1. Kambowa doing his thing (preach it brother)
Last Friday night I had the privilege to attend a program of the MAF ministry team. Something that I have been waiting to attend for a while now. The MAF ministry team is run by two national employees of MAF and maybe with a few staff attending to support. The team is usually invited by a church or village to minister to them or the team requesting a village if they can visit. This can be locally or some where else in the country. The main purpose being to minister to the believers, but also to reach the lost.
Friday night’s meeting was held at the Kagamuga COC church, which is Christian Outreach Centre. I get confused easily with the abbreviations of churches here, as there is the CRC, CLC, COC etc. It involved the church itself, but other people visiting from other churches, also from the surrounding community. It was absolutely packed with people. I went along wanting to be involved, but going to observe and see what they do. The night started off with a time of worship led by the churches worship team and then was handed over to the MAF team.
2. The whole church was full
Something that I did not expect was time taken to show the latest MAF video and talk about MAF and what we do exactly. Most people would know of MAF, but it is amazing how within the church and communities here awareness needs to be promoted. So that they are aware of what we do and how we are serving them. This was followed by watching the movie ‘End of the Spear’. Which is about five missionaires (belonging to MAF) being killed in Ecuador and what follows this event. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend that you see it. We had some technical difficulty trying to play the movie and during this I was having flashbacks of setting up for Scripture. The laptop had been region locked out, so it would not play a region 1 DVD. Some one ran off to there place and grabbed a DVD player that did not work. So one staff and myself drove to the nearest MAF compound in search of a multi region DVD player. We were graciously lent one by someone. All the time while Kambowa kept the large crowd entertained.
The condition of the church here is that as else where in the world. That there are people within it who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. But also the influences of the culture here. They can be involved in tribal fighting. The relevance of the movie to the cultural implications here is so good. The message of forgiveness is one that is required to be preached here. And it was amazing to see how these people where touched by this movie, that they were really challenged and convicted. But for them it is a big blessing, something we take for granted back home, is something so many do not have. Also the teaching and resources we have back home in our churches. The night was finished of by a short talk.
3. There was even an overflow outside the front door
For me it has been really hard leaving many ministries behind and here not having that commitment outside of the work of MAF. Sure there is the ministry of living within the community here and relationships outside of MAF. But I have been waiting on God to see what else He has for me here. And I knew that if I made myself available to Him and waited He would open the doors. And I believe that the MAF ministry team is something He wants me to be part of. Besides it being really good that it is about sharing the Gospel and discipling the believers around many places and building relationships with these people. The one thing that I really like is that it is part of MAF.
This Friday afternoon we are planning on going to a village of one of the MAF staff out bush. It is in a remote place about an hour out of town. There is an AOG church in the village and we will be staying the night there. This area has been a place of tribal fighting for many years. And it has only recently stopped in the past few months (I wish I knew this before hiking through there the other month). So there is a lot of pain from this fighting and still enemies amongst the villages. So it is a great opportunity to minister to these people. I will be sharing my testimony this Friday night, how I came to Christ and how I came to MAF. So it is a real exciting time as God is opening up doors here for me to serve Him in other ways with MAF.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
It’s awesome that you’re going to do your testimony. Can’t wait to hear how it went
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