Make disciples of all nations
Evangelist from all over Uganda traveled to the capital city to attend an evangelist seminar where they worshipped together and were taught on the topics of unity, integrity and the fear of God. Some of those attending were soliders, including a brigadier general, coming directly from the battlefront against the rebel leader Kony.
By JOHN BUTTERWORTH
Unity, integrity, the fear of God, marriage: Topics that could be taught anywhere on earth to the church. But in this case my wife Bev and I had the chance to teach them to pastors, evangelist and other leaders throughout East Africa. Leaving a week before Thanksgiving and returning Christmas Day, we taught in nine different cities and one island fishing village from seven different nations, as well as visiting three different Ugandan orphanages.
After arriving in Mombassa, Kenya, we added another 2,500 kilometers in vehicles and another 500 by aircraft, which enabled us to reach Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania; Juba and Yei in Southern Sudan; Arua in northern Uganda; Bujumbura, Burundi; Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Kigali, Rwanda and Kampala, Uganda: all cities where Worldwide Crusades president Bill Smith held major evangelistic outreaches in past couple years.
“This is the latest testimonies from those leaders who attended your two days seminar in Mombasa,” said Johnson Mauta in a Feb. 25 email. Mauta works alongside WWC as a Kenyan committee member. “One said ‘Your teachings were the former teachings.’ The second said, ‘These are the thing the church needed, including old and young people.’
“When I tried to ask them the meaning behind this, this is what they said. ‘We need sound doctrine in order to make the body grow. We must abide in Christ and do the word.’”
Those thoughts agree with the purpose of the trip planned by Worldwide Crusades president Bill Smith.
Evangelist Drake Kanaabo, along with his wife Josephine, introduce John and Bev Butterworth to the crowd.
“I wanted to follow up at each place where we’ve held crusades for as many as possible in order to teach the people,” says Smith. “We knew we couldn’t reach all of them, but those who were there could pick up Biblical concepts of Christian life and conduct, and how they should behave, and then they could teach others.”
Indeed, the seminars’ theme came from 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Smith recognizes that after thousands of people have surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, to leave them without at least a basic understanding of the principles of the Scriptures is to leave them with a spiritual vacuum.
“It has been said that the revival in Africa is a mile wide and an inch deep as far as teaching goes,” he said. “There are men and women serving as pastors who desperately need to know God’s principles. Many of them don’t read so they don’t know the Scriptures, they just know that something has happened to them, they know they are different. But it could be lost, just like in the parable of the sower Jesus taught.
“They have got to be cultivated and nurtured, not just left like a seed by itself. We want them to mature and do the work of evangelism themselves.”
The fruit of the work can be illustrated simply by an email from Bidaha Maombi, a WWC coordinator working in the South Kivu province of Congo DRC.
_Hey John, let me tell you the trouble you caused and left me burning; The heat started on that Saturday evening at the reception in my home. People who attended that evening spread the news of your short speech and how we dedicated the baby brought by that prostitute girl. God used that to touch many people with the true love of God.
To my shock of the year, on our way back from seeing you off, we got a phone call from the church. One of my team leaders shouting “Pastor, Pastor, where are you? What are we going to do now?”
I said “What?
He said “People, people! The church is filled up. Outside we have no space to stand, choirs, pressmen (reporters) are here! Please my pastor, come faster. Help!”
My wife advised me to use the remaining money in my pocket for the seminar to hire a taxi to the church. On our arrival to the venue, the crowd was too big, in desperate hunger and thirst of God’s word. Looking at their faces, I could not stand it, tears flew down like streams of water, I felt compassion and loved them.
They said, “Yes, Pastor, we heard what God did since last Friday night, throughout yesterday, and since most of us leave and stay far from here, we got the news of the advertisement through the radios. Please, we have decided to be here today.
One pressman said, “A pastor friend came back with his wife who had separated from her for the last eight month. They were both invited separately to the seminar unknowingly. That Saturday after they both went through all the sessions of teachings, you prayed, and that was the end of their division, they reconciled and here they are. It was awesome! When will the preacher come? Could you please be organizing this kind of seminars for us?”
With a lot of pain in my spirit I said, “Let’s pray, and it shall be provided for. With God all things are possible.”_