Monday, September 23, 2019

Testimonies from various TLT groups

By Anthony:

In this post, I want to share some testimonies from a few TLT groups around Uganda that I'm coordinating, but not facilitating myself. The above picture is of the Pallisa TLT group, and below is a video testimony from Rev. John Okia, a member of that group. He is reporting about what God did through him and his action plan after he took the first manual of TLT called, "Caring for God's People."


There is also a TLT group meeting in Apac.  One of the participants, Abel, was so grateful for the teaching he received in TLT and that God used him to complete his action plan. He wanted to show care for his pastor, so with the help of church members, he built a home for the pastor on the church grounds, and now the pastor is residing there. (In most cases, pastors are not given any home to stay in, and have to arrange it for themselves even if the church is in a totally different region from their own land and home).
Here are photos of the Apac group learning together, and the group praying for their action plans:



Third, here are testimonies and reports from Kotido about how their action plans were carried out based on the first manual, Caring for God's People. Here is a photo of a few of the group members and the facilitators:


Praise the Lord that in total, at least 105 people are reported to have become born again through the visits and evangelism of all the TLT participants! And most of these have started to attend church. Many church leaders were also trained by the TLT participants in how to make visits to other church members.

Lucy visited hospital patients nine times. She shared God's Word and prayed with many patients. She saw 62 people in the hospital get saved and make a commitment to Christ! Some of the patients were so touched that they asked her to travel far from the medical center to visit their homes and families to pray with them as well. Lucy went back to her church to get more help and recruited seven other women from the church to go with her to visit these patients and their homes, and they were able to mobilize some small items (like soap, which is not provided to people in the hospital) to give as gifts during the visits.

Joyce was able to plan a training at her church and taught 14 church members about how to visit people to show them the love of Christ.

Emmanuel visited the prison to do evangelism, and rejoiced to see 50 prisoners accept Jesus as their savior!

Jimmy, a deacon, owns a business and decided to meet with each of his staff members. He met with them one at a time and was able to have good conversations with them about their lives. In the process, he shared about his Christian faith. Two staff members became born again. Another one recommitted his life to Christ. One staff member's parent also got saved.

Herbert visited separated couples from his community, hoping to see some of them reconciled to one another. Most of the couples remained separated, but one couple did reconcile and now started to live together again and are sharing their money and resources!

Desmy, pastor of Kotido PAG, was able to train 25 church members on making home visits to other members in the church. The church agreed to make a plan for every Tuesday to be a day for Christians to visit one another, and a day for people to visit the church office if they would like guidance and counseling. One Muslim couple in the community was visited, and the wife received Jesus as her savior. Her husband has not allowed her to come to church on Sunday, but she has been able to come to the church office during weekdays to receive discipleship and counseling.

Photos from the Kotido group:



Daniel was the pastor who helped me to facilitate manual 1 in Kotido. He was able to return to Kotido to lead manual 2 with George (without me). This is what Daniel says:

"At a previous TLT manual in Kotido, one of the participants was unable to read and write so she could not read the manual. But she was determined to learn, and committed to TLT, so I decided to teach her how to read and write. She and her friends invited me to come early before the next TLT training. I spent two days teaching her and 12 other people the basics in reading and writing in their local language, Karamajong. They organized for me to stay in the home of a church member. They appreciated the training very much."

Here is a photo of the language training: