December newsletter

Merry Christmas to all our ministry friends and partners in serving our Lord Jesus!! We praise the Lord who has allowed you and us reach 25^th/12/2017.

‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers’ are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send you laborers into harvest.” Matthew 9:36-38.

We remember while at collage training to become church ministers, we used to gather and pray. I remember quoting that text and asking a group leader to pray for us through that text. I had no idea how this ministry we lead now would start and where it would be. The above text teaches us to be ready to be used by God to reach out to unreached tribes and peoples through his own leading.

We hope Christmas celebrations went well, and where they didn’t, remember that God remains sovereign in all situations. To me and Simon, Christmas went well. For us we started as early as 23^rd (when we had a children Christmas in the village event)

 This children event

was such a blessing.

We got to see kids

We hadn’t seen

before at church.

We had Nakaye,Victoria and Ester who came to help and teach these kids the Word of God have funs. We studied with Victoria in High School (Seroma Christian High School). It was great seeing her again serving God. They did  a great work these ladies. They worked with other four church girls. These four our church girls worked hard to collect these kids from village homes as some could not come alone. They worked from day one to the end. May God bless them abundantly.

On left is Simon and on microphone is Victoria and Nakaye, who is also the church choir here. We were 140 all of us in total. All of us took a bottle of soda and about 20 kids missed a piece of a cake. They were not enough for every one of us.

Below are a couple of pictures of how the event went. For those who don't know, I and Simon during the age bracket of these kids, we didn’t take soda not until it was a Christmas day. And some Christmas we couldn’t have any as we grew up knowing that a bottle of soda is for old people/ grown up persons.

Our brief history made us to organize such a day for kids in our village. Most probably there many children here who may not have one at their homes but at least they had one from our church. We wanted them to know that God loves them and cares about them.

Kids enjoying Christmas Sodas/drinks

On the extreme left,  those are girls of the who did a great work to prepare and Alex posing for a selfie. Then above is Victoria with kids with their art work.

On the above event, we had people whom we had evangelized too, show up with their kids. You remember  a Muslim lady we told u about (Hajjat) who has been to Mecah, she received Jesus and got herself a bible. She had never come to church. She came that day with her family, first time to be in a church. She sent her family on 25^th to worship our King Jesus with us as well

 A congregation on a Christmas service.          

Lungala Community Bible Church grows in many angles. It’s a church composed of babies, children, teenagers and adults. The Lord had our prayers, we praise the Lord for that!! This church at the end of this year will be making 8 months, we are always amazed at the Lord's doing through this church to this community.

                                                               

Sunday School on Christmas

Simon was the teacher as two of our Sunday school teachers went for a holiday. He taught them how to draw pictures.

The real gospel getting to real man; We believe most of you don’t know the kind of community we live in; most people here verbally say they  love God but their actions deny their confession. Although there is also a few groups who are strong servants of God in words and actions but majority deny this.

In our near-by  neighborhood, there are about seven shrines ( where Satanic worship is done) without those that are in living houses. These shrines, witchdoctors call the spirits of the dead brode day light. They sacrifice animals to these demons and to some worse cases, even babies are sacrificed. By God's grace and your prayers, the Lord has allowed us to share the gospel with a few of these.

Most people fear them as they can send demons and kill you. Before Christmas, by God's  coincidence, I and Simon met one of the well known witchdoctor. He told us that “I inherited these demons and I can’t leave them.”. This was a second witchdoctor to tell me this. As a church, there many occasions where we have prayed for people who have been attacked by demons from these people and God has delivered them. They are now part of us. This is  the feel of the community where God sent us. There are strange things done behind Satanic worship. Only God can transform their hearts. And some of our church members have ever been part of it in one way or the other but when light shone on them, they came to Jesus.

Worse more, if a church is not strong in the Word and prayer, these Witches can over come the church and it dies completely! One witch told us that “ I will send you demons, they will come rolling a calabash / gourd and you will believe that demons exist”. We also responded lovingly, when God appears, demonic powers ceases. That is shortly how our community has been in the strong holds of Satan. And we believe this church  delivering sound doctrine, many will come to Jesus.

