Celebrating Katuba
We are proud to highlight Haven Church as our Spotlight Partnership of the month. On June 1, 2014, Haven Church, located in Kalamazoo, MI, launched their partnership with Children’s HopeChest. The CarePoint they chose? Katuba, Uganda.
Located about 25 miles outside of Kampala, Uganda’s capital, Katuba is a community that is truly in need of assistance. During a visit to the area in early 2014 with HopeChest, Pastor John Sparks knew right away that this was the place his church would come alongside.
Since launching the partnership, they have already sponsored 116 of the 125 children they originally agreed to sponsor at the CarePoint. Now, just 7 months later, they have increased the number of children they are looking to sponsor to 150.
Not only have they had great success in child sponsorship, they have also found success with project fundraising. Through perseverance, they have funded their first project: renovating and expanding an existing latrine. The church members had an idea to raise money for the latrine by collecting scrap metal and selling it. Scrap metal started coming in from all over the region. They were surprised by the large amount of donations they were receiving. Just when they were getting very close to their fundraising goal, a large portion of the metal was stolen. Then, as only God can orchestrate, when John was telling the story of the stolen scrap metal from the pulpit, a donor approached him after the service and handed him a check for the remaining balance needed for the latrine.
They are now looking at raising funds to construct a school building. Again, this has all been accomplished within the first 7 months of kicking off the partnership.
Haven Church has already set their first partner visit as well. A group will be headed to Katuba to see their CarePoint, meet their kids and get to know the community this coming May.
God is faithful. All we need to do is trust in Him for all of our needs and He will provide. And that is our prayer for the children and the community in and around Katuba, Uganda. We are so thankful for Haven Church and their partnership and we can’t wait to see what God does through them and through the people of Katuba.
