I will extol you, my God and my King, and
bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your
name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His
greatness is unsearchable.
Notice the Psalmist begins with praising
the Lord; supposedly for the great mighty things that God has done in the
history if Israel. The Lord has been working for His children until today :for
all who have faith in
Him. Psalm 145:1-5
As a ministry,
we have (since it started) seeing God work things that no man could have worked.
We will bless and praise His name forever and ever.
This month, Alex
was given an invitation to Isingiro (South Western Uganda, Close to Tanzania)
in a Youth conference. This is one of the mountainous regions in Uganda. It
took four hours in a bus to Mbarara town. After that, Alex had to get on a tax
(Corona car) to drop him at Kaberebere trading centre. He sat with six people
in the behind seat and four in front seat 😊 In order to have more room for seats,
for men were supposed to hold or become seats for that moment.
From there, he
got on a motor Bike/Boda boda, which was sent by the church leader who was
hosting him; who drove for one hour as they went up hills. “There places where
we had to give a motor Bike a push in order to go up! We fell off two times
because the rider was putting gear one to stiff places. Fortunately no one was
seriously hurt. It was a tiresome trip on so rough mountainous roads. Most
people there are farmers, they rear mostly cows and plant green bananas (a lot
of yellows bananas).
The rider was
such a brave man, there are stiff places you can hardly get on. I reached when
it was becoming dark, evening hours, when we were on top of very hills and
mountains. Most people in this region live up hills, not in low lands as we see
in Kampala. And the altitude there is high. The church members welcomed me and
obviously a cup of tea was brought.
We had to get up
early morning, the sessions were done interchangeable, all day.
I was to teach
on the topic of “How to read the Bible”. A good number of them came, from
different churches in the region. Most churches had sent their youth leader representatives.
After my talk, the church held a leaders’ meeting where they had to ask me questions
such as “How can we determine a wrong bible and a valid one?” Some of you who have been following News in
Uganda, you remember a well-known City pastor who burnt Good News Bibles, NIV
etc. After explaining why some bibles don’t have certain verse, (not squared
up), they wished we could have conferences on hermeneutics.
After one hour of the meeting,
most of their questions were adressed and others tackled but not resolved because
time was short.”
The youth leaders had a strong
concern about this. Actually one speaker in the conference had already told one
of the attendees that his bible was invalid (Good News Bible). Alex had to
stand out and correct him immediately. Actually
after the conference, Alex has been put on the speakers of August conference in
this same region. That means they will hold a similar conference in August.
It was a blessing ministering
to the Lord with these enthusiastic young strong youths. One main concern that
I noticed which still disturbs our church in Uganda is lack of bible training
as said above. When you’re here in Kampala/trained you think that all is well
in God’s church in the country, not until you go there and meet leaders. There
is great need to train church leaders.
One of the speakers was giving
HIV awareness to the youths, unfortunately him and his wi
fe have HIV. They got
it before they were saved. He shared his pain of taking tablets, there was
silence in the church. It was a sad moment.
After the conference, 10 youths had come to
Jesus.
The following day we had a
service at church, in another location. It was a long service, people in
villages start services (mostly) at 10:am and leave church around 3:00 pm to
4:00pm. It was great having such experience to. As we prayed (worshiping and
praising songs) I hardly saw anyone read the bible; except citations which were
done by the church leader.
As a ministry, we are thrilled to work with such leaders and train
them for effective preaching/teaching of the gospel. Our prayer and zeal now is
if we could have like some of our discipleship programs go to regions like
this. People is such areas hardly get bibles, much as they would want to read
them. The places to get them are not easily accessible to such communities. As
you pray for us, pray also for provision as a ministry.
The schools have officially
reopened, youths ministry will start soon. This will be our second last meeting
with Christianity Explored Youths before we graduate these three classes, both
at two high schools and University. We will gratefully appreciate your prayers.
Ministries around our community takes much of our time and movements, its at
this point that we want to let you know that God has heard your prayers to us
concerning this. We now have a motor Bike which we can cruise around when we
have travels around here. It will help us a lot. Actually the sharing of our
Psalm 145:1-5 comes from this context. Running Christianity Explored Ministries
in three high schools was becoming harder. But the Lord has heard our need.
In our church evangelism outreaches;In one of our evangelism outreaches in the
community, we came across Mama Harriet who was bewitched. She was sent away
from most of big hospitals to go home as they couldn’t identify what the
problem was with her legs. She says, she could feel something moving in her
legs and weakening them so that she could not walk.
The photo on right is a
saucepan with a mixture water and local herbs, then feathers of different
sorts. The witchdoctor told her that, that water could chess a way the demon
disturbing her.
She was
then taken to witchdoctors, who played very demonic games on her. Her life was
becoming harder and that is when we meet her in her house as a church. She
received the gospel and turned to Jesus. She also told us that she was given
the staffs in the picture to prevent evil spirits of the dead from attacking
her and that the staffs could withhold evil spirits that had held her both
legs. She also had feathers from different birds. We had to destroy all this.
She was filled with fear that something wrong would happen about her, we
encouraged her and now she is a strong woman in the Lord, although her legs are
still weak, she barely walks. The Lord has been with us as a ministry and we
can’t tell all His marvelous works He has done and finish it all. There is no
greater joy than this. Harriet was born from unchurched family. She is now
pleased for having meet a church that loves her and her kids.
Friend, this staff might seem
easier for you to read about and see on screen, but its depths has killed and
led many to hell. Through this church, we have many couples we have rescued
from witchcraft. Mama Harriet was one of the choir members in some religion, but
when Satan attached her, she could not trust one true God. And absolutely,
reason being that she was not discipled well from the Holy Book the Bible that
our God could save her.
As we have been doing this
church plant, we have come to know that most people talk about God whom they
can hardly explain hence hard to trust Him when they go through life
challenges. And this happens because what Africa needs now is to train
preachers of the Word. We do think we have more evangelists that
teachers/trained pastors in biblical theology.
Where our new church plant is,
we are surrounded by seven visible shrines (where charming and worship of
satanic work is done). It’s only God who will fight for this new church plant
and use it to reach out to these lost families. Please keep these following
items in prayer;
Ø We still ask you to consider praying for
Pastors conference
Ø Ministry Land
Ø The work of Paving church to quicken up
Ø Discipleship programs to make an impact in the
youths
Alex and
Simon (Uganda-Africa).