COVID-19 shook pastoral ministry in Rwanda following frequent lockdowns and different restrictions that limited religious gatherings and fellowships. During this time of the uncertainty and ambiguity, Pastor Deogratias Rwabuyonza was privileged to undergo training on Home Based Evangelism (HBE) facilitated by AE- Rwanda. He recounts that it was a great time to figure out the new way of continuing the ministry in new environment and circumstances.
After the training, Pastor Deogratias, 55, decided to do ministry in his family – with his wife and 6 children. This was a dynamic transition for the pastor who serves with Pentecostal Assemblies of God, Rwanda.
“I have been in ministry for the last 25 years. I have been an interdenominational pastor as a coordinator of local churches in Kabarondo for 15 years now,” he says.
In the family ministry, Pastor Deogratias used to have fellowships on daily basis at home with his wife and children.
“We enjoyed moments of fellowship together as a family, where we used to have time for the word, sharing testimonies, thanksgiving and we got time of open confession to each other. My wife and I as parents were free and open to our children and they were open to us. We experienced brokenness in our midst,” the pastor said.
The family took time to build each other by encouraging each one to keep up on the areas they were doing well and also highlighting areas that each one needed to improve in. They came up with a plan of evaluating every one’s development; and the outcome of the family fellowship was confessing to and forgiving each other.
In the fellowship, the members of the family used to give offerings for helping the needy outside the family. The family also decided to do evangelism through humanitarian activities.
“We managed to help 6 children who were underserved and 2 of them came to faith in Jesus Christ. The 6 are still coming to our church and we are trusting God, the other 4 will come to the faith as well,” Deogratias recounted.
As the pastor, Deogratias continually helped the 6 children by buying them books, paying money for shaving their hair, hosting them at his home and sharing meals. The family is now looking forward to do hospital ministry where they will cook food for the needy patients and pay medical insurance for the poor.
“In the spirit of Home Based Evangelism, I have tried to reach 3 street children, where I give emotional care by bringing them home to share meals. My target is to bring them back to their homes so that they can be helped to continue with their studies,”
Pastor Deogratias remarked.
The Mombasa West Mission in Kenya is the first one to be conducted in the year 2021. The mission is scheduled for 1st to 11th July. The mobilization of missioners and preservation facilitators took place in the month of May. The AEE Kenya team intends to host 300 visiting missioners in 9 zones. The rest of the missioners will come from within Mombasa. This month, there has been a series of continued mobilization and trainings.
The Kayonza Mission in Rwanda was scheduled for 20th – 27th June but following the Volcanic eruption in the neighboring DRC, the mission was postponed to 15th – 22nd August. Preparations for the same are ongoing. At least 127 homes are targeted to be trained to conduct Home Based Evangelism (HBE). Though this is an ongoing activity, 42 households were reached in May this year using HBE and 9 people accepted to follow Christ.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), preparations for the Mont-Amba Mission, which is set for 16th to 24th October, are ongoing. Mont-Amba is located South East Kinshasa in DRC. AE DRC Team conducted School of evangelism in the targeted location of the Matete, Ngaba, Kisenso and Lemba districts and a total of 276 participants from 99 local churches were trained. Currently, the team is mobilizing for prayer and funds for the mission. Earlier, 19 different local churches were equipped for further church members’ mobilization in the target area.
AEE Tanzania is set to have its mission between 22nd and 29th August in the capital city, Dar es Salaam. The team has been meeting the Pastors, equipping them through trainings towards the mission and conducting prayer for the 2021 Mission. Mobilization of evangelists and partners to participate in Dar Back-to-God Mission has as well been ongoing. In the month of May, a group of intercessors from different Churches gathered to purposely pray for the mission preparation and all programs at AEE-Tanzania.
In September, AE Uganda will have a mission in Jinja from 19th to 26th. The AE Team conducted a Vision Casting seminar for the mission where 52 leaders from Jinja City attended. This meeting brought together both the Anglican church leaders and Pentecostal church leaders in one house for the same purpose bridging the gap and dealing with misunderstandings that have always been there. Mobilization teams have been established and tasked to draft their strategies to aid achieving the mission targets. An overall steering committee with 18 members was constituted in May to help oversee the preparations. AE Uganda facilitated a training held in Entebbe for 120 evangelists by our partners in ministry who are planning a citywide mission in that city. The training was organized by the Joint Pastors Network in Entebbe city.
AE Southern Africa Region (AESAR) which is comprised of the Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe teams is set to hold a mission from 19th – 25th September in Zomba, Malawi. AE Malawi held three training sessions in Zomba ahead of the mission where 85 people were trained. The second phase of training the same group was set for the month of June. In April this year, task team leaders for the Zomba Leadership Mission were successfully appointed and a meeting with Church leaders in Zomba to review mission plans was held.