Donations of clothes and other items to our community

Again as ministry, we want to thank all people who donated all the Items to this ministry. You don’t how you impacted the lives of a few church members and  those outside church. Scovia, church member had this to say “I thank God for this church for providing clothes to my son. He had one jean and if we washed it and didn’t get dry, that means he would miss church. “ Another lady had this to say too, “thanks to this ministry, the father of my daughter ‘one year old baby' , doesn’t provide to her, my daughter barely gets such new nice clothes “.

The above testimonies confirmed to us, God provided to His people through this ministry. And we are always proud to do God's work timely. The mother of one year old baby has recently converted from Islam to Christianity. The mother came here and got a bible as you know, this ministry gives and provides bibles at a small commitment fee.

She told me, “I have never experienced the reality of God like I do now since I started to carefully read this bible”. So, they are diligent young family growing in the Lord King Jesus. And by God's grace we will lead them to spiritual maturity.

 Farming God's Way.

We have good News from our farming. On 27^th/12/2017, our white pig gave birth to five piglets. One died. We remained with four.

We praise the Lord for that. Our farm is doing well and we plan to keep these young ones ourselves on farm. This project is designed to teach and demonstrate strategic farming methods using local viable means that Gods has given us.

So far, one local farmer has taken on our farming methods, he has 10 pigs on his land. Simon visits this farm to give advisory ideas which are affordable to village people.

We want to thank you for your prayers to us and as ministry. We want to thank you all in a special way, all of you who have sacrificed to partner with us financially.  We always pray for you and may God bless you!

Prayer requests.

1.      Alex's wedding next year with Kembabazi

2.      Financial support to the paving of church 

3.      Financial support toward buying ministry land (at least 2 Acres in this community )

4.      And remaining true to the preaching of God's Word.

Thanks

Alex and Simon (Uganda-Africa)

Don't forget........................

November Newsletter

Our special greetings to you brethren! Merry Christmas to you all! Christmas is just at the door! We praise the Lord for that.

In our spiritual Formation group materials, (The character for the follower of Jesus-designed by campus crusade ministry) there is a statement that has impacted our lives and we would love to share it with you.

“… you already know the benefit of personal Bible Study — what it means to search the scriptures and discover Jesus as the way, the Truth and the Life. You have probably noticed that responding to God and experiencing His Word affects your attitudes and actions day by day”.

At  Lungala Bible Ministries Uganda, Bible study programs have been so crucial and are fundamental to the growth of this ministry. As the writer has put it above, a keen follower of God's Word can’t live un noticed. As you see in the photo bellow, Students from St. John's Secondary School have been part of our bible programs. We have just awarded them certificates of completion. Our groups are always a mixture of people from different faiths. Amazingly, Shakirah and Hellen: who joined this program and didn’t know the Lord, now they are part of the school chapel that proclaims the Word of God. They received Jesus as their Saviour. They couldn’t attend and let the Word of God and go unnoticed! Christianity Explored ministry affected them and eventually, Jesus was seen live in their lives.

  On that graduation, we also cut a cake.                                                             

From right, headmaster, Alex Tumwesigye (program leader in this school and students who took up the program this term. We were 12 students but four dropped out. leaving the group of eight.

Christianity Explored student sharing the cake with others.

It was not enough for a very one, but at list a few students had a test. This was done in front of the whole school, the headmaster was there and school teachers. Most students have showed interest in this program. We had testimonies, how this program has impacted them and reciting the books of the bible. The headmaster made a remark, “ We like your programs, there are students whose behaviors have changed from your ministry. Shakirah now is a good student, trust worthy and hard working”. He said.  

We also had Fundamentals Of Faith graduation. This took place at Kisugu Secondary School.

This graduation took place while there was a parent's day visitation. It was a big crowd. There were 13 students in total who passed to graduate. The parents were so happy gave gifts to their students. The director said remarkably to Edith Nakaye ( a school metron to girls and involved in our ministry) “Your such administer of the Lord. Every where you go, your always involved in ministry “. The director said to her. We were given a worm welcome and this school has freely opened up to us. Most of these students are already involved in ministry in their local churches.

The second  meeting  with  university students;    as we shared with you last month, the Lord has been gracious. We started a university youth ministry.

Its kicking on well. We had a meeting and many students showed up. This ministry started as a dream but now it has come to a full reality. In this ministry, we gather students from different universities, and train them how to become biblical disciplines of Jesus, even when they are done with their studies. And to be Christ-examples in their communities.

