Lungala Bible Ministries

November 2016 Update

November 2016

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philemon. 3).

With great joy yet again as LUNGALA Bible Ministries Uganda, we use this privilege to celebrate with you of the Lord's goodness in this ministry.

Fundamental of Faith Classes

It’s such epiphany as we share with you about the graduation of the first class of Fundamentals Of Faith. This month we had both our classes finish our discipleship program. Photo at St. John's S.S.,

We have counseled and moved along with our students (some have personally came to us) asking questions on how to deal with satanic situations especially for families where syncretism still holds strong.

Below are some of the students testimonies;

“As the class of ‘Fundamentals of Faith’; we extend our sincere thanks to the ministry of Lungala Bible Ministries under the leadership of brother Tumwesigye Alex for inserting in us the knowledge and the Spirit God.

We humbly appreciate the time & work rendered to us and through you we have achieved the following- first and foremost; -Knowing more about God (Jeremiah 9:24)

-Knowing how to read the bible

-Learning how to handle different situations

-We have been assured that all scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16)

-We have learnt how to use the bible

-How to draw closer to God (Isaiah 55:6)

-How to interpret scriptures in the bible (2 Peter 3:16)

We appreciate through you that the Lord has changed us from our enemies to be His friends (Titus 3:3,8) and then we pray that God who has used you may also use us to transform others”.

These students at flamboyant students at Kisugu S.S as they were graduating

On the left is Alex and next is the headmaster of school with a global study bible which we normally
give to pastors and Simon is 3^rdfrom the right. Students were on parade - Simon took us through a time of preaching encouraging students to be Bible readers and doers of the Word as a means to change their lives and communities where they come from. We gave them each a copy of the Bible so that they can keep the flame burning. As we have always shared with you, very few people here own bibles. We have been in fellowships where only the pastor had the Bible and the rest were listeners without bibles. Another fellowship we went to the preacher was teaching with a note book without the Bible. What a dangerous state we are in! So, we decided to make it easier for students to have bibles. If you feel donating a box of bibles, may God bless you!

The students that have graduated this month have been plugged into the Romans Project where each student will read the Book of Romans 20 times, hand copy it and write ten lessons after the reading.

Uganda is one of the countries where youth/young people make up 77% of the population . That means in most churches, and some of the students in our programs, in one way or another hold key leadership in their local churches. So, we are training people who are already made leaders in ministry and sharpening them for the gospel.

The 18^th century preachers The Wesley brothers’ said this “Give me 100 men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be a clergy or laymen, such a lone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon the earth”.

Only people who fear God will change the World. If we continue to impact the gospel in these multiple numbers of youths in these programs here, our communities will change for Christ.

DONATE A BIBLE FOR CHRISTMAS

English Bible = Nz$12.61 Each

Luganda Bible = Nz$15.40 Each

Sunday Worship

As the Lord led us to plant a community church all our Sunday services have steadily increased in number. In the picture below that is a glimpse of last Sunday service that we had last week.

We have been going though the books 1Timothy- Titus, which we just finished last Sunday. In our prayer meetings we have seen drug addicts and drunkards surrendering to Christ, and they are walking a biblical observable life changing.

Pastoral meetings still go on monthly. A number of them have been able to get bibles at a small cost from us – which has been a great privilege. We have had so far 204 bibles circulated in our community. This a humongous project and we want to thank God for each of you who have been behind this support, may God bless you immeasurably! We do not only make it easier for people to acquire bibles but we also take initiative to teach it to them.

Childrens Catechism

This photo on the right is of the little ones we teach

Farming God’s Way

Our passion fruit farming has improved due to the rains that we have now. We have had a longer drought than usual. We lost a number of crops in the process. Most of our greens died as well. But the passion fruits look good and we hope the first harvest will be good

We thank you all of you who have taken time to write emails of encouragement to us, supported us in one way or the other. We wish to invite you to partner with us, either on a short time mission, prayerfully or financially - we will be privileged to work together with you.

2017 Ministry Opportunities

The numbers attending our Worship & Fellowship groups are increasing and we are currently fundraising for a tent so we can hold all our Ministry Worship, Fellowship & Prayer Services & the Christianity Explored & Fundamental of the Faith programmes from the tent on our property.

SAMPLE TENT – 100 Seater

we need nz$4,000 - we have raised nz$1,830

We continue to ask you to pray for;

1) This church planting

2) Children ministry

3) Pray for our congregation to grow in the Lord and His Word

4) 2017 Ministry Plans

Yours In the Lamb

Simon and Alex

OCTOBER 2016 Update

We greet you all in the most precious name of our King and Saviour Jesus Christ! We always want to share with you what God is doing here in our communityJ

The joy of serving the LORD!

