• Welcome to Epping Forest Community Church.
  • What to expect on your first visit.
  • Our vision, our purpose and our values.
  • Information on our meetings, groups and courses.
  • Other ministries and groups we support.
  • Book our hall for your event or function.
  • Current diary, notices and sermon audio.
  • Where to find us and how to get in touch.

Chris & Jodi Blackham

Chris and Jodi Blackham are a married couple who are part of EFCC and who felt God's call to serve in Africa. They have been in Uganda since 2005, working with Samaritan's Purse where  Chris is Country Director and leads a team of over 100 workers.  These are some of the projects they are involved in:

Ministry: The focus of the ministry projects are to equip and train pastors to be able to teach the redemptive story of Jesus using a serious of bible stories. In a culture that is semi-literate it is important that the story of Jesus can be clearly communicated and understood by the communities. Churches here often focus on abstract theology and skip the important fundamentals of our faith.

Community Transformation: Encouraging & envisioning the local church to respond to the needs of vulnerable communities, so that when Samaritan's Purse has done its work, the church can continue to support & resource them.

Child and Family Support program: Part of community transformation is about supporting needy children and their families and helping them to be self-sufficient. This programme has vast potential to improve the lives of many families in Uganda and help break the poverty cycle. See this link for more information: http://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/childandfamily

Water: Working in the communities our projects help provide clean water both at the household level through Biosand filters (BSF) and at community level with shallow wells and protected springs. They also focus on sanitation and hygiene education. The newest project is working on improving irrigation systems that will subsequently improve the livelihoods of the community - very exciting in drought prone areas.

Livestock: Our livestock project in Kamwenge in northern Uganda is a project dealing with fish farms, chickens, goats, pigs, cattle and bees.

Food security: The team are continuing to implement a huge feeding programme in Karamoja. Over 15% of the population is severely malnourished. They distribute food rations to over half a million people each month. Also people who are less vulnerable are now working on community projects in return  for food for their family to break cycles of dependence.

In addition seeds are distributed to help the population start to grow their own food.

HIV /AIDS programme: This is aimed at training people to educate others about HIV and AIDS and to care for affected families.

Children's Heart Project. This identifies children with a specific heart condition. Ugandan doctors are now being trained to do heart surgery in-country rather than fly them overseas.

Jodi has a new job for 2011 working across all Samaritans Purse projects in Africa and would appreciate our prayers.

Chris and Jodi always say they love their work in Uganda and thank God for his continuing blessing.

For more information, why not visit their Blog site: http://blackham.wordpress.com.