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My recent trip to East Africa was one of the busiest and most varied trips I have ever done in Africa. Much of this trip revolved around our schools of ministry. I went to officiate in the graduation ceremony of our first school, which we started in Webuye, and later went on to Uganda where we established two more of these schools. Our Spirit of Grace Schools of ministry were begun in response to an urgent need I discovered as I began to get to know the church in Africa. I soon learned that in many if not most areas of Africa, the majority of pastors have had no formal or systematic program of training or education in the word of God. This was confirmed to me once when I met with two African pastors, one from Kenya and one from Uganda. Between these two men, they were associated with around 100 churches from their areas. I asked them, “Of these one hundred pastors you are acquainted with, how many of them have been to Bible College or seminary?” At most they could only think of one or two. If an African man gets saved and has an ability to speak and a little charisma, he often ends up gathering some believers around him and a church is begun. And while these men are usually very sincere in their faith, and often give themselves to much prayer, they have little knowledge of the Bible or understanding of the Biblical principles of effective ministry. Their sermons are often very high in inspiration but very low in information. They simply don’t have enough knowledge of the word themselves to be able to teach their people the Bible. And this is the great weakness of much of the African church. African believers are often very strong in prayer and very committed to the Lord and His church, but very weak in their knowledge of the word. As a result many strange doctrines are taught and believers are not as stable as they should be. This is one of the reasons that I hold conferences for pastors and feel such a burden for them. I believe God has called Spirit of Grace Ministries to bless His servants and to give them tools to help equip them for the work God has called them to do.
There was a lot of excitement in Webuye as
we held our graduation service. The graduating class was not large; we had
planned on training 35 students in this first program. With natural
attrition
There were a couple of exciting testimonies among the graduates. One young woman got so excited about the books she was reading she began having Bible studies in her village based on the truths she was discovering. Several of her neighbors and members of her family came to Christ, and she now pastors a small home church. Another woman, this one around fifty years old, had nearly the same experience, and began to see numerous healings as she prayed for the sick in her community.
After the ministry in Webuye, we took a van
to the city of Kumi in Uganda. I ministered there once The believers in Kumi were so enthusiastic about this new school of ministry. Pastor Benjamin was confident there would be far more applicants than the school would be able to accept. The town of Kumi is small and isolated, and most of the believers here could never dream of going to Bible school of getting any kind of systematic Bible training, other than the sermons they hear in church. Pastor Timothy Cost, a man who had interpreted for me in Kampala the last time I was in Uganda came to the meeting to receive school of ministry books and mp3 players to take to his city where he will be establishing a school there. He also is a sharp young pastor and is very keen on providing this training for the believers in Kampala.
While in Kumi we also held a leadership
conference and of course I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have an
evangelistic crusade. Though Kumi is not large, the last time I was there we
saw attendance at the outdoor meetings that exceeded what we might have
expected, and this time
In Kumi my wife, Benedicta ministered in a special ladies meeting where the Lord touched many. Like many African meetings, the service started out small but by the end there were nearly 300 ladies present. There was a tremendous response to her invitation to come forward for prayer for needs.
These last six months have been difficult
for all of us, and that includes this ministry. We have had to make some
adjustments to try to deal with the economic realities of our present
national financial crisis. In some ways this last trip I am describing is
quite a miracle. A couple months before the trip, our ministry felt like a
dry parched land desperately in need of water. It looked like we could
hardly pay our regular bills, let alone take a major trip to Africa. And
then God opened the windows of heaven and sent the rain, and this trip I
have been describing is the result. Thank you for your support of Spirit of Grace Ministries. All that we are doing in Africa and India, the evangelistic crusades, the schools of ministry, the leadership conferences, and the women’s meetings, along with the teaching resources we provide for American believers through print and audio -- all are done on a shoestring budget. We do this not so much because we are trying to be conservative, but because it is the only way we can do them. We appreciate your interest in SOGM, and hope that you will pray about becoming a regular supporter of the ministry. There is presently a great spiritual harvest going on in the world today, but most of it is outside the United States. With your help we want to do our part in working in our Lord’s harvest fields. Thanks for caring! -- For more information about supporting SOGM click here. -- To watch a music video containing scenes from the Webuye / Kumi mission, click here.
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was
no different In this small town of perhaps 15,000 people we saw crowds of
between three and five thousand nightly at the meetings. And each night the
front area was filled with men and women and boys and girls wanting to
receive Jesus as their Savior. 