Guma Na Yesu Foundation

Since the early 1990s, what started as a small, mud-and-wattle church has evolved into a massive network of churches and a vital lifeline for vulnerable children in Western Uganda. The Calling and Early Ministry Naboth Tumuhairwe grew up in an Anglican household, but as a young man, he felt a strong desire for a more personal spiritual connection. In 1985, he and his wife, Alice, left the Anglican Church to join the Pentecostal movement. They began holding services in their small house, eventually moving to a simple mud-and-wattle structure on a donated plot of land with just 13 members. By the early 1990s, Naboth had fully dedicated himself to open-air evangelism. He traveled extensively across the Great Lakes region of Africa, preaching in remote villages and semi-urban areas. The Birth of Guma Na Yesu Children’s Centre Naboth's humanitarian work was born directly out of his travels. While conducting evangelism missions, he repeatedly encountered orphaned, abandoned, and severely neglected children. • Taking Children In: Rather than looking the other way, Naboth and Alice began bringing these children back to their home in Mbarara to provide them with food, shelter, and basic care. • Massive Growth: Over the years, this grassroots effort formalized into the Guma Na Yesu Children's Centre. Driven by immense local need and supported by international partners like Harvest Ministry, the center grew exponentially. Today, the foundation provides care, food, and spiritual guidance for over 1,000 orphans. Educational Expansion: Adullam and Kingdom Schools As the orphans in their care began to grow up, Naboth and Alice recognized that shelter alone wasn't enough; the children needed education and life skills to avoid the severe risks of extreme poverty or exploitation associated with "aging out" of the orphanage system. To address this, the foundation established a comprehensive educational pipeline: • Adullam Schools (Primary Education): To ensure all children receive a strong foundational education, the foundation operates Adullam Primary School (also known as Adullam Orphanage and Primary School). This school caters to the majority of the foundation's younger children—often over 500 students at a time—ranging from preschool (baby class) through Primary 7. It serves as the vital academic and spiritual starting point for the children in the foundation's care. • Kingdom Vocational Secondary School: To support older teenagers graduating from Adullam, the foundation launched this Christ-centered high school. It operates with a mix of tuition-paying day students and free overnight boarding for orphans, ensuring that the youth have a safe place to live while they continue their education. • Practical Skills Training: Alongside traditional academics, Kingdom Secondary School equips students with highly practical, income-generating skills. Students learn trades like carpentry, tailoring (the students even make the school uniforms), poultry farming, and goat keeping, giving them a clear and sustainable path toward financial independence. Church Planting and Leadership While the orphanage and schools require massive logistical effort, evangelism has remained at the core of Naboth's work. • 300+ Churches: Over the last three decades, Naboth's dedicated church-planting efforts have resulted in the establishment of over 300 churches scattered throughout the Western Region of Uganda. • A Shared Partnership: The ministry's success is heavily driven by teamwork. While Naboth spends much of his time traveling as an evangelist and overseeing the broader network as Bishop/Director, Alice serves as the Senior Pastor at the Guma Na Yesu Central Church, managing the leadership teams and overseeing the daily operations of the children's center and schools.