For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. – Ephesians 2:8-9
Kenya Mombasa West Mission – 2 – 12 June – 382,880 – heard the Gospel – 20,492 saved by grace.
Rwanda Rwamagana Mission – 18 – 24 July – 60,251 – heard the Gospel – 4,815 saved by grace.
Uganda Festo Kivengere Mission, 24 – 31 July, happening now.
What a joyous moment it is when someone gives their life to Christ, when someone decides to follow Jesus. After a mission, I tend to stare at the numbers for a bit and just say thank you to Jesus for His grace, compassion, forgiveness and salvation. Each one of those numbers is a person like you and me. Long before our missioners reached the people from the stories below, God was there. Preparing their hearts and making sure they were on the right place at the right time where they could respond to the Gospel. All by the grace of God.
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. – Luke 15:7
Stories from the mission field:
Kenya
Located in a quarry area in Likoni, Ebenezer Worship Centre church sits in a unique raised place. Construction in the area was supplied by stones extracted from a quarry area which is now dormant. Settlements have now been set up in the area and Ebenezer Worship Center, led by Pastor Naomi Furaha, is their worship center. The fellowship has unique neighbors, drug addicts. The addicts spend their days in a cave situated just below the church – a cave formed due to the former quarry activity. Pastor Naomi, who is also part of the Likoni Pastors Fellowship, invited them for a hot cup of tea and a snack. Together with missioners at the Reach Mombasa and Diani Mission, they managed to feed 38 addicts – feeding them with the Word as well. Many of the addicts admitted that they were interested in a new life but the bondage has kept them there. The missioners led them in prayers with 12 giving their lives to Christ. Having their church as “their home”, they were receptive of the idea to go to church and Pastor Naomi mentioned that she will remain dedicated to reach out to them. With the church above and drug den below, the positioning seems as if holiness sits above while evil lingers below. What is unique is that those below are looking up – looking up to a new life in Christ. We pray that these addicts will be freed of their bondage and that through them, many will get to turn to Christ.
Rwanda
This is a new convert with joy – Niyomungeri i Emmanuel. He is 31 years and a father of 2 kids.
“I went through life’s challenges in my family at the extent of stopping my studies. This made me feel hopeless in life. Because of this kind of life, I took a decision of engaging in drug abuse leading to me being addicted by them. In the midst of this kind of life, I got married but my marriage was not successful at all just because of my bad behaviours. I ended up in divorce and I remained hopeless and vulnerable. But today, when the preacher was sharing his testimony about his journey of salvation, my heart was convicted that I have to repent and be saved and turn to my creator. After hearing the gospel, I have a plan of joining the local church so that I may continue growing in Christ. I want to bring back my lovely wife because she was innocent; I believe that she will respond positively to my repentant request.”
Uganda
During School Ministry at the Bishop Festo Kivengere Girls School, the school was filled with angelic voices singing spirit filled praise and worship. The students were dancing and surrendering their lives to Christ. The Holy Spirit was ever present and many of the students testified to the Glory of God.
At Trinity College, the young students were thirsty for the word of God. Ministering to them, Oscar Sabit encouraged the students to remain focused on the right path referencing his teachings from 1 Peter 1:24-25. By the end of his sermon, several students gave their lives to Christ.
Thank you our beloved supporter, for your prayers that carry our missioners through every day, thank you for praying for our missions and for every new believer. Continue to pray with us for the upcoming missions in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia. Pray for every new believer, that they will be connected to a church where they can learn and grow in their faith.
The Student Discipleship Program run by AEE Ethiopia is a forward-looking spiritual investment on the next generation. The objective of the program is “Building the Church of Tomorrow, Today”. It primarily focuses on the next-generation, Christian students of grade 5 and upwards to high school and university. It is a Bible teaching undertaking, an age-graded; curriculum-based with seven rounds of training.
The discipleship program started by enrolling 794 students in 9 cities in 2003. Currently, it reaches more than 20,000 students in 100+ cities all over Ethiopia each year. The program is done in partnership with the local church.