Lungala Community Bible Church is steadily growing. We really praise the Lord for the number He adds to His Church. During the massive youths evangelism day (with youths from Kampala), Mrs Joice got born again and all her family. She seems to very committed. She recently got herself a bible from here. She also convinced other two ladies and have been coming to church since then,early morning, they attend the devotion we have before the service starts. She said this, “ I prepare for a Sunday day as early as possible so that I don’t miss the devotion with my friends”.

 Alex dedicating a baby on Sunday. The first newly born baby in this church.

    Photo of our church on Sunday

Some of you who have been following our updates via What’sApp, I called our village chairman  Kalungi Erenests, whose daughter (32 years old and  mother of 3 kids) had tried to kill herself with poison. My call came early morning, “Pastor Alex, came and pray for my older sister! She is dying…”. As a team from our church, we reached this home (where witchcraft has taken place for generations). The chairman knew about our coming but dodged us. Being that he owns hats for evils spirits. Nanfukah, a M… girl was in a bad state, she could walk nor eat. We shared the word and prayed for her.    After one week, that’s when I called her father and I arranged with him. This time he was present, and I confronted him about evil alters and evil spirits of the dead in his home. He told me, while looking at me in the face, my son, I inherited this from grands. Pray for him that God will make it clear and give him power to leave it. This event was God honouring, I have always wanted to share the gospel with this family, but they would not let me. During this event, Nanfukah, received Jesus as her Saviour. She got well, she can walk. She later came to our church, to have counseling. She came in full black attire for M….s. I was scared to take a photo of her. She now reads her bible and she has forgiven herself against the evil action she had taken against herself.

The ministry of the Bible:    this ministry has tremendously touched people from all backgrounds.

The Word of God has its own power to change lives. Right now we  have a Hajj at who got a bible here, she has showed undoubtable  love to the Word of God. She has not confessed Jesus but she loves hearing the gospel. We do visit her and pray with her  weekly. Below is a photo of Norah (a lay leader) taking bibles to her congregation, near by lake Victoria.   We have irrefutable testimonies from people who got bibles and got converted after falling in love with it.

As a ministry, we continue to face financial challenges, we would love to do more than this, but we are incapable in some areas. We get limited, if you feel God is leading you to support this ministry, feel free to let us know.

This in Norah who leads a ministry near lake Victoria. She oftenly takes bibles from here to believers in deep villages.

We are planning to start a spiritual formation group in a near by community where there no church. Three homes have welcomed us. No one is born again from these homes, but they are interested and loving our ministry to have a monthly meeting at one of members’ home. Last month we gathered at Nakalyowa Proscovia's home. The house was nearly full. As you remember, her husband who abandoned her is a man who believe in the worship of evil spirits. Proscovia is now a vibrant spiritual woman  and her daughters. Every month we meet at her house and she invites the neighborhoods. Las meeting we had a lady whose faith is Islam, she said, “I love to fellowship with you here and would you please pray for my family “. She hasn’t come to church neither believed Jesus. We meet people like this all the time in Spiritual formation Groups.

Our farm:

The season for passion fruits is out. Although we think by February we will be picking up again. We have young ones growing. Some have started to put flowers.

 Our two pigs are two months and twenty seven days pregnant. As you see, they look heavier

                                                    

Recently I castrated one male pig, it died after one week. Alex usually wants try out new things in farming. But this time he lost it. We normally do most of doctors' work ourselves and we had never lost any animal.

We thank all of you we have always  encouraged us either your phonecalls, WhatsApp messages, emails and  Facebook messages. May God bless you. We thank you for your prayers, if it was not you, we would hardly reach this far.

Continue to pray for

    Alex's wedding with Carolyn Kembabazi

    Ministry support

    and 

    Lungala Bible Ministries Uganda to steadily reach out to people     

      Alex and Simon (Uganda, Africa) 

OCTOBER news from Lungala Bible Ministries

Greetings brethren! Updates from Lungala Bible Ministries Uganda. We feel glad to share with again what God has led us and the body of other believers to accomplish in this ministry.

“The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him,”. (Nahum 1:7)

As the scripture is put above, the Lord has been good to us as the ministry, in many ways. When this term began, Christianity Explored class kicked off. 

