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VILLAGE MERCY COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER

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Dear Friends of Village Mercy

When we sat down to plan 2026, one item on the list had the whole team excited: a vision trip. The idea was simple. Get out of our own four walls, learn from ministries further down the road than us, and come home with a bigger picture of what God can do through Village Mercy in 2027. In August, that trip happened, just not where we first planned. This issue is our chance to take you along.

INSIDE: Our 2026 vision trip to Uganda: a week with Africa Renewal Ministries and Gaba Community Church, time with Francis Mugwanya at Father's Heart Mobility Ministry, a visit to Africa Renewal University, and what we're bringing home for 2027.

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VISION TRIP 2026

Not Zambia, But Uganda

The trip was first planned for Kitwe, Zambia, to spend time with the ministries Missionary Phil Hunt serves in, including Kitwe Church and Cabu University. In God's sovereignty, that trip didn't work out. Instead, He led us to Gaba, on the edge of Kampala, Uganda, and to Africa Renewal Ministries (ARM).
It never felt like plan B. ARM is the ministry that cared for our Executive Director, Edward Matovu, when he was an orphan. He grew up in the ministry's orphanage. It is led by Pastor Peter Kasirivu, Edward's uncle, and his wife Irene, and for a full week they and their team hosted us. Looking back, we can see God's hand in the change of plans. We went looking for ministries to learn from, and He took us to the very place that took Edward in as an orphan and helped raise the man who now leads us. For Edward, the week was a homecoming. For the rest of us, it was a chance to meet the people who poured into him as a boy.

Pastor Peter and Irene are among the most respected Christian leaders in Uganda, with a ministry that reaches across the whole country. Yet they opened their home to us and made us feel like family. We had the privilege of eating dinner in their home more than once. On our first night we talked about what we hoped to learn. On our last night we sat around the same table and looked back on the whole week. It was a bittersweet evening. Sitting at their table, asking questions, and simply watching how they live and serve was a gift we won't take lightly, and some of our best lessons came out of those two conversations.

A Church That Changed a Community
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Gaba Village, Kampala
On our first Sunday we worshipped at Gaba Community Church. The church invited our team to the front, introduced us as the staff of Village Mercy, and prayed over us (top photo). We were welcomed like family by people who had never met most of us. Gaba's story is why this trip meant so much. When Pastor Peter arrived in the 1980s, aged 26, Gaba was a fishing village where most homes were made of papyrus reeds. In 1990 he started Africa Renewal Ministries through the church to meet the needs around him. Today its seven affiliated ministries serve more than 30 communities across Uganda, and over the years they have planted more than 1,000 churches, trained thousands of leaders, and helped more than 15,000 children into school, healthcare, and discipleship. Schools, a hospital, a university, homes for babies and children: this ministry has touched every part of life in Gaba and beyond. These are Christlike people, transforming a society.

Behind the Scenes at ARM

Staff Fellowship, Headquarters & Wentz Medical Center
Monday started with ARM's staff fellowship, where Edward shared the Word with their team. We then toured the headquarters, saw their offices and ministry operations, and met the staff who keep it all running. This was exactly what we wanted for ourselves: exposure, and a chance to learn from others. In the afternoon we toured Wentz Medical Center. It started in 2002 as a two-roomed church clinic with one nurse and a lab technician, and today it is a hospital serving the Gaba community.

EQUIPPING LEADERS
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Africa Renewal University

On Tuesday we drove out to Buloba, west of Kampala. What began in 2007 as the Gaba Bible Institute is now Africa Renewal University, a chartered Christian university raising up leaders for the church and for society.

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The Vision - HISTORY & FORMATION

We heard the university's story, its vision, and how it shapes students both academically and spiritually. For a ministry like ours that is always asking how to grow men in both skill and character, there was a lot here to take home and think about.

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The Campus - TIME WITH STUDENTS

We walked the grounds and spent time with students training to serve

Loving Hearts - BABIES HOME

In the afternoon we visited Loving Hearts Babies Home, which ARM started in 2009. They care for abandoned and vulnerable babies and work to place them back with family or other safe, loving caregivers. There are no photos from there, and rightly so, but it is a visit none of us will forget.

GABA & BETHANY VILLAGE
Learning at the Table

Our last full ministry day was all about conversation: sitting with leaders who have done this for decades and asking every question we could think of.

Benchmarking

LEADERSHIP & SUSTAINABILITY

Back at Gaba Community Church, we sat down with the church's and ARM's leaders to talk about leadership, church partnerships, missions, community transformation, and how a ministry stays healthy for the long run. Edward also shared with the Gaba church staff over lunch. We came away with pages of notes and a lot to pray about.

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FATHER'S HEART MOBILITY

We ended our ministry visits at Father's Heart Mobility Ministry, founded in 2006 by Francis Mugwanya. Francis is Edward's mentor, and this is the ministry where Edward served before he moved to South Africa to pursue his aviation training. For Edward, coming back here was personal. 

Father's Heart serves people with disabilities across Uganda, working through the local church. Their team travels from district to district, partnering with churches to give people wheelchairs and other mobility aids. Just as important, they show people with disabilities that they are not cursed or second-class, but treasured by God. Many of their volunteers come from Gaba Community Church, and over the years they have become skilled at fitting and repairing wheelchairs. 

We toured the ministry centre and then had the privilege of spending almost two hours in conversation with Francis. He spoke openly about ministry, leadership, and walking faithfully with the Lord over many years. We benefited so much from this time, and it was a fitting way to end our week: sitting with the man who helped shape the leader God has given Village Mercy.

Bethany

CHILDREN'S VILLAGE

In the afternoon we visited Bethany Children's Village, one of ARM's homes for children who have lost their families. What stood out to us is how it is set up. Instead of one large building, the children live in family-style homes. Each home has caretakers who raise the children like their own sons and daughters, until they can be reunited with family or placed in a permanent home. 

It is a simple idea, but a powerful one. A child doesn't just need a bed and a meal. They need a home, a family, and someone who knows their name. Bethany gives them exactly that, and it makes the step back into ordinary family life much easier when the time comes. 

For us at Village Mercy, it was a good reminder. So many of the men who come through our doors grew up without a stable home. Seeing a ministry that works this hard to give children a real family showed us what it looks like to break a cycle before it even begins.

CLOSING MESSAGE

What We're Bringing Home

We didn't go to Uganda to copy anyone. We went to have our vision stretched, and it was. We saw what decades of faithfulness in one community can grow into, and we came home with better questions for Village Mercy. Over the coming months we'll be working these lessons into our plans for 2027, and we look forward to sharing them with you. Between ministry visits, Uganda also showed us its beauty: an evening of music and dance at the Ndere Cultural Centre, the source of the Nile in Jinja, and standing on the equator. And yes, the team discovered boda-bodas.

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Thank You to Our Hosts and Partners

To Pastor Peter and Irene Kasirivu, to William, Francis, and to the whole ARM and Gaba Community Church family: thank you for opening your homes, your offices, and your lives to us. You made us feel at home.

And to our partners here in South Africa and in the United States: thank you for standing with the men of Village Mercy month after month. Your partnership is what makes growth like this possible, and we don't take that for granted.

As we close, we leave you with this encouragement from Proverbs 16:9 "

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."

Thank you for walking this journey with us. We can't wait to show you what God does with what we learned.

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