Another slum, situated along a finger of Lake Victoria, Soweto is home to more than 7,000 refugees, mainly from Northern Uganda where the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group known for kidnapping and mutilation, has its stronghold. Most are infected with the AIDS virus and need a nutritious diet so that the drugs they are taking to fight the virus can work in their bodies. Again we ran into communication difficulties as many of these people speak only Luo, and we do not have many workers who speak this language. We also had resistance from the occult and cultic churches there. We allowed the feeding in this area to go on for twelve months instead of six because of the extreme weakened condition of the residents to allow more of them time to recover sufficiently to care for their families. Four churches have started, and more than eight leaders have emerged to continue the work even after Manna left the area. Here are some testimonies; they tell the story even better than the numbers:

Aketch Caroline

Caroline is from the Pader district in Northern Uganda near the heart of Kony’s LRA rebel activity. She came to Soweto as an IDP. She was a staunch Catholic but became disgruntled with it. She started visiting cultic churches as she looked for truth.

She contracted HIV and became sickly. Her body did not respond to the ARV treatments since she did not have enough food. The LC introduced the IMFC staff in Kampala to Caroline. She was accepted into Manna Ministry and started receiving food. She gave her life to Christ at the Manna food distribution last August. She begin to attend the house church services in Soweto. When the church had no place to meet, she opened her house to have the house church meet there. She is a great encouragement to the ones of the house churches and is in the Kampala Christian Church Network T4T (Training for Trainers).

The food has given her strength. Her body is responding to the ARV treatment and she now has a job with the Kampala City Council to sweep the streets and collect the garbage. She is very thankful for all the help.

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