Bible Education Dream
My name is Tanaka Mudzimu and I have a Bible education dream. I am Zimbabwean. I’m currently in Northern Cyprus studying Social Work. Being away from home for almost 4 years has not been easy, but God has been teaching me a lot and I have found my Joy in the Lord.
I came to know the Lord when I was 8 at a Children’s church camp meeting, and I never left the church after that. I joined Children’s Ministry Teaching when I was in my teens and I enjoyed working with children from different parts of Zimbabwe.
Christian Leaders Insitute classes have helped me understand the different types of ministries. Especially the different ways God communicates with people and now I know how to correctly direct my daily devotions. My knowledge about God has really grown not only in the spiritual aspect but also as a student.
The word Pastor relates more to me because I enjoy ministering the word of God to people. The word of God excites me so much and I share it with anyone who cares to listen. I really care about people’s well being both spiritually and physically.
My local church has really inspired me. I go to a youthful church and I am given the platform to exercise my gifts in preaching and praying for the sick. I am also the Bible Study Teacher of our home Bible study group.
Northern Cyprus is a Muslim country and the citizens are not very keen on Christianity. We also have a language barrier as it is a Turkish speaking country and most Christians are foreigners. Despite these problems, we are blessed! We are allowed to share our faith, meet and fellowship together.
The CLI free ministry training will help me understand the real meaning of being a minister and how I can relate to people in a ministry setting. It is important for me to be confident in my knowledge of the gospel. So far, I have really been enlightened and would like to further my studies. The CLI training will also help me fulfill my ministry dream of helping struggling students in universities and also to pass on what I have learned to other believers.
Learn about ordained minister study programs at Christian Leaders Alliance.
Quality Ministry Education
My name is Roger Sigmon and I am receiving a quality ministry education at Christian Leaders Institute. I live in the beautiful state of Tennessee in the United States. I grew up in a home where my parents took me to church. Although raised in church, I never knew a relationship with Jesus could exist. I only knew Jesus was the way to Heaven, which I thought meant you took a class and you were then sprinkled before the church congregation. Shortly before my 13th birthday, my family decided to find a new church to attend. The one we began to attend taught about this relationship with Jesus and how to gain it. I had also noticed my new friends at this church were living a different lifestyle than my other friends and I. So, I wanted to know why and find out how to get what they had. Their witness of living out what they believed helped to lead me to Christ.
After Jesus took control of my life, I began my spiritual journey. At first, I could not get enough of learning about Him. This tapered off a little as I entered High School and College, yet I never strayed too far away. I knew from the time Jesus became Lord of my life that I was being called to share His message. I volunteered at my church, served on short-term mission trips, taught many classes, became a Deacon, and many years later a licensed pastor. I still felt the void of not having a quality Christian education. I was being called into full-time ministry, yet knew this would be very difficult without the education to back up the experience. Thanks to Christian Leaders Institute and their wonderful staff, I am working on a Divinity Degree. I could never have done this without the generous donors that make this possible.
I am now more qualified and credible to pursue the vision God has laid upon my heart. I am currently assembling a team to launch a unique church plant with the goal of ministering to those that slip through the cracks of most traditional churches. As Christ-followers, we must be willing to leave our comfort zones and engage those we normally would not. So much of Jesus’ ministry occurred as He was on the way to somewhere, not just sitting on a pew waiting for people to approach Him. Ministry happened as He and His disciples were doing ordinary things in their daily lives. Opportunities to minister are all around us if we will only stop to see them.
I just want to say thank you once again to each and every donor and vision partner that has helped me to pursue and achieve my spiritual dream through receiving a quality ministry education.
Learn about minister ordination at Christian Leaders Alliance.
Degree Program Journey
My name is Kenny Sallee and I am on a degree program journey at Christian Leaders Institute. I’m known in the area where I live as Cap’n Kenny. My ancestral families are Native American (Cherokee) and European Immigrants (Swedish, English, and French). I am a descendant of a late 17th century French Huguenot refugee who settled along the James River village of Manakintowne in the Colony of Virginia. I’m married, have a daughter and two granddaughters. My wife, Nancy, and I live in a small community north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S.A. We were married in 2014 after we had both lost our spouses a few years earlier just days apart. My late wife, Barbara, passed away from heart failure after suffering from a stroke and Nancy’s late husband, Bill, passed away from cancer caused by agent orange while serving in Vietnam.
I’m retired from both the U.S. Military and U.S. Federal Civil Service with over 40 years of service. Now I’m a U.S. Merchant Marine Captain and operate a small charter/tour boat company on the Great Lakes during the summer months.
As a child, I was raised Baptist, although we seldom attended church. My father worked in the construction trade after he left the military and we traveled to wherever he worked. I attended 14 different schools before graduating from high school. I enlisted in the military right out of high school and was sent to fight in Vietnam shortly afterward. I continued my military career after Vietnam serving in the Continental United States and Pacific regions.
I first “found” the Lord a few years after I returned from Vietnam while looking for an answer to my question “why?”. Why did the war in Vietnam happen and why did so many people have to die, from both sides in that war. I started asking that question some 40 years ago and still have never found a satisfactory answer. But, while in search of my answer, I looked to religion. I attended services of many different Christian denominations. I got involved with street ministry and music ministry. After several years of devoting all my free time to “religion”, my marriage fell apart and I left the ministry wanting nothing more to do with “religion” and drifted away from Jesus.
After two additional failed marriages, I married a lady that I had known since before I went to Vietnam. We were married for ten wonderful years before she passed away in my arms from heart failure at the age of 58. After her death God heard my “ze’akah”, crying out in pain for months as a broken man. Things started happening in my life after her death that I could only credit God for. God began to shape me and mold me for a new mission, a mission to be his message. Things happened that changed my views of life, and the afterlife… and of God. I met new people that started bringing Jesus back into my life. I’m remarried now to a wonderful lady that brought me back into the church. She, too, had lost her husband just a couple of days before my wife passed away. Together we are rebuilding our lives after we lost our spouses and worship in a small Lutheran church in Wisconsin.
I am pursuing the studies with Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) on my degree program journey because I want a better understanding of the Bible and of God’s purpose for me. I want to use the training I receive from CLI to further my walk with God and to serve my community as a chaplain to our local military veterans service organizations, providing pastoral care to those outside the church and by starting a Christian faith mentoring and counseling center to the unchurched.
Through Christian Leaders Institute I have earned the Associate of Divinity Degree and have been ordained as a deacon minister through Christian Leaders Alliance. I currently hold the ministry office of chaplain for the Oconto Wisconsin area veterans service organizations (American Legion, AMVETS, and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)). In 2016, I started an online ministry blog sharing daily scripture readings and devotions in seven different languages that have been read throughout the world with over 165,000 page views as of date. In May 2018, I started working as a volunteer Veteran-to-Veteran Hospice Program visitation minister with Unity Hospice serving Northeast Wisconsin.
My goal at CLI is to earn a Bachelor of Divinity (B.Div) with a Chaplaincy Emphasis showing that I have completed a respected course of training to become a well-versed “ministry of presence” chaplain, well-grounded in faith and pastoral practices. After completion at CLI, I hope to be able to transfer my credits into Calvin Theological Seminary’s Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership (MA) degree program concentrating in Pastoral Care. Having a scholarship at Christian Leaders Institute is helping me achieve my goals for my degree program journey by making it affordable for a retired soldier like me to advance in my studies.