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 8:10).

As Ezra saw that the only thing that would bring peace and stability to the returnees in Jerusalem was complete exhortation to the law of God; so is our desire in this ministry. God has been gracious to us this month as we primarily focus on discipleship as a way of strengthening believers in the Faith of Our Lord Jesus.

High School Classes

We wish to let you know that next month - November we shall be having the first bunch of students from two High schools finish the Fundamentals Of Faith Program (F.O.F). You can’t imagine the testimonies these students have since we started this program! We have personally met some of the students and prayed for them, counseled them and also encouraged them. When we first started this program, no student could mention all the books of the bible, some students had never owned the bible; recently two students have been able to own bibles, and now these students can tell the person of Christ and be able to understand His deity and explaining it biblically. This has not been easy, it requires prayer and persistence.

This photo on the right is Alex at St. John’s S.S. after ‘FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH CLASS’. Each will be given a bible at a low cost since most of them can hardly afford one as means stimulating them and creating accessibility to God's word to them. We will have the second in-take next year.

On left are students from Kisugu SS; during the class session of F.O.F . This is led by Simon. These too, will be finishing next month.

Christianity Explored Study - SOUL

We trust the Lord next year we shall have the Soul program available to a greater number of people (it’s also a great program where we shall be taking people through the book of Mark).

Our fellowships at our home are going on well - recently a Muslim man received Jesus. We praise the Lord for people who come to Him daily. Here is how our fellowship looks like on one of the recent Sunday;

The camera could not take a full photo, although we hope you can get an idea. Both our fellowships on Sunday and Thursdays, consist people who have received Jesus and others who have not ; we thank God that many have come to Know Him through our fellowships. In this ministry we depend on Bible as a means to convict sin and bring many to Jesus. Fred in white and blue t-shirt joined our fellowships and he could hardly study bible (because he didn’t have one) but now he is growing in the study of the Word and you can’t imagine how many questions he has always asked concerning faith.! We look at these fellowships as means through which a community local church will be planted here.

Farming God’s Way

As it has always been, we like always to tell you about our garden – for it has been a contribution and sustained us to run the Work of God.

We experienced too much sunshine and as a result we lost many of our crops (Lettuces, tomatoes, maize etc). It’s only passion fruits that seems to be promising good yields.

Monthly Pastor’s Meeting

Our monthly meeting with pastors in Mpigi is still going on and we look forwards to it. Lungala Bible Ministries continues to grow in many ways- this has been expressed through the growth of the believers faith especially those who are involved in our programmes. There is a steady growth of awareness about our ministry in Mpigi District & community and this has been expressed through the continuous calls from believers requesting for Luganda Bibles and the desire to have our Discipleship programmes in their churches..

Prayer Requests;

· Pray for the pastoral meeting that takes place monthly that this ministry will continue to have a Godly impact in it.

· Pray for provisions.

· Pray for High school ministry as we graduate the first group – that they continue grounded in the Word and proclaiming it.

· And thank God for all that He has enabled us, and so far how He has brought this ministry and all people involved prayerfully and financially.

In the Lamb

Alex and Simon

SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Report for September

We are glad to let you again what the Lord is doing in us and His people around us that He has enabled us meet and minister to-as the 1800 preacher Dwight L. Moody put it “The World has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him… I will try my utmost to be that man”.(God's Generals).

For most of you who have been following this ministry, you discover that our biggest aim and centrality is the gospel. As we put our entirety to planting a local church, there are so humongous fruits that God has allowed see and reap; sinners who have repented and turned to Jesus.

We hope God’s grace has continuously shone on you!

We endlessly thank God who initiated an open door to attend Pastoral General meeting that takes place monthly (First Saturday of the Month). As we have interacted with them, most pastors here has got less or no access to christian libraries where they can do extended bible reading or sermon preparations. Due to this fact, as Lungala Bible Ministries and together with Godly and men and women of God, we decided to donate a bible study bible to each pastor that comes to this monthly meeting. So far we have given out 31 study bible copies. Our major aim is to equip church leaders who may have not got access to Bible colleges with necessary information and bible tools.

So many pastors have benefited from this and bellow is a caption of jovial pastors as they received their bibles in a pastoral meeting in Mpigi. Learning how to preach is a problem in most churches here. We trust God that one time we shall have a seminar on “HOW TO PREPARE A BIBLICAL SERMON “.

