Gulu Post #3 | Finished last session, more posts to come

It’s late Friday afternoon, all 10 sessions have been taught, we have all of our evaluations done and it's time to kick back.  

Our task was to instruct our trainee in “Knowing the Bible’s Story, the second of nine trainings in the curriculum offered through Training Leaders International (TLI). We were driven by the central theme of the Bible, how: “For His glory, God is reconciling the world to Himself through King Jesus.” It was good for my heart, and eye-opening for the trainees to see the whole Scripture pointing int he same direction. We all walked away more convinced of and committed to our role in participating in the story that God is unfolding all of history toward this glorious end in Jesus.

Our 46 trainees (two have dropped) are divided into three learning groups of 15 to 16. Mike Evans of TLI, FCC Elder Dan Fosterling and myself were each responsible for instructing one of these groups for the week.It’s amazing the men we are working with. In my group of 15, six have been refugees and two thought they were starving to death (I’m not talking about when we in the U.S. say “I’m starving” when you haven’t had a snack). Most of them are pastors, a few have planted multiple churches. Only a handful have had any formal theological training. Two of them are part of six Lead Trainers, who we are equipping to take over the work of instruction in January of 2022.

Starting this January, they will co-facilitate 20 percent of the instruction. They will increase over time until our last training when they will carry 80 percent of the load. Today we went through the lessons they will teach in January, and how we plan to help them succeed. They seem both anxious and excited to get after it. I think they will do great.

If you can think of praying for Benson, Sunday, Bosch, Mark,Joseph and Julius, the future of our vision of seeing an abiding network ofAfrican lead churches has them at the center.

I hope to have a prayer card made of the above picture for all the churches that make up the St. Croix Valley LEAD Team in the month ofSeptember. Supporting them is one of the chief aims of our team. If they succeed, the network should move forward. If not, our time will still be noteworthy, but not truly making the gospel impact consistent with the vision of FCC of supporting church planting and church planting movements, especially among unreached and unengaged people groups.

I am really honored to play the role for Faith Community that I play. We have weathered the trip well and will hit the road tomorrow morning, drive across the country tomorrow, with a four-hour flight toJohannesburg followed by a SIXTEEN hour flight to Atlanta and home to MSP lateSunday morning.

There will be at least two more posts, one of them on an incredible young man named Augustine.