The Testimony of Pastor Julius Mbesigire
My parents had nine children and were members of the Anglican church. Our family was known as a religious family, but we were never God-fearing because whenever one of us got sick, our father would send us to consult witch doctors.
Our father believed in the witch doctors and planned to start a family shrine seeking the spirits’ protection for the family. In primary six, I got ill and failed all my exams. My illness got worse until, mentally, I became a lunatic. My father spent much money going to different clinics, hospitals, and consulting witch doctors, but all in vain.
Finally, my father had a friend in our village who believed in Christ. He called him to come and see me and to pray for me that maybe His Jesus might help because my father had given up hope, and he was desperate. My father’s friend came and shared the gospel, and I believed in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. He prayed for me to be healed. I felt the heaviness lift and was eventually wholly delivered. I joined a church choir and served wholeheartedly for eight years.
But there was a problem because that church charged us taxes and required us to make monthly and yearly payments. They insisted on receiving the payments or threatened that we would lose our place in the church. I had nowhere to run to because I feared that I would fall sick if I left their church again.
Hope came when I started listening to Grace So Amazing radio program about the truth and grace in Jesus. Pastor Onesimus’ teaching was different and biblical; I said in my heart that I could leave this mission and join the Fellowship of God’s Embassy and learn more about true biblical teaching.
Julius was a subsistence farmer and a motorcycle mechanic. He joined God’s Embassy after hearing our radio program, Grace So Amazing. He joined a fellowship in his community and was identified as a leader. He has been studying with our pastors weekly and leading that Fellowship for two years. Due to his faithful ministry among the people that Fellowship has become a church. We plan to reach the surrounding communities through home fellowships and community outreaches. We are surrounded by people of different religions that need to hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
Recent Ministry:
We see God at work in the life of Annet who was delivered from the torment of evil spirits. Annet and Joseph, have two children, Phionah, 20, and Deus, 12 years. Annet had been involved in evil spirit worship; she heard voices calling her and tormenting her, and she developed a strong, painful headache. She went to the health center for treatment and received medicine, but it did not help to ease the pain. When we visited her home and shared the Word, she received the Word with eagerness and accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. We prayed for her, and God heard our cry, and she was delivered from the spirits, and the headache was healed. She joined our church, is growing in the Lord through discipleship, and serves the Lord in praise and worship.
We have seen God at work throughout the life of Aaron to finish his school and graduate in electric Engineering from Bushenyi. He told us that his studies were not easy when he was in secondary school and that fees were a problem for him. He could only study for four weeks in a term and then would be sent away until he could pay his school fees. He could borrow books and take notes knowing that by the time the fees were due, he would have notes for the term. He thanks God in all situations that God remained with Him through his school life, and in senior five to senior six, God provided him with sponsorships, and he was able to finish well and graduate. He now has a job. We thank God for such people in our church and are happy that they will be able to help us in preaching the gospel and in the ministry.
The family of Eric was in extreme poverty when we met them through a home visit. Eric and Eunice, are blessed with five children: Joseph, 19, Profit, 17, Arinda, 11, Shanitah, 9, and Linate, 8 years. The family depends on subsistence farming and selling labor to others. Previously, Eric was a drunkard, and his debts were accumulating. He had a garden of coffee and would sell the coffee beans and use all the money to buy alcohol. We shared with him the Word of God and encouraged him to believe God to change his family if they accepted him in their lives. We prayed for them and invited them to come to our church. The Word of God touched them, and the next day, they came to our church and gave their lives to Christ. They are faithful to the church, and Eric is serving God in the development of the Church. The children are in choir and grandchildren are in Sunday school. We praise God for this family, and we request His helping hand upon them so that they may remain in God’s grace and serve Him.
Jeninah started drinking after the death of her husband and became a drunkard. Jeninah lives with her two children, Aggress, 26, and Seth, 17 years, and two grandchildren, Rennah, 12, and Praise, 9 years. They lived in a temporary house with three rooms, depended on subsistence farming, and her children were unable to pay the school fees. We shared the Word of God and encouraged her to pay a visit to our church, but at first, she could not come, fearing that her fellow Anglicans. One day, she became demonically attacked and could hear sand falling on her house every night. When she told her friends, they advised her to go to witch doctors. Instead, she came to our church for prayers, we prayed for her, and then went and prayed in her home. She gave her life to Christ, was delivered from the spirits, and stopped drinking alcohol. We pray that God may strengthen their faith as they remain in prayer and committed to the church.
When visited Abel and his grandmother and shared the Word of God, Abel was convicted. Able 17 has lived with his grandmother since the death of his parents. He stopped schooling in primary seven, started smoking marijuana, and joined a bad group. After our home visit, he came to church, believed in Jesus Christ, gave his life to Christ, and accepted to be baptized. We thank God for him and pray that God may continue guiding him in his new faith.
