AsOne Ministries — Q3 Recap

Oct 12

“Faithful presence requires all spheres of life to be inhabited for Christ.”

Letter from the CEO

As we head into the final ninety days of 2024, I cannot help but reflect on the work of AsOne and all that we, as a community, continue to work towards across rural communities in Uganda. Lately, my imagination for AsOne’s work has been captivated by the writings of James Davison Hunter in his book, “To Change the World,” as he advocates for followers of Jesus to have a ‘faithful presence within’ culture and society.

“Faithful presence requires all spheres of life to be inhabited for Christ.”

We must have a groundwork for an alternative way that is mostly bottom up. Almost daily, I think about the community teams and leaders of AsOne across the rural communities in which we work. The faithful men and women who teach students, deliver babies, work with smallholder farmers on improving their techniques, and help youth acquire new skills — these everyday activities are the penetrating witness to God’s faithful love for humanity.

Through these occupied spheres of influence, local Ugandan leaders are giving of themselves daily to see that redemption can emerge. While we hold highly the goal of good and excellent work — we believe deep within ourselves that greatness may come, but only as a by-product of joining our work to God’s master plans of restoration in the world.

We are eager and pleased to see the continued progress, the hard efforts and work of our team, and the continued expansion of our model as the Lord has provided through our generous AsOne community. I hope you enjoy seeing the results of our team’s hard work in Uganda.

Grace & Peace,

Andrew DeVaney

Founder & CEO

5 Locations Established

In September, we reached a major milestone and we celebrated it too! As our newest ‘Grain Processing Center’ business in Mayuge officially began soft operations, we now have five communities fully established with AsOne’s holistic model: a school, health center, farm, and business. Through these assets, our team in Uganda is able to generate revenue that will help fund the communities ongoing programs and their costs such as: educating students, training vocational students, equipping farmers, and delivering life-saving health services.

In September, members from our U.S. and Uganda Board of Directors, U.S. leadership, Ugandan leadership across the country, and key partners all gathered to celebrate this milestone and our renewed commitment to Christ-centered, sustainable, and transformative solutions for rural Uganda.

Growing Sustainability

We have been deeply humbled by our unwavering pursuit towards sustainability, which we define as our Uganda entities and communities ability to pay for their operating costs through earned revenue. We have been humbled because of the challenge of this pursuit and by the results.

The results reveal to us the capacity of our Ugandan leaders and teammates and their ability to produce products and services that have substantial value and demand for their fellow Ugandans. It also reveals to us the capacity of the people of Uganda, though sacrificial, to see the value of the services AsOne is providing and to find ways to utilize their resources to access them.

Over the years, we’ve been challenged by the words of Robert Lupton as he says, “the only effective charity is the kind that asks more from those being served, rather than less. Asking for more sends an affirming message to the recipient that he or she also has something of value to offer.”

See the graph below to capture the continued progress of our team even while adding new communities and entities every single year.

Commitment to Local Ownership

AsOne continues to remain steadfast to empowering Ugandans to lead and create meaningful change in their country by transforming one rural community at a time. We believe that for a community to flourish, it must retain local leaders, attract fresh leaders from Uganda, and draw achievers back to the community. It’s been a deep joy to watch the presence of AsOne across communities reinvigorate possibility.

It’s hard not to see the evidence of this in Silas or Alex as you see their transformation in action. We believe this is most possible when Ugandans are in the driver's seat for enacting deep and lasting change.

Monitoring and Evaluation Results

This year, we’ve been working to enhance our Monitoring and Evaluation capacity. Across our programs, we are seeing Ugandans make a life changing impact in the lives of their fellow Ugandans. Some highlights include:

EDUCATION:

AsOne Graduates

63% female
100% passing rate on national exams
97% of alumni agree that AsOne prepared them well for their future

Health:

1,607 monthly new patients
688 monthly return patients
486 cases of malaria treated per month
27 cases of typhoid treated per month
100% successful delivery of babies since health centers inception

Economic Development:

83% operational sustainability in Uganda
327 employees in Uganda
55 full-time vocational training students

AGRICULTURE:

Amongst participants in our Agriculture Training Program:

69% reported their income rose in the previous year
19% decrease in those who described their income as “completely unstable”
63% reported the ability to afford their medical bills
45% reported their family was able to eat three meals per day. This was a 24% increase from the prior season.

What’s new?

We have a lot of exciting news in this department. Our 6th and 7th locations are preparing to start operations in January 2025 with the opening of our newest AsOne Nursery & Primary Schools and Health Centers in Serere and Luuka! We started the process of hiring new staff as we recently finished our first round of interviews for new education and medical staff.

Lastly, we recently purchased land in our 8th community as we prepare to launch construction in Pallisa District in 2025!