December 2018 News

It is our pleasure to bring you good news about the family of Male; his wife  Babirye; their son; and Male’s grandmother, Mamma Pauline. With such great joy, we want to thank God so much for shining His light on this family which had lived in darkness for ages (right from their grandparents).

Simon with Male, Babirye, and their boy

As Lungala Community Bible Church we had a week of fasting and praying at the beginning of this month; praying that God through His Spirit would convert the souls of our village friends and transform their lives to know Him.

We decided to do this after discovering that our community has got a lot of people who believe and practice witchcraft. We have been reluctant to communicate this because we realized that very few people knew about it. Even we ourselves hardly understood the intensity of this practice and belief, until God saved some ladies in our church who had been taking part in witchcraft.

Prayer and fasting meeting

Anyway,  Male came to Jesus on 2rd December, along with his family and their grandmother before the church. The congregation was so happy and showed them a warm welcome in the house of God.

We did not know that he had been a witchdoctor, but when Simon announced the fasting period to the congregation, he showed up the following day. It wasn't until the third day of our fasting that he called Alex and asked if he could help him and guide him away from witchcraft. Male said to Alex: “I have been practicing witchcraft since 2006. Can you help me to burn all the witchcraft stuff? But will it not turn on me and kill me?” From Alex’s brotherly chat with Male after his conversion, he said he was too tired of serving Satan.  Friends, witchcraft is real, and you can only be kept away from it if you’re in Christ. If you’re not covered with the blood of Jesus, it can even back fire and kill you (Mark 9:14-29).  Male says that there were too many demands on him from demons, and his life and family were always having problems. You may remember sometime back that we wrote shortly about child sacrifice in Uganda, and that one of the leading causes of this is witchcraft! Up to this day there are reports in newspapers about innocent young kids being sacrificed for satanic worship. Now that we have seen Male coming to Jesus, we know that God is restoring peace in the hearts of people in Uganda and Africa.

Second from the left is Male (in black and white striped tee-shirt), and Pauline on the left. Pauline (who is in her 70s) inherited witchcraft from her grandparents. You can see how Satan can hold families for a long time.

You might be interested in knowing how Male found out about our church. Some time ago we were doing door-to-door evangelism in the evening and we came to Pauline’s home and shared the gospel with her. She refused to receive Jesus, but she allowed us to pray with her before we left. After a period of roughly 8 months, her grandson Male built near her home. He shared with her how he was tired of witchcraft. Pauline told him that she would guide him to our church where he could receive help. Finally, early one Sunday morning, they came to our church, and finally they both received Jesus as Saviour and Lord. They brought two sacks full of spears, knives, pipes, and bark clothes etc. – the things they were using to call and serve demons. We burnt all this as you see in the pictures.

These are the things he used in the satanic shrine. Some of this stuff was unknown to Male as he was told never to open the bags to see what was inside them.




That is how easily witchcraft can blind people. I opened the bags and called him to see what was in there. Some of the church members were there, but others feared to come as they thought it might attack them.

On the left is Alex unfolding the things Male was using at the shrine.
On the right, they are all being burned. Hallelujah!                                                                                                        
          


Let's continue to pray for the many witchdoctors in this community and district that they might come to know the truth and receive Jesus. We need to share the gospel, and love these people who are held in darkness. 

Our ministry is making progressive changes, and in many ways touching the lives of people through the gospel. Despite the many stumbling blocks we face, we praise the Lord that His message is reaching out to people.  

We have a couple of other things to report to you. The Lord has done great things to this ministry. Since we started this ministry (in our house to start with) we did not have a pulpit. So we have been using chairs to place our books or Bibles on during the preaching sessions. Therefore it has been of interest to us as a church to buy a pulpit. We started saving towards it, and this month the Lord enabled us buy one, and here it is. Simon did a lot of work to order it and bring it from Kampala out to where we live.