Afissa came to our church because she heard our pastor on Radio Rukungiri, and the gospel touched her heart. she confessed and gave her life to Christ. Afissa is married to Geoffrey 60, and they have four children that are all in Kampala. She was a Moslem and a drunkard, but now she wants God to use her, and she was baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Reaching out to the community through the radio has helped people join the ministry and we pray to God for people like her who were convicted and to join the church.
We believe God in prayer and work hard to build a strong relationship with our landlord so that she will sell us the land we are renting and on which we have built our church structure. We thank God that we have managed to buy an amp mixer for the church system that will help us balance our church sound during our church services.
Steven, age 83, is married to Joseline Natukunda, who is 80. They live in a temporary house and survive through agriculture; they have a coffee plantation and a matooke plantation from which they earn an income. Their grandchild Derrick who is 17 years old and senior two at Bugangari Secondary School, is staying with them. Steven has allowed his grandson to serve with us, and Derrick is in the youth dance and drama youth choir, Kingdom Steppers. We met this family through our home visits and found that Steven was a drunkard and had diabetes. Doctors had tried to stop him from drinking alcohol, but he failed to listen. We visited him several times, sharing the Word of God with him. We thank God that when we invited him to pay us a visit at church, he came, and after the service, he said he wanted to be saved. We led him to confess Jesus Christ in his life, and we prayed for him. He has since stopped drinking alcohol, has joined our church, and is now serving in our church. We pray for him that the Lord, in His mercies, may age Steven gracefully and that he may keep the faith.
Albert has accepted the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He is married to Justine and does not have children. When we met Albert, he was a violent drunkard and physically abusive to his wife. We approached him and shared the Word of God, but he was argumentative at first. We tried to explain to him the dangers of alcohol to his body and the diseases that may come from alcoholism. We invited him to church, and he came with his wife. The preaching was about salvation; the message from John 3:1-20 and 3:16 was that God loves all of us and we can have eternal life through our faith in Jesus Christ. Albert listened, and after the service, he requested to give his life to the Lord. He confessed Christ in his life and was saved.
Learning Godly Doctrine and Hermeneutics
We warmly greet you, all our friends and supporters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We give God all the glory for you and thank Him for enabling you to work with us. We are forever grateful that you chose to love, encourage, and support us financially. For this reason, we are more effective in ministering to the people in the Nyabiteete community and its surrounding communities. Thank you for standing with us in the work of ministry; may the Almighty God bless you always.
We praise God for Uganda Bible College, helping us and other church ministers learn the Bible. For this reason, we are sharing the Gospel from an informed point of view, knowing how to even counteract false doctrine in our community by teaching the truth of the Bible. We thank God for the new members who join us because we teach them the truth. So far, twelve members, eight females and four males, came from the Anglican religion who oppose our faith.
We believe God will also help us learn English at Uganda Bible College so that we can read it since many of the resources that would be helpful to equip us are in English.
We thank God for the place we rent, but we pray to God to provide the funds to buy it as the owner is willing to sell. We believe more people will join us when we have enough space and our own property.
As a church, we also need a secondary school in our village because our children walk a long distance to a secondary school daily, which is dangerous; we believe God will answer our prayers.
We have four community fellowships in different homes with more than 18 people each. These fellowships are the Kakyekyeyo cell, led by Tukamuhabwa Vaster; the Burembo cell, led by Kamugisha Enoch; the Nyabiteete Trading Center cell, led by Tushemerirwe Loy; and the Burambira cell, led by Naturinda Justin.
We visited 52 homes, where we met 147 males and 213 females. Some of these people promised to come to visit us someday at church. We bless the name of the Lord, who calls and uses us to share His Word with His people.
We met Orishaba Obadiah, age 39, during our home visits while he was going to the nearby trading center. He is a drunkard but has come to a church service. Now, he wants to know the nearby fellowship cell where he can attend. We pray that God can work in his heart as he learns the truth.
We have seen God at work in the life of Phionah Tumuhimbise, age 32. She is married to Turyasingura Elias, age 38, and they now have two children together: Owembabazi Annette, age 10, and Baguma Patrick, age one and a half. When this family joined us, they had one child, and they told us that she had been having miscarriages or giving birth to still babies over nine times, and she had tried every witch doctor she knew. Having failed with the witch doctors, she came to try Jesus. She came to church, we shared the Word, and she believed Jesus. We started praying with her and asking God in His mercies to help her give birth to another child. She later conceived, and sometimes she would be traumatized by the past experiences of miscarriages, thinking she would lose the baby again, but we encouraged her to trust God. We stood with her in prayer. We thank God she gave birth to her second child, Patrick, and she is grateful to the Lord who makes the barren fruitful and sustains the lives of His people. As a family, they thank God for bringing a church that is teaching them the Word of God, whose truth is setting and delivering them for free because the other traditional religious churches had asked her for gifts before being prayed for, which she could not afford and yet another so-called prophet told her to go to witch doctors.
