One thousand-a-week begets parish house

The old adage, winners are persistent losers and quitters never win fits Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Kansanga Parish where Christians have built a billion parish house and a nursery school using a Shs1, 000-weekly contribution.
Fr Achilles Mayanja, Parish Priest, attributes the achievements to making Christians understand that there is no small or big contribution towards a noble cause. He says someone Christians contribute Shs1000, Shs5000 while others chose monthly contributions of Shs10,000 and above.
“Our Christians have varying income sources. We simplified it for them by urging them to make at least Shs1,000 weekly or fortnight contribution. This seems very little but it is the reason we have these good looking structures,” Fr Mayanja explains.

Teamwork
He also attributes the achievements to teamwork in the sub parishes. They have made Christians of different sub parishes work together in these developments.
“When we decide to raise funds for a particular sub parish, we ensure all the other sub parishes are involved. This has helped our parish and sub parishes to grow very fast. What we are celebrating now has been achieved through the spirit of togetherness that was started three years ago,” Fr Mayanja explains.

Costs
He says the nursery school cost more than Shs400m while the parish house that will house parish offices, a mega hall and rentals, has so far cost more than a billion shillings.
This, he revealed last Sunday as Christians fundraised Shs100m to complete the mega hall that will be commissioned by the Kampala Archbishop Cyprian Luwanga on December 18, the day when the parish will be celebrating its 14th anniversary.

Persistence
Fr Charles Senteza Kajubi, a rector at Ggaba Seminary, who was the main celebrant at the fundraising encouraged Christians to be persistence like a woman in the Bible who got justice because of continued plea to the judge who feared no one.
He said persistence is a key to the attainment of life dreams and ambitions. The priest cautioned Christians against withdrawing from development missions because of mere huddles.
“You have achieved all this because you are persistent on whatever mission you pursue. This is the same spirit you should transfer into your businesses, marriage, job and education. Quitters never win,” Fr Kajubi said.

Credit goes to...
Edward Kigongo, the Chairman of Kansanga Parish Development Forum, credits the achievements to transparency and accountability of every penny collected from Christians. Accountability, he says, is always given for expenditures on every project purposely to explain to worshippers where and how their money is spent.
“Although it is church work, Christians feel happy when accountability is given to them. What makes work difficult is keeping followers in financial darkness. We often try to avoid such incidents,” he says
On the anniversary day, there will be a sermon led by Archbishop Lwanga followed by commissioning of the Parish House, feasting, and drama according to Fr Mayanja and Kigongo.

Benefits
Parishioners such as Godfrey Sentayi, an Usher, Eng Godfrey Ssali and Jane Francis Naluzze say the hall would help them to host church activities such as youth and children day celebrations. “We have been facing a challenge to organise our youth days. We were spending a lot on hiring tents but all this will soon be solved,” says Naluzze. Eng Ssali says the school has reduced on education expenses. This school is one of the few schools around that charge fair fees and they also understands parents’ financial challenges.”