Pastor Onesimus Testimony
Pastor Onesimus ministers in the southwest corner of Uganda. Growing up in an agricultural community he and his family attended the local Anglican Church and visited a witchdoctor. As a youth, Onesimus began to have many questions regarding his faith. He desired to follow the Lord, but in his heart, he felt emptiness. He asked God how he could have this void when he attended the Anglican church and did everything the priest said. Onesimus asked the Lord to reveal himself to him, and the Lord did. Onesimus began attending an evangelical church and became a believer in Jesus. After his conversion, Onesimus refused to participate in visits to the witch doctor. He was faithful to Jesus alone.
After his father discovered Onesimus’ faith in Jesus and the rejection of their family’s religious ways, he chased him out of his house, and Onesimus fled to Kampala. While there he attended University, managed several businesses, and worked on the staff of a parliament member. In the midst of this, the Lord pressed upon Onesimus’s heart the desire to become a pastor and plant a church in his home community in southwestern Uganda. As the Lord would have it, one day, Onesimus met James Fazio, the Dean of Students at Southern California Seminary in San Diego, California. Through their friendship, Onesimus was able to attend SoCal Seminary and earned a Master of Divinity in pastoral ministry. Receiving several job offers from churches in the USA Onesimus rejected them all because of the calling the Lord had placed upon him to return to his hometown and raise up pastors to reach their people with the Gospel. Onesimus is the Field Director for White Fields in Africa and pastor of the church — God’s Embassy Katobo.
Onesimus daily and weekly ministry includes:
- Embassy Leadership Academy meetings every Monday and Friday.
- Door-to-door evangelism.
- Oversight of the local Christian school.
- Outreach projects to the community.
- Seed Distribution.
- Relief projects to starving communities.
- Pastoral network oversight.
- Baptisms.
- Friday night prayer meeting. (From 6 pm to 2 am Saturday.)
Recent Ministry:
We see God at work in the life of Amon and Evas. Amon had for a long time fought with people every time he became drunk. He was put in prison for damaging property and after he was released, he went to Kampala to work. He was convicted of his sin and gave his life to Christ. His wife Evas almost died due to a severe sickness but God helped her recover. God has helped him to start a business and has brought good working relationships with his bosses on the farm where he stays. Pray for Amon and Evas and their three young children.
We have been praying with Gorrette to learn the truth about Jesus Christ. We met Gorrette, a widow with three children, during home visits when she was a drunkard. We shared with her through reading the Bible not to worship idols and she stopped worshipping idols, stopped drinking alcohol, gave her life to Christ, and her life has changed. Her mother-in-law did not want her to stay in their home and chased her from home and she had to start renting. Garrett survives by selling labor to others. We pray to God to open doors in her finances so she can continue to care for her family.
Allen heard the gospel from one of our radio programs on Radio Rukungiri and learned the truth about God. Allen is a single mother with two children. When we visited her, we prayed for her, and she gave her life to Christ. She attends one of our fellowships and she said that she stopped drinking alcohol but continues to be stressed about how to raise her children. She survives by selling labor to others. She prays to God to open her financial doors to continue paying school fees and strengthen her to remain serving the Lord.
We shared the Word of God with Scovia and prayed for her; she gave her life to Christ, the spirits left her, and she was healed. Scovia is 68 years old and is a widow. For four months she was attacked by spirits and was crippled. Her fellow Catholics did not want to help her and would come to her and advise her to get help from witch doctors. She had no money and was waiting for the day to come to die. She is happy to be standing again, and she believes that God will do more in her life.
Johnson came to know God during the overnight prayer service when the preacher shared the Word of God from Matthew 9:18-31. Johnson is separated from his wife. He was a drunkard before, and everyone had lost hope in him which had made his family separate. They have six children and after their separation, each took three children. Those who stayed with Johnson currently live with their grandmother in the village. Johnson works as a security guard at the Bible College, and he prays that God may reunite his wife and him. He is in church praying with us.
Pastor Onesimus praying with Johnson.
We see God at work in our ministry through the Bible College. The pastors are learning to speak English and how to research in the library. We thank God for the library—a very well-equipped library where our pastors, church members, and community members can come to read and study the Word of God. We thank you. May the Lord God bless you so much. We saw God use different people through White Field Ministries to donate books, load the containers, and even clear the taxes so that the pastors in this region can be equipped to serve their people with zeal and knowledge.