Program impact over the years has shown that the youth now:
- have a better grasp of the Christian faith
- are more equipped to read and study the Bible.
- encouraged to share the faith with their peers in schools
- come to their local church services more regularly.
- the teachings had helped them overcome challenges and temptations the youth are facing.
- the program is fostering unity among churches
For 2022, the plan is to enroll 20,000 students in 100+ cities. Accordingly 50,000 textbooks have been made ready for the school holidays (July & August).
Testimony
Nazrawit was a student in the Discipleship program as a senior high school student in 2007 & 2008.
She says “I grew up in a Christian family and had a general orientation to Christianity. But I did not have a personal relationship with God and was not used to reading the Bible on my own.
I am so happy that I was able to pass through the Discipleship Program. The courses were very basic and very helpful. I have learned how to read the Bible and have personal quiet time. I have also benefited from the Christian fellowship among students and teachers. As I was in my formative years it has helped me to get prepared for life’s realities.
After high school, I did 2 doctorates; a doctorate in vet medicine and a doctorate in human medicine.
I am one of those who have greatly benefited from the program and now have volunteered to teach students, whenever I have the time. I wish the program could expand extensively and reaches more youth.
Ministry Update – March 2022
Thanks to your ongoing support, our AE teams have enjoyed some wonderful success in our outreach programs across Africa. By the grace of God, our Togo farming project has begun, with participants preparing the land ready for seed planting. They are also being educated on the correct way to grow vegetables for sustainability.
In Kenya, the local church leaders are helping to train up missionaries to reach even more people with the good news of Jesus. The Foxfire program has also had great success, with high schools now participating in forums to expand and continue the harvest. One young student, Boaz, says that he ‘feels strengthened to keep pure and serve God and His people.’
Our sewing school in Malawi has seen many graduates become trained in tailoring and professional dressmaking. These skills enable people to generate an income to meet their basic needs, and some have even gone on to open their own businesses.
The Hope for Girls Project will also soon launch in Malawi, with the aim of providing essential re-useable sanitary products to young girls aged 10 and over. This will be incorporated into the needlework program to ensure the sustainability of the program.
AE Ethiopia continues integrating new believers from the Kotebe mission into the mainstream church. New believer Gelan Megersa says she was met by someone on the street who told her about Jesus. “I was convinced and became a believer, and have been attending discipleship classes for the past 3 months. I have seen such a transformation in my life.”
In Uganda, the Omoo Youth Skilling and Production Centre has been training young people to bake cakes, mandazi, samosas, chapatis and buns to sell to the local market. They were able to raise more than 200,000 Uganda Shillings (approximately AUD 73.74) through the sale of their products.
Once again, AE has been able to outreach successfully in South Africa. In partnership with other ministries, we have been able to bring food relief to those who continue to suffer from unemployment, the ravages of the pandemic and the aftermath of recent unrest.
One recipient said that she had been praying for God’s intervention after both her mother and sister succumbed to COVID leaving her with the responsibility of caring for her brothers, all of whom are unemployed. Her response to our outreach was, “I feel I have hope now.”
Your prayers and support are invaluable to AE, and we give thanks to God for enabling us to bring some relief and minister to communities in desperate need. Please continue to pray with us that those whose hearts are moved by the Holy Spirit may grow in their journey of faith and be a witness to others.
Thank you for your prayers for our upcoming PAN-African Mission and 60th celebrations. Mission leader Lutangu Lubasi says that in his 40 years as a Christian, he’s never seen the churches mobilise like this in Lusaka. Over 300 churches are outreaching to some 300,000 people, and Lutangu is hoping to train 2400 missionaries from Lusaka itself and a further 600 from surrounding areas.
The fact that AE is celebrating its 60th anniversary has helped raise awareness for the Lusaka mission. This is a unique opportunity, and one that the Southern Africa region is very excited about. The team will be using stratified evangelism and seeking to reach people in a celebratory manner.
For the 60th Anniversary, we will have 60 days of prayer, using the word GOSPEL, we will take 60 days of prayer to celebrate 60 years of evangelism. Each letter represents 10 days of the mission.
