Our driving focus through missions is to fulfill the principles set out in Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
After much travel and ministry in our first two weeks in Uganda, being able to spend a time of relaxation, learning, and growth was just what we needed. The Kehns graciously allowed us to stay with them in their home in Mbarara for the past week. Because they are leaving next week for 3 months in the states, we were able to help them with the kids and preparation for their time there. We were able to see the day-to-day life of missionaries and they ways in which the Kehns have completely poured into their community and the people there. It was such an encouragement for us to be able to play with their kids: Asher, Stephen and Adelynn and also spend time talking with Matt and Crystal about missions, parenting/adoption and serving the Lord abroad.
We were also blessed with being able to attend a “Team Meeting” with the Kehns and other missionaries living in Mbarara. It was such an encouragement to see men and women totally sold out for the Lord and living life away from home and the people and places they are familiar with. Having a sweet time of fellowship with these brothers and sisters in the Lord from all over the world was truly something that we will never forget!
David was able to spend much time talking with Matt about how to implement a ministry initiative like ABIDE within the context of Village Bible Church. The ABIDE program incorporates relationship-based discipleship that attempts to mirror the ministry of Christ. Life-on-life discussions and growth opportunities have proven to be a context in which God transforms the lives of his children.
It was a great experience for us to be able to see the missional ways in which the Kehns and others are living their lives for the Lord! We are excited to use many of the things that we learned this past week within our ministries at home as well!
After our restful day visiting the source of the Nile River in Jinja, we drove for a few hours to Mbale for a youth conference. We unpacked our bags at a guest house (hotel/motel), and drove the two minutes to the girls’ school where the conference was held. School was not in session, so they had accommodation and room for the 800 students attending the conference. While the conference was a student ministry conference, the ages of the attendees ranged from 10 to 27.
The theme of the conference was 2 Timothy 2:15, which encourages, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.” Each day began at 5am with individual quiet times until 6:30am. Breakfast then lasted until around 7:45am, which was followed by a time of worship and Bible exposition. Then, from 8:30am-4pm, hour long sessions informed the students of the Biblical approach to understanding many different topics. Ralph and I chose two of the topics before leaving for Uganda, so we brought our prepared lessons. We were not expecting it, but when we arrived, we were seated on stage, even during the sessions. This is a cultural way of doing things with which we soon became more comfortable.
In my lessons, I encouraged the students in the area of evangelism and being the light in the darkness. My Scripture passage was John 1 because there we see Jesus Christ setting the pace as a light into the darkness. His journey to earth to bring the truth about God was the ultimate evangelistic action. We also see that John the Baptizer used his existence to point to the truth of Jesus. The phrase I repeated was, “If you have the light, then shine it into the darkness!” I also had the privilege of sharing is a second session about some practical tools for sharing the Gospel and being the light in the darkness of the world. This includes the G.O.S.P.E.L. acronym I mentioned in the previous blog post, as well as the Cause Circle.
Here’s how THE Cause Circle works, as described on the Dare 2 Share website:
You have 100 times more influence on your friends than a stranger does! THE Cause Circle is a simple tool that will help you be purposeful about sharing Jesus' message with your friends. It will help you identify your friends, and then remind you to pray, to pursue spiritual conversations, and to persuade them to consider Jesus' message.
Here's how it works.
Write the names of your friends in the center of THE Cause Circle. Identify three friends you want to share the gospel with, then write their names in the "pray" section of the circle. As you find opportunities to pursue spiritual conversations with these friends, advance their name to the "pursue" area of the circle. Then go back and add another friend's name to the "pray" section. When you have opportunities to go deeper in your spiritual conversations with your friends, move those friends forward along the circle to the "persuade" section. Your hope is that over time you will be able to persuade all your friends to:
Accept Christ
Belong to a Church
Commit to THE Cause
After I shared about evangelism, Ralph was able to put some flesh onto the structure that I had described to the students. He talked about his personal experiences in sharing the Gospel with his unsaved friends. In addition to this, he encouraged the students not to give in to the temptations of the world. He encouraged them to be the next generation that will stand up for God and for the truth.
For some of these sessions, Emily and Theresa sat with us on stage, but for some of the other sessions, they enjoyed working with the men and women who were preparing food and cleaning the dishes for the next meal. Through this, they were able to engage in conversation with the Ugandans and learn about some of the cultural cooking methods and strategies. Between the sessions, we enjoyed talking with many of the students and even exchanging email addresses and contact information.
It was a great encouragement for us to see the zeal and excitement of the kids during the sessions and especially worship time. We also had the opportunity to share the gospel with a few of the people we met at the guest house, including the owner who is a Muslim. He didn’t place his trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but the truth was proclaimed into his life and mind. The Lord is working throughout the world!
I deeply enjoyed speaking to the youth at the conference at Mbale, Uganda in the East. I had the opportunity to speak to the students about the future of their country and to not get into the same moral pitfalls as the west has done! It was a wonderful trip and it was great working with Godfrey, the missions team coordinator for Juna Amagara!