Children ministry:

Every week when it comes to Sunday the excitement is not only about the fellowship here but also meeting the children in the evening.

I am moved by the strength of their memories for the songs and the first five questions of the children catechism. It feels like we just started yesterday but the achievements are for a life time. The best song so far is “ J for Jesus O for others and so on…”.

Please continue to pray that the Holy spirit leads me as I teach the this catechism which I am translating to Luganda.

As Luganda Bible Ministries we lay roots to bringing the gospel to sinners, and emphatically grounded on discipleship. So that converts and growing Christians develop un immovable relationship with God from a sound mind. We have three programs i.e. Fundamentals Of Faith, and Soul (Christianity Explored). These two programs aim at strengthening believers but also evangelic in nature to none believers. These programs are so far targeting high schools especially prefects (Youths) and we have many who have joined and moving testimonies from these high school youths.

Schools have been on break and they just opened recently, so we have kicked of with the Word of God, below are students pausing for a picture after learning the Bible in one of the schools.

Being a new term from holidays I was overjoyed to hear each of the students report in the FOF class. And how they have used these lessons to do ministry in their churches And community. Daphne is using the experience of FOF to evangelize to her siblings, Nakato is doing Sunday school in the home church. Most rewardingly Babirye shared with me her inability to share the gospel because of her backslidden mother who gives her no liberty to go to church, more so being that Babirye had a problem of biting teeth at night the mother wanted to take her to the gods but she refused due to her defense that she is born again and she can’t displease her God to go to the small gods but only to trust the Lord. I was so encouraged to hear that and each of their projects that have hatched out of this programs.

As we shared with you last month, the biggest enemy of Christ's church in Africa is syncretism! As you read, after learning in this program, she said no to idolatry. We are still encouraging her and praying for her. God is doing great things in these activities. Discipleship is a hard work but it grounds many in the faith of Christianity.

The Lord has blessed us with rain, it has been too hot; and as agriculturalists, for us that is our joy to plant seeds for the season.

Farming has greatly supported us in this ministry, we do use some of our harvests for the work of God. Our passion fruits are really doing well. And most of them are putting flowers/fruits.

· Thank you for your prayers, we ALWAYS need support for MORE bibles.

· Thank you for praying to this ministry and us as well.

· Continue to pray for God's provision for a tent for our prayer meetings.

In the Lamb

Simon and Alex.

August Update

We are always filled with joy as we see the marvellous things that God does in our lives and in the new community that we are living in.

As you read in last months report, God opened a new door for our ministry. We were invited to attend a pastoral general meeting that takes place on the first Saturday of the month, to us that was a big opened door to reach out to pastors in our region. A great friend of ours donated 48 ‘global study bibles’. We gave out a copy to each pastor who attended this meeting for the first time. You can’t imagine the joy and gratefulness that these pastors expressed when they got to have such a tool for reference in their pastoral study.

The church around here and generally in Uganda faces strong forces of ‘syncretism'. National statistics show that Christians (nominal Christians) in Uganda are 85% although you wonder,

who are the people that go to these witch-doctors?

Or involved in corruption cases?

Who are the people behind the building of these shrines?

This shows us that most of these professing Christians are not genuinely Christians - they are not doers of the Word/practitioners. Due to this, our primary purpose is for our community to receive sound doctrine of the mind/biblical knowledge which through grace will prompt spiritual change hence causing the believer to have a right balanced walk with God. If we believe that God is holy emotionally, this must give raise to our affections to our hearts so that when professing Christians are tempted to worship demons, they should say ‘no' from the heart and mean it!”

One person wrote, ‘’While deep experiences of the presence and power of God can happen in innumerable ways, the ordinary way for going deeper spiritually into prayer is through meditation on scripture, if we pray without meditation … our communion with God becomes poor and distant.’’

This is a strong conviction to us and we want to make sure that the Word of God thrives in our people’s hearts so as to overcome practices of demons (witch-craft) and of ungodliness.

We live in a community embedded with witch-doctors, we have had a burden to reach out to them: recently God gave us grace to meet one of the ladies that believes in charms. I told her “I have got a good gospel track for you to read, and she was welcoming to read it - she told me how she loves the bible”. I thought I was in trouble nevertheless she was happy to read it. The next time I went back she had asked someone to bring her bible and I encouraged her to read it well as she follows those verses in the gospel flyer. This is joy to us, let’s continue to pray for such people.

