Pastor Able’s Testimony
I was born into a Catholic family, and my father had three wives, my mother was the last wife. My father had a total of 19 children. He was not able to take us to school; that is why I worked to get funds to continue going to school. I accepted the Lord when I was 17 years old. What led to my salvation was seeking help for my sickness. My father, who has family spirits and is the worship leader, had made some errors, and the punishment was on all of his family members by the spirits. The sickness was a result of the family spirit’s dissatisfaction with our worship and sacrifices but even worse to me since I was selected to head the family shrine in case my father died.
Pastor Able, Brighton his wife, and their children — Ricky 7 years old, Prosper 3 years old and Destiny 9 months old.
My sister came home as a Christian after living in Kampala, the capital city in Uganda. My sister Mbabazi Allen found the whole family tormented by the family spirits, she immediately started preaching to the entire family, and 16 of us gave our lives to Christ that day 25th December 1999. I was among those 16. I then joined the only church that was available in our area under Full Gospel affiliation until 2010. I moved away to another location for work. I did not attend any church for a long time, and I started to backslide. I returned to Rukungiri to work as a Boda- Boda driver (motorcycle driver).
One of my friends Buhooro Alex visited me and as we talked, he told me about the church he attends (God’s Embassy, in Katobo) and he invited me to visit. When I did, I liked the church and the programs they had. I decided to keep attending. In 2016 while still attending God’s Embassy Katobo, I recommitted my life to Christ. The constant teaching of the Word of God has transformed me and has helped me to stand in faith even up to this day. I then joined different ministries to serve, I mainly served as an usher, but also sometimes in the choir playing the jazz drums. When an opportunity came up to do ministry in Kikarara village, I was happy to join Pastor Bryan Warugaba in planting a church.
The people welcomed the gospel message, and a church was planted. Pastor Bryan moved to Kikarara, and I joined him and moved too. I continued visiting the area and evangelizing in the community. I traveled to a village named Garuka, which is 2 hours from Kikarara on foot. The people are so desolated, but once they started listening to God’s word, the people began gathering to hear more of the good news of Jesus Christ. I served as a pastor’s assistant for two years and led the Garuka fellowship for over a year now.
I am so grateful to God for the opportunity to pastor in Garuka Village. I am also thankful for God’s Embassy and White Field Ministries for the opportunity to serve Him and His people and for supporting my family in all ways- through prayers and finances.
Recent Ministry:
God at Work in Uganda
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus. We thank God for your love, prayers, and financial support. We thank you for standing with us in the mission fields here in Garuka and the communities around. We are blessed through you; may the Lord God bless you in abundance. Thank you for allowing God to use you to support us in our noble cause of ministry and for sharing the Gospel here.
We praise God as we lay cement in our church building, starting with the pulpit area and then covering the entire floor. We thank God we could also renovate the water tank to harvest rainwater again after the dry season. We now pray for windows and doors for the church building.
We train our church members by reading the Bible and sharing the Word of God in Sunday school and home fellowships. We also give them opportunities to lead intercession prayers every Wednesday and Friday. We ask you to pray for Bibles for the members who cannot afford to buy one for themselves. We reach out to the community through home visits and home fellowships. We conduct rotational fellowships in members’ homes. This month, we visited sixty homes and shared the Word of God with fifty males and seventy females. God has given us a tremendous opportunity to share His Word with His people and has opened their ears to listen. We pray He opens their hearts to receive His Son and be saved. The people in this community are no longer as resistant to the Gospel as before, though the hearts of many have not received it.
In Sunday school, children learn the Word of God through Bible stories. They memorize Bible verses and present them in the church Sunday service. The children’s choir, Young Ambassadors, learns songs they present in the Sunday service. They practice every Saturday from 4 – 6:30 p.m.
We see God at work through the life of Julius, 46, who is married with three children ages 10 to 15. He is a resident of Garuka and has been struggling to walk on foot and carry on his head the foodstuffs and vegetables he sells in different markets. The Lord has helped him work and save, and this month, he bought a motorcycle to help transport his food to the market. He also bought land to help his family grow food. His and his family’s lives have been improving ever since he accepted Jesus Christ his life and joined us at church.
Promise is a single mother of a six-year-old and a resident of Garuka who surrendered her life to Christ this month. During home visits, we met her drunk in her home. We shared the Word of God with her, and she became interested in hearing more. We invited her to visit us at church. After the church service, she asked to receive Christ, and we led her into confessing Jesus Christ in her life. We praise the Lord for bringing her and saving her.
Church Service in Garuka
We thank you for your support, blessing, and encouraging us to reach Garuka and its surrounding communities with the Gospel. We train others to participate in the ministry through foundation class and Sunday school, giving them opportunities to minister. We reach out to the community through home visits and our rotational home fellowship, which moves from home to home depending on people’s requests. When people request this fellowship, we visit the family and conduct a Bible Study with them. We have had rotational home fellowship services in over ten homes. This gives the neighbors a chance to come and listen to the Word of God. The attendance is always about twenty people or more. This quarter, we have visited 22 homes and shared the Gospel with 44 males and 69 females.
We saw God deliver Brenda, daughter of Allen, from an evil spirit that had made her epileptic for over six years. Allen is married, but her husband works in Kampala and is rarely at home except for holiday times; this left Allen to raise their children alone. She tried to have her daughter Brenda get well by taking her to witch doctors, but all to no help. When Allen gave her life to Christ and joined us, she would leave epileptic Brenda at home and come to church because she had been told that epilepsy is contagious and a disgrace. But one day, Allen came home from church and found Brendah still coiled and foaming in an attack that was so severe and about to take her life. Allen called us, we prayed for Brenda, the Lord delivered her, and the evil spirit left her. Brenda has not had an attack since. Allen brought Brenda to church to give thanks to God for delivering her child from such a sickness. All glory and honor belong to God, who has done great things for this family.
