“Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom 15:5-6
We were blessed beyond words during our time with you in the United States, and now we are blessed to be back home in Uganda. We spent our last days in the U.S. meeting with many of you and speaking at events. Our prayer is that God will unite our hearts and voices together in prayer for our lost and dying world. May the Spirit of God bring revival both here and there to the glory of His own name, and may we each be obedient to do His will at the expense of our own.
We thought it best to use this opportunity to remind some of you, and inform others of you for the first time, what exactly it is that we are a part of over here. We live among the Acholi people in Northern Uganda. Here we work with Terebinth Ministries, a mission from Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel, of Colorado Springs. Terebinth exists to bring health to the Ugandan Church. We do this through a Pastoral School of Discipleship, a Business As Mission, and a Widows Ministry.
According to BEE World (Biblical Extension Education), fewer than 9 out of 1,000 pastors in the country of Uganda have formal Biblical training. And according to the Baptist Coalition, only 4% of self-proclaimed born again people can answer the question “what does it mean to be born again.” Therefore, despite Uganda being a Christian nation, there is much work to be done here, especially in the North where Joseph Kony’s LRA wreaked havoc for 3 decades.
The Terebinth School of Discipleship is our flagship mission. Here we train pastors through the whole of Gods’ word, teaching them to interpret Scripture with Scripture. The pastors and church leaders come to our church, Calvary Chapel Gulu, on a Sunday evening and spend the entire week studying with us. In the course of the week they study through one or two books of the Bible (depending on the length of the book) and before leaving on Saturday, they take a test proving their understanding of what they learned. At the end of three years they read through the whole bible twice and become familiar with all that God has said.
The Pastoral School is made possible because of the hard work done at our second mission, BAM (Business As Mission) Enterprises. Given the poverty of our area, it would be infeasible for these men to spend a quarter of their lives for three years in school and cover the cost of their own schooling, on top of their family expenses other responsibilities. The funds that we raise from BAM bridge that gap. BAM is a large scale farming operation that mostly deals in poultry and the buying and selling of grain. The operation revolves around 4,000+ chickens and a variety of milling machines. We buy grains and sell the milled products while using the by-products to feed our birds. Our prayer is that with time BAM becomes the financial engine for our ministry.
Our Widow’s ministry is where the left and right arms of the Pastoral School and BAM come together to care for “the least of these.” We currently work with six of our graduated pastors in an effort to bless the widows that surround their churches. They pastor has committee’s that meet with their corresponding widows once a week for group discipleship, and once a month they are provided with a food package and a business package from BAM. In this way, God is providing 160 widows and 500 fatherless children with discipleship, community, food and business.
