S.4 & S.6 Conference May 2016
As in the Primary seven conference, "Obedience is better than sacrifice" adopted from 1 Samuel 15:22 was the theme. We expected 406 students out of which 377 attended. We had 17 groups for boys and 16 groups for girls.
Some of the female staff had to do three jobs because some of our lady counselors were a bit intimidated by their fellow age mates; but we thank God that, with the encouragement and staff support, by the third day they were stronger, more confident and ready to take on the task.
Although notified in good time quite a number of students came without bibles but we were ready to help them obtain one. As agreed we sold them a new bible at 10,000/= and those that did not have cash 15,000/= will be deducted from their school fees as a consequence for taking instructions lightly. 15 students bought the bibles while 117 were given a bible and the 15,000= deduction will be made. All together 132 bibles were given during this conference. This was done to help students learn to value whatever they have. We learnt from past experience that students in this age bracket would carelessly leave the new bibles they received and we ended up keeping them. The other reason is that they all received a free bible in the P7 conference four years ago. We were prepared to exchange an old tattered bible for a new one, but none of the students had such a bible.
13 students gave their lives to our Lord Jesus Christ, 192 dedicated their lives to Him and 29 were baptized. This time we did the baptism service twice because 4 girls gave their lives to Jesus Christ on Friday afternoon and choose to be baptized.
Teaching went on not only from the pulpit but from different angles. Besides not carrying bibles some of the students would eat and leave their plates and cups in the dinning. As a way of teaching them to be responsible for their property we collected the plates and cups and sold them back to the campers. We used the money to buy a cake that we shared with the counselors after the conference.
On a sad note one girl had to be sent home before the conference ended because of breaking conference guidelines. Before she left we had the opportunity to help her understand why such a decision was made and prayed with her.
We also had some students that were ministered to by the clinic; one did not even know the cause of the strong headaches that gave her blackouts, glory to God that our clinic staff established the cause and medication was administered.
One special thing from this particular conference was the gratitude of a number of students for the education support and conference preparations. This time round the purity meeting helped to clear doubts and misconceptions that students had. As a take home for some students was the encouragement to be proud of being virgins as they focus on first things until marriage. Students also had an opportunity to ask questions which were answered immediately.
Our prayer is that our students will take to heart what was taught, apply it in their lives, practice paying attention to details and become exemplary representatives of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We again thank the Vision for Africa International family for the support rendered towards this conference. In a special way we want to appreciate all the Bible teachers (Mama Maria, Pastor Ambale, Pastor Shadrack Kaganda, Tr. Annette, Miss Julian and Rev. Dr. Luboga), clinic staff, main kitchen, Vocational school warden and matron, the IT department, hotel, administration, maintenance department and the entire conference staff team for your involvement in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ at your different work stations.
May God bless you!
