My name is Joshua Makawa. I come from a country whose religious history and the church are darkened by Idi Amin’s tyrant regime against the gospel. Amin ruled Uganda between 1971-1979. When I read from the history of Uganda’s religion, my passion increases to embrace the gospel all the more. My hope is a chapter of revival in an oppressed land starts today and the banned evangelistic movements come back stronger than before.
How I came to know the Lord
My journey to Christianity is unique. I yearned for a spiritual connection with God, so I joined a cult because I wanted to see the “so called” prophetess lady who lived by country side through my sister. She was travelling with a group of “born again” so I had to be “born again” in order to meet face to face with this prophetess “woman of God”. Her description compelled my heart to accept the invitation. I was a young boy of 18 years at the time. I was told that the prophetess woman of God had super ordinary eyes. Of course it wasn’t true! But as a young boy, who wanted to achieve what I had accepted, I was eager to believe and make a difference. Little did I know that she ‘the prophetess’ was the leader of a cult, a liar, an agent of the darkest kingdom claiming to live within the house of God! Her teachings were not of scripture and after five years I finally changed to the church because this cult hindered my spiritual growth. This was in 1993 when I started down the path to Christianity. I served with a new church and discovered that missionary work was quite interesting to me.
It was in the year 2001 that I attended a Christian Congress in Nairobi- Kenya. I was empty during this time of the meeting to things concerning a ministry. But something during that congress touched my heart. I was called to reach out to a hurting world of abandoned children who find it hard to live in dark and harsh conditions on the streets. To minister to the lonely poor and elderly in their homes, to the prisoners, and to the sick in hospitals. The congress at Easter taught me secret weapons of changing the hearts of many people using the gospel. I learned the gospel is not for selfish motives, but for the defense of weaker people. The gospel is a uniting factor, warring against the dictatorships of materialism, which comes only with intention to cause division in humanity. The gospel has helped me to stay closer to people who are abandoned, staying in lonely places, visiting the ghettos of this world, and the poor with my missionary work. The gospel looks at humanity as one family.
In my community I’m identified as Pastor/Evangelist.
My Biblical Pursuit
Jesus according to the gospel in Mathew 9:36-37, the gospel writes; ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’’. ‘Get this as the picture of the world today’. People are looking for directions. As a leader of the ministry of the gospel I need to help in the proper guidance of direction for the people in the interest of the will of God.
This is my ministry, ‘Proper guidance for my community to live together, work together, and listen the gospel together. This is what it means to live as a one family.’
The Unique Challenge of Ministry in Uganda
In Kampala much unrest in the city is a result of the lack of respect. Respect is very important amongst the people. Without respect the young ones ridicule the old ones, their peer groups, their teachers or guardians, their parents etc. The youth have always violated against the will of the old people’s longevity in existence because they are looking for properties. They want them to die, thinking that when they die there is a possibility for them to acquire the land and other properties, which after selling them, they purchase motor bike (boda-boda) for transport business in towns and many cities. Some of the old people are being lynched to death, under claims that these elderly are actually “witch doctors”. In some places in Africa the Old are condemned by the population to death. This is a growing trend which needs to be closed down. There is no alliance between generations. This hatred against the old people in Africa has eaten up our society and the youth are the masterminds of these projects seemingly intended to injure the old people and to leave them lonely till death. Building an alliance between generations is what my ministry is aiming at. The harmony of the people, by the people, and for the people.
My Local Church’s Support
One of the local churches’ gave us the space to share love with children from slums with social and scholastic difficulties. The support to these children with various difficulties requires the heart of good men and women that look at other people as fellow brothers or sisters. We are lobbying for space within the church premises for an entertainment form them as well for the old people! Old people find it joy to be reminded of their old youthful days with music.
My Family’s Role in Ministry
My family always prays for me that we prosper in the works of God and the entire ministry to acquire many fruits.
Why CLI has an Important for My Ministry in Uganda
A scholarship with CLI would enable me to learn outreach programs with intimacy. Because of the limited funds to enrol for seminary institutes in Uganda, at CLI, I see the opportunity to accomplish this dream. I need to learn various methods of missionary work to communities. The world is hungry for God. A materialistic approach to life and dictatorships in our world decay the hearts of people. Outreach programs in lonely places and societies often abandoned is where I want to serve.
Formal Bible Training is needed desperately in this world!
“62% of the world’s pastors have no Formal Bible Training and will probably never get any formal training from Bible school. A lot of these pastors have less than a 6th-grade education”– Phil Long, President of Global Action
My name is Pastor Rebecca Simmons, I currently reside in the United States of America.
This is my story of why I am so grateful for Christian Leader Institute’s free Formal Bible Training online.