The AE Zambia team continues to go through the AE Manuals to adequately prepare for both the Kitwe and Lusaka mission scheduled for this year and next year respectively. The AE Zambia team visited Kitwe at the invitation of the Maranatha Pentecostal Assemblies of God church to help with the mobilization of the church for evangelism. Close to about 100 church members turned out for the evangelism outreach in Kalulushi.
In Ghana, the AE team is preparing to have a mission in Lome, Togo from the 15th to the 25th of October. An online meeting with the leaders in Togo was held earlier to aid preparations. The leaders were also able to meet the working committees in person. A HBE online training is scheduled for 30th June.
Preparation is ongoing for AE Ethiopia’s mission scheduled for 22nd – 26th December in Kotebe, North East of Addis Ababa. Last month, the AE team held a Home Based Evangelism training as part of the preparations steps for the mission.
African Evangelistic Enterprise Uganda (AEE-U) has been doing urban evangelism for more than 45 years.
This year’s Makindye mission which took place from 22 – 29 November 2020 was greatly affected by the global pandemic. In Uganda, severe lockdowns paralyzed every sector of the country, including limiting gatherings such as church congregations.
Where AE Uganda would normally receive funding and support from various churches, now churches themselves needed support to reopen after a long period of lockdown. This in turn forced a scale down on the mission field and reevaluation of the mission strategy. AE Uganda had various ideas but after meeting with police and the security agencies enforcing the COVID-19 restrictions, only door-to-door evangelism was approved.
The Makindye mission kicked off with prayer sessions held on Friday 20/11/20 at Gospel Messenger Church led by Bishop Mitchel Mukasa. It attracted over 90 Church leaders and evangelists who sang praises and prayed over Makindye Division.
As usual, trainings were carried out as a way of preparing for the proclamation and subsequently discipleship of new converts. From the 22nd to 28th November, many foot soldiers were moving in different places, homes, workplaces markets and many other places with the aim of sharing the Good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The mission ground was divided into four (4) Zones. The zonal evangelists were fully trained and prepared for the proclamation week. Each zone had on average 35 evangelists each day who were strong enough and courageous to go out there and share their faith and good news of Our Jesus Christ despite the continued growing numbers of COVID 19 patients in our country. This brought the total number to between 100 and 140 evangelists who took up this mantle with courage.
By the end of the mission, 7,041 people had been reached by the good news, out of which 1,378 made commitments to accepted Christ as their lord and savior and re-commitments to salvation.
On the 2nd of December a post mission meeting was held with coordinators from each zone to discuss effective follow up and how the churches and evangelists can continue to encourage those that made commitments. The meeting was ended with a plan in place for all new believers to receive regular phone calls, messages and encouragement from nearby churches and evangelists.
Testimony from the mission field – Nagudi Doreen
Nagudi’s had to drop out of school at a young age and started helping others with house chores in Kampala for an income. She often suffered from epileptic fits at work, this used to upset her employer tremendously and resulted in them casting her out of their house.
No one wanted to employ Nagudi because of her epileptic seizures and she had no other option but to start begging on the street. During one of her epileptic fits, a Pastor from a nearby church picked her up and took her back to church where he could pray for her.
Nagudi stayed at the church for over 3 months. With the Makindye mission preparation in full swing, many evangelists were stationed at the church getting ready for door to door evangelism. Nagudi desired to go out and spread the gospel but others were not so sure if she should do it because of her epileptic fits. On the second day of Mission, she approached Brian who was a coordinator for the region and requested to be part of the team.
Brian allowed her to take part and when she returned from the field she had a dream with a voice telling her to keep it up her healing would follow. She stepped out in faith, knowing that God had a plan and a calling for her life and with God she could overcome any obstacle in her way.
Discover how YOU can help reach Africans under lockdown.
At the beginning of this year, before COVID-19 arrived in our lives, your African Enterprise family set a goal to see 100,000 people commit to following Jesus in 2020.
When COVID-19 shut down churches and prevented large gatherings, that goal seemed impossible for a time … but thank God for how, together, we can share Jesus’ love through the internet!
AE has been encouraging and equipping believers across Africa to make use of their own social networks to share the Gospel. So far, over 2,500 people have been trained to use their personal testimonies to engage with their friends over social media. At this stage we have reached 334,710 people through Home Based Evangelism activities, a further 600,000 through mass media listeners, and have seen 20,928 people turning to Jesus to date.
One keen evangelist has been so passionate about this online opportunity that she has shared her testimony and the Gospel with over 300 people!
Among those people she reached was a young woman named Margaret who was going through a very low point in her life. We’ve all recently been through some tough times but, after losing her only income,
Margaret was on the verge of committing suicide.
