From July 14 -24 a Texas team headed to Central Uganda to work with two different denominations, whose prayerful vision was to each plant a new church. We thank the Baptist churches in central Uganda and Ggaba Community church for their partnership together in planting the two new mission churches in Mutungo (in the Kanjansi area) and Gangu. God did amazing things during the week in our team and through our team. I want to thank all the team members that came and gave of their hearts and souls in sharing the good news of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The American team was made up of 16 members from six different churches. We especially appreciate our partnership with Austin Ridge Community Church in Austin, Texas for their key role in the campaign. It was a pleasure to work alongside each and every one of them, and their worship pastor, Don Ellsworth. God stretched us all. Because of the great leadership on the team, I was able to spend several days on both sites with the total team. The week started as soon as we arrived on Saturday and never seemed to slow down until we left. On Saturday, we met our translators and Ugandan team members and caught the “overall” vision for the week. Sunday was packed with two church services, leading 10 different Sunday classes, and training 80 Life Group leaders from Ggaba Community church with the “Evangecube” and the “I Am Second” discipleship materials. Our special thanks to the Ggaba discipleship pastor, Eric Byamugisha, for his work (among many others) that put framework to the week. I also want to thank Ggaba pastor and evangelist, Jonathan Kabanda, for his fine work in coordinating the Ggaba evangelism team. It was wonderful to see the partnership in the gospel between the host churches in spreading the gospel.
The week had several highlights for me. Let me share just one that impacted me from each of the sites. At Mutungo, we were working to plant “Rivers of Joy” Baptist Church. Amazing to me was that my translator, Stephen, came from the local Pentecostal church. There was a partnership in the area, with a desire that each and every person in the area would hear the good news of Christ. During the week I saw Stephen grow greatly as we witnessed dozens of individuals trust Christ as Savior. By day two, we picked up a “disciple” (whose name was also Stephen), who learned rapidly to share his faith and to disciple others. We were blessed to have dozens of discipleship visits and to personally launch three discipleship groups in homes using the “I am Second” materials. In fact, the Mutongo team saw 19 such groups start in that community during the 153 discipleship visits with the new believers, helping to give ongoing growth to the 163 new believers in that community. Some of those groups started in homes, in schools, and even in a bar named “Hell”. The next few days I worked with my translator, Prossy, and evangelist Jonathan on the Gangu site. One highlight was meeting five boys walking home from school, the first day. After sharing Christ with them, they all trusted Christ as Savior. One of them, named Alex, spent the rest of the day with us, learning how to share his new faith with many in the community. On the Gangu site we witnessed to 317 in their homes and on the street, just like Alex. We also were blessed to have the openness to share with 450 in schools and over 200 through Jonathan’s film evangelism at night. (We showed the “Jesus film for children” one night and “The Passion of Christ” the other.) Through the week we witnessed 139 in Gangu place their faith in Jesus. It was a joy to see the gospel spread through these two communities during the week and to see two new churches rise up in those communities.
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