Katakwi TLT - Teaching the Christian Faith and Testimonies

By Anthony:

 

A few weeks ago we finished the fifth TLT manual in Katakwi, "Teaching the Christian Faith."  You've already read what this manual is about in my other TLT posts from Amuria and Kaberamaido.  But I want to share with you some highlights from this training.  Here is a video of worship time together:

I'm very excited to share with you some of the reports and testimonies I heard from the church leaders concerning their preaching action plans.

Rose, the pastorate women's leader, organized families to come together for fellowships and she had the opportunity to preach at those gatherings.  She did many of these over 3 months and in total 70 people got saved through that ministry!

Max grew greatly in his preaching and three people recently got saved as a result of his sermons.  People gave him many testimonies about how much his preaching had changed, and now he is getting invitations from other churches in town to come and preach, even Anglican churches.

Two pastors, Berna and Andrew, each in their separate churches greatly improved in their preaching.  Without any solicitation, the church members unanimously said that they noticed a huge change in their preaching.  In each of their cases, the church members themselves said, "we see the fruit of this TLT program, next time you go we are going to pay for your transport and for your manual and training fee." And the churches did this, they followed through.  For Andrew, a church member said, "no more are you going to bicycle to this TLT training, I'm going to take you on my motorcycle and when you are done, call me, and I will come and pick you up."  These testimonies are so touching to me, because first of all, the best evidence of the training accomplishing something is the church members' testimonies, not the participant's testimonies.  Secondly, pastors are really not supported very well in Uganda, and especially in the district of Katakwi.  They are given almost nothing, so this is a huge change in these two cases.

This time I had a new master trainer join us because she wanted to get some experience leading as a facilitator.  Her name is Jane.  Baker also came along.  I had the two of them lead most of the lessons.  That made this training a bit more restful than my normal trainings.

Again, at the end of the training, we had them divide into groups to prepare Bible lessons for children, and then act it out.  This step always crystallizes in their minds the steps they learned in the training for making a Bible lesson and it gives them confidence that not only do they have the ability to teach the children in their churches, they have the ability to train others.

One group did a nice job of making drawings to use in their Bible lesson:

Some videos of the lessons: 

I am excited to see how God uses them in their new action plans.  Most of them are going back to train Sunday school teachers.  One is going to teach the manual to all the teachers at his primary school that he started.  Some are going to teach and lead their family members, especially the children, in memorizing Scripture.

One older lady is going to work with other women to cultivate a plot of land.  She'll buy the seeds and provide the land, and they'll do the farm work.  She hopes through this effort to raise at least 50,000 shillings (about $15) for her church's Sunday School Program.

Another lady is going to work with the church to build a grass thatched building.  This will then be used for the Sunday School program at the church.