We are thankful to White Field Ministries for an English teacher. With God’s guidance, we will be fluent speakers of English and be able to do more research about theology, teaching, and the Word of God.
God blessed us during the Center Day, where all God’s Embassy churches gathered together and 1300 members turned up for the service. On that day, Pastor Steve preached from Romans 5:1-11 and over sixty were convicted and gave their lives to Christ.
We teach English at Uganda Bible College to the pastors and their wives. The class is divided into two levels: Level 1 is for students who attended formal school from primary one to primary seven, and Level two is for students who attended formal school from senior one to senior. Students at both levels learn English in three forms: speaking, reading, and writing, and are encouraged to continue practicing speaking English when they are on the college compound.
We have Bible training every Tuesday with pastors from the church plants. Pastor 0nesimus is leading us through the Gospel of John. This training has given them guidelines that have improved their preaching, word presentation, and sharing in their congregational services. This is causing a substantial notifiable distinction in their handling of the Word and delivery to the people. Verse by verse, the pastors make more sense of the Word of God to the people.
Debrah is a single mother to twins Kato and Kakuru, 14 years old. She accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior in our home fellowship in Kyatoko. She came from the Anglican religion and was a drunkard with ill health. She has stopped drinking alcohol and is in better health. She can now work, save money, and pay school fees for her children.
Adrine is a widow and mother of four children, ages 6 to 19. She lives in a temporary home and earns an income by selling hard labor to others. She depends on subsistence farming and rents land for food for her children. We met her during our home visits and found that she was a drunkard and full of grief in the heart and pain of young widowhood. She said that she decided to drink alcohol so that she could forget her pain, but it was not helping. She told us that after the death of her husband, the parents of the deceased came and took everything she had and left nothing. She wanted to leave the children inside the house, go and start her life alone but found it hard to leave her children with their relatives who had just robbed them of even the little they had. We shared with the Word of God that God is the defender of the widows (Psalm 68:5-6). We invited her to visit us, and the more she came through various teachings, the more she accepted and gave her life to Jesus Christ. She eventually stopped drinking alcohol, and now she serves God in the church in the ushering department. She works hard to help her children attend school and is happy she found family in church. We pray the Lord will strengthen her and help her keep working hard to keep her children in school.
We see God work in the family of Nelson and Clever. They now have a two-month-old baby. We met them during Bible College class mobilization and found they work with National Water and have been deployed in the Rukungiri District. They had been married for three years without a child. They had tried to conceive but had failed; we prayed with them and believed God together for a child. We bless the Lord for helping them conceive, and now they have a beautiful baby girl. They are happily married and thank God for what He has done for them. They have started an all-in-one shop in the Bwoma trading center, where they earn an income.
Outreach through Community meetings, Radio and House Visits
Warm greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ, in whom we live, move, and have our being. Thank you, our friends and partners, for the Lord’s harvest here in Rukungiri Town. We reach out to the community through Center Days, Friday night services, and home fellowships that run every Monday to Saturday. We have eight fellowships, and each has eighteen to twenty members who attend to learn the Word of God together. We also reach the community with the Gospel radio programs at lunch hour that are aired on Radio Rukungiri and Kanungu from 01:20 pm to 02:00 pm daily. Over two million people listen in. We reach people through home visits, and this last quarter, we visited 66 homes and shared the Word of God with 280 males and 306 females. We also thank God for the Uganda Bible College. It is a blessing to help train and equip people interested in participating in ministry.
John, age 33, married to Primah, age 30, and their son, Edwin, age 4, and a one-year-old. The family resides in Omukarere Rukungiri municipality and earns a living by Primah selling matooke/bananas and John riding a Boda-boda. We met him at his home drunk after losing the money he had made from selling bananas, and Prima was preparing herself to leave him. We sat with them and shared the Word of God. John Bosco, though drunk, was touched and repented and gave his life to Christ. He also asked his wife to forgive him for his misbehaviors of gambling and womanizing. From then, they started coming to church together. We pray the Lord grows them in faith and service to His people each day that passes.
The family of Evert, age 31, married to Faith, age 29, with four children. They live in Kyatoko Eastern Division Rukungiri in a semi-permanent house and depend on subsistence farming for their livelihood. We met this family when we were going for fellowship in Sanyu Rehonaldo’s home. They said that spirits used to attack them, and their children would get sick and be taken to the hospital, and after investigations, they would find nothing in the laboratory. They were directed to take them to the witch doctors or an Evangelical church, of which Sanyu led her to bring them to fellowships to pray for them. She gave life to Christ, was happy, and they slept well. They came to church for prayers, and after prayers, her husband also gave his life to Christ. They serve God in ushering, and we pray that God will open the doors of funds and school fees for the children and give them the strength to remain serving God.
