WWC goes fishing in abundant waters
Journey to Muslim neighborhoods in Uganda and Kenya yields great harvest of souls for Christ Jesus
In the midst of Muslim mosques, men, women and children answer the call to surrender their lives to the lordship of Christ.
By JOHN BUTTERWORTH
“A good fisherman knows where the fish are,” Ugandan evangelist Drake Kanaabo likes to recite. That mentality landed Worldwide Crusades evangelist Bill Smith, Kanaabo, and a team of pastors and leaders in the midst of Muslim enclaves near the capital cities of Uganda and Kenya during the Christmas holiday.
Smith was joined by his wife Judy and another member of the Alsea Christian Fellowship for two weeks of evangelistic outreach and visiting orphanages supported by Worldwide Crusades. They were also joined by preachers from South Africa, Zambia, Swaziland and Malawi.
“We were preaching next to a mosque, sort of in the middle of three mosques really, and the crowd was very heavily Muslim,” Smith said of his time preaching Uganda. “We were well received, and the people were hungry for the gospel. We had no opposition, no problems.”
Smith said he saw the crowd as being so many people hungry for the truth and looking for reality.
“That makes them no different than us. For the life of me I can’t understand why more people don’t get out there and try to reach them for Christ,” he exclaimed.
The Ugandan evangelistic outreach was held in Mayuge, a city about 55 miles from the capital city Kampala, and Smith estimates 20,000 people live in and around the city. One significant thing he noticed was that when the event started each day during the daylight hours, the crowd ran at about 3,000 people. But with nightfall, more and more people would slip into the back of the crowd, possibly as many as another 2,000 people.
“You could see them silhouetted against the dark sky, some of them on top of buildings, and against the boundaries of the crusade area,” Smith says. “That’s when the Muslims would come out. Some would be dancing to the music, and they’d be listening to the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The event drew attention from the Ugandan Government as well. The president of the nation sent his personal representative to greet the team and to encourage them to keep doing what Worldwide Crusades is doing in Uganda. He also asked the event leaders to pray for peace in a situation that has the potential for violence. In some areas of the nation’s forests, squatters have taken possession of the land, and leaders have decided it is time for them to be evicted from the land.
When asked to reflect on highlights of his time in Mayuge, two incidents stand out in his mind.
“We had an altar call for kids,” he said. “That’s not done too often in Africa, kids are sort of an afterthought.
“But when we asked the kids if they wanted to receive Christ as their savior, hundreds of them came forward. The people traveling with us from other African nations were fascinated by it.”
The second highlight for Smith came from an elderly blind woman who received her sight again after being prayed for by Smith and Kanaabo.
“She looked like she was 90 years old, but she never stopped dancing for half an hour. She was singing with the soldiers, and her excitement was reflected in the crowd,” Smith recalls. “I remember the smiles on soldiers faces. The crowd loved it and got very excited.”
In a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, the church remains fairly small, according to Smith. But the hunger and thirst for the things of God produced much fruit in the midst of the situation.
“The guys from the other nations held afternoon teaching sessions,” Smith reports. “A real spirit of revival broke out there, they say, with as many as 100 people at a time being filled with the Holy Spirit. There were spiritually hungry people in church all day.”
Smith’s message to the crowd the first night centered on the theme “Let my people go.” As God had commanded Moses to tell the Pharaoh of Egypt, Smith’s message to the people of Mayuge was that God wanted to set them free from sin and free from the bondages of the world and religion.
“The brothers traveling with us were shocked at what I preached because even though I didn’t know it, they had been talking about how they believed God wanted to set these people free,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of witchcraft also in that region, so it was very appropriate, and they saw a lot of really good deliverance. We started out hitting the devil right between the eyes. He lost a lot of demons on that deal.”
Another night he preached on the end times, showing how that with all the technology available today, the fulfillment of all end-time prophecy could easily be seen.
“I told them, get ready to fly,” he said with a laugh.
ORPHANAGES
Native American meets native Africans. Billy Shadwick, a member of Alsea Christian Fellowship, traveled with Bill Smith to Uganda and Kenya and said he was blessed to meet so many of the children at WWC sponsored orphanages.
After the outreach in Mayuge, the team spent time visiting three orphanages supported by Worldwide Crusades.
“The kids all seem happy, and all of our students who took the two-day exams to advance in schooling passed,” said Smith. “That was very good and very unusual. It shows they’re getting taught, and I was pleased with that.
While Worldwide Crusades strives to make sure the more than 600 children and “nannies” are fed and otherwise taken care of, other projects periodically arise. For the orphanage on an island in Lake Victoria run by Kanaabo, water has become a critical issue. Depending on the seasonal rains, the orphanage has been able to grow some of its own rice and fruit. Now with the purchase of a pump and some pipes, water will be pumped from the lake to a tank on a hill, which will allow a gravity system to deliver water for the rice and pineapples, as well as supplying water to a filtrations system to allow children and staff to drink good water.
At a second orphanage located outside Kampala, Pastor Steven Bwesige and the children have been rejoicing in God and how He has provided for them. Last year during an evangelistic outreach in northern Uganda, a teacher committed himself to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. That man now teaches the orphans in Bwesige’s orphanage.
“He was a Muslim teacher, and now he’s happy as can be teaching in Steven’s orphanage where he can see lasting results,” said Smith. “They are very excited about it.”
In a suburb of Kampala, Pastor Joshua Murefu rejoices that he was able to keep his orphanage open. Ugandan officials had created more stringent requirements for orphanage schools, including the need for doors and windows for every room. That is now done on his three-story school, and now a new church building is underway.
“There’s been a lot of progress there,” said Smith. “Their biggest need there is water.”
KENYA
In a Muslim area of Mombassa, Kenya, crowds gathered to hear gospel music and the preaching of the Word of God during December’s WWC evangelistic outreach. Many committed themselves to serve the Lord Jesus Christ through this outreach effort.
Just as in Uganda, Smith grew more impressed with how the pastors came together and worked to advance the kingdom of Christ. “On the last night they were on the grounds praying for anyone they could find. The tent where they were supposed to wait for people to come to them was empty of pastors, they were out praying for the people.”
Getting to that point came despite the difficulties to hold a second crusade in the midst of a Muslim enclave.
“To get there we had to wind through back streets, dirt tracks, business, and there it was right alongside a mosque. When they started their call to prayer, they got real loud, but I think we were louder,” Smith said with a smile. “Just like in Uganda, once it got dark, the crowd would double. You could see them back against the walls and on the roofs.
“We saw some of them dancing to the music. I think a lot of Muslims got converted there.”
Despite seeing crowds gather each night to hear the preaching of the gospel by Smith, one young girls stands out in Smith’s mind. The girl was about 12 or 13 years old, he says, and she had been standing on the edge of the crowd wanting prayer. When Smith finally had the opportunity to talk with her, he was astounded by her words.
“I’m all alone and nobody loves me,” she said.
Smith learned the girl dressed in ragged clothes had been ordered out of the home where her father and stepmother lived. They did not want her in their home, and she had nowhere to go.
“She was very broken about it. I told her that Jesus loved her, and I loved her and cared for her,” Smith recalls. “Tears were running down her face. I wanted to bring her home. I hated to leave her behind.”
Recalling her beautiful smile and the way she expressed herself, Smith recalls giving her some money because she wanted to go to school.
“I don’t hand out money often is situations like that, but that girl had something,” Smith concluded.