Carr speaks at Kiwanis meeting about recent African mission trip

Thanks to the efforts of a Whitley County church, life is now a little bit better for some of the poor residents of an African country, which is located about halfway around the world.

Wolf Creek Baptist Church Pastor Kenny Carr was the keynote speaker at the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club’s monthly meeting on March 8, and spoke about his recent mission trip to Uganda along with two other people from his church, his wife, Rhonda, and Stephanie Skidmore, and three people from a church in Alabama.

“The biggest project we did the whole time – we sent money ahead of time and we finished up a church in a very remote village called Namanoga. It is not even on the map it is so far out,” Carr said.

“We were able to get this church finished. It was a huge blessing for these folks. If you could just see how they worship and how hungry they were to get the word. They were so excited being in a worship service.”

Preachers and missionaries in Africa face some different challenges than many of those in America, such as getting to remote areas for services.

Carr said the main road from the airport was good, but that all the roads going out to the villages were awful with some being little more than paths.

Carr said the mission group he was with was able to purchase small motorcycles for some of the ministers, which enabled them to get to small remote villages that trucks and cars can’t get to.

During the mission trip, Carr said the group visited a hospital, which here would have been shut down in a matter of seconds. Despite that, the medical staff was doing amazing work given the circumstances.

“We were able to buy some hygiene products and also take in some dolls to give to the patients,” Carr said. “Our young people at Wolf Creek Baptist Church made these witnessing dolls with a necklace on it, and a card that went with it.”

In addition to children at the hospital, the witnessing dolls were also presented to children at the schools the group visited.
“That was a way our young people could be a part of missions as well,” he added.

Carr said that his church was also able to purchase 88 desks for a new school, so it could get its accreditation from the government, and bought soccer equipment for two schools.

During the trip, the mission group was able to visit three different villages. Money was sent ahead of time to feed the villages while they were there.

Another visit on the mission trip was to an orphanage with 24 street children.

“What had happened, the parents had died of AIDS or the parents had just abandoned the kids on the streets. This pastor and his wife had taken children in from very small up to teenagers,” Carr noted.

Carr said the worst part about the whole trip was the flight, which was 8.5 hours from Atlanta to Amsterdam. Then another 8.5 hours from Amsterdam to Uganda.