"all things work together ..."

Sometimes we fail to realize that the insignificant things of life may only be insignificant at the moment they occur.  Time has a way of allowing those insignificant pieces to stack up until they are no longer insignificant or small. Finally this year God has allowed me to understand just what the sum of many small things can be when they are placed into His plan at exactly the right time. The truth is that everything I have once thought I understood turns out to be much more than I could have ever imagined.

For as many years as I have been traveling to Uganda there has been an equal measure of progression toward what has become a picture perfect example of God’s sovereign grace. When our ministry first decided to take a much bolder approach to teach and train the Ugandan bush pastors some folks said it was too much too fast. During the early years of our ministry we traveled from village to village holding All Saints conferences. These conferences were open to pastors from surrounding villages, but had a curriculum structured for new believers. It did not take long to realize that these bush pastors lacked the training needed for their churches to escape the negative influences of such a severe culture. It was time to commit to these pastors and to offer them the much needed help; although, the cost would be much greater than our small ministry had experienced up to that point.

It was out of the need to teach the bush pastors that we pursued a format that would invite a new group of people to join us. From first glance this change looked pretty insignificant, but after some time it would prove to be much more than significant. One of these people was Ancelett, a pastor from Nairobi who has become a real brother from a different mother. This man who has devoted his life to biblical education has a presence that invites people to listen and a smile that would melt any heart. Ancelett is a great preacher and has started to work as a part of the American team on all of our missions. The other significant person is a Congolese pastor who was introduced to this ministry through one of the most farfetched stories ever told. In fact, this story, which I won’t go into in detail, is so unbelievable that only those who have witnessed the glory of God through supernatural events could even entertain it. Nevertheless, this Congolese pastor pursued us through our Ugandan counterpart (Pastor Simon) to come to the DR Congo. We had found yet another new hurdle to overcome as our faith was challenged through this new acquaintance. It had been very satisfying to travel to Uganda twice a year and teach bush pastors so we really did not have any reason to travel to the DR Congo and expand the ministry.

Without a clue to the far-reaching possibilities, 4 Him in Africa Ministries once again found it necessary to expand the work we were doing. This expansion meant making a decision that would cost us financially much more than we were used too. It is important to understand that every time our ministry budget increases our faith must span a much wider gap between what we have and what we need. This larger leap of faith results in God’s provision being poured out through the hearts of His people. It might have been the fact that God provided the funds needed to plan and travel to the DR Congo and train an additional 200 pastors or it could have been how our traveling partner from Nairobi was able to get us through the frequent roadblocks by speaking Swahili with a mixture of street smarts and personality but, either way it did not take long to realize that the new group of people who had crossed our path were not insignificant. On the day we crossed the border between Burundi and the DR Congo I watched as the Congolese pastor used his influence to move us through every potential obstacle as if we were invisible, while our friend from Nairobi explained the customs and dangers of the culture in a way that two Americans could understand making it look as if this had all had been in God’s plan all along.

What I am about to share is the reason for this seemingly pointless article and the reason I believe our ministry is witnessing a movement of God which will result in changing an entire country. Last October while in Uganda we visited a newly opened refugee camp near the village of Kamwenge. Our investigation uncovered some interesting facts about the camp and its residents. Each week the camp staff processes seven hundred Congolese refugees and will continue to do so until they reach the capacity of sixty thousand. These Congolese refugees are being displaced from the northern regions of the DR Congo due to the civil war happening there. How convenient that on the same trip in which we were going to the DR Congo we would find a Congolese refugee camp in a remote area of southwest Uganda. What’s more the camp was open to evangelism giving us an opportunity to start an ongoing ministry there. Could it be an accident that the people from a war torn country, which due to rebel activities and rugged jungle terrain is almost impossible to evangelize, would move to a place where we have been training pastors to do just that (evangelize). Is it even more interesting that the pastors who attended our training in the DRC were very much interested in helping with the evangelizing and disciplining of their countrymen while waiting for them to return to take their place in the churches of the DRC. Actually, there are so many tiny, insignificant pieces stacked up together in this situation that I am sure it could only have been God who orchestrated it.

So “why it is this so important” you may ask?  As I write this article, the pastors in Uganda that we have been training have rallied their churches together to do outreach at the refugee camp. The vision needed to evangelize sixty thousand people is not one that a Ugandan bush pastor would normally entertain; yet they are. The idea of people who have little to none, in the way of possessions, collecting donations of food and clothing for the Congolese at the camp is overwhelming. And if this is not exciting enough then do the math; the camp has a forty-year lease, which means that in forty years these people will return to their country. They will not be the same, this time when they go back they will be taking their new religion with them. Their religion will be Christianity and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will be its foundation. Did I mention that sixty thousand Congolese will multiply several times over in that span of time. This means that the number of Christians returning to the DRC will be so staggering that the country will have to be affected by their return. What this means is that a country that has suffered from war, abuse, and exploitation of every kind throughout its history will now be evangelized by its own people. And the Christians responsible for disciplining these new evangelists will be the Ugandan bush pastors who have been discipled by a very small ministry called 4 Him in Africa Ministries. It is not a bad plan and I wish I had thought of it, but I was too busy with the insignificant details.

I should not miss an opportunity to make a pitch for www.4HiminAfrica.com and the need for sponsorship to send the Uganda children to school. Did I mention that these children will go to our church run Christian schools?  Did you ever think that for less than a dollar a day you can send a child to a Christian school who in the next forty years will become the church who will evangelize and disciple these Congolese refugees that will be responsible for changing the heart of their country?