Ken and Judith Finch are CMS Ireland Mission Partners based in Kiwoko Hospital, Uganda. Ken works as the hospital's Programmes Manager and Judith is involved in looking after the many guests that the hospital recieves.
News and articles from Ken and Judith Finch
A Day in the Life Of...
Dear Friends,
We thought you might like to see a short video of the work going on at Kiwoko. The video was taken by Kate who visited Kiwoko recently and has made her video available on You Tube. Here is the link and hope you enjoy seeing a bit of life here at Kiwoko.
God bless,
Ken & Judith
Happy New Year
A quick note to wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that you all enjoyed your time at Christmas.
We trust that all those resolutions for 2008 are going strong and will continue to do so throughout the next 12 months and beyond! (is that ever the case?). Anyway here’s an update on our last post. It looks like Ken will not be doing the 2008 Belfast marathon after all – there goes one New Years resolution. Due to changes in our home leave we will not be home in May and so for Ken that’s off!
How ever the good news (bad news for Ken!) is that we are home in time for the Dublin marathon and so it looks like on the 27th October we will be in Dublin supporting and laughing at Ken (That’s Judith will be laughing anyway)
God bless you in 2008
You Heard it Here First
Personally (Ken here) I blame Niall Manogue.
Niall recently left Kiwoko to take up the post of Regional Mission Partner with CMS Ireland. While Niall was at Kiwoko we would run together to unwind from a day in the office. On one of these runs Niall challenged me to run the Belfast marathon – thinking that he was not serious I said I would if he would. That was me thinking of course that Niall would not be so – what’s the word – foolish.Anyway it seems that he is and so we have committed ourselves to running the Belfast marathon on May Day 2008 in Belfast.
Life's Hard
Life’s not very easy anywhere but the harshness of life here in rural Uganda was brought home to us very strongly recently.
Audette and Fiona were visiting Kiwoko on behalf of ISIS – a charitable foundation which Audette founded some years ago with a friend. ISIS support our baby intensive care unit and we went out to visit a mother and child who had spent some time on the unit. This was meant to be a happy visit – the baby had come onto the unit weighing just 700 grammes and the staff had seen him through to a weight of about 2 kg. Victor as he was named on the unit had then gone home, with his mother due to bring him back for follow up.
My Dad
Ken’s Dad – Charlie – passed away on the 9th June. Although he had been on chemotherapy treatment for a period of time he never recovered from his last dose of chemo and in the end died very suddenly which meant that we did not get home in time again to see him. We are very thankful however that we did come home about a month earlier and we were able to spend some time then. As my sister said he died the way he lived not wanting to cause anyone any problems.
Games in Sunday School ??????
Judith was describing to a colleague a game she was planning to use with the children in the Hayashi Youth Group. "We often used this game with our Sunday School back in the UK" said Judith. William a member of staff and a pastor in one of the local churches looked up in surprise. "You use games in sunday school ?" The concept seemed very alien to him. Having been in churches where children – who easily make up more than half of the congreagation – are expected to sit throug…
Nurture & Discipleship
It's well known and documented that Christianity has taken a firm hold in sub saharan Africa – in Uganda for example the vast majority of the population call themselves born again Christians. We have also become acutely aware of the truth of another saying – that the Church in Africa is a mile wide but only an inch deep. Although many have accepted Jesus as their Saviour the truth is that this does not always impact their lives in a meaningful way. It has been sad at times to see individuals…
Personal snippets
As we write this we are in the UK for 2 weeks. Ken's Dad is currently undergoing chemotherapy and so we have come back briefly to spend some time at home. Our time back home has also coincided with Ken's sister Heather and her family moving to Dungannon. Our brother in law Andrew has been appointed as the new Rector to St Anne's and St Elizabeth Churches in Dungannon and Moygashel. It has been good to be able to give a hand to Heather & Andrew in their move. In doing that we got …
Back to Kiwoko
We have just picked up Andy Garside from Entebbe Airport – Andy has come from St Pauls church in St Albans our home church in England. We have taken the opportunity to do a bit of shopping while in Kampala and to get on the internet. We have been back in Uganda for a week now and in many ways it feels we were never away. We take that as a positive sign. It was great to be home however and to spend time with family and to catch up with some friends – unfortunately time did not permit a lot of tra…
Going back
It has been great to be back in the UK for 3 weeks to spend some time with family and to catch up with folk, We have split ourselves between Ireland and England and it has been good catching up with people. In many ways the year ahead at Kiwoko feels daunting and of course it remains difficult saying goodbye. Please pray for us as we go back to Kiwoko and in particular that our time there is one that we can encourage and develop people and practices. Likewise that we will develop and be encourag…
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