The Daystar team
The Daystar Uganda team, led by Pastor Irene Ganiriza, consists of 12 team members from all over Uganda. We have each experienced Christ's healing and transformation in our own lives, and desire to serve the Lord with our skills and resources. Our team includes pastors, teachers, worship leaders, a veterinary doctor, an IT specialist, farmers, and builders, all committed to serving the vulnerable and sharing the love of Jesus Christ.
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Irene's Story
Irene Ganiriza
Founder and Team Leader
Daystar E.M.
"I know what it is to be an orphan. Let me just say life has not been easy. But by the grace of God, I am here today."
I was born in 1988 to Mr. Pinto Mpalaka and Margret Mpalaka in Jinja town. It was an extended family, as my dad had two women and 3 kids before marrying my mother. My mum and dad had four children together and I am the second born of the four.
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My parents died of HIV--my dad died when I was eight years old and my mum when I was ten. After my mum's death, the four of us, all still little, were taken to live with different relatives. My grandparents took me up, and they really tried their best to see me go to school. It was a very terrible moment in life though, not growing up with any of my siblings, and knowing we were all going through very difficult times. We had no chance to meet and encourage one other until we had grown up. Life was very hard. But by the grace of God, we went to school.
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Phiona's Story
Phiona Kahika
Team Member
Daystar E.M.
Life was really not easy for me, but I would like to thank the Lord that after accepting him as Lord and Saviour, he held my hand.
I am called Phiona. I am born again and a minister of the gospel all-round. I would like to thank the Lord Almighty for saving my life and holding my hand since day one.
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I came to know him while I was in primary grade six when the gospel was brought to my school by a team of evangelists from a nearby church, I accepted him as my personal Lord and Saviour and have never regretted and looked back. Life was really not easy for me, growing up with a single mum who had not enough income to take me through school with all the seven siblings.
But I would like to thank the Lord that after accepting him as Lord and Saviour, he held my hand., I was able to go to school and complete my studies which remains a dream even up to now of how I succeeded.
After completing primary grade seven, my mum and I were wondering how I could get to my next level as we saw no source of funding.
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Rachel's Story
Rachel Ogimachi
USA Team Member
Daystar E.M.
"The sense of entitlement I had in Seattle melted away as I realized how little I’d done to deserve the opportunities I’d been born into."
My story starts in 2007 when my roommate, who has long had a heart for Africa, decided to lead a missions trip to Uganda. While in Uganda the previous summer, she had built a partnership with a ministry serving orphans, and now planned to bring some of her peers to learn from and support the work.
She told me about it, and I didn’t want to go. I was 19, and just beginning to learn about depressing, overwhelming issues like world poverty and unjust global capitalism, and perhaps understandably, I was feeling depressed and overwhelmed by it all. I felt guilty about my privileged life in middle-class America, and resentful of the fact that I felt guilty, which just made me feel worse. I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to feel like I did, and I was pretty sure that going to Uganda to see the source of my guilt firsthand was not going to help. I can see now that I was way more concerned about keeping my comfortable world intact than I was about pursuing the heart of God.
But God’s funny and had different plans for me