The Shepherd Center was my major work:
1. We met with the executive board of the Shepherd Center Uganda to meet them for the first time and to talk about strategy for the ministry!
2. We brought bibles, soccer balls, toothpaste, and toothbrushes.
3. We took boys to have their teeth worked on at the clinic!
4. We enjoyed a day of outreach at the local Baptist church! What a great work of God that is happening!
5. We met all the boys from 5 years old to 19 years of age. These boys love Patrick, the leader of the Shepherd Center. These boys have also been taught about God’s plan of salvation. Just like all other people, they need much love and hard work!
6. We loved on them and feed them and shared the love of Christ with them!
7. God allowed a home to come available and we were able to put a down payment on it. Please pray that the remainder of the finances will come in the next 10 days. We may be able to house up to 20 street boys! Please pray hard!
If you are interested in partnering with The Shepherd Center, please contact me or Village Bible Church for more details. God is moving fast and I am excited about it! Praise God! I will see you all soon, God willing!
Our time on August 8 with Matt and Crystal Kehn enabled us to understand the ABIDE discipleship program, but our time since then has allowed us to see the results of that ministry.
The ABIDE program essentially invites hand-picked high school graduates interested in taking their relationship with Christ to the next level. During the six month period between high school graduation and the beginning of the university school year, these young men live, eat, learn, and minister together. Every week they attend intensive training on their relationship with Christ, their character, and leadership. They also travel around each weekend to practice ministry in each young man’s home church. In addition to this, they take on a discipleship role with a young student from the orphanage so that they can really grasp how to “make disciples who make disciples.” Because of this practical training, once they graduate from the program, many continue to make disciples and be involved in leadership and church ministry.
One of the ABIDE students named Patrick has taken this ministry training and applied it to his passion to reach street children in Kabale, Uganda. He is calling his ministry, “The Shepherd Center.” Most of the 70 children involved in his ministry have nowhere safe to live, do not attend school, and must beg or scrounge for food. They are considered the “outcasts” of society and need the love of Christ and a Shepherd.
The ministry and vision of the Shepherd Center is something that is very close to my heart because of my passions that the Lord has given me for underprivileged children. When I first heard about this ministry, I was excited because I wanted to use my God-given passions in a tangible way, different than that of what I am currently doing in the states with Wayside Cross Ministries.
The first day of outreach, Friday, consisted of taking some of the boys to the local hospital to get their teeth worked on. Because these boys have no one taking care of them, hygiene and health are things that are not taken care of. I was encouraged by the sacrifice of Patrick and those volunteers from the Shepherd Center that used their time and resources to get these boys essential care for their health. It was truly an honor to work alongside these people of God, as well as, love on these boys.
The second day of working with the Shepherd Center was a day of outreach for the boys at a local Baptist church in Kabale. By the time we arrived at the church that morning, there were already close to 60 boys at the church excited for the day’s activities. The morning began with breakfast and a time of encouragement and sharing of the Gospel from Ralph and Patrick. We then were able to take the boys outside on the grass to play with a giant parachute for the younger boys and soccer with the older. I had pure joy in seeing these boys, some as young as 5 years old, able to experience a short time of relief from the life they live in and simply be kids for an afternoon. After games, the boys had lunch and received gifts (consisting of soap, Vaseline, toothbrush and toothpaste). Because of the large amounts of rain that day, the outreach unfortunately was cut short, but the boys were still able to be encouraged.
Although many of the aspects of the day were incredibly hard to process in light of the sovereignty of God, I was put at peace by the fact that these boys are able to hear the Good News of Christ. Even if these boys had been born into a rich family, without the love of Christ, they would be in a worse state than they are currently. The smiles on their faces brought tears of joy to my eyes to imagine being able to worship the Lord with them in Heaven!
As our Uganda missions team travelled into the mountains, we wove back and forth along the mountainside. We looked forward to arriving at the Kishanje campus of Juna Amagara’s ministry. The children from this school were not in session because their weeks on holiday had just begun. This meant that we were able to relationally connect with the staff and leaders of the ministry.
The first night of our stay in Kishanje began with resting and talking over tea. Tea, we have found, is a regular part of each day which happens around 7pm and pushes dinner back to around 9pm. During this time we engaged in discussions about theology and Scripture with three university students named Paul, Peter, and Michael. These discussions continued through our flashlight-lit dinner consisting of rice, beans, pasta, and g-nut sauce (purple peanut sauce). These encouragements to one another turned musical when I, David, pulled out my guitar and worship binder to begin a session of worship. We worshipped God with about 12 songs and many of the staff members and then ended in prayer. It was moving to be able to worship God with other likeminded believers from another continent.
The next day, we met Harriet, the woman who supervises the children of the school. We followed her up to the school and received a tour of the school and the sewing facilities. During this time, the university students were teaching English classes to a few students who desired to learn more, even during the holiday break. Harriet brought us to her office and asked if we had recently learned any new teaching techniques or helpful ministry tools. I saw that she had some small group discussion materials that the school had just begun using. I encouraged her that student discussion is an effective way to help students process what they are learning. I also shared that in large group teaching times, allowing students to pair up for “Pair Share” discussion allows this to happen in a large group setting.
