Glen Innes Reverend Andrew Newman on mission from God to Uganda

He laughs that he's on a mission from God - literally.

Reverend Andrew Newman, the Glen Innes Anglican minister from 1998 to 2006, soon plans to leave behind the New England for Rukungiri in south west Uganda, close to the Rwandan border.

Andrew and wife Margie will help train a new generation of religious educators at a new bible college in the area.

Andrew says the local Ugandan Bishop Benon says "Christianity in Africa and Uganda is a mile wide - millions of Christians - but only an inch deep.

"No-one really knows their bible."

Uganda is stuck in a classic educational bottlekneck - they don't have enough trained-up teachers to train new ones to keep up with a massive population increase.

Andrew when he saw the success of their existing program he wanted to be part of it.

"We were seeing you people come through actually grasp how the bible fits together, coming to understand that it really speaks into life and seeing how that was making a difference for them," he said.

"They would go to uni, (and there would be) any number of ideas around there, like you'd normally get at a uni, plus you'd get all sorts of cults and all sorts of false Christian teaching going around which maybe we don't see so much of it here.

"And they had a reference point, they could say - well the Bible says this.

"They were able to be discerning and be wise about how they lived their lives."

He said missionary work is an important part of any Christian's life who has the skills to do it.

"Jesus before he left the Earth says go into all the world and make disciples of all nations," he said.

"That's sort of the fundamental core of Christianity."

The job is in three blocks of three year terms, with six months breaks - around a decade in total.

The Newmans have been to Uganda 3 times as missionaries spending a fourth looking at the bible college.

The opportunity was organised by the church missionary service.