Introducing our teammate Stephen!

By Anthony:

I'm incredibly grateful that Resonate Global Mission created a new staff position here in Uganda. The title is Leadership Development Coordinator. My supervisor and several teammates went through a hiring process with many good applicants, and they finally ended up hiring Stephen Omoko, a reverend from Pentecostal Assemblies of God Uganda. This was very welcome news to me because I already knew Stephen and am excited now to work with him in this position! Stephen started with Resonate on August 1st. He will be in charge of the Resonate Timothy Leadership Training programs in Uganda. This means that he is taking over many of my previous responsibilities such as facilitating TLT trainings, the administration and mentoring of our TLT facilitators in Uganda, and helping trainers with reports. I am Stephen's immediate supervisor and we will be working together closely. He will also be engaged in other ministry areas besides TLT.

This is a welcome and needed change because I was making myself over-committed in too many areas. With Stephen coming on board, I hope to have more time to commit to Helping without Hurting in Africa trainings, and to continue to develop the Theological Education in North Eastern Uganda Network that I started this year. However, I will still be engaged with TLT, especially as we think about expanding TLT to other countries outside of Uganda and Kenya. I will also do periodic TLT refresher trainings for the active TLT facilitators. Initially though, in the first few months, both Stephen and I will have full schedules as there are a lot of things I need to train Stephen in, especially regarding the details of TLT administration. Here is Stephen and his wife in the photo below. We had a celebration of his start of work. Sara taught Stephen's wife, also named Sarah, how to bake a cake, so they made one and we ate it together.

Here is a video of Stephen introducing himself. I'm very sorry for the loud bird in the background that we hadn't even noticed!

Stephen is a wonderful pastor and a man of integrity and he lives here in Soroti. He has many years of teaching experience, church ministry experience, and cross-cultural experience. We've only been working together for a month and already he is taking great initiatives to really propel forward the work of TLT in Uganda, and he is also purposeful in reaching out to TLT facilitators and pastors to mentor them and care for them. He is eager to learn all he can from me and from other experienced TLT facilitators. He is a pleasure to work with.

In the video, Stephen mentions the radio ministry. He was already one of the teachers on our Going Deeper radio program even before starting the position. He is right now undertaking a PhD on Marriage and Family therapy. That is why he is very suited to be teaching on that topic on the radio and God is using him in incredible ways through phone counseling of radio listeners. Please pray for Stephen as he counsels many people, and also pray for him in his new TLT work.

Stephen is also an innovative and courageous farmer with some of his spare time. Here is a photo of him in front of his fish ponds in the village that we got to visit with him (this is one of five I think). It's very unusual to see Stephen without a smile. He is fun to be around.