But after reading Nancy’s testimony online, and hearing about the peace that God offers, Margaret instead decided to follow Jesus!
“Even in this dark hour, God is still at work,” says Stephen Mbogo, AE International CEO. “These online encounters are bringing people to have encounters with Jesus.”
With more people like Margaret needing hope during this pandemic, your support is essential to help close a $150,000 funding shortfall and ensure that this impactful home-based ministry continues.
Please give generously today to help see 100,000 people commit to follow Jesus this year.
Let’s not give up on this God-breathed goal. Let’s continue to push forward together to change more lives with Jesus’ love in the last few months of this year and beyond!
Thank you for your partnership,
I want to see 100,000 commitments being made for Christ >
Missions in a COVID-19 world.
Our teams have refused to give up on the Great Commission, despite incredibly challenging circumstances in Africa.
Evangelism is the heartbeat of African Enterprise. We exist to share the eternal hope of the Gospel, and this hasn’t changed. In 2020, AE has developed a home-based evangelism (HBE) approach to share the Good News of Jesus, in spite of COVID restrictions.
The HBE model equips believers to share the Gospel with their families and neighbours, in a structured and effective way. The approach focuses on personal evangelism, on a large scale. Mission volunteers facilitate home gatherings, where a pre-recorded or live Gospel message is shared using television, radio, mobile phone or social media platforms. The Gospel broadcast is followed by a personal testimony and an invitation to follow Christ, extended by the HBE facilitator.
Between mid-April and July 2020, our AE teams trained 2,590 pastors and volunteers in the HBE approach, and have found the approach holds enormous potential for evangelism, as well as discipleship. For example, one church in Lukunga, DRC, was able to share Christ with at least 945 people, in multiple homes, on a single Sunday.
One mission volunteer in Kenya, Nancy, has shared the Gospel with over 300 people since the HBE approach was implemented there in May. When she shared the Gospel with a Facebook acquaintance, the 24-year old Margaret, Nancy had no idea that Margaret was suicidal. Nancy describes:
“I shared the Gospel and she made a commitment for salvation during one of our phone calls. The following day we met and from that time, we have created a relationship that is exceptional. It is wonderful to see the great transformation Christ has brought to this sister. She is now happy in the Lord. Today, as I see her smiling, I often have the sobering thought that, if the Gospel had not come her way, she would possibly not be alive!”
Our brothers and sisters in Africa are passionate for the cause of Christ, and our support means so much as they choose to “preach the word of God” and “be prepared, whether the time is favourable or not” (2 Timothy 4:2).
Ministry in Africa really was a two-way street!
From 2003–14 I had the privilege of helping to run a Pastor Training Program in South East Africa – a joint initiative between African Enterprise and the Moore College External Studies Department (as it was then known). The aim was to provide high-quality, low-cost, short-term theological education to untrained African church leaders – of whom there are many.
Sub-Saharan Africa is full of fine Christian men and women who, for reasons of lack of money and opportunity, have not been able to receive much (if any) formal theological training. The idea of the program was to use Moore College’s very good Preliminary Theological Certificate materials (appropriately adapted to the cultural context) to better equip these leaders. It was the “teach the teacher” principle.
We put on a regular program two week Australian-taught intensive courses, with a view to putting the students through six or more PTC subjects over a one to three year period. I travelled to Africa on eight occasions, teaching in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi … and LOVED it.
Local African leaders were very enthusiastic about the initiative. I recall one prominent Kenyan pastor describing the church in Africa as being ‘a mile wide and an inch deep’. This training we offered was a strategic and greatly valued way of addressing that.
But … the benefits were not one-way! In terms of Christian learning and encouragement, it
really was a two-way street. The African believers I met and became friends with had a LOT to teach me, too!
In my very humble opinion, we in Australia had something to contribute to the growth of the church in Africa in terms of theological training, organisation, finances and prayer. But I found that I learned so much from my African friends in the areas of evangelism, prayer, a concern for the spiritual and social needs of people, and hospitality.
Many Africans I met felt at ease in sharing their faith evangelistically almost anywhere. A lot of African churches seemed to prioritise prayer and prayer meetings – often overnight. Christians were flat out evangelising and pastoring AND helping with development and aid work. And African hospitality was a pleasure to experience. In each of these areas I was greatly encouraged and inspired!
It’s been about six years since my last trip to Africa, but I am still in contact with a number of former African students and co-workers. I am sure that the capacity for Australian Christians to help African Christians, and African Christians to help Australian Christians is just as great as ever.
It has been truly great to be part of God’s transnational purposes on this planet
Written by Stephen Liggings
Stephen Liggins is a minister at Anglican Churches Springwood, and guest lecture at the Sydney Missionary and Bible College.
