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Food traditions tell you a lot about a new place, and when I visited Kingsway High School from the USA a few months ago I learned a lot.

Currently the students have two meals a day. They have tea in mid-morning, and supper at night. Tea had leaves and some sugar, but nothing else.

Supper was poshe, (PO-shay) which is a mashed-potato-like substance made from corn flour, along with beans and vegetables. It was a hearty and healthy meal. But you know what? It was the students’ only real meal that day.

I was a bit surprised until I learned the reality here. Many people in Uganda are eating only one meal a day right now, and probably that’s what most kids did before coming here. When Kingsway has money they serve lunch too, but that’s a luxury, not a necessity in their thinking. The staff don’t have any more to eat than the kids.

Cooking at Kingsway

You might find it interesting to see how meals are prepared here. The cook makes a wood fire, feeding logs in from the sides. He works in a shed that is open on the sides so that the fire has ventilation.

Wow, I said, the shed is pretty rickety. Wouldn’t you like to fix that? No, it’s just not a priority and we don’t have money. It works for now and that’s all we need.

Learning about “Give Us Our Daily Bread”

Food is a large part of a day’s budget, and hunger is never far away here. When prices go up (as they have been with recent inflation), people eat less and less.

When I was a kid, I used to wonder why the Lord’s Prayer contained a petition for “daily bread.” It seemed a little silly to pray for something that was sitting on the countertop already. And why bread?

Because for most people over history, having food for a day’s meal was a constant worry in life, and much of their calories came from bread or another carbohydrate like rice or corn. The Hebrew word for bread, lechem (LEKH-em) refers to food in general too. Meat is almost never eaten, except at major celebrations.

As I’ve found many times, a glimpse of life in Uganda often sheds light on biblical reality too.

A few months ago when Milly was visiting the US, a church asked her if they could bless her work by doing some kind of clothes drive. Along with clothes for Kingsway’s youth, one of the things Milly said she could use was baby clothes, because one of Kingsway’s girls had gotten pregnant during the shutdown (as many vulnerable youth did in Uganda) and had absolutely nothing to provide for her baby.

The church sent Milly back with a generous supply of things and eagerly awaited news of the newborn who would enjoy their gifts.

A few weeks later, Milly wrote with shocking news. The teenager had no money for medical care so she delivered weeks past her delivery date. As a result, the baby had died before it was born. Such things never happen in the US but are not uncommon here. Milly’s own sister died in childbirth because she had no medical care available.

Where Needs Abound

A few months later, the baby clothes came in use again. Milly’s daughter volunteers with her church to help young women in crisis, and when she was driving one day she saw a girl dash across the road who was 9 months pregnant.

Milly’s daughter was shocked because she recognized this girl as one she had ministered to in the past who had been missing for months. Suddenly here she was, and now very close to her due date. In fact she gave birth to a daughter only a few days later! Hooray for the clothing gifts, which she too desperately needed.

The new little girl is named Treasure, and she and her mother Letisha are doing fine. This just shows that no gift goes to waste in Uganda – there is always someone who could really, really use the help.

What This Says about Kingsway Ministries

This story also shows how Milly and her family are involved in other ways besides Kingsway Christian High School to minister to those around them.

Milly’s family comes from northern Uganda, which is especially impoverished because of the recent wars. That’s where many of the vulnerable youth who attend Kingsway are from.

To address the lack of access to medical care in the north, Milly has worked with medical missions agencies to set up short term medical clinics in the area. She has been asked to help find a way to set up a permanent clinic, and has even been offered some land to do so.

That project is in the distant future for right now, but that is why this organization is called “Kingsway Ministries,” which is more than just the Christian high school. It is about what Milly’s King, Christ our Lord, is doing through her life to save lives and hearts for Christ and to minister to many in need in Uganda.

My name is Lois Tverberg and I’ve known Rev. Dr. Milly Erema for a couple decades now. I write about the Bible in its cultural context and Milly is a top-notch Bible scholar. I first met her in 2003 and brought her on a trip to Israel in 2005, so we are friends from way back.

It has only been recently that I learned what Milly has been doing beside teaching as an Old Testament professor at Uganda Christian University. It’s been to run Kingsway Christian High School, largely without help from outside donors.

Kingsway’s goal has always been to be sustainable and not dependent on donations for viability, because tuition from paying students should provide for non-paying students. In actuality, the school has often admitted far more orphans and needy youth than it should to be profitable, and runs a deficit which Milly and her family pay out of their own meager salaries. (Milly makes less than $4000/year.)

Why do they keep taking students who can’t pay? Because Milly knows that every child she refuses will have little other chance of escaping utter poverty. Every child she admits may become a community leader who will help rebuild their devastated country. As it is, she has a list of applicants as long as her arm that she must turn away and it breaks her heart.

Recently, Kingsway’s need has become especially acute because the two-year Covid shutdown in Uganda impoverished many families, so few can pay tuition to attend right now. On top of that, Kingsway needs to build a dorm before the end of the year, which is utterly beyond their means.

So I have been praying with Milly for a way to help them get the word out, and creating this website has been one goal.

Another goal is to allow others to become involved in funding this project, so I did a bunch of research and then set up a way for Kingsway to take tax-deductible donations, if you are willing to help this very worthy ministry.