MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-10-2024

Good morning! I reckon it’s time for another update.

As you can see if you’ve been to the website, the new building at IBC of Kabazana is taking shape. Thank you so much, those of you who contributed to help with this project! Our engineer, Crispus, and many of the Kabazana church people are building the new sanctuary, the gate, the latrine, the water tank, and the baptistry, and constructing furniture.

The believers at our Kabazana Baptist church are so excited and grateful for all God is doing there! Plus, it’s drawing new folks to the church, where we can minister to them. It is a blessing and a comfort to the whole community.

We still need to refurbish the old building so we can use it for a much-needed Sunday School room. We need to repair the cement work, the walls, the floors, the roof, and paint the whole thing to make it as nice as the new structure. The church people have kept the building up as best they can with their limited resources, but it is 10 years old and looking its age. These repairs will cost about $3500. Please pray about helping put the last touches on this project.

I have some bad news. After much agonizing prayer and deliberation, my national pastor, Zizi, and I decided the church at Isanja needed to close. As you may remember from previous updates, this church has been struggling with doctrine off and on for some time.

The leadership has required multiple bouts of discipline. We have dealt with corruption, fraud, divisions, and slander among the church leaders. I have labored with these people for 10 years, trying to teach them and lead them, to no avail. Sadly, enough people in the church behave like Pentecostals whenever I’m not around, they appear to be a Pentecostal gathering. In Uganda, the Pentecostals pay unqualified people to be “pastors”. When I learned the leadership at Isanja have been allowing Pentecostal ministers to preach in the church, and to officiate a wedding next to the church property, I knew something drastic must be done. They only offered excuses when we addressed the problem.

I have invited the faithful members from Isanja, who do not support the move to become Pentecostal, to come and worship with us at Ngarama Baptist church, the closest of our other churches to them. We have not abandoned these believers. Please pray that God will be glorified in this. Please pray that the scorners will be judged so that the simple will beware.

God’s hand is still clearly on the ministries in Nakivale Refugee Camp. In the past two weeks, I baptized 22 people from Kabazana, Ngarama, and Sangano. Many others have visited. More than 3,000 new refugees have arrived near Ngarama from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our church people there are burdened to reach these people. Every week since they arrived we’ve had visitors at church. We look forward to seeing what God is going to do in the lives of these people!