WGM’s 1st Official Pastor Training for Northern Uganda!

Last Saturday (Jan. 19), John & I got to be a part of the beginning of an amazing work that God is doing here in Uganda! We held the 1^st official pastor training for WGM in northern Uganda! As you know, we have been working with 5 key leaders/ pastors in Nebbi since June, 07 and going through the “Membership Manual” of Africa Gospel Church (AGC~ the WGM church here in Uganda & Kenya). The past 6 months of training with these 5 key pastors has basically been to make sure they are in line with the same beliefs as AGC, and that they have a basic Biblical understanding of core beliefs.

The 5 pastor that we trained, went on to train 7 others themselves, as we went through the manual. So in December, there was a total of 12 pastors who took the entrance exam for the “official” pastor training, which began this past Saturday, Jan. 19, and they all passed!

So now our WGM Arua team (the Rinehimers & Coppedges) will be training these 12 pastors over the next year! We are so incredibly excited that this dream has become a reality! We knew before we even came to Uganda, that it was very well a possibility that we may never get to train even one pastor. Everything is slower in Africa... it takes time here to build relationships and get to know the culture before you even start projects.... and we knew that our western dream of wanting to start a pastor training in our 1st two years could have been just that... a dream. But God is moving here, and it is so apparent that this is the work of HIM and not us. He has opened doors that we could have never imagined. He has brought these pastors into our lives, and us into theirs. And we are just so excited to be a part of this & work alongside the Creator of the universe!

And the icing on the cake to John & I is this... each level of training takes 11 months. And with us starting in January, we will very likely be able to finish the work that we have started by our scheduled time to come home, in Nov, 08... 11 months from now! That is pretty amazing to both of us! We weren't even sure we'd be able to be a part of starting a training in just a short time of our 2 years here, and not only did we get to be a part of starting it, but we may be able to finish it too, Lord willing!

Also, Jon Mayo, our field director, and Bob & Tom, who are part of the "WGM Media Team," came with us to both help us start the training & get some footage of our ministries here in Arua & Nebbi. It was a real blessing to have Jon there to kick off the first training and answer some of the tough questions! And it really meant a lot to the pastors that he was there. And the media team was great too! Bob & Tom came with Jon all the way to Arua (an 8 hour drive from Kampala) to witness what God is doing up here, and that meant a lot to John & I. They worked SO hard in their 2 weeks in Uganda! We are so grateful that we work with such a great organization who truly cares for their missionaries & the nationals alike.