July updates-2009

Dear Friends!
Greetings to you all. Well done on all you do each day.
I hope that you are keeping on -keeping on. I should say that it’s been good here too. Our prayer Breakfast meetings have been an encouragement to us all. Keeping us together and you showing your commitment and love for each other. All those that have been coming, we thank you and you-friend who has missed same these, we encourage you to remember that every first Saturday of the month, we meet from 7:00am-9:45am in Kampala, the venue is always communicated. We are praying for a permanent venue to maintain consistence in this regard. I know that the days are close for our friends who had gone on vacation to be back to school. We have missed you very much. We are looking forward to seeing you soon. I want to thank all the Kampala friends for their continued support, friendship, love and commitment.

Last month from 23rd-26th, Cornerstone Development Africa-our friends and partners- organized a workshop on youth mentoring. We had an opportunity to participate. We had our currently active partners from Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and our future prospective partners from DRC and Southern Sudan. There were a series of activities-presentations, community work out in the slum-Kibuli, games, a dinner and dancing too. I recognized that at that dinner we had nine countries with different tribes, races, colors, languages and religious grounds all there hosted at Tim Kreutter's house. I saw that it maybe difficult for such a thing to happen but only if you let JESUS be the unifying figure. It's exciting to hear how each of these friends see the vision growing steadily, strongly and deeply. You can see the passion for this vision them. At this dinner, Brother Peter from TZ, revealed his wedding plans for October -yet to confirm dates and Brother Bernard from Burundi has the same intentions too before this year ends.

At this meeting, we saw the need for a young adults mentoring house in Nairobi Kenya. A young adult mentoring house is house where young men or women choose to live and share their lives together in process influencing each other. Sometimes there is a big brother or sister figure to provide direction. So, Brother Gabriel feels that it could give this vision a different dynamic in Kenya. I also observed that in Uganda, we don't a young adults mentoring house. Yet this idea has been on heart for a long time. We have shared and are praying with friends for these possibilities in the future.

The preparations for the October Kampala gathering 2009 are in high gear. We hope this event will be a great experience for us all. Plan to be there from the 6th-8th. Invitations and more details are on the way.

After the October Kampala Gathering, we plan to take part in the Mt Kenya camp. I encourage you not to miss any of these upcoming events.

God bless you all.

Your friend,
Allan Shepherd