Uganda
While the AIDS epidemic continues to take thousands of lives
throughout Uganda, there is hope. In recent years, the Ugandan
government built a coalition of government organizations, churches,
and schools to educate people about AIDS, to offer relief to
infected victims, and to enact measures that have helped slow
the spread of the disease.
Although the rate of infection has slowed, many children have
lost parents to AIDS. The Ugandan people continue to respond
positively, often inviting orphaned nieces and nephews to live
with them, but the need is still great.
Established in 2004, Amagara House is the children’s
home for Juna Amagara (“saving life”) Ministries,
which cares for the physical and spiritual needs of AIDS orphans
in Uganda. The Outreach Foundation of the PC(USA) made Amagara
House its 2006 vacation Bible school mission project.
Mauritius
Mauritius is a small, tropical island in the Indian Ocean, uninhabited
until Europeans settled it in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The country remained an important port of call for
ships sailing between Europe and Asia until the Suez Canal was
completed in 1869. It was an independent parliamentary democracy
in the British Commonwealth for almost twenty-five years before
becoming independent in 1992. English is the official language,
but the dominant language and culture are French.
The Presbyterian Church of Mauritius (PCM), which became autonomous
in 1979, has about one thousand members in one English- and
four French-speaking parishes. The Rev. France Cangy, former
pastor of the St. Joseph congregation in Grand Gaube, is the
moderator of the PCM. When the Rev. Cangy was pastor at St.
Joseph, membership grew by 250 percent in five years. |
