by James and Nanci Long | Apr 2, 2026 | SAMS Missionaries
by James Long, SAMS Associate Missionary to Indonesia
One old theologian used to describe ministry as “watching God work,” and that comes awfully close to the nub of it. The Lord is not only the wind in our sails, but also the hand on our rudder. He sends us where he wants and when he wants, and on this recent mission I felt that old familiar sense that I was being carried along according to his purposes.
I spent the end of January in Bali at the school I had seen go from an old ruin into a beautiful seminary. The seminary aims to draw students from every Island of Indonesia, then send them back to minister all across the archipelago. Dean Stevanus had asked me to teach church planting, something I had never taught before. With much help from the Holy Spirit I focused, not on human strategies, but upon the patterns found in Acts. The invisible purposes of God were powerfully on my mind, as I considered how many miracles had been made manifest in the planting of Providence Anglican Church in Pluit, Karawaci, and Canggu. With the Pluit congregation being the only one to survive the pandemic fully intact, the point is pressed home that God’s ways are unsearchable. He is sovereign and our role is simply to do what he gives us to do with the gifts he gives, and with the time and energy he allots. The results are up to him. I knew these students were likely to face similar challenges, and that they need to see that from the biblical perspective that faithfulness is success.
The following week I spent at St. Paul’s seminary in Bandung. Bandung is home to the Sundanese, the most unreached people group of Indonesia. St. Paul’s draws mainly local people and has provided ministers for the churches planted in its region, and beyond. I was assigned three courses to teach in one week, and once more the Spirit guided, and the work was blessed. Not only students but staff and parishioners from the local Anglican churches came to participate. My lectures never went over time because the public prayers from directly across the street from St. Paul’s rang out at six o’clock each evening and were so loud that class had to come to an end!
Sundays were filled with preaching engagements and other days I was running from meeting to meeting, but the highlight was my final day in Indonesia when I met with the son of one of the members of our congregation. I was invited to share the good news about Jesus with him, and together with a small group gathered in my hotel lobby, we went from Genesis to Revelation. This teenage boy’s face was receptive, and the miracle only God can do, appeared to be done for him as he prayed to embrace Jesus as Savior and King. What a privilege to be able to share Christ in Indonesia!
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)
by Brendan Kimbrough | Feb 26, 2026 | SAMS Missionaries
Ugandan Healthcare Projects Advance thanks to Apprentices Guided by Good Leadership
For the past nine years Patrick Lutalo, a Denver-based commercial carpenter and a SAMS Bridger, has spent many nights huddled over blueprints while on a video call with his construction workers and apprentices working in Uganda. This close coordination has been the key to his leading others in the work to construct the kind of healthcare facilities that are much needed in this rural part of sub-Saharan Africa. Patrick and his team of construction workers have been so busy building its meant that Patrick travels back to his native country up to three months out of the year. In partnership with the Church, Patrick’s organization has already completed a maternity clinic near Mityana, called the Naama Maternity Clinic, a much-needed facility in a country that annually tops the ranks with some of the highest birthrate populations in the world. In its first year of operation in 2022, the clinic had already helped mothers deliver over 400 children there, and today it is in constant use.
Naama Maternity Clinic was finished in 2022. It is in constant operation today.
Outpatient Healthcare Center
Today Patrick and his team are beginning the final phase of a building project to construct the 18,500 square foot, two-story Outpatient Healthcare Center in nearby Myanzi. It’s been a three-year project that Patrick and his team of workers plan to finish in December 2026. The ultimate goal of the facility is to serve the surrounding rural communities with outpatient care in this region of central Uganda currently with a population of over 100,000 people. The Anglican Diocese of Mityana is partnering with Uganda Christian University to staff the healthcare center once it’s completed with nurses and other healthcare workers. It will provide and enable much needed preventive healthcare and annual exams, women’s healthcare combined with public healthcare, radiological and lab services, as well as immunizations and disease research.
