Preaching The Gospel

In the last few months Christian has had the opportunity to preach in many places. Every week he goes to the prison near us and preaches and teaches to over one hundred men. In the few months since he started going there fourteen men have given their lives to follow Christ. He has been able to give out close to one hundred bibles to the men there and audio bibles in their language that they can listen to. He takes razors, soap and for their literacy program we give notebooks and pens.

Last month he was able to go to Kampala and preach in a slum where there are many drug addicts and prostitutes. Raelee and I stayed at a hotel, it is hard for me to not be with him when he preaches but it is harder to sit among hundreds of people and half of them sit staring at us instead of hearing what is being preached! Even in our church services where there aren’t many people, I sit in the back and many of the people sit through the service turned around staring at me. It is uncomfortable to say the least, both because it is awkward to be stared at but also because it takes away from them hearing the word of God.

There were eight people saved at that conference. We are thankful that Christian is able to travel and preach. We feel God is calling him to preach the word not only in our community but all over Uganda. He will be speaking at a youth conference in November and has been asked to go way up north to a very poor area to preach in the future.

Right now he is preparing to teach classes to Pastors how to study their Bibles. There have been so many outside influences here, many denominations come in and the result is many people take a little from this and a little from that and then mix in the Muslim culture, while still holding on to what the witch doctors teach. There is way too much wealth and prosperity preaching. A lot of Pastors don’t even know scripture well enough to teach it. The challenge for Christian as he prepares this is finding the materials to teach from. He would like to teach them how to study with resources like concordances so that they can really get an understanding of scripture but so far we can’t even find actual study Bibles. We are praying God provides everything he needs to help these men to deepen their knowledge of the word and be able to go back to their churches and really begin to teach and disciple their congregations.

If you would like to help with Bibles and audio Bibles or contribute to the ministry as Christian travels please visit themandate.com

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20