G – Gratitude (Thanksgiving)
O – Open Heavens (Prayer/Intercession)
S – Social Action (Love in Action)
P – Proclamation (Citywide Mission)
E – Empowerment (Mentoring)
L – Loving New Believers (Discipleship)
The team has also been working on getting denominational leaders and people from senior levels of government involved. “We had a meeting for the top leaders of denominations, and it was just so exciting to see how these men of God came together,” says Lutangu. “Bishop Joe Imakando will be hosting the Lusaka mission, and he pledged $5,500 US dollars to help.”
Lutangu also believes that COVID has presented an opportunity to reach the lost, because people are asking very difficult questions about eternity. But AE also saw an opportunity to bring the whole church in the region of Zambia together.
One of the highlights of the mission is the upcoming National Prayer Breakfast, to which the President of Zambia and the President of Malawi have been invited. “We’ll be meeting these presidents to put our cares to them,” says Lutangu. “We are very excited to see what is unfolding.”
It’s our faithful AE supporters making it possible for us to engage with the people of Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The idea is to reach over a million people in the next five years, and this pan-African mission goes a long way towards involving leaders all across the country.
“It’s a perfect opportunity for me to just thank those that have been standing behind us and supporting us,” says Lutangu. “I feel very touched because we have not had an office in Zambia in the last fifty-nine years.”
“Like the Bible says, when we unite we can do so much more.”
The Lausanne Covenant, certainly one of the great faith statements in the whole history of the Church, was the outcome of the first congress on World Evangelisation in Lausanne in 1974. It was a Covenant entered into by over 3000 evangelical leaders from around the world. It also became enshrined in the constitution of AE International and all its teams as the key faith statement of this ministry.
The Covenant was basically the work of John Stott, but John put his first second and third versions to the whole congress for review, correction, subtraction, and addition, etc. So several thousand minds were in fact applied to John’s basic statement.
This makes it an extraordinary and highly historic document and maybe the most comprehensive faith statement in the history of the Christian Church.
From AE’s point of view the most key clauses are no.4 on The Nature of Evangelism and no.5 on Christian Social Responsibility. Everyone in our teams should know and understand these two clauses which first of all make it clear what evangelism is and what it is not. And secondly how Social Responsibility and Compassionate Action fit together with the evangelistic enterprise as two complementary wings of the same bird. In order to fly the bird must have both wings working properly. It was this bringing together of Evangelism and Social Action which emerged as perhaps the most distinctive theological contribution of the Lausanne movement to the World Church.
Read the Lausanne Covenant here
We are so excited to share an update with you about our Pastors Training Course (PTC) that is currently running in Kenya. It is such a privilege to partner with you in this ministry. You are helping empower students to influence the transformation of the church in Africa.
Alice Auma is a young teenager from Nairobi, who recently completed her PTC. She loved learning about the Old and New Testament, and the process allowed her to reflect deeply on how the laws of the Bible could be applied to her own life.
The lessons from the Old Testament stories of the Israelites being rescued from Egypt helped strengthen Alice’s faith to wait on God’s perfect timing. The New Testament helped her to understand the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for all of us in dying on the cross for our sins.
“I have learnt how to spread the gospel to people of all different backgrounds,” says Alice. “And I also know how to interpret scripture and to distinguish between true and false prophets. I have really benefited from this course, and I thank Almighty God for allowing me to participate. It has changed me as a person.”
Jeff Wafula is a student at Mt Kenya University, and says that completing his PTC was the best thing that happened to him in 2021. The course content and teachings have transformed his life.
Going through the Bible so thoroughly has helped Jeff to equip himself with knowledge and a better understanding of Biblical principles. It shaped the way he viewed the scriptures, and brought him into a closer relationship with God.
“Since doing PTC, I can handle many different situations and people,” Jeff says. “Through the Bible teachings, I have understood the word better, and am able to share with people whenever I get the chance.”
AE is looking forward to teaching more PTC courses, and equipping students just like Alice and Jeff to become church leaders and proclaim the good news of the Gospel throughout Africa.