Water and power needs
Even though the plans are to begin occupancy of the Healthcare Center this December, water and electricity are crucial next steps for the Center to be fully operable. Patrick and his team are currently looking for those with expertise in establishing a well-water system as well as a power system for electrical generation. There is no current piped water supply anywhere near the healthcare center, but fortunately, the water table in this part of Uganda is very high and so the team doesn’t anticipate that finding water will be a problem, especially with the rivers and the Lake Wamala watershed close by. However, they are looking for someone with the resources and the expertise to construct a well water and filtration system to connect to the hospital’s tanks.
Additionally, the healthcare center will require either an off-grid standalone Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system with battery storage or a hybrid system that combines solar panels with a backup fuel-based generator in order to reduce the size and cost of the battery bank, ensuring continuous power during low sunlight periods. Patrick and the board members of Teach Men to Fish, the non-profit enabling these projects, are seeking resources and expertise to build and install this kind of standalone power system.
Apprentices Sustain the Projects
Over the past 30 years Uganda has placed much emphasis on healthcare and education across the entire country. This has significantly improved health outcomes for many people, and the young people of Uganda are better educated now than they have ever been. And yet this has created a problem with many well-educated young people available and desiring to work and support themselves, but who cannot find jobs. Uganda’s economy simply can’t supply the kind of labor demand needed to employ its young people, regardless of their education level.
Patrick experienced this firsthand while in Uganda in 2017. He was worshipping at the Cathedral in Mityana one day and met some young people there. They were mostly teenagers with some who were in their 20’s who needed work. What they shared in common is that they hadn’t had the opportunity to go to school. Patrick listened to their stories and afterwards he asked himself, “What can I do to help? How can I begin to address this situation?” He also heard how many of these young men’s friends were migrating to urban areas in Uganda with no skills, but in search of work. Many were making the wrong choices and getting in trouble.
Patrick’s Call
Patrick realized that the Lord had blessed him with a family and a good job in the United States. He’d had an opportunity to go to school, acquire skills, and even apprentice in the U.S. Yet he had continued to travel back to his homeland to visit family and friends. One day while in Uganda he found himself in the town of Mityana where God began laying in front of him an opportunity to help those in need. God didn’t ask Patrick to start something he didn’t know how to do. He called him to start the same kind of relational apprentice program that brought young men into fellowship with one another centered on the Gospel and learning a trade together. He began the program in 2017 and designed it so that it took three years for the participants to complete. They began by learning the fundamentals: How to use a carpenter’s square and a tape measure, and they progressed from there learning how to use power tools, work with concrete, masonry, rebar, to conduct field surveys, read blueprints, render plaster and many other skills. They took field trips to building sites. In their third year they put their skills to the test by building the Naama Maternity Clinic, and with just apprentices and other workers and with Patrick travelling back and forth to train and oversee, they completed construction in 2021.
The fruit of all this vocational training is the Lord’s doing. The Diocese of Mityana benefits the community with new healthcare capacity. The people of the region benefit with better health outcomes. Healthcare professionals benefit from gainful employment by treating the sick. The young apprentices benefit by learning skills as part of a trade that will help them become self-sufficient. And Patrick – how does he benefit? Patrick says, “The Lord led me in all of this, and has surrounded me with people who have been willing to help me. It has been the highlight of my life. Hard work, travel, and many long hours, yes, but to see young people come alive to Jesus and to make fishers of men themselves while learning how to build with skill, integrity and hard work in supporting themselves and their families – that has brought me such joy and gratitude to God. All glory to him! He has been so, so good to me, and I know he has many, many more good things in store for his faithful people in Uganda.”
Patrick Lutalo is called to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission by spiritually mentoring young people as they learn construction skills. He moved to the United States for higher education and began a career in the construction industry. As he reflected on the poverty and hopelessness of many youth in Uganda, God inspired him to share his skills in his home country in the context of Christian discipleship. With the support of his church family in Colorado, of which he has been a part since 1993, Patrick started the non-profit Teach Men to Fish. The program focuses on spiritual growth of young people to bless their community with hard work. As he equips young people to live a responsible life, he exhorts them to share with others instead of accumulating wealth. He does not want them to miss out on understanding the inheritance of the kingdom of God. Patrick travels to Uganda for three months annually. He is husband to Miriam and father to Edith, Jennifer, Abigail, and Isaac.