Its upon this that our vision for Bibles is going on, although all boxes are finished both Luganda and English. There is a strong hunger for the bibles. One lady came to get a bible and she said “ please help us also to learn the bible”. We told this lady that we have given ourselves to the teaching of God's word to them and she was pleased to hear that.

Mrs. Harriet who had tried to buy a new bible from Kampala over times but she failed due to high costs, here is the Bible she had had for 12 years before getting a new one from Lungala Bible Ministries.

Our congregation is still out growing our living room (on Thursdays we have 8 people and Sundays 10 people), among these are non Christians and they have been receptive to the gospel. There are some Muslim homes that have started being receptive to the gospel and we have used this privilege to preach Christ to them through house to house visits - actually one of them boldly told us that “we love hearing about Jesus, we have no problem”.

Of recently we got an audio Bible Plyer in Luganda that helps people who can’t read. They listen to it every Sunday evenings and we thank God for a good friend of us who donated this player and now these ladies and as the group grows they are enjoying hearing the word of God in the New Testament in their Language.

Fundamentals of Faith Class (FOF)

High school ministry is on a break until when school starts for next term. That was our last meeting for August. We had a great final study moment, it was a question time, reviews and worship. They showed great enthusiasm by asking some mature questions and we will be glad to answer next month when school starts. This ministry focuses on High school students so far- although we would like to have it available in churches. We decided to start with this group as for now and when God has enabled us we could move it further to make it a discipleship class for some churches

Here is Kirungi's testimony for Fundamental Of Faith program at St. Johns as she responded to one of the questions from FOF book “Reading the bible, following it, helping my friends understand it and obeying the gospel in it ”.

Below is the picture as we concluded with this term saying goodbyes till next month. We had a great time of questions and one of the perturbing one was Superiority of NT over OT.

But God is gracious, these students are growing in mind and soul. We are equipping the next leaders in our society.

Childrens Ministry

We thank God for the ministry of the children, we have covered quite a lot . They are growing steadily in knowing Christ. Simon teaches them every Sunday evening. We have 16 children and we have covered bible stories from Adam (creation) up to the story of Joseph.

So far they can answer two questions from the children Catechism (CH) such as

• ‘who made you?’ - God.

• ‘What else did God make'?- All things.

We pray that the Holy Spirit will use what they are now reciting into their souls and grow up fearing God.

Please pray for children materials and refreshments, which in most cases we have to dig into our pockets to provide.

Farming God's Way

We have experienced long months of dry spell, our tomatoes in the nursery beds are dying. However, the passion fruit project is going well. If we get rain next month, we will be able to harvest passion fruits by next year. They have started putting flowers although the soil needs water. We are building a structure where they can climb and spread, passions do well when they have climbed.

Below is a photo of a passion fruit.

Prayer:-

1. Please do not get tired to pray for the tent.

2. Please pray for financial support for our Ministry

3. We highly welcome you to partner with us either prayerful or financially to further the work of Christ.

If you feel God is calling you to be a short or long term servant in this ministry, you are welcome to come join us.

In the Lamb

Simon and Alex- Uganda.

JULY Ministry Update

Special greetings from Alex and Simon. (Lungala Bible Ministries-Mpigi -Uganda).

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Mark 8:34).

Even as you read this newsletter about what the Lord is doing in the community of Lungala, we are reminded every day as we pray for our partners and friends who have supported this ministry knowing that it has been a huge sacrifice taking time to pray for the growth of this ministry and some of you who have committed to support financially in anyway. It has and will never be an easy choice to make but a choice made because we follow Christ who demonstrated this exact command in this passage “carrying the cross”.

We want to thank God for the great things He has been doing in your lives, your ministries and families.

As for us, the Lord has been faithful, and we want to share with you the good news that the Lord has done in our midst. As we have always shared with you, Lungala Bible Ministries continues to grow each day. People have come to the Lord through the preaching of the gospel and the fellowship group at our house has increased.

Geoffrey who received the Lord after 20 years of not attending church; selling & taking drugs and an alcoholic, his life was entirely a slave to these things “as he testified”. There is far much more change in his life now. People who had known him of his past life, wonder and truly say that his life has changed greatly.

Our Thursdays fellowship have grown and we have more people attending including none believers e.g Muslims and Roman Catholics. But they are passionate to hear the gospel. Kiyingi who is a Muslim has many questions and every time we meet we try our best to answer them from scripture and as we talk, he is slowly accepting the deity of Jesus Christ.