I have seen God working in the life of James Zegiriire, age 83, married to Beitamu Adrine, age 79, with seven children, and all with their own families. He thanks God, who has been faithful to him through battles between his two sons who wanted to kill him and take his properties. Through the encouragement and the support of the church, he survived these court battles.
Naturinda Justin, age 35, is a widow with four children; two are in secondary school, and two are in primary: Kirabo Daisy Kakuru, age 14; Kiconco Denise Kato, age 14; Tracy Arinda, age 11; and Akankunda Brandon, age 9. They are residents of Burambira, and they live in a semi-permanent home. They are subsistence farmers and occasionally sell hard labor for an income. We met them through home visits. They were fellowshipping with Revival church Kashenyi, the church of the Apostle. Still, they welcomed us because they had been listening to the Grace So Amazing radio program and loved our ministry and the fact that it taught the Word of God in truth. Even during our visit, their church had levied church taxes on them, which was a lot of money they could not afford. They had stopped attending church, and she had resorted to drinking alcohol and said she no longer cared about God since the church she was attending was not interested in their souls and spiritual lives but just interested in money only. We shared the Word of the Truth and encouraged her to come to the Lord. She heeded the Word and committed her life to Christ; she now attends church with his family. Two children serve in Sunday school, and the others are in the church choir.
We train others in ministry through fellowships and Tuesday classes. We meet and share the Word of God and do the work plan for the church with the team. We select who will be the programmer and teacher at Sunday school. We emphasize being good leaders and encourage ourselves through the Word of God. In addition to the Tuesday meeting, individuals who show interest in getting involved in ministry are trained in the Sunday morning foundation class and are encouraged to practice through fellowships, attend Tuesday prayer meetings, and get involved in doing home visits.
The youth choir practices presentations and engages the youth in church activities and youth festival competitions. The Young Ambassadors meet every Saturday from 3.00 to 5.30 pm.
Turyetemba Martin, age 23, and Twesigye Gideon, age 19, sons of Ephraim Rukandema, a resident of Burembo cell, have given their lives to Jesus Christ. We met these young men at their home, shared the Word of God with them, and they believed. We invited them to church to attend service with us, and when they came, they accepted Christ in their lives after hearing the Word. We pray the Lord keeps them in faith, that they may also love serving the Lord when they are still young, and that they may lead more youth to Christ.
Turinawe Jennifer, age 86, is a resident of Burambira. She came from the Anglican Nyamagabo Church of Uganda. She stays with her son, Tumuhimbise Julius. After the death of her husband, she began to drink, became a drunkard, and lived a careless, sinful life. One day, she tuned in to the Grace So Amazing radio program and was convicted to give her life to Christ. She came to church hoping to meet the radio preacher and has since attended church services. God has made her well, and we give all the glory to Him.
Previous Ministry:
We have seen God at work in the life of Deborah, aged twenty-six, married to Obed Kiiza of twenty-nine years residing in Nyabitete cell. We met Deborah when she was pregnant; her pregnancy was challenging, and she was admitted to the hospital. We thank God that she was able to give birth to a healthy baby girl. Many women here lose their life while giving birth, but we thank God that Deborah is fine and the baby is growing.
We thank God for His saving grace and sustaining us in the ministry. The community is receptive to the Word of God and many people come to visit us. Some of these come to faith and surrender their lives to Christ. Many more are coming to join us for the first time to worship the Lord. This month, we baptized four members.
Our church needs are for land for the church building, machines for sound to advance our worship, and a school for our children.
We meet all the members willing to be intercessors every Wednesday for prayers. On Fridays, we meet for altar call and to share the Word of God. We also allow every person to participate in sharing Scripture verses in the fellowships. We let some ministers lead the church programs and Sunday school.
We have a choir that meets every Saturday for practice and the choir has eleven members. We begin with sharing the Word of God before we commence the practice. We have Sunday school for the children where they learn the Word of God through memory verses and Bible stories.
We met Joseph at his home. He is forty-five years old and married to Nantukunda Monic who is thirty-five years old. He had been a drunkard but after sharing the Word, he prayed to received Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior. He now comes to church and testifies that since he received salvation, he no longer drinks alcohol.
We reach out to the community through fellowships. We have four fellowships that meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We also do home visits and this month we preached in eight homes, reaching out to twenty-three males and thirty-three females.
