This month we’ve heard how ministry is continuing at His Voice Global even as our staff adjusts to local social distancing and quarantine requirements. We’ve heard updates from our Discipleship Team, our Kenya ministry, and had several updates from Uganda including reports on our work with sequestered students and on creative ways to involve the community in Arua as we continue to plan for the build-out of the Arise Discipleship & Retreat Center. We are so thankful for our seven person Uganda-based staff and their dedication to the mission God has given us!

As we wrap up our look at ministry progress during the pandemic, let’s take a look at how God’s Word is spreading in the refugee camps near Arua and in northern Uganda among an unlikely group, as reproducing disciples are being made even in the absence of His Voice staff members. 

A primary goal of our Theological and Discipleship Training is to empower people to continue the work on their own by sharing the Gospel within their own communities. As we have trained pastors and other leaders in the Rhino refugee camp, they have been able to make reproducing disciples among their church members and others seeking God. According to UNICEF, Uganda is home to over 900,000 child refugees who have fled conflict or persecution in their home countries. Not surprisingly, seventy-one percent of these are from South Sudan. We are grateful that God’s Word is spreading to some of these children due to the influence of those who previously attended our classes.

In northern Uganda, His Voice team members were able to visit and train members of the Aringa, a Muslim people group who had become new Christians. These visits occurred in the fall of 2019 and in January of 2020, just before COVID-19 began to spread around the world. In our absence a local pastor has continued to apply what he learned about disciple-making to influence not only the Aringa, but also members of the Ugandan military stationed in that area. 

According to that pastor, he has been able to introduce Army personnel to Bible study, providing them with Bibles, and joining them in praise, worship, and prayers to our Lord.

Teaching others to rely on the Holy Spirit to make reproducing disciples based on the truth of the Bible is a way to see our ministry in East Africa continue with little cost beyond the investment of the initial travel and training involved. Praise God that He has seen fit to use these people, and those they are currently training, to further His Kingdom.