Secondly, Alex was invited to a three day conference, where he spoke about the 'Importance of a Bible for a Christian’. It was a joyous time, and many brethren regained their love for Bibles. This department has steadily gained momentum with the churches and village people we reach out to. It was a village organized conference where there were about 100 people from near-by churches. This is again where I met a pastor leading a local church who had a Bible which was old, with some chapters torn or missing. This servant of the Lord told me that at their church there was a great need for Bibles, but the cost of local language Bibles was too high for them to afford – even for the pastor! So, we will try to stand with this church and make Bibles available to them at affordable prices. 

As a ministry, we take this moment to wish you a fantastic 2019 and a blessed Merry Christmas.

Prayer requests

1. Pray for the family of Male to stand strong in the Lord.
2. Provision for this ministry, and Bibles for the village people.
3. Wisdom as we lead this ministry

Love to you all, and thanks so much for your support.

Alex and Simon.

                                       

November 2018 News

“It implies that the gospel will go to all of the elect. The redemptive truth must go to the ends of the earth inasmuch as there are elect in ‘…every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation’ (Rev. 5:9). Paul, realizing this, was willing to suffer during his ministry since he knew that he endured ‘… all things for the elect’s sakes, that they also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory’ (2 Tim. 2:10). This has been true missionary motivation” (Kenneth Good, Lost and found).

It’s such a blessing to bring to you our second-to-last newsletter for this year. November was meant to be a special month for us, in which we had planned to have two special missions: graduation of high school students under our discipleship programs (Christianity Explored); and the evangelism mission on Lake Victoria Island. But even though we were unable to accomplish them, we highly appreciated your prayers for those activities. We hope the Lord will enable us to achieve them next year. As we were planning for these missions, the words of Kenneth Good were of great encouragement. Though we are only a small ministry, we remain fully committed to evangelism missions wherever God leads us to share the gospel with people.

In the picture below, we were meeting our long time New Zealand friends who are here in Uganda for a short term visit. We had a great time catching up together again 😊. They had been serving the Lord in Uganda for over 5 years with a certain NGO for orphaned kids. Warwick and Marilyn have been a great contributing factor to the ministry we lead now. They used to visit us in high school, and have been an encouragement to us since then. When school was getting more difficult, especially for Alex, they used to come and pray for us. We really thank God for them - for their kindness and long term relationship.

Warwick & Marilyn Dingle

Below is part of Mamma Proscovia’s family (the one I had an accident with on our motor bike as we were heading for ministry in the villages). As you can see, the Lord has healed her. The photo was taken when they showed up very early at church one Sunday. Mamma Proscovia is on the second from left holding a baby. She recently brought her oldest daughter Milly to greet us, and also for us to pray for her. Milly (in blue long dress), in the course of prayer, gave her life to Jesus!!! She now works in Asia, and is fully secure in the Lord Jesus. Proscovia is a single mother who is totally committed to Jesus, and has persuaded all her family to come to Jesus. She is part of this church.

If you haven’t seen any images of our church and home compound, here they are!

Mamma Proscovia cleaning the church chairs

Scovia with her daughter washing the church tent 

Nakaye has trained some teenage girls to sing, so we now have a small choir (Below). She has also trained the Sunday school children how to read the Bible. Actually, during the morning devotion today with Simon leading, Nakandi, who is part of the Sunday school, led the reading and helped alongside Simon.

As you might know, church planting is a difficult and challenging work to do. But when you see God raising up servants and fellow ministers, you just have to praise His name. Furthermore, a few girls from the Sunday school have now started to come earlier to set up the church and arrange it for the whole service. This is how God is raising up church leaders here in our simple church. 

You might remember that we talked about Mugura in the August newsletter and blog. His life has had an amazing turn-around from satanic worship; drugs and alcohol. Then he came to Jesus, and his whole life has changed. He lives in another village where believers had no Bibles, but he has put in a lot of effort to come and get Bibles for them – he walks 7 km to get to our home for Bibles. Mugura is poor and earns little money. But he is happy because he has a Bible; he helps others to get Bibles; and He preaches the gospel. Below is a photo of him getting more Bibles.

We would appreciate your prayers for the following

1. Please pray for Milly as a new Christian in a Muslim country, and that she will make connection with some Christians there
2. Winning souls for Christ in this community
3. Financial provision for the ministry and Bibles
4. Ministry land

Blessings to you all,

Alex and Simon.