Kampala

It’s gorilla and primate territory, so I should fit in quite well. Kabale has an astonishing story of physical and spiritual development over the last 90 years from a place with no infrastructure at all to a source of healthcare, education, commerce and Christian revival (key figures include Dr Leonard Sharp & Bishop Festo Kivingere an evangelist expelled by Idi Amin who eventually returned to lead the diocese. Below you can find a rough guide to my itinerary, prayer requests and hopefully some blog updates from Uganda if it is possible for e-mails to get through.’

Thursday 9th & 10th September

Overnight flight to Entebbe Airport, Kampala and meeting with members of the Church of Uganda

Saturday September 11th

Travel approx 300km south to Mbarara and then 150km to Kabale (the main town in Kigezi diocese). Mainly potholes, occasional roads.

Sunday September 12th

Worship and preaching in Kabale Cathedral

Monday 13th -Thursday 16th September

Meetings with Bishop George, Canon Stanley and others and visits to secondary schools and hospitals with lots of impromptu preaching and speaking.

Friday 17th September

Drive to Fort Portal

Saturday 18th- September 20th

Drive to the Masindi/Kitara Diocese, folllowed by two days of visits, particularly to an education project linked to the Bristol Diocesan Board of Education.

Tuesday 21st -Wednesday 22nd

Rest and mini-safari (me vicar, you gorilla)

Thursday 23rd

Drive to Entebbe for flight home the next day

Please pray for whatever ever you wish, and possibly…

• Marilyn and the girls in Malmesbury
• inspired preaching,
• an awareness of the Spirit’s prompting in all things,
• health and safe travel,
• new stronger relationships as I learn from the Ugandan church,
• for me not to be a totally useless photographer.

The African Children’s Choir™ is made up of some of the neediest and most vulnerable children in their countries. Many have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease. The Choir helps these children break away from the everyday cycle of poverty and hopelessness. While touring with the Choir, the children are exposed to a world of new possibilities. Chaperones, host communities and caring professionals share their wide variety of experience with the children, exposing them to many new ideas and encouraging them to dream. After returning to Africa, the African Children’s Choir™ provides care and education that builds on the unique international exposure the children experienced abroad. The children receive a quality education, leadership training and spiritual ministry at the Music for Life Primary School in Kampala, or at other well-equipped schools in their respective countries.

More information at http://africanchildrenschoir.com

For those of you who are curious as to what is coming up in our future Abbey series a sneak preview of what is provisionally planned: This autumn we hope to study 1 Corinthians together which will probably challenge us on a number of ethical and spiritual levels; from Advent to Easter our focus will be Matthew’s gospel, Christ’s birth, life, death & resurrection; at Easter we hope to have a series on Ephesians shaped by Eugene Peterson’s new book Practice Resurrection; and then after Pentecost in summer 2011 (yes we do plan that far ahead!) we return to the Old Testament for a look at the powerful prophetic ministries of Elijah & Elisha (from 1 & 2 Kings).

Rev Lee Barnes, curate at the Abbey will be ordained priest on Saturday July 3rd at Bristol Cathedral at 3.30pm. Members of the Malmesbury & Upper Avon group are very welcome to attend, although the service is long and not easy for young children. Lee will be presiding at Holy Communion in the Abbey the next morning at 10.30am.

Rev James Pettit who was on the staff here for 4 years and is now curate at St Mary of Charity, Faversham will be ordained priest at St Mary’s on July 4th at 10.30am.

Rev Toby Crowe from St James Alperton who has been on placement with us for the last month will be ordained priest by Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, on Saturday 3rd July at 10.30am.

And finally the Rev Eve Pegler who has been serving as curate of the Gauzebrook Group for the last three years and was very much a part of our Holy Week Festival and our Gospel Choir leaves the diocese with her husband Jerome to become Team Vicar in the Shaftesbury Team in Dorset. She will be licensed by the Bishop of Sherborne at 7.30pm on July 21st.

Please remember them all in your prayers and get along to support if you can.

You can read an article about Rev Katie Windle’s new ministry at Malmesbury CE Primary School here and you can listen to her on the BBC i-Player here by dragging to 1:46:50 where the interview starts.

On BBC Radio 2 Dave Bankhead and WeareOne ministries were featured by Aled Jones in the ‘Spotlight Time’ on his Sunday programme. You can listen in to the show, which features the song ‘Peace to you’ on the BBC i-Player here Dave is featured at about 1:14:30 into the programme

I always thought it wasn’t ‘cool’ to be a Christian, and that my friends getting up to no good were the cool ones. But the journey from there to me getting in the pool and being baptised was a slow and very gradual one. There was not one ‘Road to Damascus’ moment, but many, many little things that brought me to Jesus. Most of them I never realised until afterwards, sometimes a long time afterwards.

But now I can say that my friends in the congregation who came to the Baptism service, each one has given me at least one of those moments, through something they said or did, or just through the example they give in their own lives. They are the coolest people I know.

I have been blessed so much, with a wonderful wife and two lovely daughters, and food, warmth, safety and friendship. I have seen how God has helped my wife Clare and she has come through such loss and pain a stronger, happier and more wonderful person than ever through faith. Her transformation has transformed my life too.

I wanted to get baptised because I wasn’t as a child, and God found me and I knew it was something I had to do. It was an amazing, uplifting experience, which I am still glowing from, weeks afterwards.

By Tristan Cork

If you need prayer for any matter, if you have great faith or none at all, come and have a seat and our trained, confidential teams are there to pray for you, 10am to Midday each Saturday.