We see God restoring the life of Parajiya, age 58. She is a widow and a resident of Kyatoko Eastern division of Rukungiri Municipality. Parajiya fell sick with malaria and pneumonia, and because she didn’t have anybody to help her while her children were at school, her situation worsened very fast. One of the fellowship members who met in her home found her very ill and in bed and took her to one of the clinics in town. She was admitted and treated for four days. We visited and prayed with her, and one of her relatives helped to pay her treatment bills. We thank God for helping her get well.
We see God at work in the life of Komukama Fredianah, a Kanyinya resident and our church’s chief usher. She was in an accident on the way from the church. Her leg had a compound fracture, and she was rushed to Nyakibale Hospital, where they put on a plaster, but the leg continued to hurt her. She then went to Mulago Hospital, where they removed the plaster, operated, and fixed the metal in her leg. She thanks God that now she can walk using the crutches and prays that she will walk freely by this month’s end.
We praise God that the fruit trees we planted have started giving fruits, and we will harvest them for the children to enjoy when they come to church. We also praise God for Pastor Steve’s visit to God’s Embassy, which blessed us with gifts for the children and the medical outreach. We praise God for the water tank that collects water, and our neighbors come to fetch clean water; we bless through this water collection.
God is working through the ministry and the Word of God is being preached. This summer, we had a center day and gathered the White Fields church congregations together. We had a total number of nine-hundred and fifty people attend. A hundred people gave their lives to Christ. Many people were excited to see Pastor Steve preaching with Onesimus. All the God’s Embassy church plants came to witness this service.
We have seen God at work in the life of Mary, a resident of Kanyinya. Through home visits, we met Mary and provided her with food and a new window for her house. We had learned that her window had fallen down so we bought a new one to be fixed on her house again.
We praise God for the home visits we were able to make during the visits of Pastor Steve and Dr. Jeremiah. The teams blessed our church members with bags of posho, beans, buckets, and sugar.
We praise God for the class that Professor Jeremiah taught. The students appreciated his class because it gave them the opportunity to learn how to differentiate between the cults and the true teachings of the Bible.
Allen is thirty-seven years old and a resident of Kyatoko Isheruro B. eastern division. She is a widow with five children, four girls, and one boy. We met her when she was stressed. At first, she had separated from her husband but then her husband hanged himself due to a misunderstanding between the couple. As a result, she started to blame herself and began to drink alcohol, during the night the spirits would come and torment her. Allen came to our church for prayers, we prayed for her, and she stopped drinking and accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. She has been attending the fellowship and church services. She joined the ushering team to serve the Lord. This month she received a donation of money to pay the school fees for her children. We pray that God will give her the strength to work and be able to provide for her family with food, education, and general welfare for her children.
We train the believers by giving them the chance to participate in various gatherings like the Friday overnight prayers, Tuesday intercessor’s prayers, Thursday minister prayer, and Sunday morning prayer. The names of some of our leaders are Job, John Aaron, Rachael, and Brian. We encourage ourselves in Christ.
We have a men’s class where the men gather together to share different challenges and to handle different topics. So far, we have covered the responsibilities and are handling the topic of wounded or absent fathers. The men have appreciated this topic and are focusing on learning how to handle our homes in a Godly way.
Silva is forty-eight years old and a resident of Marumba, Kanyinya, Kitazigurukwa, and is married with five children. We met him on the way to his home and shared the Word of God. He requested that we pray for his home because he heard weird noises in the house at night that would torment him. We agreed and went to his house to pray for him there. We prayed and the spirits left, he slept well that night and came to church to testify what God had done for him and gave his life to Christ. He also requested us to allow his home to act as a fellowshipping place.
We reach out to the community through fellowships. We currently have seven fellowships, and they meet from Mondays to Thursdays. We are targeting to create two fellowships in Marumba and each fellowship has twenty members.
We are reaching out to the community through the radio lunch hour preaching on radio Rukungiri. Also, our church has an online service every Sunday with two-hundred and fifty followers. We use social media to reach out to the community and share the word through voice talks. We also do home visits. This month we visited thirty homes and met eighty-nine males and one-hundred and two females.
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