 Alex leading the discipleship class. Another girl from this group has given her life to Jesus. Now the whole group is full of people who trust the saving grace of Jesus. We praise the Lord. I will send you her picture In the next report. We are trusting God that in this next two month we will be able to graduate this group. We usually give them a gift to encourage them or design certificates. We praise the Lord for this group.

Farming God’s way; Our farming is going well. Our two female pigs are one month pregnant. They look good although this time we did not take a photo for you. We also have some more other piglets. Our farm is growing. The Lord has given us steady rains. We bless His Holy Name.

Sports outreach team from Zana Presbyterian Church:

On 21^st, Lungala Community Bible hosted Zana Presbyterian church, a sports youth evangelism team. It was such glorious moment. We were over 70 people. The church was full and ran short of sits. We divided ourselves into five groups. Each group was led by a church member from here. After we returned to church, 25 people had given their lives to Jesus.

That was after evangelism refreshing ourselves with sugarcanes. Sugarcanes are the most fruits here you can enjoy.

That is the team sharing the gospel with our neighbour’s son (Muslim family). The taller man in a T-shirt is Geoffrey, he was a drug addict but now transformed by the power of the gospel in this local church. He is sharing the gospel now.

From left; Alex, Bukenya and a

friend who came to do evangelism.

We came back to church, we had lunch, all people ate, except the sodas were not enough. As you see in the photos, brethren from Zana had mixed with the village youths especially those that are on the village football. After lunch, we had a worship, and a scripture from Alex (Matthew 22:37-39). The neighbours, especially those from none believing homes were patient. The Holy Spirit touched them and sat and listened to the Word of God

Left is Gloria, John and Simon giving report after evangelism; in the church. After we all went to the village football pitch, where other village members were waiting. Below are the photos.

In the soccer field with the village team against Zana Church  

As a church, we started ‘Spiritual Formation Groups” aiming at reaching out to the neighbours of church members. The first prayer meeting took place at Maama Proscovia, who turned to Jesus with almost the entire family. We all met at house, it was dark and a few lights on our phones could give light (as some of you know village life). She was very excited as this the first Christian prayer meeting in her house. This family has been experiencing a lot of demonic attacks, as we told u in the last reports, the father for the family is involved in witchcrafts. But God has delivered that family.

This/these Spiritual Formation Groups will be primarily led by church members and as leaders of the church, we will ensure that this is well done. The main aim is to see believers growing in sharing the gospel and also reaching out to the children who might not be going to church with their parents.

Children Ministry:

We have been praying and trusting God for a childrens Sunday teacher, God has brought this lady

(Ms. Nakaye). She is such a strong servant of the Lord. She loves children and very ministry creative woman. She also modeling other young girls who can do this work is case she is not around. She is the one right there.

As we update about this ministry growth, please continue to pray for provision and putting pavers in the church. Dust is becoming too much, especially when kids roll in the dust. Pray that God will provide especially us who take the main leading for this ministry. Alex’s wedding has been held back, it was originally supposed to take place in November, but it might be hard to do this. Please continue to pray for God’s sustainability.

May God bless for loving to follow our ministry and farming updates. 

CHRISTMAS IN THE VILLAGE INVITATION

September 2017 Newsletter

We hope that God has continually showed His love. As our custom, we usually want to share with you a reading of the month or sometimes a touching article from any of reading. Isaiah 41:8-9

“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend, You whom I have taken hold of from  the ends of the earth, and called from its corners, and said to you, ‘You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you a way”

The Lord has been good to this ministry.   On high hills and valleys, the Lord has not left His work that He does daily in this ministry. As the verse above says, He has not cast His people away.  His hand is evident in all corners.

After the inaugural service event we had on August 12, two people reached out to us. Let us share about one, “Fred whom we met when this ministry started; had been born again for over three years. He had never got a zeal to buy a bible nor to study it. He says after meeting us, that is when he felt a desire for a Bible, to own one, read it and obey it. He said, this did not leave him the same, he has experienced the comfort of God through the life on loneliness and distrustful life he had been walking over past years. He said that in tears. That we helped him to observe God's word and hence feeling the comfort of God).