I have been a born again Christian since 1994. Prior to giving my life to the Lord, I had been meeting different men who shared the gospel with me and prayed for me, but I was determined not to get saved as I believed that many in the church were living as hypocrites. One night, while I was out getting ready to get drunk, the Lord sent a man into the bar to talk to me about Jesus. He just happened to know my sister and her boyfriend and asked for a personal introduction to me. Once we were introduced to each other, we spent the rest of our time in that bar dancing and flirting with each other and I forgot about getting drunk. After the bar closed, we sat in my car and talked. He told me about having recently being saved and how much he loved his church. Then he invited me to church. At first I told him no. I said if I was going to hell I would go from the barstool and not the church pew. This was because of my belief that all Christians were hypocrites. We became friends and eventually, I went to church with him. When I walked in the door, I felt like I had come home. I felt like I had found the missing part of my life. I kept going and three months later, I gave my life to the Lord. After that moment, I never stopped going to church.
After ten years of going to church and walking in close relationship with the Lord, I felt the call and the urgency to preach the gospel. I didn’t obey the call to preach the gospel or to pastor right away. For some time, I thought it was just a personal ambition and that God could not possibly have been calling me to serve Him in the way.
One day while running from my call, I found out that I was pregnant and I was devastated. I wondered how I was going to preach the gospel with a new baby to care for. When I was five months pregnant, I found out that my baby had died in my womb and I had to have surgery to remove the dead baby. It was while I was in the hospital that God spoke to me. He asked, me what I would have done if this thing had ended in my death. He said that He had touched my body and wanted to know what I would have done if I had died and had to stand before Him and tell Him why I had refused to do what He called me to do. I wept profusely and from that point on, I knew that I would obey God.
I wrote my first book and started getting calls to speak at book clubs and women’s conferences. Each time I was called to speak, I would preach the gospel. See Rebecca Simmon’s Author page at Kindle
I have been serving in that role for the past eight years. God has given me a heart for the lost and I have a desire to lead others to Him. It is my ministry dream to empower God’s people through the preaching and teaching of His Word as contained in the Bible.
The unique challenges in my geographic areas are that there are so many churches and the people have a mentality of going from church to church and seemingly, a lack of commitment to any one house of worship.
The church tat we were in before my husband and I planted our church gave us their blessing as we went out to plant, Our pastor at that time said that we were too faithful and too faith-filled for him to say it was not God. He blessed us and told us to call him if we needed anything. However, he still has a difficult time receiving the fact that we left the denominational structure and branched out as non-denominational.
My husband and I pastor the church together. My mother got saved and started going back to church at our ministry. Our children who are still in New Jersey all attend church every week and are a part of the ministry serving on the praise team, as musicians, as ushers and as junior trustees. .
A scholarship at CLI is important to me because I have not had the money to attend school and there is no where else where you can receive doctrinally sound free formal Bible training online. I believe that as a result of attending CLI I will be more equipped and effective in my role as a pastor in the Lord’s church.
Please pray that I will continue to stay focused on saving souls and changing lives by making disciples of Jesus Christ. Please pray for our finances as both my husband and I are bi-vocational and constantly believing God for our household and church bills to be paid.
Formal Bible Training at CLI
The Formal Bible Training includes a certificate program, a diploma program and a degree program. The degree program offers an Associate and Bachelor Degree which has an administration fee. If you are a pastor and need Formal Bible Training online, Christian Leaders Institute will help you get what you need.
Japan Ministry Training
Japan ministry training is available in English online and free. This Japan ministry training is available for those who enroll and finish the getting started class. Enroll now. The class covers Christian Basics and locks in a scholarship into Christian Leaders Institute.
My name is Susan Cornelius, I am a missionary and live in Shimonoseki, Japan. I am taking the Japan ministry training offered. My home is on the main island of Honshu at the southwestern end. I was born in a small town in Pennsylvania. My father was a Pastor of a country church. I grew up in a loving, safe home. We went to church three times a week, to revivals, and to camp meetings. In my teen years I rebelled, it is a sad thing to admit, but true. I left home while still a teenager and married young, to an unbeliever. My parents were heartbroken but they prayed!! Praise God for His promise in Proverbs 22:6. My husband and I were saved after making a disaster of our lives and marriage.
I felt called to missions for years, but my husband did not, so we stayed in the states. We attended church, had three children and lived a somewhat normal American life. I constantly talked to my children of the world’s needs and missions. Dr. Dobson had a show that said, “Young families should have a plan just in case a husband/father dies.” I assured my children not to worry, I had a plan, if this happened to us we would hit the mission field. So they grew up with a keen sense of my passion for world missions.
Fast forward: My husband did not die but I started to do short term mission trips. I went with our son’s class to Central America, then I taught Conversational English in South Korea, in 2007 and 2008, for a month at a time. I was overwhelmed with a burning desire to serve abroad. Again my husband didn’t share my passion, but he was ok with me going. He wanted to find a way to help here in the states, so we did for about a year, we worked in a Christian ministry with troubled teen girls. It was after that he said yes, he would try out foreign missions.
We taught in Korea for about six months, then God opened the door for us to go to Japan. We teach Conversational English to reach people with the gospel. Our 22 year old daughter has also joined us and works with preschool students for the same purpose. I need more formal Bible training, so want to take the courses offered, thank you for making that possible. It is so exciting we can enroll in this Japan ministry training through the Internet.