Susan, age 43, a single mother living in a rented house in the Garuka trading center, gave her life to Christ. We met her in the trading center while visiting homes to share the Gospel. She was drunk and tired, but she showed interest in knowing more. We invited her to visit us one Sunday at church and thank God because, by the time she came to church, she had already decided to give her life to Christ. We led her in a prayer to surrender her life to the Lord and pray that the Lord strengthens her walk of faith in Him.
Samuel, age 28, and Scovia, age 25, have three children together, ages 4 to 8. This family resides in Kikundabukama village and survives by selling hard labor to work in people’s fields. Samuel is serving the church on the building committee, and he is blessed to serve this community after a long journey of his transformation from alcoholism, womanizing, neglect of his marriage and family, and illegal national park hunting to accepting Christ and attending church and learning with us the Word of God.
He is strong and enthusiastic about the work of God and encourages many. He is now working and saving to buy land for his family. We pray he keeps in the faith and continues leading his family to Christ.
We have seen God’s healing hand in the life of Sympathy, two years old. He is a son of Dorothy who resides in Garuka. He has been very ill for a long time, and at one point Dorothy decided to take her son to Nyakibale Referral Hospital for treatment. The tests they ran did not show any sickness but because the boy was wasting away, the doctors opted to admit him, and he was in the hospital for four days. The situation did not improve, so the doctors discharged him and told Dorothy to try other means. When the doctors tell you to try other means, they recommend trying witchcraft because if they scientifically cannot find the sickness, they refer a person to try the spiritual realm. Dorothy had spent a lot of money at the hospital, so she decided to keep her child at home. We found Dorothy in her home when we visited; we primarily visited her since she had not been at the church for some time. We encouraged her with the Word of God and prayed with her for her son. She came to church this month to give thanks to God for healing her son. The Lord heard our prayers and healed her son. Now he is well and healthy. Our God indeed is a healing God, and we give him all the glory.
We praise God for increasing our numbers; this month we baptized four people. We thank God for His provision, and we continue to believe that He will provide for our current needs. Our church structure and walls are now complete. We are praying that God will provide and allow us to install the church windows and doors.
Sunday Church attendance
Amutuhere, a church member, being baptized.
The challenge in our area is the invasion of wild animals into our community from the Queen Elizabeth National Park. Elephants are the most destructive. They have been invading our community for almost a month now and have eaten and destroyed most of the gardens. In the next months, food will be a big challenge in Garuka and the surrounding communities. We have reported to the government authorities but no responsive intervention has been made so far.
We have Sunday school where the children gather and share the Word of God through Bible stories and memory verses. They meet every Saturday from three to four-thirty p.m. to train for presenting during the Sunday service.
The adults have Saturday church choir practice and the ushers all come to church to prepare for Sunday service. They meet at the same time. The intercessors usually meet every Friday from nine a.m. to five p.m to pray for the church and the church activities.
We train others through sharing Biblical servant principles, especially during our church foundation classes. We ask and give members opportunities to lead worship, do intercession prayer, lead Sunday school and Friday evening prayer service, and share the Word of God in the home fellowships. Dorothy is leading the Friday evening prayer service. Amos is a church programmer and Akankwasa leads the Sunday school.
Natukunda is twenty-five and the mother of one child. We visited her and shared the Word of God with her. She was touched and gave her life to Christ. Natukunda came and joined us and has been committed since then. She has also joined the choir to keep serving the Lord. We pray that she keeps on in the faith and in her love for serving others.
We reach out to the community through crusades where we publicly share the gospel. This month we had a crusade and a total of two-hundred and sixty people attended. During this crusade, our church choir led praise and worship. Twenty-three people gave their lives to Christ. We now are doing follow-up for those who committed their lives to the Lord to encourage them in their newfound faith.
We visited twenty-five homes, shared the Word of God, and encouraged thirty-five men and boys, and sixty-nine women and girls in their homes. We give all the praise and glory to God who is advancing His work in the Garuka community.
Presentation of a skit
The Building of the Garuka Church:
The Garkua church is making brick walls. We thought we would be installing iron sheets for the walls, but when they got started, the people were so excited and hardworking that pastor Able was able to procure local bricks and their church will be a real building. They are vibrant in their faith and exceedingly happy. This building is a landmark to God’s goodness to these people.
The Garuka Roof Project
Donate to help provide Iron Sheets to cover the walls and keep the wind and rain out!
The Garuka Roof Project
excerpt from
The Power of Prayer Brings Answers (Summer Newsletter)
… members of the church went to God and implored Him to help them build a better roof because they did not want their neighbors to think that God is poor. They believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ that God had given them the free gift of salvation by faith. They wanted God to defend His character and integrity. They had already sacrificed much for their church by reserving poles from their gathered firewood to build the structure to hold the tarp roof. They prayed for what they knew was impossible.
(The full story can be found on page 4 of the newsletter)
We have seen God working in our church and community through the building of the church. We are excited to see this process happening. We have been waiting and praying to God for the church, and now it has begun. We praise God for His faithfulness. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights. (James. 1:17). We thank God for answered prayers and White Fields ministry. God has blessed us through the helping hands of White Fields, without which we would not have been able to put up such a structure.