Fred in the photo had been to most witch doctors, he was looking for help yet at the same time he was in church.  He got tired of them and all his money was gone. He left them when the last one asked him to show his palm so she could see the past. And she told Fred that “I see your mother died” BUT Fred's mother is alive. This angered Fred and stayed heart broken until when we met him and for all this time, God has been rebuilding his heart.

Here we were clearing the bushes, from the side of the track that leads to church,together with other church members.

Now, to be honest with you that testimony was humbling to us! - who are we! For us we are just small boys doing God's work in the village! We didn’t know that there was a broken heart waiting for comfort since we started this ministry! As time goes on, we will ask him to write his testimony in full and you can have it. There are many more similar cases are many in African churches (syncretism). We will continue this work as the Lord enables us to reach out to His.

We have been praying for university ministry, and the Lord opened one this month. Simon is mainly the spear head for this youth movement. It was such a joy for this vision casting meeting. Thirty students turned up for the meeting and 17 enrolled for the program.

The vision of this project is to extend our ministry activities to the university students and the youth, with the aim to make them Christ’s ambassadors in their future work places and to be involved in serving the Lord in their home churches.

Project definition for youths in this ministry:

It is of the fact that Uganda has 85 percent youth according to the national statistics, when this is realized it is upon us a Christian organization to empower these youth to be able to take on the mantle. If the church doesn’t take on this call we are facing a tragedy of the church dying with the old generation. The project is aiming at overcoming this problem.

This project will be running during the two semesters in the year and will be enrolling students from all the nearby compasses. And some non-schooling youths who might be interested. This program will be conducted in English.

Materials/Resources:

1.    Strictly Campass Crusade materials

2.    Inviting 1 to 2 public speakers each month when we can afford it.

3.    One outreach each month.

4.    We will be doing one lesson each meeting in one week.

The meetings will be taking place at different school premises.

Responsibilities:                                                        Objectives for this program

-          Evangelism and Discipleship                                      -  How to read the Bible

-          Christian in market place                                            -  Discovering your gifts

-          Servant leadership                                                      -  Assurance of salvation

-          Inviting the speakers

In Africa we have a proverb ‘Emiti emito je' gikuma ekibira' easily translated as ‘Young trees keep the forest'. Similarly, youths are the next generation. They are church/ politician leaders of tomorrow. So, when God helps us to reach out to them, we are building a firm generation.

High school ministry will be starting soon. The students have been on break and most of them are returning from home to school. Once they are settled, we resume.

Alex was invited to preach in youth conferences. The first meeting there was not a good turn up – 3 students gave their lives to Jesus.

The next one, where I spoke after lunch time. The turn up was tremendous. I was invited to speak to this one two times. It was for three days. The Lord blessed their lives through His word.

Lungala Community Bible Church is daily growing. As you saw in the last report, we have a permit for the church, and now we have a bank account for the church. We have also been able to have the Tin number for the ministry.

These seem easy to communicate, but it has been a tag of war. Only the Lord could help us overcome those documents. Now, what that means is that, if you ever feel volunteering with us, the government would easily give you work permit. Or if you ever feel donating anything to the ministry, you will find it easier. We praise God for this.

Bellow is Mrs. Who turns up early morning to dig around the church.  We met her through evangelism. She was an unbeliever, now a Christian zealous for God's work. Her husband and all family members not saved. She needs prayers in her family that God will open their eyes.

After getting herself a new bible. She had never had one. She now attends all fellowships and Sundays.

On the left, she had come early morning to clean around the church.

In this month Simon had Malaria. He was tested positive but he was able to get medication right a way. He is now well. But Malaria continues to be a challenge in our area.

We plan to have an event on 23rd/December 2017. Please pray that it will go well. The card for invitation is on left.

It’s at this time that we remember your brother Daniel and you wife Renee, together the whole of your family. As your brothers in Africa, we are continually interceding on your behalf that His glory and beauty will hold your hearts in the midst of adversity as a family (Psalm 55:22).

We thank you all people who wilfully reads our reports and all your encouragements, we too have never forgotten you in our prayers.

Please pray for

December 23th event (Christmas in the village)

Lungala Community Bible church sustainability

Continuous provision for bibles

Pray For God’s grace on us

In the Lamb

Simon and Alex (Uganda-Africa).