A New Church Building for Arise Christian Fellowship!

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.“

                                            —Isaiah 60:1

This past month has been an exciting time for Arise Christian Fellowship.  For the past year and 3 months since the Church began we have been meeting on Sundays in a thatched roof structure.  While it was a very beautiful setting it was not always practical.  We could not always meet when we wanted because during the week it was a restaurant.  Also when it rained we often got wet and when it was hot it was really hot. The owners have been in the process of building a 3 story enclosed structure on the same  property just near the entrance.  They had approached us a couple of times in the past about renting it but it was just too expensive for our young church.  At the beginning of March the landlord called us again and this time said she really, really felt that we were supposed to have the top floor for our church and was willing to give it to us for half price.  We talked with the leadership and all felt that this was definitely from the Lord.

We had our first service on Palm Sunday…

We had our first service on Palm Sunday.  It was so exciting as everyone was coming in and looking around and commenting on having a “real church” or “real home”.  We were blessed to have Wes Bentley there for our first service.  He was able to encourage the church as well as exhort them in their personal relationships with Christ.  He spoke of how we all have the responsibility to share the gospel and asked each of them to share with at least one person that week and invite them to church.

Palm Sunday

Wes sharing.

 …their own Sunday School room!

Sunday School

One of the other blessings of having an entire floor for our church is that the children are able to have their own Sunday School room.  The children were just as excited as the adults to come in and find their own space with mats to sit on and tables to color at.

Immediately following the Palm Sunday service, we had a Baptism and family fun day for the church.  Where we rent from has a restaurant and pool.  We had decided that to celebrate our new building we should do something all together as a church.  1st we baptized the new believers as well as some who had put their faith in Christ long ago but had never been baptized. Afterwards, we swam, played Frisbee and soccer as well as ate lunch together.  It was really a sweet time of fellowship.  It allowed us time to talk and get to know one another better as a church family.  God also used it as an out reach as many people showed up to use the pool and eat at the restaurant who were not from our church. We are really thankful for this ministry and all what the Lord has allowed us to be a part of.

Apologetics

The Thursday after the family fun day we had Simon Woodstock, a guest speaker from  CC Bible College in California,  host a night of Apologetics.  We had about 50 people from around 5 different churches show up to learn more about the topic as well as to ask questions.  It was such a learning experience for me to hear the questions and difficulties people had with the Bible or sharing their faith.  It really could have gone on all night. One person had come with 2 sides of a notebook page filled with questions.  We are praying that in the future we could do this again.

Thank you for praying for our family and for the  ministry in Uganda!

In Him,

                          Brian, Jill,

                          Luke, Laylee,

                          and  Liana

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Praise the Lord for providing a building for Arise Christian Fellowship.

• Praise the Lord that Jill seems to be fully recovered for her lengthy illness.

• Pray for Jill as she is hosting a Women’s retreat in May and needs to find an affordable location.

• Pray for basket ball out reach planned this month at a local university.

• Pray for those who attended the apologetics night that they would continue to grow in their knowledge of God’s word and in sharing their faith.

• Pray for the weekly market outreach that may more would come to know you.

• Continue to Pray that we would truly “Arise and Shine” the light of Christ in this dark place.

• Pray for Brian as pastors and leads our ministry team at Arise Christian Fellowship. Pray for all the ministries and leaders.

• Please prayerfully consider becoming part of the Kanyike Family support team.