Missionaries Fernandez: Three Day Preachers Seminar, The Ndivisi Study and Grocery Bag Purses

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Teaching

This week we held our third quarterly Pastor’s/Preachers seminar for the men that God has assembled to proclaim His word. For the sake of the record, our team of three, Pastor Peter, Pastor Shadrach and I have now grown to around seventy men of God in less than four years. In addition to the eleven National Pastors we are currently training, there are also around forty young men of God who have surrendered to the gospel ministry. The remaining men were made of key Church leaders whom we invited for the first time so they might understand and support the teachings their Pastors are receiving.

Everything we are doing involves building strong relationships while forming strong leadership teams and unity within the churches and the associated fellowship.

Many of these men are men whom we have personally led to Christ over the last several years during village evangelism and our hearts simply swells with joy at the sight of this great team of God’s men that continues to grow each year.

As the men arrived at the village of Ndivisi for the seminar on bicycles, motorcycles or trekking, the village residents could be seen standing outside their homes and businesses asking everyone what is going on with all these preachers coming to their village.

They traveled from Mt. Elgon, Lake Victoria, the Kerio Valley and we even had a first time visitor from Turkana.
LBC Chepkurkuru

LBC Cheposabei Pokot

LBC Cheptabrubru

LBC Cheptandin

LBC Kispigon

LBC Mawetatu & Soysambu Outreach

LBC Mayanja

LBC Namarambi

LBC Wichlum & LBC Got Lake Victoria

Pastor Stephen

While all these men have such a special place in my heart, we were especially encouraged to see the men arrive from the Manafwa District of Uganda.

Uganda Outreach Brothers

This was their first seminar and they were well received by the rest of the team.

It is funny because we have spent four years learning and practicing Swahili and our Uganda brethren only speak English.

This diverse group of men comes from three different regions, five different tribes and now two different countries.

Make no mistake about it, only the power of God through His infinite grace and mercy could do a work such as this.

We give our God all the honor, all the glory and all the praise.

For three days they received teachings on Apologetics and Doctrine as well as a study that I refer to as the “Ndivisi Study”.

In addition to the daily lessons we send them all home with books and literature for their personal library as well as Bibles for their congregations.

This week they received the Book, Bible Analysis and studies on the Lord’s Supper and Missions. While all of these studies are designed to help the men of God rightly divide His word, the “Ndivisi Study” was probably one of the most practical faith building lessons presented to them.

In short, we did a ten year study of one of our local Indigenous Landmark Baptist Churches planted and built to the best of my knowledge without any Missionary assistance.

The study included annual professions, baptisms, offerings, members, outreaches, seminars and fellowships. It also included detailed information on how they were able to raise funds, purchase the plot and build their sanctuary.

You might be wondering why the Missionary would want to present such a study while planting and building churches?

Glad you asked, the answer is simple, I wanted to give them a realistic and practical example of a successful Indigenous Church plant without foreign involvement or funding so that they too might have the faith to fulfill God’s will without the Missionary.

To me it is yet another important stepping stone in the process of raising up children that are able to stand on their own when the time comes to leave their parents home.

3 Jn 1:4" I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

By the way, if anyone is interested in this in depth study of an Indigenous Church plant, let me know and I will email a copy.

While I am sure that many of our men have never seen graphs and charts I am confident by the end of the session on the Indivisi Study they had a clear understanding of the work and faith involved over ten years of Pastor Peter’s ministry at LBC Indivisi.

We also did a study of another Baptist Church in Tanzania that supports and sends out four Church planters and Missionaries without outside assistance.

As I work with the men, Terry continues to teach and encourage the women of these villages.

Not only did she help with cooking but she also helped the women learn how to nit purses made of plastic shopping bags. Terry working with Wamama