Father Hugo Verkaaik has to be made mention of in relation to Madera the second parish to be opened in the diocese because of making it what it is now. It is a complex with many schools for he built "schools together with some teachers’ houses precisely in the places where a school was needed" (O’Neil, p. 263). When one visits Madera parish now one will notice the surrounding of numerous schools: St. Kizito Technical Institute Madera, Madera Girls Primary School, Madera boys Primary School, St. Mary’s Girls' Secondary School Madera, and the Seminary plus now two wings of the St Francis School for the blind which came later. "Madera had a large church well built, but still with a clay floor, which every week had to worked with thinned cow dung. This kept out the ants. Slowly but surely a cement floor was laid in the church and then very soon furnished with benches, just seats and kneelers" (O’Neil, p. 264). People simply sat on the floor before benches were brought. "At baptism time, Jurgens recalled that Madera had large groups of Catechumens in preparation, many in Teso, but also numbers in Kumam. Many Kumam did their best to speak Ateso but a few villages just refused. Many children received baptism on safari, and after Sunday mass on appointed safari Sunday. Tickets were issued to catechists who filled them and the priests just inspected and later went back to fill the details in the register" (O’Neil). "For the year ending 1 September 1917 Bishop Biermans reported an increase of baptisms by 172. There were forty-four catechumenates and 122 catechists. He was disappointed that the two Teso missionsat Ngora and Soroti were not doing well, with the number of catechumens falling considerably, he wrote that the stations were young yet, and it often takes two years before such people are in real earnest about instruction" (O’Neil, p. 86). The reason why many catechumens were falling off could best be explained by the harshness of the methods employed by the catechists. The late Father John Eneku who was baptized at Soroti in 1923 later confessed that he shifted from Ngora to Soroti because the "catechists used to beat us a lot". However, on his very first attendance at Soroti he was welcomed by a beating: the catechist "gave him a good knock on the head saying, ‘you should not be absent so often, I have not seen you for a long time" (Okello).