the library. There is a need to build a more permanent library someday that can be accessed by both students and the community, but this was a good start.