Learn more about Patrick
Teach Men to Fish website
Donate to help support healthcare and young apprentices in Uganda
Exterior wall plastering, windows and roof truss construction underway last year (2025) of the Outpatient Healthcare Center
In October last year the Diocese, workers, community leaders, and people from the area celebrated the topping off ceremony when the final roof panel was placed. In 2026 workers are concentrating on all of the interior finishing work.
“Topping Off” ceremony October 2025 where the US and Ugandan flag and the cross of Christ are placed on the Healthcare Center
Architectural plans of the Outpatient Healthcare Center
by Roger and Joanne Griffin | Feb 5, 2026 | SAMS Missionaries
Back in May we wrote about being hooked up with an expat group in a little town called, San Miguel de Allende. Here’s what has happened since:
A curious group of about twenty persons attended that first service in English. Among them, the owner of the chapel, Don Pablo, came with his sister and her husband. They were deeply moved to be worshiping in their family chapel, to the point that Don Pablo asked us to also offer a service in Spanish for his many employees. Oh yes! What joy! 
Two weeks later we had an English service with about twelve, and a Spanish service with almost thirty! Every month since May, we have returned to celebrate the Eucharist and bring the Gospel to both beautiful groups.
But is it a “church” yet?
It takes a lot of commitment from everyone to start a church. We knew we needed to have weekly Sunday services, but even the once-a-month rent for the chapel was more than the group could support. And where would we have Bible Study, or children’s church? San Miguel is expensive! How will God do this? Nonetheless, we saw that God had given Roger favor among both groups, and we love the community they are forming. But where, how, could things go forward? Was there no room at the Inns of San Miguel?
“God, what are you doing?” was our daily prayer while we continued to work in supply and support ministry, now working in three different states in Mexico every month.
By November we were perplexed and tired. We stepped back from all other services, thinking to get quiet. Instead, we decided to seek that quiet in San Miguel for a couple of weeks– long enough to really know the people involved. We needed clarity. We were exploring ways to overcome the practical hurdles and expenses of a full-time church, knowing it would change our lives radically to uproot from Aguascalientes, to serve in one place after seven years of circuit-riding.
While we were in San Miguel for Thanksgiving, Roger arranged a meeting with Don Pablo, ready to negotiate the possibility of weekly rental of the chapel. That was the first hurdle for the group. But Don Pablo surprised him with the generous suggestion that the group should consider his family chapel their home. For free. Any days or times. Extra garden space for the kids. Whatever. Free.
We were stunned into a quiet ride back to our AirBnB, our hearts full of wonder. The next day we procured a rental contract on a little casa for us in San Miguel starting in January. The adventure begins!
But first, we flew home for Christmas. We’d downsized and packed for the move while staring at the higher cost of living, the cost of the interstate move, the unknowns, and—none of it mattered! We see that God was already providing for what is obviously a church being born, by His will, in the fullness of time. We are merely His little donkey carrying the Light.
Like some anxious midwife, I immediately bought liturgical fabrics for the altar. Others had already stepped up and donated candlesticks, a podium, and a small sound system. My keyboard will now fill the little chapel with praise. Someone always brings flowers. Everyone brings something for the coffee/snack time between services so that expats and locals have time to meet each other. It’s beautiful to watch, and really, we had little to do with it except a plodding obedience. I think we got our answer: Yes. It’s a church!
We moved to San Miguel de Allende on January 14th. On the 28th, Bishop Steven Tighe and his diocesan staff joined us for a consecration of the Chapel of St. Mary and Joseph and confirmed Roger as the rector. On February 1st, we had our first official Sunday service.
