The Founding Story of Gateway

​Dear friends,
This is Rachel Guy.

Nine years ago, I started my Uganda ministry named His Love and Sonshine when I was 16 years old after I went to Uganda on a missions trip with Sixty Feet. Sixty Feet is an organization that does the following work, "Sixty Feet provides a Gospel-centered continuum of care for critically vulnerable children that includes minimizing contact with the law, providing for critical needs, and supporting long-term restoration." https://sixtyfeet.org/

 I was asked by the leaders of Sixty Feet if I would consider starting a ministry for Gateway Nursery and Primary School around 6 months after I had been on a trip to Uganda and visited the school as part of the trip. Through this school, children are provided with a Christ-centered education. Our ministry was started simply to partner with the school so that they could keep the school doors open as we partner with the school by helping with financial needs. For 8 years we sent funds over for teacher’s salaries and a little over a year ago we changed to doing child sponsorship. We have currently 15 children left in need of sponsorship. 

Through child sponsorship we partner with Bright Point which is an organization that partners with non-profit organizations, such as ours, to help them set up and handle the logistical aspects of child sponsorship.

Through your sponsorship, it helps to pay a child’s school fees, and you’re able to become pen pals and pour into the child as you both write notes to one another.
I wanted you all to hear firsthand from Pastor Ernest who heads up the school and he and his wife, Mama Catherine, also have a church and children’s home separate from the school. They are local Ugandans who are incredible Christians who have been married for 50 years and have taken in over 200 children for a little over 40 years. Pastor and Mama would take in children from many different backgrounds and situations and one of those ways was through taking children who were once imprisoned. Sixty Feet would rescue these children and would bring some of them to live with Pastor and Mama and in turn a mixture of children they rescued, and local children would attend Gateway Nursery and Primary School. Just for context, it is illegal for children to beg on the streets for food. Children as young as three years old would be imprisoned for begging for food, and God used Sixty Feet to rescue children from prison along with helping children who were imprisoned due to other crimes and much more. 

Pastor and Mama state, "The school was started on April 23rd, 2011, after getting Sunday school classes for church because they were used as classes to help the children we had during that moment. We started with three teachers, one cook, one cleaner, and one security guard. Afterwards, we got children from the village members and that's how we kept on increasing. In 2012, Sixty Feet brought 48 children it got from the prison, and it helped to add on the classes since that year, each year we have been getting more children from the community mostly the vulnerable.
 In 2013, His Love and Sonshine joined us, and it's been supportive to us with paying teachers' salaries because we couldn't continue the school with vulnerable children and parents. In 2017, God enabled us to construct a school, and up to now the school has increased to Primary 7 which is 7th grade.
For eight years we have been having primary levels. 
In summary, that's how the school started, and we are thankful to God for all the people He has used to see that our school has been able to reach so many thus far. 
Please send our greetings to all friends and the family. 
We love you so much and pray for you always.
Much love,
Pastor Ernest and Catherine."

Now the school has around 220 students, and we changed from sending teacher's salaries to doing child sponsorship! We have now just 15 children in need of sponsorship. In order to sponsor a child, go to this site and click, “become a child sponsor.” https://www.hisloveandsonshine.org/

God is moving!