Our discussion with Harriet continued and I was able to describe the Deep and Wide Student Ministry Strategy that we use at Village Bible Church. I explained the G.O.S.P.E.L. acronym we use as an evangelism tool (see the end of this blogpost), as well as the evangelism Cause Circle. She was thrilled about these because of how useful they are in teaching the core elements of evangelism. I am excited to follow up with her about how she can further implement these tools.
I also connected well with Paul, the university student named Paul. As our conversation continued, we began to discuss how we could use the powerful medium of video as a way to advance the kingdom of God. One of Harriet’s frustrations is that illiteracy is a hurdle that is hard to overcome, especially when trying to send homework with the children to the homes of their guardians. Paul and I realized that Scripture memory songs would be an excellent way for children to learn verses from the Bible, and to bring those verses home with them. We plan to work with existing Scripture memory songs set to video footage with the Biblical text included to present a more engaging way for students to learn the verses.
Ralph was able to spend the afternoon preaching in a midweek service held at the school for the local residents. Part of the team was also able to climb a mountain for a spectacular view of the surrounding area. These and other positive aspects made our stay in Kishanje an enjoyable part of our trip.
GOSPEL Journey® Message
God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1–2)
Our sins separate us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds. (Genesis 4–Malachi 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew–Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John)
Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever. (Acts–Revelation)
After long hours of air travel, Ralph, Theresa, Emily and I have arrived in Uganda. We arrived around 11pm in Entebbe, but one piece of lost luggage lengthened our stay at the airport until 1am. The piece of lost luggage contains ministry supplies for the ministry to street children in Kabale We were met at the airport by Godfrey, Roland, and Isaac, three ministry partners with Juna Amagara. We then all drove to the hotel in Kampala for a short night of rest. One major praise concerning our travel is that God again allowed the fee for our extra luggage to be waived by the airline. Our team had prayed that God would allow the $200 for that expense to instead be used for ministry. He saw fit to answer that prayer, so praise the Lord!
On Sunday, August 7, we were able to worship the Lord with Godfrey at his church in Kampala. We attended the second service at 9:30am, but the church holds four services of about 500 people each throughout each Sunday. We were thrilled to sing along with some of the worship songs we already knew, including, “Everyday” (Everyday, it’s You I live for; Everyday, I’ll follow after You; Everyday, I’ll walk with You, my Lord).
The sermon at the church was the first sermon in their new series on cults. Unfortunately, many churches in Uganda have begun to preach a “prosperity gospel.” In these churches, the pastors teach that God wants Christians to experience much health and wealth. The pastor in the church on Sunday wanted to show that the cost of discipleship is high and that Christians shouldn’t be in it for money or physical comfort. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (John 14:33 ESV)
After leaving the church, we travelled for 4 or 5 hours to Mbarara. Here we met up at a hotel with Lisa O’brien, Hayley Roberts, Linda Mallette, and some more friends from Juna Amagara. We all enjoyed dinner together, prayed, and then returned to our rooms to sleep. Please pray for the team to adjust well with sleep patterns, as well as for our stomachs to normalize and feel comfortable with new foods and malaria pills.
On Monday, we travelled 5 minutes to Matt and Crystal Kehn’s home in Mbarara. Lisa, Hayley, and Linda enjoyed tea with us all, and then said goodbye to the Kehns and to our team. Emily and I were able to connect with Matt and Crystal, as well as Shane and Katie, their friends from California who are finishing up a 6 month stay here in Uganda. Shane helped with the 6 month ABIDE program and has enjoyed discipling young men through that ministry venue. I really enjoyed talking with them both about discipleship strategy. I learned that almost all of the orphans and children who graduate from the children’s ministry will go through the ABIDE program and be trained to in turn make disciples of other Christians.
We are excited to begin ministry and continue to build relationships. Thanks for your prayers and support! Look for pictures soon!
Lisa, Haylely, and I just finished our 5th week in Uganda. This past week was spent in Kampala participating in a sewing party with the Uganda team: Lilian, Florance, and Lydia. It reminded us of the sewing party with the VBC women / girls as we sewed dresses for the Kishanje orphan girls the week before we left for Uganda. This time we were busy cutting, pinning, and sewing PJ’s and sports shorts for the children. Deb Mogel was a part of starting this project before we arrived and we continued on full speed.
One of the five days we were without electricity so we used our time cutting and pinning fabric. As soon as the electricity came on we worked diligently to catch up for lost time. We finished Saturday evening with nearly 100 PJ's and 50 shorts for the children. We hope to get some pictures of the children to post later in their dresses, shorts, and PJ's. God blessed us richly as we shared in sweet fellowship with the Ugandan team as we sewed together. His presence was felt each day as we prepared these gifts for the orphans. Thanks for your prayers for electricity in order that we would be able to accomplish the sewing projects. Also, prayers for our safe travels!
