Steve and Gwyn Smith - Uganda |
 |
Prayer Letter September 2008
Dear Friends,
Warm greetings from a humid Kampala! We trust that this letter finds you all well. Thanks so much for being willing to pray for God’s work with AMG and KEST in Uganda. Thanks also to those who have been in personal contact over the last months and encouraged our hearts. Since we last wrote there has been much to thank God for. Here’s a small taste of God’s goodness to us in his service.
The Titus Group
Thank God
- After a few faltering steps with low attendance around the time of our return to Uganda from the UK, momentum is now growing once again for this ministry amongst men;
- The meeting on 6th September was well received, under the heading - ‘Real men take Jesus Christ as their chief and take responsibility to lead their family’ (passages for small groups were Genesis 1:26-28; 2:5-25 and the talk exposited Genesis 3:1-7, moving to Romans 5:19); time in Bible study groups during the meeting were rich, as we saw how male and female are both equally created in God’s image and different in their role within marriage;
- Men have started coming to Titus Group from a diverse number of church denominations and regions in Uganda as well as pastors at KEST from Burundi, Tanzania and Sudan;
- The quality of men attending as encouraged us, since many are men of influence in their churches want to work hard at applying God’s word and helping each other take the values learnt home with them.
Please pray
- that many will take what they hear and teach it to other men in their churches;
- for the production of useful resources for men’s groups to study the word of God;
- for growth in quality of discipling relationships that overflow into the churches.
- for good multiplication of ministry arise from next meeting on 1st November (Eph. 5:15-32)
Advancing Ministries of the Gospel
Thank God
- The last few months have seen genuine improvement in the standard of Bible-teaching at Saturday children’s programmes as well as greater unity of purpose amongst the teams;
- The first term of the new curriculum has been received extremely well, praise God, even though the teachers were not used to teaching from the Old Testament;
- The teachers have found the approach to teaching the Bible rich and deep whilst requiring them to think creatively about their teaching methods;
- For the week of training that successfully went on from 1st – 8th September – leaders were refreshed in an Old Testament overview leading them to Christ, and new volunteer teachers received the ‘Teach the Word’ basic training that has been developed for AMG.
- David Otema, Jane Namilimu and I have enjoyed effective working relationships as we seek to grow the AMG training and discipleship department.
Please pray
- As we enter a second term of the new curriculum, for the teachers to make the most of the gospel opportunities presented by teaching Mark 1-8 to the children week-by-week:
The Saturday morning programmes for sponsored children to come to the centres is the tip of the ice-burg when we look at the potential for reaching whole families with the news that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Over the next few years, as we seek to teach the Bible faithfully, relevantly and clearly to the children, our prayer is that their churches and communities will be open to receiving the real gospel, growing in Christian faith and to being trained in teaching God’s Word to others.
- Steve, David and Jane are prioritising the cultivation and continuation of personal discipling relationships with Child Development Centre (CDC) staff and volunteers.
The real success of the new curriculum’s approach will depend on how faithful to God’s word the teachers are in their lives as well as in their preparation and presentation of the Bible lesson. This is why much work still needs to be done with every teacher to help them develop godly habits in watching their life and teaching closely so that they do make the most of every opportunity as they lead children and their families to the Lord Jesus Christ. Steve has been meeting regularly one-to-three with some of the men on staff and this has already led do the same Bible-studies with small discipling groups at their centres. The inductive Bible study material produced on 1 & 2 Thessalonians has already been put to good use as these men have started their own discipling groups (Machalious summarised it well went he said, “We cannot be selfish with what we have received from God’s Word.”).
- The need for good indigenous expository Bible study resources is on-going. Steve will need to give substantial time on a daily basis to researching and writing these for AMG and Titus Group ministries.
- From this week we being a new initiative of providing weekly Bible-skills workshops for teaching staff in an attempt to make progress in equipping project leaders to guide and encourage the centre teachers and to develop a culture of effective lesson evaluation.
The teaching team at each project is still young in Bible-handling skills and in how to teach children. Most importantly, though, the majority of the staff show great love for the children they teach; you can tell this by the effort that will go into preparing the Bible lesson as well as their genuine concern for those they are shepherding. Around their other responsibilities of visiting families and liaising with schools, the staff will meet with their volunteer teachers for 3 hours mid-week to pray and prepare for the teaching that coming Saturday. To help the staff improve in their Bible-handling and leadership skills we are holding weekly workshops to study Mark’s gospel together and use the skills that we need to be leading the teachers in.
- We have been encouraged by churches and other Christian organisations that work with children to develop the ‘Teach the Bible’ course so that it can be used more widely than AMG.
Significant interest in this basic training course has been shown outside AMG. It seems that the course fills a genuine gap in the teaching and practice of many who work with children in churches and NGO programmes across Uganda, East Africa and elsewhere in the continent. Please pray for wisdom as we develop partnerships with churches and Christian networks who work particularly with children, and as we talk with a University. We need to present the course in a format that is accessible for those of differing ability and experience.
Kampala Evangelical School of Theology
Give thanks
- For a steady increase in the number of students registering for courses at KEST;
- For George, Patrick and Godfrey from a diocese in northern Uganda, and Eric from Burundi, who are attending the expository teaching course; they are passionate to teach God’s word well and seem grateful for the course;
- For Richard from Soroti (Uganda) and Rogers (Tanzania) who are studying hard to develop good instincts in preaching Christ from the Old Testament. So far we have been persuaded that Christian sermons from the Old Testament must lead us to Christ. Our challenge is to keep the gospel as our hermeneutic in learning from God’s word.
Please pray
- That our LORD God would give us great zeal for preaching the Word faithfully and relevantly to the East African context.
Noah’s Ark Nursery
- Please give thanks that although some children have left the nursery others have taken their place, so contact is being made with more families.
- Please pray for Gwyn as she works out the best way forward for the nursery next term.
Snippets
- Douda is persevering with faith in Christ and growing in his knowledge of God, praise God.
- The concern to ignite a movement for expository preaching in Uganda at the grass-roots has also been gaining encouraging progress. Greater partnership between like-minded training operations is being sought. Regional training workshops as well as national events are being planned.
Please pray for:
- Julius as he seeks to provide much needed Ugandan leadership for this strategy;
- an effective planning day for those involved in this initiative, on 4th October 08.
Family News
Praise God – we all have been kept in good health so far whilst in Uganda. We of course have the usual challenges of sleep deprivation that go hand-in-hand with being a young family, and can’t wait for this to improve! Please continue to pray for Gwyn especially as she grieves the loss of her Dad away from family. We will be spending Christmas with family in the UK and Christine (Gwyn’s mum) should be joining us in Kampala for a few weeks in January 09, which will be a fantastic thing all round.
We would value your prayers as we consider the next move after June 2009, when our secondment with AMG comes to an end. Please pray especially that we would endeavour to be loving in our friendships and evangelistic opportunities here and to use our home well in welcoming and sharing our lives with others.
Having moved to Kampala Baptist Church we’re overjoyed that Joshua is beginning to settle into church life a little more. Although he’s enjoying his Bible and praying, he still lacks real confidence and enjoyment of being part of a wider church family. Otherwise both he and Matthew love being brothers and enjoy all that goes with that – rough and tumble included.
Love from us all! Steve, Gwyn, Joshua & Matthew