Below is the photo of our Thursday fellowship:

Giving study Bibles to Pastors in Mpigi Town

A few months ago we shared with our friend about the situation of pastors in Mpigi and the need to avail them at least a resource where they can do an extra study for their preaching and we thank God that through her we were able to get “GLOBAL STUDY BILES” which we distributed to Pastors during their monthly meeting in Mpigi town. This idea was conceived when a pastor came to our home wanting two bibles and we discovered the need for pastors to have study bibles. We got an opportunity to introduce this ministry to them and they were so happy to hear about what the Lord is doing. As we have interacted with them, there is a need in the future to have preaching seminars for pastors. To learn how to preach, at least the majority would need this. This meeting included pastors from different churches.

Children Ministry:

God works in mysterious ways indeed as William Cooper put it, we started by first unvailing the basic truth through telling stories about creation, fall of man and the redemptive plan as we aim at introducing the Children Catechism in the nearby future. The most amazing thing is that even the Muslim family kids are also part of these classes. They are enjoying stories about creation and the death of Jesus on the cross.

FOUNDATION OF FAITH CLASSES (FOF):

The high school students now they can navigate through the entire Bible with great ease, something which wasn’t there before. We can also sense growth in the knowledge of their faith and relationship with God which is attained from these classes. Thanks to our friends who provided the evangelistic trucks; we gave these students to read for their friends who are not saved yet hence they can now use as they evangelize to their fellow students.

Farming God’s way:

We do not only labour in preaching the Word of God, but we are also practical farmers. We plant NZ fruits as well as Ugandan. Most people have liked our produce and our way of farming. Now that August season is already at the door, our planting is due this month and we have all the nursery seeds ready for planting in few weeks.

As we conclude, we would like to invite you to come and serve God with us, if you feel God is calling you to Uganda. Come and we share our gifts to build the body of Christ Jesus in this community. It can be short term mission or long term, whatever you feel God is calling you to do.

Pray for this growing ministry, if five more people adds to the daily attendance, we might not fit in our living room. We have trusted the Lord for a tent where we can shift and have enough room.
Pray for me and Simon so that we continue to heed to the Word of God unreservedly.
Pray for this Muslim man (Kiyingi Abubakari) who has showed special interest in the gospel to come to Jesus.
Pray for continuous relationship with all pastors in our district Mpigi.

In the Lamb

Alex and Simon-Uganda.

JUNE 2016 LUNGALA BIBLE MINISTRIES UPDATE

Its always a great joy for us to know that there are people far away from Lungala who have God's work here on their heart and even as we update you about the things that have happened here in the month of June we have always seen God's Grace in each and everything that has been done this month and yet we know it’s a light thing in the sight of the LORD…(2Kings 3:18)

Church Planting

Most people who come for our fellowship groups both on Thursdays and Sundays are people from around our community, mostly we only get to see them on Sundays being that during week days most people are in their gardens.

F.O.F CLASSES ( FOUNDATION OF FAITH CLASSES); this month yet again we thank God for our friends who have donated the FOF materials that we are using to conduct these classes. FOF Classes are one of a kind in Uganda that aims at deriving believers into the doctrines of the Christian faith that cements the assurance of salvation, discovering of the believers gifts and knowing God's word and equipping them to share it. We have started this project with two schools (St. Johns and Kisugu Secondary School) all these schools are in Mpigi - the District we are in. At St. Johns there are 12 students that have enrolled and Kisugu there are 16 including one teacher.

Group Photo of FOF Class at Kisugu Secondary School

The goal of this project is to empower these students who are in one way or another involved or aspiring servants in their home churches to be able to serve with the knowledge of the word. This in the future also is seen as a suitable programme for the University students in Uganda God willing.

Group photo of the FOF Class at St Johns Secondary School.

Children Ministry

The CH Classes (Sunday School classes ), fellowships have shifted from Fridays to Sundays being that most of them have gone back to school and they can only be available on Sunday Evenings. We also thank God for a friend who donated a good material book (the Jesus Story Book) that we are using.

Farming God's Way

This has been a month of hot sun and completely no rain, sadly we lost the tomatoes that we had planted lately because they could not with stand the hot sun. Hover those that we planted first are ready for harvest and we have sofa sold 7 basin full of tomatoes. Glory be to God!

Some of the “farming God's way” produce.

Prayer Requests

1. Please pray for the FOF classes to go on successfully

2. The temporary tent is still needed to put up a shelter for the people being that our seating room is so small.

3. Pray for the Rain being that hear we rely on natural means t be able to plant crops.

4. Thank God for both of us healing from malaria in this past month.