First Congregational UCC is beginning a sister church relationship with a church in Uganda. In the coming weeks, we will get to know our sister church through the exchange of scrapbook pages. For now, we have the following letter that they sent to introduce us to their church, their community, and their pastor:
PERM is an acronym for Pentecostal Evangelical Revival Ministry. PERM Banda Church is located in the Banda area in the Nakawa Division in the city of Kampala, Uganda’s capitol. We are on Kireka Road near the Ministry of Works – Central Materials Testing Lab. It is about 20 minutes drive from the city center of Kampala when there is no traffic.
The Banda area is a place of stark contrasts. It hosts the second largest government university (Kyambogo University), two main palaces for the king of the Buganda Kingdom (one of the major tribal groupings in Uganda), and some of the poorest folks in Kampala.
Most of the Banda residents are low-income earners—mostly people who do casual and menial jobs in the city center. A very big percentage of the population in this area remains unemployed. One will not be surprised to see the shanty houses, poor sanitation, and all other features common to any slum area in the world.
Banda is an area of great interest. It accommodates people from different ethnic backgrounds in Uganda. People in our church speak about seven different languages. Three main languages are used as the mode of communication in the church: English, Luganda (mainly spoken in central Uganda) and Ateso (mainly spoken in Eastern Uganda). This shows you the diversity of the ministry at PERM Banda Church. Most of our church-members are from this low-income background.
PERM Banda Church began in 1996 with the aim of communicating Christ’s love to the Banda community. The lead pastor, Emmanuel Akatukunda, recently graduated with a Master of Divinity degree from Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology in Seoul, Korea. He is a co-team leader of Leadership Development Initiative Africa (LEADIA), a ministry that is committed to equipping African Christian leaders in different areas of a holistic ministry. Rev. Akatukanda is married with four children.