This is the Ignite team that made the brave decision to go into Lira in North
Uganda this year 2008 with the desire to see a school completed and opened.
To see more photographs click here

Uganda 2008 In January a team of 16 people from N.Ireland called Ignite travelled to Lira in Northern Uganda to help complete and attend the opening of OYAM PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL a new school, built with money raised through Ignite. Ignites members hail from various parts of N.Ireland and has strong local connections with Ballymoney, Cloughmills and Ballymena. Many members have been involved with projects in Uganda over the last 6 or 7 years and have a strong desire to continue God’s work there. Having returned from a trip in January 2007 and after much prayer Ignite felt God was asking them to step out in faith and the vision of building a school was realised. During previous years the team had worked on smaller projects and closely with another local organisation called Fields of Life who have a local office and an office in Uganda. Fields of Life were able to advise us where a school was most needed and we greatly appreciated all their help and assistance in helping us fulfil our dream. The building of a school was Ignites biggest undertaking and throughout we saw God's hand in the plans. The amount required to finance the school was £50,000 and throughout the year we were frequently overwhelmed with the donations we received, and wish to thank any of your readers who contributed. All donations went towards the school, we have no administration costs and each team member pays their own travel costs. Work started on the school in the autumn of 2007 and by January we had received over £62,000. For this we give God the glory. The Ugandan people know that education is their future and through this project Ignite wanted to show them the love of Jesus in a very real and practical way. The school will educate over 500 children and as many of the children are orphans it is our prayer that through child sponsorship God’s work can continue in OYAM. Maybe you’re asking yourself what can I do to help - have you ever considered sponsoring a child? This is an amazing opportunity to transform a child’s life, through your sponsorship a child would have the opportunity of an education and the hope that one day things will be better… they could leave behind the extreme poverty and hardship that dominates their young and often sad lives. Sponsorship costs £14.00 per month, this goes towards the child’s education, any surplus goes towards development in the child’s community, you will receive a photo and a short personal history of a child with whom you can exchange letters. Not only will you be a tremendous blessing to the child you assist but you in turn will experience great reward as you see your child mature and grow. Many of our team sponsor children and get great joy meeting them year after year, the children feel so incredibly special when they receive a sponsor and their faces light up when they tell you their sponsors name. It is easy for us to feel overwhelmed and paralysed to the point of doing nothing, but we can all do something, “we can’t help everyone but everyone can help someone”. Thank-you for taking the time to read this article and our hope is that you will give prayerful consideration to child sponsorship. For more information about the team go to www.ignite-u.co.uk and if you would like to sponsor a child you can do so by contacting: Paul Sayers Tel: 276 38245, 07752819979 or call with Jonathan Gault at 26-28 Church Street, Ballymoney Tel 028 276 63236.

We are planning a House Push this year on the 7th June. Just to explain this is a small house on wheels and we hope to travel Ballymoney Coleraine, Portstweart and finish our trip in Portrush. A number of teams will take this on a rely each team completing 5 to 6 miles. We hope that local companies will come forward with sponsorship for this event and we will advertise each company on the house.

Julie Cummins from Ballymoney who has been great with Fund raising for us in the past is doing a abseil down the Europa hotel. This event takes place on Saturday 26th April so we as Ignite team wish her all the best with this event.

At the beginning of 2007 a team of 17 men and women took up the challenge to start fund raising with an ambitious target of £50,000. This money is to build a school in Uganda in January 2008.

After many events and the immense generosity of so many friends and others who simply had a desire to help we have reached this figure!

The building process of the school has now been started with the first phase almost complete. So a finish date of January 2008 certainly looks probable.

The team that has put much time and prayer towards this venture are Denise Kane, Diane Keown, Paul Sayers, Marilyn Barr, Roy Barr, Simon Brown, Ricky Dunbar, Simon Foster, Jonathon Gault, Wendy Gault, Jeanette Gibson, Drew Kerr, Paul Martin, Dessie Moore, Mervyn McKinty, Alison Oliver and John Young.

This team dream team under the Ignite banner will travel to Uganda on 6th January 2008 and return home on the 19th.

Our first place to visit will be Kampala the capital but we will then move to see this school where we will make the official opening and dedication and be involved in some painting of the class rooms.

The school is well into the north of Uganda were there has been much trouble over many years from the Lords' Resistance's Army where many lives have been effected by death and destruction of homes and families. The area is called Lira which will take us 6 hours by mini bus to reach on some very poor roads.

Our next project will be a visit to the aids orphaned children in the Luweera area that we have be very involved with in past visits and we will provide whatever help we think is needed in that area. Then we move on to our return towards Kampala where we will help in another school called King's School with some repairs and a tidy up.

The team will be involved in a few more fund raisers leading up to Christmas as we never have enough money to make the differences that these people so richly deserve.

The team has paid all there own individual flights for this trip so we can assure the public that all money raised goes in the Uganda projects.

Who are we?

An interdenominational organisation dedicated to helping Christians develop and deepen their personal relationship with God, by linking teams from Ireland with churches and projects in Africa.

Our Aims:

	“To bring practical and spiritual support to people in need in developed countries”
	“To encourage spiritual and personal growth in individuals as a result of their team experience”
	“To facilitate and equip teams from churches in Ireland, to support identified projects in need in Africa”