BRISBANE based National Evangelisation Teams (NET Ministries) will take 17 years of youth ministry experience to Uganda in central Africa in August.
NET hopes to set up a training program for young Catholic leaders in the impoverished country, who will in turn spread the message to other young people.
NET Ministries director Shayne Bennett said he received a request last year from a lay man in Uganda working in evangelisation, who was looking for some support and training of young people in Masaka diocese, south of the capital Kampala.
Shayne spent a week in Uganda at the invitation of Bishop John Baptist Kaggwa, visiting villages, remote areas, towns and the city to look at what might be possible and what a NET team could do.
He said there was considerable initiative by the Catholic Church in the country, but little in terms of structure and financial possibilities.
‘The Church is committed to the formation of lay people, but it’s very limited in terms of what it can provide,’ he said.
‘We’re talking about a population where people live on US$1 a day, and there aren’t a lot of resources.’
Shayne said evangelisation was something the bishop was keen to encourage among young people.
A team of six experienced people will go to Uganda in August.
‘What we’re looking at is sending a team there for two and a half months initially, with a significant focus of their work on training young leaders in two or three modules, for up to 50 leaders at a time,’ Shayne said.
He said NET Ministries always had a vision of working beyond Australia.
‘So for us this is a big opportunity,’ he said.
‘We’ve been operating here (in Australia) for 17 years in every diocese of the country and we’ve done some short term work in Malaysia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea.
‘We’ve always felt a need to be open to work with others, conscious that over 17 years you learn something, and share those experiences with other people,’ he said.
