Finish the Mission

Saturday morning started early at University Baptist Church with the students at 9am.  Mark and I each taught 2 sessions on Discipleship, had a tea break in the middle, and enjoyed a traditional Ugandan meal afterwards.  We were able to give each of them a copy of Finish the Mission with the help of The Gospel Coalition Theological Famine Relief.


This morning I (Bryan) headed to the church early to meet with the elders, but only 1 showed up so I was able to spend about 45 minutes talking with him.  Fred is an eye doctor in Mbarara, but is originally from Congo.  He is married with 3 kids of his own and has taken in 2 other nephews to raise.  It was a wonderful conversation and I learned so much about the church and his life.

The worship service started at 9am.  We sang for about 1 hour and then I preached the parable of the good Samaritan from Luke 10.  I shared that Jesus is the Ultimate Good Samaritan in the story, and we are the man left half dead on the side of the road.  It was Christ who came to us out of compassion and paid for our sins.

After the first service I ended up meeting with the elders and was able to challenge them to be the kind of men God has called them to be from 1 Timothy 3.  I passed on several elder & church books from The Gospel Coalition for them to read together and grow as a group.  


After that I preach at the second service which was in the Rioncoli language so I used a translator named Livingston.  I met Livingston several years ago and he has now taken on many responsibilities at the church.  

After the service, one of the students from the Discipleship Conference who also attended the first service came up to tell me something.  Her name was Juliet.  She had graduated from the University and had worked for several years away from Mbarara, but was now back with a new job.  She proceeded to tell me that she had tried to earn salvation for all of her life and she realized today that she was dead in her sins, but Christ saved her.  I was so thankful she shared what God had done in her life.  I challenged her to share her testimony this week in hopes of others making a similar profession.   

We enjoyed some lunch with Pastor Enoch and then came home to the Skinners to rest for the afternoon.  We are so grateful for the opportunities we have had to make new friends and share God's heart for discipleship with them in hopes of seeing a movement of discipleship.  Pray with us for these students to continue the work together with the help of the Holy Spirit and one another.  

2 Great Nights

We have been praying for this day for some time and we are so grateful that it finally came!

We spent Thursday night with a group of about 15 guys from the University at the Skinners house.  We hosted a Men's Night to focus on Biblical Manhood.  We spent about 2 hours talking with these men about the problems of manhood, what men are NOT, and what a man of God is.  It was great to hear them share about their culture and talk about how the bible breaks down and then redeems culture!  If something in our culture goes against the Bible, it must be thrown out, but the Gospel redeems culture and makes it whole!

We spent tonight with close to 100 students at University Baptist Church talking about Biblical Discipleship.  We looked at the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20 and Christ last words to Make Disciples, the call on every Christ followers life.  Mark taught about Jesus' vision and strategy to reach the world through the one, by building the one to reach the world.  I closed by looking at how the church multiplied in Acts as the disciples were faithful to the call to make disciples.

It continues to become more and more clear to me of our desperate need to live lives focused on making disciples like Jesus did.  These students need men and women in their lives that are willing to give them truth and life int he context of relationships, and we are no different.  Jesus knew what he was doing when he set the example and called us to follow Him by making disciples.  The question is, are we willing to follow?

The New Norm

This is my third time to partner with Joel and Jill in Uganda and some things in Africa are beginning to seem normal, well at least African normal!  However, they are not quite "second nature" for us like they are for the Skinners.  They are definitely not second nature for Mark since this is his first trip out of the country.  It was great to watch him experience so many firsts as we drove from Kampala to Mbarara yesterday and enjoyed some time in Queen Elizabeth National Park today.

We got to take in much of Southwest Uganda and all that the Pearl of Africa has to offer.  The surroundings went from a bustling city to a country rode dotted with towns along the way.   The landscaped morphed from one not so different than Texas scattered with mesquite trees, to tropical farmlands full of banana trees and other crops, to highland mountains covered with tea plantations, to what most of us picture when we think of Africa, the savannah!  Each city had its own little flare, but all of them had many of the same characteristics.  The mainroad was busy with people, animals, motorcycles (called bodas), and cars all fighting for a spot on the road.  Store fronts lined the side of the roads and businesses always had an open door policy.  Kids were usually by themselves on the way to or from school.  The smell of fire, exhaust, animals, and new foods filled the air.  The sound of constant honking, music, work, and new languages kept ringing in our ears.  At one point, I thought I heard honking on the radio.  Old and new animals became a normal sight like goats tied to a rope, ankole cows in the fields, zebra on the side of the road, hippos in the river, elephants swimming, and buffalo and antelope covered the fields.  Our senses were on overload!

But all this newness to us, is normal to them.  The same would be true if these Ugandans came to visit us in Texas.  The same is also true regarding the newness of these truths about discipleship.  It's likely to be new to many of these students and probably still a little new for many of us.  However, our prayer is that they would become the new normal!

God is answering your prayers by getting us hear safely and preparing the work we are about to do this weekend.  The University Students we will be sharing with this weekend took hold of planning this weekend and are running with it.  They are so excited and putting much more into this weekend than we ever thought.  It is neat to see the fruit from past years trips showing up in those who were a part of our training now excited about and planning this retreat.  We are now expecting anywhere from 150-200 kids Friday and Saturday for our Discipleship Training!

Please continue to pray for these students to take up the mantle of discipleship themselves.  Pray for us to share clearly the timeless truths of discipleship.  Pray that the new discipleship lifestyle becomes the norm!

Bryan