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.
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.
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).
Before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, ordinary life was already a struggle for millions across the continent of Africa. Although COVID-19 is yet to hit Africa in full force, inadequate health systems are expected to render nations defenseless against the virus. Meanwhile, these nations, which were already wrestling immense poverty, are now groaning under the economic impacts of attempts to curb the spread.
For the past 59 years, African Enterprise has been sharing the hope of Christ with the cities of Africa. In partnership with the local church, AE aims to reach every sphere of society with Christ’s love. Our team, based in 11 nations across the continent, is determined to demonstrate His love in the face of the current pandemic.
Believing that “the Gospel of Jesus Christ is needed now more than ever”, our team has developed a model of Home Based Evangelism which will continue despite current restrictions on public gatherings. The HBE strategy utilises television and radio broadcasts, along with home facilitators, to assist with follow-up of new believers.
In addition to our ongoing mission work, our national teams have developed tailor-made social action responses to the current crisis. These responses include basic food parcels for families who have lost their income due to government-sanctioned lockdowns, and the provision of hygiene and sanitation products to individuals at risk. Our teams are also providing community members with COVID education via pamphlets and radio broadcasts, and several of our vocational training centres have begun producing and distributing reusable face masks.
There remains much work to be done, however. This pandemic reminds us of our own mortality. May it also remind us to truly live, by laying down our lives for our neighbours, and for those who share our common humanity, across the globe.